Loki Laufeyson - Saviour {2}

Chapter Twenty - Good Reflexes

"Don't you think you're all a little too... obsessed with Christmas?" Loki spoke up the next morning after breakfast as he watched Wanda and Nat pour over different protection screens of all of the gifts they were thinking of buying.

I had given up gift shopping half an hour ago, it was hurting my head too much, but I had found gifts for Bucky, Pepper and Clint too. Now, I was helping Pepper bake the food Thor had mention last night, shortbread. JARVIS had Christmas music playing again and I had to admit, I felt like I was slowly beginning under stand the thing about Christmas spirit that Tony or someone had been talking about.

"You can never be too obsessed with Christmas." Nat gave him a look and he sighed heavily, standing up from the couch and walking over to the bench were I was now trying to create shapes with the shortbread dough.

"Does that look right?" I asked, holding up the attempted shape of a Christmas tree that I was trying to base off a cartoon picture I had seen of one a little while ago.

"Do you want a nice answer or an honest answer?" Piped up Clint from where he was eyeing off the left over pieces.

I gave him a look and I was tempted through throw flour at him, but I didn't know how that would go down. He just grinned as Loki sat down on one of the stools and leaned forward.

"Give it here." He chuckled softly and I handed over my deformed Christmas tree.

He took it in his hand and did quite a lot of reshaping of the tree before handing it back to me. I gave him a grateful smile and put it on the tray with the rest of the cookies, deciding to stick to the circular decorations apparently called bauble because they were so much simpler.

After I had put them in the oven, Pepper took over the kitchen and started preparing lunch for everyone, which I made Nat and Wanda go help with as I collapsed on the couch to eat the leftover shortbread that I couldn't mold into any Christmas shape.

As the days drew closer to Christmas, all of our gifts that we had ordered online slowly began to arrive and the task of wrapping them all up, which was more difficult than I expected. Wanda had showed me how to wrap them, using her gift for Tony as the experiment, and while my first couple looked like they had been tossed around the room several times, I was hoping that Steve and Pepper wouldn't mind. As I began to feel more confident with the wrapping, I tried to tie bows on some of them, but that didn't really go well. I could be very coordinated with weapons, such as daggers, but it seemed that as soon as it came to some fancy decorated paper, I was completely hopeless.

It was around five days until Christmas when everyone had someone's gift to wrap, which meant that all of the wrapping paper and decorations were scattered between the lounge room and kitchen as everyone came down from their rooms when they needed something.

Sometimes, two of the Avengers would need the same roll of wrapping paper, which mean that there would occasionally be... playful fights between them to see who would get it. At one point, this happened to Bucky and I, and we spent at least five minutes wrestling each other to try and get it, before we were told off by Pepper for almost ruining the paper. Thor also got into a playful fight with Loki, though it had a little more malicious intent from Loki's side. Thor accidentally spilt red glitter all over his brother after he tripped over something, and Loki retaliated by opening a whole new thing of glitter and tipping it straight onto Thor's head. I happened to be down there at the same time and Loki decided to tip the left over bits all over me, much to my annoyance.

Turns out glitter is impossible to get out of your hair.

The day after the glitter disaster, Tony announced that it was time for us to start decorating the compound. They had this strange tradition where Tony hid all of the decorations in boxes around the compound, and then the rest of them had to go find them, and whoever found the most got to put the star on the top of the Christmas tree. I didn't see how that was a good reward, but I didn't question their traditions.

Everyone split off into teams, which they seemed to have from previous years, and I barely managed to drag Loki off the couch to join me because I didn't want to be alone. We didn't end up finding any, but it felt good to be part of one of their traditions.

When all of the boxes had been found, everyone assembled back in the lounge room and kitchen area. Wanda and Tony were in charge of hanging up the lights on the ceiling, because they were the only ones that could fly. Bucky and Steve were on setting up all of the heavy stuff and Thor sometimes helped too when he wasn't busy setting up the bar with Pepper. Bruce was focusing on making a bunch of projections for the party that Tony was planning. I joined Clint and Nat in hanging up tinsel anywhere we would inside the compound, while Loki had disappeared somewhere, to read more I suspected. We decorated all of the balcony railings, chair and table legs, door frames, table edges, anything we could really stick tinsel onto.

"A little more the left." Clint called out to me, breaking me out of my thoughts as I moved the tinsel I was holding a little as I tried to keep my balance on the ladder I was on. "That's better."

I nodded and taped it in place before shuffling along a little more, Nat helping to move the ladder down the bottom as I moved.

"Perfect." He called out and I taped it in place, grabbing a couple of bauble to decorate it a little more.

As I waited for Nat to throw up some more tinsel for me, I looked around the compound, which was looking very well decorated, and very festive. Something moved out of the corner of my eyes and I looked over to see Wanda and Tony throwing different decorations at each other for the other one to hang up, causing me to smile. Nat threw up more gold tinsel for me and we continued taping it along the balcony.

I had just taped one piece to the glass balcony when there was another movement out of the corner of my eye and I looked over again to see another bauble, but it was flying straight in my direction. I tried to duck, forgetting that both my hands were tangle up in tinsel and I overbalanced. I didn't even think to scream as I fell of the side of the ladder, the ground rushing up to meet me. I curled myself up in a protective ball, trying to summon up my fire to form a shield around myself.

Suddenly, there was a flash of green just before I hit the ground, and I suddenly found myself in Loki's arms. The impact of my body falling caused us to both collapse onto the ground and Loki just managed to twist his body so I collapsed on top of him as he broke my fall.

"Are you okay?" He immediately asked, his hands braced on my waist as I sat up, still on top of him.

"I – yeah." I nodded, my cheek flushing bright red before my heart suddenly began to pound hard as I realized where his hands were and the memories of the men at HYDRA suddenly came rushing towards me.

"Are you sure?" He asked, his eyes full of concern as I scrambled off him, the Avengers starting to crowd around me.

I nodded hurriedly and swallowed back the lump forming in my throat as Wanda hurried over to me, her face also full of concern.

"Oh my God, Emily, I'm so sorry!" She put her hands on my shoulders, spinning me around to face her as her eyes darted over mine to look for any sign of injury. "I missed the shot and I didn't think it would go that far. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I murmured before looking at all of the other Avengers. "Seriously guys, I'm fine."

They slowly nodded and seemed hesitant to go back to their decorating, but eventually did, leaving me and Loki alone for a moment.

"Thank you." I took a deep breath before I looked up at him, forcing back all of the memories. "For catching me. Good thing you have good reflexes."

"It's called teleporting." He grinned, his eyes still darting over me. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." I sighed, a little sick of them all being so overprotective of me.

He nodded, eyes checking me for injuries once more before he disappeared in a flash of green.