kore_logs | Santa Claus is coming to town

Who: Secret Santa participants, but also EVERYONE!
Where: Town Hall
When: Evening of day 24
What: Present giving! The Secret Santa reveal, and anyone who wants to have a christmas party is welcome to join too!
Notess: Party style thread guys, so go nuts. No order, everything is chaos, tag to your hearts content, feel free to break off into separate threads, and no spiking the punch! Also I think she's sort of mentioned it to a bunch of people but want to do me some lovely favours and handwave the actual name drawing? I will backtag if people want but it seems a little pointless to thread that out.

There's another message on the network that morning from Anna, just audio again. It's about as garbled as her first one regarding the Secret Santa idea, but for anyone who is listening closely enough they'll make out a few details. Namely this evening, town hall, and bring your presents before she shuts it off.

She's spent the rest of the day trying to do what she can to make the place look nicer. She's hardly got Christmas decorations on tap, but she's done what she can with what she has all the same. There's paper snow flakes up around the place, some of the food from her house placed in bowls to make it more party-appropriate, and it's no fir but she has relocated a small tree from the edge of the woods and placed it in the hall. Barely decorated, not even the right kind of tree, it's the best she can do with the resources she's been given.

Now all there is to do is wait for people to come.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Steve can't talk, so he holds it out and tries to offer it to Sharon without having to actually take her arm. She might like, cqc him to death or something. She is pretty deadly.

She studies him for several seconds before she takes the gift. If she knew that he thought she was deadly, she'd be... oddly flattered. As it was, though, she continues to try to keep her distance from him, emotionally if not physically. "You opened a package, I take it."

She looks down at a pile of gifts at her feet. She's been carrying them in two boxes for the sake of ease. There are several bottles of wine, and after a moment, she drops down to get one for him, handing it over. She isn't sure if Clint or the others who were going to get wine are here, after all, and she doesn't want to tell Steve that she didn't get him anything. Not because she wants to be nice, but because it's polite.

"I'm not very good at gift-giving."

"Thank you," he mouths, although the wine's probably going to go to Clint anyway, since he doesn't drink it. He's never really liked the taste and it doesn't affect him much at all. But it's a gift and he's thankful for it. It wasn't like they could just go out and shop or something. Maybe it'll taste good cooked in something.

He carefully folds up whatever it was wrapped in, and puts it away somewhere, and then gestures for her to open her gift.

She wishes it didn't bother her so much that she can't hear him when he speaks. But he doesn't seem to want to dwell on it, and this is the wrong time to call attention to it, so she turns her focus to the gift in her hands.

When she pulls out the gloves, she grins to herself and puts them on. "They're perfect, Steve." A bit feminine, perhaps, but it will be amusing to see the knit pattern left in some scientist's face. She flexes her fingers, getting a feel for the fit. "Thank you."

She pauses a moment. It isn't her Steve. She's come to terms with that. Or... Okay, so she hasn't. It still takes her a moment every time she sees him to remember that this isn't her Steve, and it hurts all over again. But this is Peggy's Steve, and she wants Peggy to be happy. Even if it isn't her Peggy, either.

"And so you know, that wine should be good for a date."

That was actually a great idea. Way better than him giving wine to Clint. Seriously, what was he thinking. He's slightly taken aback because why does everyone know about his love life?? But then he remembers that it was probably in his file and everyone's read that. Also he's not exactly the most subtle. But it's a little new that anyone but Bucky cares.

He takes a look at the wine and grins and hopes Peggy is going to like it. He has noticed that Sharon is a little different with him than everyone else, and he wants to know what the other him did to her. He doesn't know if it's something he's doing wrong or something he was doing wrong, or if his nose was on different than the other one's or something. But now is not the time for that, especially since he can't communicate back properly.

No, this Steve is definitely not the right one. He knew the gloves were feminine, picked a color he thought would look good with Sharon's skin and decided that she might want to take a break from being an agent for a little bit and remind herself of her femininity, thinks her life isn't all spies and secret missions.

She almost wants to ask him what he got Peggy, but she can't very well do that without drawing attention to her interest in Peggy. And with that will come questions, followed soon after by... She isn't even sure anymore. Awkwardness, certainly. They might feel protective of her. God knew it had taken her long enough to get Steve - her Steve - to stop treating her like some flower who happened to do some karate.

And some small part of her is starting to suspect that maybe, just maybe, they would be disappointed. Not just in her world, in how they didn't have the relationship Sharon would go on to have with her Steve - though she can't imagine they would like that. But disappointment in how overwhelmed she is by this place. Disappointed in how she hasn't managed to save everyone. She can't even keep people from going missing, and now she's having difficulty making sure everyone has enough food. She'd even opened the mysterious box that morning. That had been stupid enough, given what was happening to others, but her sudden obsession with Ph- Coulson is alarming, to say the least. Yet another aspect of a relationship she can't reveal.

Even if they aren't disappointed in her, she's disappointed in herself.

She studies the gloves as she considers. She can almost hear Nick telling her to buck up and get the job done. And she will. No matter what, she has to get these people back home. For now, she has to concentrate on them. Whatever relationship drama she has will have to take a backseat.

She lifts her eyes back to Steve. "Merry Christmas, Captain Rogers."

People look at Steve with those eyes all the time, and he returns the favor manifold. But everyone knows why he's sad, why he's angry, why he's distant. His melancholy holds no secrets and hides no shame. He knows what this looks like but not what she's thinking. He knows he shouldn't bring it up. It's "Christmas Eve." He knows that whatever happened ran deep, because Sharon is a SHIELD agent and a damn good one and if he knows anything from Coulson and Fury and Hill they're consummate professionals.

He trusts her to watch his back but that trust only goes so far and it's starting to lose its lacquered shine. He needs to talk to her. Sometime. Sometime soon. Because he's tired of her shooting him looks like he's supposed to know something, calling him Captain Rogers when they're off duty. When they're at a goddamn Christmas party.

He won't say anything.

He won't say anything because he can't say anything.

He won't write anything.

He won't.

He scrawls, "Merry Christmas, Agent Carter."

He tries to hide his determined frown, but he seems about as bad as doing that as she is.

Santa Claus is coming to town

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