An Attempt at Sunshine (Winter Soldier) (Marvel)

[49.00] [December 24, 2015]

I'm staring at the table, trying to come up with something, anything at all, but I suddenly can't think. My ghost-boy sits next to me, fiddling with a small piece of metal and strips of paper. His ornament doesn't look like anything yet, but based on the tiny masterpieces he showed me yesterday, it'll be perfect.

Somebody throws a handful of glitter across the table and Thor finds it hysterical, he tries to find glitter too but now everyone's hiding it from him. I smile.

I pick up a paper plate and cut the rim off, so it's a stiff white circle. I still don't know what I'm doing, but I keep going anyways. Bruce sees me staring at the blue yarn so he hands it to me. The color is soft and inviting so I start gluing little yarn spirals to the white surface. I keep cutting and spinning and gluing, taking different yarns, fitting in greys and whites and reds.

I stop for a moment.

Sitting plain against a grey background are two figures. They don't touch each other, or smile, they just stand. Looping white spirals float around them, disappearing off the rim of the tiny world. Blue and Red, they stand, frozen in a snapshot of something that might exist. It confuses me almost, but I use the hole punch and put a string through the top anyway.

I look over for the first time in twenty minutes and find that Steve has the same image as I do, but with slightly more detail. He smiles as I look in awe at his little swoops of delicate paper, as I take in the identity of the two shadows. I smile too.

We lay our ornaments out on the table so Pepper can take a picture before we hang them. Thor's made a little tree out of clay with tiny ornaments made from beads. Sam's made an attempt at a paper falcon. Peter's filled a glass ornament with red and blue glitter and drawn a spider on it. Nat's spider hangs delicately from a black wire that shouldn't support the metal web she's spun. Steve's and my own sit side by side, mine like a blurry reflection of its twin.

We hang them on the tree, filling the branches just a little more than we probably should. I smile. I wish it was like this all year round. We sit on and around the couches and drink hot chocolate until we're too tired to keep our eyes open.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day.

We are all children for now.