Christmas at the Lang's: Book Four

15

It wasn't much later when they arrived at Scott and Cassie's favourite bench. Weirdly, despite being located near the cliff's edge, it didn't overlook the sea, but rather over the view of the houses and stuff on the other side. Stupid, but hey ho. Tradition was tradition.

No one sat down, like they never did, but just stood around. Instinctively, Scott and Cassie both looked at the clear night sky. Nothing disturbed the stars – not any fireworks, not the glowing trail of Carol Danvers. Obviously they expected this now, but Cassie still sighed in disappointment.

"So, we're just going to stand here?" asked Stephen.

"For an hour, yeah," Scott sighed. "Don't expect anything interesting to happen in that time."

No sooner had he said that had there was a bright flash from behind them. Everyone spun around to look at the sea, searching for where it had come from. Scott was confused... it reminded him of a firework, but there was no sound and anyway, who would set one off in the ocean?

And then another firework went off, right in front of them, not too far away, but Scott still couldn't see where they were coming from. Nor figure out why they were silent. It was only after the third firework did he catch on, but he didn't say anything, just smiled to himself.

Cassie was looking up in amazement. "It's nearly the same start as that one ten years ago," she said, her face in awe.

"You remember that?" Scott asked. Even he didn't.

"Yeah, it was the year before you became Ant Man," Cassie said. Scott didn't ask how she remembered that... how could it have been almost ten whole years already? It didn't even feel like one.

Scott half-watched the fireworks, half-watched Cassie's reactions. She looked six again, with that face. He was waiting to see how long it took before she realised the true magic of the moment. (Ah, dad jokes.)

"Wait," she said, about a minute into the display. She peered down at the ocean. "Who's setting them off? There's no one down there."

Everyone (with the exception of Hank and Hope, who were still hanging behind somewhere, and Scott and Loki) looked down at the ocean, confused. Even magic dude Stephen hadn't caught on.

"Who knows?" Loki said, giving himself away by smiling. "Maybe it's magic?"

Cassie understood immediately. She gasped happily. "Wow..." She looked at the fireworks lighting up the sky and back at Loki. "Did you... make this for me?"

Loki shrugged. "Call it a last minute Christmas present."

Scott thought it was so sweet how Cassie grinned and thanked him. Even though, in his opinion, his present (the letter from actual Santa Claus himself) was the best.

Being magic fireworks, Loki didn't limit them to a measly five minute display with the basic colours and normal shapes with a repetitive pattern. The fireworks did all sorts, changing colours when they exploded, exploding then each bit exploding again, then exploding again, different colours each time, and even explode into letters spelling out Merry Christmas, which Scott wouldn't have thought possible if he didn't know it was magic. Cassie was totally loving it.

Scott appreciated he was actually making an effort. Loki doing something like this for him or Stephen made sense, because he'd become (although he only reluctantly admitted it) quite fond of them now. But Loki was doing this for Cassie, who he'd barely known a day, and it wasn't as though he was even partly doing this for himself either, because he wasn't even watching the display. Instead, he and Stephen were discussing the mechanics of the illusions (which was apparently the reason they were silent), a conversation he hadn't taken part in for obvious reasons. So he watched the display along with Cassie.