The darkness that surrounded me was comfortable. A loving mixture of black and warmth. Until I felt something touching my shoulder.
My eyes snapped open, and my grip tightened around the knife I held. I leaped off of the bed, and pinned down who ever was in my room. The blade held high over my head, ready to defend myself. However, once I saw the shock of platinum hair and dark eyes, I relaxed.
"What are you doing Barton?" I said, getting off of him.
"You sleep with a knife under your pillow?!" Francis said breathlessly.
"Who doesn't?" I asked, looking at the clock, 5:46, "Why are you even awake?"
"It's Christmas," Francis said, getting up off of the ground.
"I thought you didn't care about that."
"I don't, but I do care about the delicious cinnamon rolls that Uncle Sam and Aunt Darcy said they would make for breakfast."
"So, why wake me up?"
"Cause we need you're help to wake up the adults."
I raised a brow.
"What? I want to see how dad will react if we stuff a snowball down his back."
...
Turns out Hawkeye wasn't all that keen on being woken up with a snowball down the shirt. However, he didn't stay mad for long. As with the rest of adults up, it was apparently time to head to the lounge to open up the presents underneath the tree (The one that they were using for gifts, out of the other hundreds of tree in the mansion).
The littlest, Sarah, had been first to the tree, with all the excitement a young child like her could have. The others soon joined her. I just stuck to the side, nibbling on one of the cinnamon rolls (Thankfully Falcon and Ms. Darcy modified the recipe so I could eat it), while they all handed out gifts and the pile of wrapping paper grew larger.
"Francis, who's that one in the back for?" Falcon asked.
Francis reached underneath the tree, his hair brushing against the needles on the branches. After a second of rummaging around, he pulled out a shoe-box shaped gift, wrapped in shiny blue and silver snowflake paper.
He lifted the gift's tag and said, "Northern this one's for you."
I almost froze. A gift? I honestly didn't expect to get one. I had stopped writing to Santa years ago, and I didn't take part in the Secret Santa ritual that everyone else did. I didn't think anyone would bother get me anything this year. Not that anyone needed to.
Never the less, I accepted the gift when Francis handed it to me. Feeling the expectant eyes on me, I carefully undid the tape holding the wrapping together. Underneath the paper, was a large black box with a loose unsealed lid. Opening the lid, inside I found a pair of white ice skates with black blades tucked between the cushioning pieces of tissue paper.
"Oh..." Sarah said, the little blond girl leaning over to peer into the box.
"Those are nice," Morgan nodded approvingly.
I kept everything together on the outside, but on the inside...I didn't know how to feel. I hadn't wanting anything for Christmas in a long time. Not since mom died. Grandpa would always work hard every year to get me a gift to remember each year, and I was always grateful for them. Some of them even got me excited, but I never wanted them and they often went unused or unopened. I looked up, my eyes meeting my father. These were from him. I could tell that much. He eyes said everything.
"Thank you," I murmured.
He nodded, and said, "You're welcome."
...
YOU ARE READING
Touch of Winter
同人小说Things were normal, well as normal as they could get for a mutant halfling. Northern lived the days one by one. Keeping her powers in check, trying not to kill the school bullies, and putting up with her family's crazy antics. She never knew of her...
