Alex Hua and the Agents of shield Christmas story

Chapter Five

In the North Pole, the elves were enjoying the night off and celebrating with alcohol free egg nog and cheering at all their hard work.

They sat in a tavern of sorts in groups across all the tables. Cups clinked on the tables and laughs filled the air.

But they couldn't see the lone elf running through the snow and up to the door. Huffing and puffing as he moved as fast as possible.

He finally reached it, touching the hard wood with both hands and shoving it open. It slammed against the wall and loose bits of snow fell onto the welcome mat.

His dishevelled state caught the attention of a few tables and the quiet eventually spread until the liveliness in the room disappeared and everyone looked at him.

"What is it?" Someone finally asked as the elf caught his breath.

"It's the torch", he huffed out.

Some of them gasped already at the bad news.

"Has it gone down again?"

"Yes", he replied. "And Santa along with it".

The silence lasted barely a beat longer before chairs scraped along the floor and elves jumped to their feet in panic.

"What do we do?!"

"We can't have Christmas without Santa!"

"How will the children get their presents!!"

Amid the panic and chaos, a wiser elf sat quietly and thought about the situation. It wasn't a good one, that's for sure. But he had been around long enough to see it before. The plague was a particularly bad time.

All those people getting sick and not even able to think about Christmas. The torch was at an all time low then.

He got up from his seat, leaving his drink and walked to the exit.

"Go sit down, have a drink", he told the panicked elf in the doorway before walking out into the snow.

***

"We sort the buttons by pattern, not colour", Mrs Claus shouted across the factory. "It worked well this year, we will keep that going. Marty, put the cloth in the same cupboard as the stuffing".

She directed the elves and the factory was now back to its sparkling self and ready for the presents to begin being made again the day after Christmas.

It was normally the happiest twenty four hours in the North Pole with nothing to be done except celebrate. But it wasn't so happy this time.

She couldn't stop thinking of her husband.

Once everything seemed to be in good enough order, she thought they could take it from here and walked back up to Nick's office and slumped in his chair.

The shock was slowly starting to wear off as she slipped her glasses from her face to wipe at her eyes.

She took a deep breath and put them back on, only to see a picture of them sat on his desk in a dark wooden frame.

They were both young in the photo, a small reindeer stood between them. It was Dasher. She remembered when they first found him in the snow one cold evening. All alone and crying out for his mother.

They never found her, so they took the little guy in and nursed him back to health. The whole experience nearly led them to operate a reindeer sanctuary. But life had other plans and here they were managing Christmas for the entire world.

The wetness in her eyes grew until she buried her face in her hands and began sobbing. She let herself cry for a few moments longer before straightening out her dress and altering the placement of the picture frame.

The door creaked open and the wise elf stood there.

"What would you like me to do ma'am?"

"It feels like Folas all over again".

The wise elf said nothing. They don't talk about Folas after what he did.

Mrs Claus looked around the office before her eyes met his again.

Get me the task force...

***

"Im just saying, Santa isn't real", Ward argued with Simmons and wouldn't budge from his point.

"But he's right in front of us!" She shouted.

"A guy with we found with a red coat and long beard. There are thousands who meet that description today".

"Yea? And how many have flying reindeer?"

Fitz watched from his place as he scanned through a tablet full of information he got off the sleigh earlier. He still didn't understand some of the things he picked up and was trying to figure it out.

He didn't want to point out that Simmons had a point about the reindeer because he might have been a teensy bit scared of Ward still.

"The flying reindeer could be unrelated to the man!" Ward said.

"You cannot be serious?!" Simmons almost yelled. "So you believe that reindeer can fly but you don't believe the man we found with them in a red coat claiming to be Santa is actually Santa?!"

"No".

Simmons made a disgruntled noise when Fitz couldn't help but speak up.

"But by your logic Santa would be real but this man stole the sleigh off him".

Ward turned to face him and Fitz shrunk back.

"Really? You're on her side?"

"Its christmas", the scientist shrugged. "If we can't believe in things now, then when?"

"I'm done with all of you", he huffed.

May watched from the sidelines with her arms crossed and head up. Two of the team were out in a flying sled that had just crashed, one was sat in his office and wouldn't talk to her, and the others were arguing on whether or not Santa was real.

"What about you May?" Simmons asked. "Do you believe in Santa?"

"I don't care", she answered evenly. "Get the comms up".

Fitz did as he was told and the other two practically glared at each other as they waited.

May walked to the office door and knocked.

No one answered so she knocked again.

After more silence her eyebrows came together and she hissed through the door.

"We have a mission to do. I don't know whats going on but we can talk about it after. Now get up and open this door or I'm kicking it down and dragging you out".

A few moments later the lock clicked and Coulson stood in the doorway.

"That was a bit aggressive".

"It worked, didn't it? Now lets go, comms are up and Alex and Skye will need you".