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Snow fell softly outside the bank of bullet proof windows behind the large, curved desk in the office of SHIELD Founder and Director, Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter. When she had first been brought her afternoon cup of tea, Peggy had turned in her chair to watch as the sun sparkled off the falling snow, savoring a brief moment of peace in her otherwise hectic day. After finishing her tea Peggy turned back to the work spread out across the surface of her desk, picked up her pen, and began approving missions and operations that would take place in the new year. She managed to get through two proposals and a small stack of requisitions when her office door was flung open. Howard Stark’s aftershave and cologne entered the space before he did, and Peggy just managed to bite back a groan. Howard was her oldest and dearest friend, but as they got older, the urge to strangle him intensified by leaps and bounds.
“Pegs!” Howard says cheerly as he walks across the room after closing the office door behind him. He’s giving her his best, most charming smile, despite the fact that she hasn’t looked up at him yet. “I need a favor.”
“If this has anything to do with Hank Pym or your ridiculous idea about moving SHIELD headquarters to D.C., get out.” Peggy tells him as she elegantly signs her name to the bottom of a document and then closes the file folder.
In the past Howard would have pouted but these days he opted for more of an indignant huff. “I need to go to Japan for a few weeks, maybe a month or two.” He tells her, not beating around the bush. “Jarvis and Ana won’t be back from their European vacation until after the New Year, and Maria’s still on her retreat.”
Peggy sighed as she set her pen down on the desk blotter and leaned back in her chair. She fought the urge to cross her arms over her chest as she finally looked Howard in the eye. Maria being on a ‘retreat’ meant she was in a sanitarium again, trying to deal with her addiction to the drugs prescribed to her to help deal with being married to Howard Stark. “What do you need from me, Howard?”
“I need you to take Tony.” Howard told her.
“Howard!” Peggy sits up and glares at the man. “It’s nearly Christmas!”
“And?” Howard responds. “I can’t pass on this deal, Peggy. It’s not only a good thing for Stark Industries, but in the long run, it’ll be good for SHIELD. I have to go to Japan. I can’t take the kid with me, so, I either leave him with the house staff, or you, his godmother.”
Anger flashes in Peggy’s eyes. “You bloody bastard.” She growls at him. “You know damn well I’m not going to let that child spend Christmas with the staff.”
Howard smiles a triumphant smile. “I’ll have one of the maids pack him up and bring him over.”
“Don’t bother.” Peggy waves the idea away with a flick of her hand. “I’ll come get him this evening.”
“You’re the best pal in the world, Peg.” Howard beams as he stands from the chair he’d taken in front of her desk and prepares to leave.
Peggy grunts. “One of these days Howard, you’re going to ask me to take Anthony, and I’m not going to give him back.”
Once her office door closes behind Howard’s fleeing form, Peggy reaches for the phone on her desk and dials for an outside line before pressing the button for the second preprogrammed number on her list, the first being her home number. While she waits for the other end to be picked up Peggy starts mentally adjusting her schedule and plans for the next few weeks. She knows Howard too well to think Anthony’s time with her will be short. Without Jarvis with him, and Maria away for a considerable amount of time, Howard is bound to indulge in his worse impulses. When the other end of the line is finally picked up Peggy can’t help but smile at the voice that greets her. “Hello my darling.”
“Hiya English.” Angela ‘Angie’ Martinelli says in response. “Two calls in one afternoon, how’d I get that lucky?”
Back in ‘47 while working a case in Los Angeles, Peggy had come to a startling conclusion about what she wanted out of life. No longer happy with the idea of dedicating her life to her work in memory of Steve Rogers, the scrapy boy from Brooklyn she’d fallen in love with during the war, Peggy made the choice to open herself and her heart up again. The startling part had been when she realized who she wanted to offer her heart too because she had thought she had put that part of herself away with the other unrealistic childhood fancies. For the second time in her life Peggy Carter had fallen for a scrappy kid from Brooklyn, only this time that scrappy kid was a beautiful, spunky, sweet, sassy, clever young woman with big dreams and a smile that did funny things to Peggy’s insides. Angie had gotten her first real onstage role that year. She was playing the Ghost of Christmas Past in an off-Broadway production of A Christmas Carol. The night Peggy returned to New York she stood outside the stage door waiting on Angie to finish rehearsal. When Angie finally came out Peggy had been there long enough to have snow in her hair and on the shoulders of her tweed herringbone wool overcoat. No matter how long her life proved to be, Peggy would never forget the way Angie’s eyes had lit up upon seeing her that night.
“I wanted to call and let you know that I’ve agreed to something for the both of us, but I don’t think you’ll be too cross with me when I tell you what it is.” Peggy says just a bit sheepishly.
She knows Angie won’t mind, in fact, Angie will love having Anthony around for the holidays. Their own children, Michael, and Lucy had their own lives now. Michael was Peggy’s nephew by blood. Her brother Michael hadn’t been as dead as they’d thought, crashing back into Peggy’s life in ‘48 as a brainwashed Russian spy. She pursued him for years, never giving up on her hope of bringing him back to her fully, and she succeeded. She even helped him go back for the woman he loved, but they were in the midst of a cold war and Russia didn’t like having one of their former spies walking around free in the West to spill their secrets. Her brother and his wife were murdered, leaving behind their infant son. Peggy adopted little Michael without hesitation and Angie’s full blessing. Their son was an architect now and had settled in Chicago where he was dating a rather lovely girl from Ireland. Ana Lucia Amanda Carter came about because Angie had insisted that Mickey needed a sibling. Peggy had to call in a lot of favors and use Howard’s high-priced lawyers, but all the hoops she had to jump through to adopt their daughter was more than worth it the first time she saw the sweet little girl in Angie’s arms. Lucy was in the midst of earning her doctorate, and her research kept her traveling between England, Canada, and Australia.
“What did Howard talk you into, English?” Angie asks over the line.
Peggy chuckles. “He didn’t really have to talk to me into it, though he did pull the godmother card anyway.”
“What does Tony need from us?” Angie asks without hesitation. While she wouldn’t jump at doing anything for Howard, she would for Tony.
“A home for the holidays.” Peggy tells the woman she’s spent her life loving and making a life and home with. No one questioned the gold band on Peggy’s left hand, though no one could recall having ever seen or even heard of a husband.
“Testa di cazzo.” Angie grumbled.
Peggy laughed, knowing that Angie was calling Howard a dickhead and not Anthony. Then she explained to Angie that Howard was choosing business over his son, Maria was unreachable for a while, and the Jarvises were out of the country. “I’m going to pick him up on my way home this evening.”
“I’ll leave right after my last class.” Angie replies. While Angie had had success on stage, her real success had been as a cult classic movie queen. Now she was a beloved theater professor at NYU. “So I can get his room ready for him and make his favorite dinner.”
That was exactly the response Peggy knew she would get because that’s the type of person her wife was. “I love you Mrs. Carter.”
“Good thing you do, English.” Angie replies. “Because I love you too, Mrs. Martinelli.”
The rest of her day is spent reworking her schedule for the next couple of weeks so she could be home with Anthony as much as possible. Howard disappearing on him wasn’t something new, but not having his mother and the Jarvises around would probably hit the little boy hard, though Peggy knew he would try to be very grown up about it. The boy was eight, he shouldn’t have to try to be very grown up about anything. Peggy damned Howard to hell a lot throughout the day. Her workload would need more tweaking, but if she was going to pick Anthony up before dinner, she had to leave the office satisfied with what she had done. As she bid goodnight to her assistant, who had done her very best to help Peggy with the rescheduling, Peggy couldn’t help but miss Rose and be a smidge resentful over the other woman’s well-earned retirement. Rose would have this all worked out for her by now.
Peggy used the drive from SHEILD’s Manhattan headquarters to Howard’s New York estate to sort away her feelings for Howard at the moment so she could totally focus on her godson. If it weren’t for Maria, Edwin, and Ana, she’d have taken Anthony from Howard by now. But Maria loved her son and was doing her best to be a good mother, and the boy meant the world to Edwin and Ana. Howard was the one who fell short when it came to Anthony, and it was Peggy who tried to pick up the slack as best as she and Angie could. By the time she reached the Stark’s the snow was coming down a bit harder, and Peggy knew they couldn’t dawdle if she wanted to get the boy home before the roads were too unsafe. Parking her black BMW-6 Series right in front of the door, Peggy carefully ran up the steps and knocked on the heavy wooden door. The staff, all of whom were handpicked by Jarvis, always welcomed Peggy warmly and treated her as a family member. She treated them with kindness and respect in return, so she smiled thankfully when Ellen took her coat, scarf, and gloves.
“I do hope Howard rang ahead to let you know I was coming for Anthony.” Peggy says to the young woman.
Ellen nods. “Yes, Ms. Carter. He told Mrs. Collins before leaving for the airport.” Ellen replied. “Tony is in the parlor.”
“Of course, Howard’s already left.” Peggy huffs softly through her nose, which causes a lock of her graying hair to flutter. Then she smiles at Ellen. “Thank you, Ellen. Would you be a dear and fetch Anthony’s luggage for me?” Peggy asks, then hums softly. “A full case and large shoulder bag for clothes, a toiletry bag, and something for some of his toys.”
“Right away Ms. Carter.” Ellen nods with a warm smile. “I’ll bring them to Tony’s room.”
“Thank you, dear.” Peggy says warmly before heading off to the parlor Anthony is actually allowed to be in on his own. She can feel her annoyance at Howard bubbling in her chest, so she takes several deep breaths until it passes. Then she walks into the room, only to have her heart break painfully in her chest. She doesn’t mean to sneak around, but when you spend your life as a spy trying not to be heard as you move about, old habits die hard. Anthony doesn’t know she’s in the room, which is why she can see him swipe his arm across his eyes and witness the tiny hitch in his breathing when he inhales. Well, at least Howard spared a moment to say goodbye instead of just leaving and not telling his son he would be away. She was still going to crush his balls with her bare hands when she next laid eyes on Howard Stark, but maybe she wouldn’t break anything. “Anthony, sweetheart.”
Tony tenses for a moment but then he realizes who it is, and he springs to his feet. He turns to see his beloved godmother standing there with a loving smile and open arms. “Aunt Peggy!” He erupts as his sadness and disappointment is overcome with happiness and delight. He runs to the woman, crashing into her, and wraps his arms around her as tightly as he can manage. His next words are muffled from having his face pressed into the soft, warm, Aunt Peggy scented silk of her stomach. “HiyaAuntPeggy.”
There is that pain in her chest again. Peggy reaches down and runs her hand through Tony’s chestnut hair before pressing it firmly against his back, holding him in place against her. “Hello my darling boy.” She simply holds him to her for several moments before softly saying his name. “Anthony.” The boy hums in response while nuzzling his nose against her blue silk shirt. She waits for a moment and then repeats his name because the boy knows that he is to look her in the eyes when she’s speaking to him. “Anthony.”
Reluctantly Tony pulls away from his godmother’s warmth to look up at her. “Yes, Aunt Peggy?”
Peggy rewards him with a bright smile and playful tap of her index finger against the tip of his nose. “Darling, how would you like to come and spend the holidays with Aunt Angie and I?”
Hazel eyes still watery from silently shed tears go wide and bright with surprise and hope. “Really Aunt Peggy?” Tony asks in breathless anticipation. “You want me to spend Christmas with you?”
Removing Howard Stark’s balls from his body with her bare hands was too good for the son of a bitch. She would have to find a more fitting punishment for her dear friend, something suiting the look of expected abandonment he’d left in his child’s eyes. “I absolutely want you to spend Christmas with me.” Tony tightens his grip on her and once again presses his face into her stomach. Peggy looks up and takes carefully measured breaths as she blinks a few times to bat away the slight burn she was starting to feel. She feels Tony’s body relax, and she smiles. “Let’s go pack your things, darling.”
“Ok!” The boy replies as he pulls away from his godmother only to reach out and take her hand, though Peggy isn’t sure if it’s to lead her to his room, or to ensure she doesn’t leave him. Once in Tony’s room Peggy begins shifting through the boy’s clothes after telling him to pick out some playthings to bring along. Howard dressed his son in trousers, polo shirts, button ups, jumpers, and little jackets. Nothing an eight-year-old boy could get dirty playing in the garden in or be completely comfortable in. Peggy picked out a few things, nothing overly posh or preppy, with the exception of an appropriate Christmas Eve mass outfit. They kept more comfortable and appropriate clothes for Anthony in the room he used when he visited, but there was a good chance he’d outgrown most of them. Peggy would have to ask Angie if perhaps she could reach out and get some things from her family.
Once Peggy had Tony’s suitcase packed, she walked over to expect his choice of toys. He had a duffle bag packed with his erector sets, a remote-control car, Star Wars action figures, and his stuffed monkey, Auggie. Angie had bought the monkey for Tony when he was a toddler, and the boy loved him dearly. Howard had once tried to throw Auggie out with other items he’d deemed babyish once Tony had started school, but Angie had descended on him like an avenging angel. Thankfully, Ana Jarvis had stashed the monkey away for safekeeping and returned it to a grateful Tony. Howard never tried to take his son’s comfort stuffy away from him again. Tony had also packed what looked like a box of junk and broken electric toys, but Peggy knew these were the things he was allowed to tinker with. Her godson was a prodigy, and would someday surpass the brilliance of his father, which Peggy feared Howard resented a bit.
“I think this will do.” Peggy announces once she’s satisfied with what they have. “Let's go home, darling.”
Tony nods gladly, taking his godmother’s hand when it is offered, and doesn’t even spare a glance back at the mansion as he’s loaded into the backseat of his aunt’s car.
After adopting Mickey, Peggy and Angie decided they wanted to raise him in a home of their own. A safe place where their new son could grow up with all the best they could offer him. They searched for months before finally finding a lovely single-family home in the Prospect Park South neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was a bit big for just the three of them, but Peggy liked the back garden space and Angie had fallen in love with the kitchen. It’s been their home ever since. It was dark out when Peggy finally pulled into the driveway of her home with a surprised look on her face. There were holiday lights strung up along the roof’s edge, along the front porch rails, and swirled around the pilers. Peggy was fairly certain her house hadn’t been draped in holiday lights when she left for work that morning. Angie must have been ahead of her on calling in some Martinelli reinforcements. She had better have called in reinforcements, they were each in their fifties, hardly old, but neither had any business on ladders hanging holiday lights in the snow.
“Aunt Peggy!” Tony whispers from the backseat as he takes in the glow of white lights through the falling snow. “Your house looks so pretty!”
“Yes, it does.” Peggy agrees as she pulls the car all the way back to the garage.
Tony sits on the edge of his seat as he waits for his godmother to move her seat forward so he can get out of the back of the car. He stands close as Peggy gets bags, at least at first, at least until the backdoor opens, flooding the area with extra light from the kitchen. When Tony sees his Aunt Angie, he takes off down the drive towards the back porch, forgetting that he should stay with his Aunt Peggy, and slipping in the snow.
Angie laughs softly as she pulls her sweater around her a bit more tightly as the cold night air blows across their yard. “Be careful, Tony. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. You ain’t gonna break ya neck to get to me.”
Once he finally gets to her Tony wraps Angie in a hug as he looks up at her and beams brightly. “Auntie, guess what?”
“What Nipote?” Angie replies.
“I’m spending Christmas with you and Aunt Peggy!” Tony says excitedly.
“I know!” Angie squeals with excitement. “I’m so happy you’re gonna be here with us.”
Peggy shares a look with her wife as she comes up the back steps. Despite her smile, and genuine delight at having Tony with them, her feelings about Howard taking off and finding the boy alone and in tears haunted her dark eyes. “Can we take this inside please? Aunt Peggy is freezing her knickers off out here.”
The kitchen is warm and smells of the drying herbs Angie always had on hand, simmering tomato sauce, and baking garlic bread. Peggy watches as Tony takes a deep breath, releasing any further tension his little body has been holding on to because he knows that in Aunt Peggy and Aunt Angie’s house, he is safe, and he is loved, and he is wanted. While Angie helps the boy out of his winter coat and boots, Peggy carries his bags up to his room. She smiles warmly when she sees the bed made with sheets and covers with rocket ships on them, the smell of fabric softener letting her know the bedding and pajamas placed at the foot of the bed were freshly washed. Peggy sets the luggage down, they can wait until tomorrow to unpack and put things away, though she does take a moment to remove Auggie from the duffle bag and place him on the bed, leaning him up against the pillow.
Angie made spaghetti and meatballs because it was Tony’s favorite. As they ate, Angie talked about having her nephews come over to bring the Christmas decorations down from the attic and sting the lights up outside. Peggy watched Tony’s face as she said they would need to go out and get a tree and smiled at the way the boy’s face lit up. She needed to work tomorrow, but she promised that as soon as she got home, they would go to the lot and pick one out.
“We’ll go to Macy’s this weekend,” Angie adds in with a bright smile. “To see Santa. Do you know what you want to ask for, Tony?”
Tony blinks and shrugs. He has sauce all over his mouth, a sure sign he’s settling into the warmth of his aunts’ presence. Alone with them, without the pressure of his parents being around or even Jarvis, Tony was free to be an eight-year-old boy who liked to slurp his spaghetti. “Daddy didn’t tell me what to ask for.”
“Father Christmas doesn’t want to know what Howard wants, darling, he wants to know what your precious little heart wants.” Peggy says gently. “So, you have a good think about what you want, my love, and you ask Father Christmas for that.”
“Who is Father Christmas?” Tony looks up at his godmother a bit confused.
Angie laughs. “That’s British speak for Santa Claus, bud.”
Dinner was followed by warm chocolate chip cookies and Mork and Mindy before bath time and bed. Old habits and routines for Peggy and Angie came back easily despite the years that had passed since their own children were this small. Angie helps Tony into his warm, clean, pajamas, and rubs his hair dry with a towel while singing the same Italian lullabies she sang to Mickey and Lucy, the same lullabies sang to her by her mother and grandmothers. Once he’s tucked into bed Peggy settles beside him and begins telling him a story, one she had come up with a long time ago for her own children. “Once upon a time there lived a little girl who used to be a princess. She was a very happy, adventurous child, who loved riding horses and practicing with her toy sword. Then one day an evil man came to the kingdom with an army of bad men. The evil man killed the little girl’s father and mother, the king and queen, and her brother who would someday be king. But he spared the little girl’s life because she was just a girl child and saw no threat in her, so she was sent away with her nurse who took her to a land far away across the big sea.”
Peggy keeps her promise the next day, she even managed to come home early, much to Tony’s delight and surprise. “Let me change out of my stuffy old work clothes, darling. Then we’ll get ready to go.”
“We’re really going to get a Christmas tree?” Tony asks, his excitement growing.
“Of course, we are, Tones.” Angie says with a smile. “Aunt Peggy promised, didn’t she? She always does her very best to keep her promises, little man.”
After Peggy changes and they all bundle up she drives them to a local Christmas tree lot with Tony asking questions and talking a mile a minute from the back seat.
“I’ve never picked out a Christmas tree before, Aunties.” He tells them. “I think Jarvis picks them out, and then the mean lady who tells Mama which new chair to buy comes over, and she and Jarvis talk a lot, and then other people come over and make the house all Christmas pretty, the trees too.” Tony watches the world pass out the window, his little foot twitching side to side. “How do we pick a Christmas tree, Aunt Peggy?”
“Well, it has to be a certain size, so it fits in the living room in front of the big window.” Peggy explains. “And it should smell nice, with no big spaces between the branches, and when you tug on the branches none of the needles should fall off.”
Angie twists around in the passenger seat to look at him and smile. “You’ll know the right tree when you see it, Tony.”
They got to the same lot set up in the park that they always went to. They knew the man who ran it by name, and each year that passed they watched each other’s children grow up. Ernesto had retired, but his eldest sons continued running the lots spread out throughout the Five Burrows. The one in Brooklyn was run by Emilio, the middle son and one half of a set of twins, his sister Emily was also there when Peggy, Angie, and Tony arrived. Emilio gave the family a huge smile as he embraced the two women warmly. Tony was practically buzzing with the excitement of actually getting to help pick a tree and then decorate it. He tried to remember what Aunt Peggy had said in the car about picking the best tree but finding himself surrounded by so many trees of different shapes, sizes, and hues of green, he was a bit overwhelmed.
“Give me your hand, little man.” Angie says softly while smiling down at the boy. Once his little hand is in hers, Angie tells him to, “Closes your eyes and breath deep through your nose.” Tony does what she asks without question or hesitation, and it warms Angie’s heart to know how much he trusts her. She starts leading him through the rows of trees and says, “Stop when you smell something you really like.”
When Tony stops, Peggy smiles brightly. “Those are my favorite too, Anthony. They just smell like Christmas.”
Peggy shows him how to test the branches to make sure the tree is fresh and alive, and after carefully looking for a good twenty minutes they pick the one they agree is the best shape that fits the size they need. They also pick out a large wreath with a red tartan bow, holly berries, and pinecones for the front door, and several feet of garland. While Peggy pays and arranges for delivery, Angie and Tony wander off further into the park where they find a patch of fresh snow. While Tony isn’t looking, Angie makes a snowball and throws it at him, surprising the boy not only with the splatter of snow against his chest, but her willingness to play with him. When Peggy finally finds them in the middle of their little snowball fight, she smiles until Angie balls up some snow while looking at her with a devilish grin.
“Angela.” Peggy warns her wife.
Tony stopped mid throw; his own snowball aimed at his Auntie Angie. His hazel eyes went a little wide as they darted back and forth between her and his Aunt Peggy. The way his Auntie Angie smiled made him hold his breath until the snow went splat against the front of Aunt Peggy’s dark blue peacoat, then he gasped and giggled.
Peggy just shakes her head with a smirk as she reaches down for a handful of snow. They play until Angie surrenders, declaring she’s cold and in need of hot chocolate. The trio return home where Angie makes hot chocolate with milk and cream and real chocolate. Peggy makes dinner. And Tony starts to hope his father never comes home.
The tree is delivered the next day while Aunt Peggy is at work. Auntie Angie says they’ll decorate it after dinner, which to an eight-year-old boy seemed like forever to have to wait. Angie kept him busy with other things like hanging the wreath on the front door, wrapping garland and ribbon around the banister and fireplace mantel, and untangling Christmas lights because, “Aunt Peggy has no patience for untangling Christmas lights and you’re too young to learn any new swear words.”
Tony also got to help Auntie Angie make dinner and afterwards she sat at the coffee table with him and helped him reenact his favorite bits from Star Wars using his action figures. They also spent some time in the garage letting Tony go through some of the old junk they had out there and in the basement, things he could tinker with and take apart. Angie and Peggy were both fully aware that Tony’s mind needed to be engaged because when he got bored things like radios and toasters got dismantled while they weren’t paying attention. When Peggy got home, she kissed Angie hello and got a cuddle from Tony before disappearing upstairs to change for a comfortable evening at home.
Since Angie made dinner, with Tony’s help, Peggy did the washing up afterwards. When she was finished and walked into the living room, she found Angie at the piano with Tony beside her, teaching him how to play as they sang carols together. Peggy leaned against the doorframe, smiling, and listening. She lets them finish the song before finally speaking up, “Shall we see to the tree my darlings?”
“Yes!” Tony exclaims as he launches himself off the piano bench. Then, because his Aunt Peggy is all about manners, he adds, “Please Aunt Peggy!”
Angie moves from the piano to their record player where she puts on one of their favorite Christmas albums while Peggy starts opening decoration boxes. Peggy strings the lights while Angie starts unpacking and unwrapping ornaments, placing them out on the coffee table and sofa cushions. Tony giggles when Aunt Peggy calls out from behind the tree, asking him if the lights are neatly in rows, because Auntie Angie said Aunt Peggy is, “Fussy about the damn lights.”
“Heavy ornaments on the bottom, darling.” Peggy tells Tony gently once they’ve reached that stage now that the lights were just right.
Each ornament has a story and Tony asks to hear each and every one, especially the ones about the homemade ornaments. There were several that had been made using the plastic egg shell from Peggy’s and Angie’s pantyhose, each with a small wintery scene glued inside, with pipe cleaner trimming, and a ribbon to hang it from. The year Lucy had asked for a puppy, she’d put a little dog in the snow inside her shell, and the year she asked for a kitten, a little girl with a kitten in her arms. One of Mickey’s had Santa, and another had a tiny dragon. There were ceramic handprints and a nose print because Mickey felt like doing something different that year.
“Aunt Peggy?” Tony says softly during a cookie and cocoa break.
“Yes, my love?” Peggy replies as she looks up to meet the boy’s eyes.
Tony bites his lip as if unsure he should ask but Aunt Peggy’s smile is kind and loving and patient. “Can I make an ornament for the tree?”
“Of course, you can, darling.” Peggy reaches for the boy and pulls him onto her lap to cuddle him. “While we’re out this weekend we’ll stop at Woolworths and we’ll pick up anything you’d like to make ornaments. Auntie Angie and I would love to have something you made to keep for always.”
There’s a super warm feeling in Tony’s chest as he’s cuddled by his godmother. He feels it again when Aunt Peggy and Auntie Angie get distracted from decorating to sing ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ together. But that warm feeling fades when it’s time to hang the last of the ornaments and the stockings because the last four ornaments are ceramic snowflakes with everyone’s name on them, Margaret, Angela, Michael, Ana Lucia. The stockings too are named, Peggy, Angie, Mickey, Lucy. Tony feels sad that he doesn’t have a snowflake or a stocking. That last part even caused a little flicker of panic, he didn’t have a stocking for Santa to fill!
“Anthony,” Peggy calls out the boy’s name lovingly as she comes back into the room. Tony hadn’t even noticed her leave. She smiles at her boy while holding out a small white gift box.
Tony looks up. He tries very hard not to show how he’s feeling but fails because his aunts can read him easily. His Aunt Peggy gives him the white box and encourages him to open it while Auntie Angie watches with bright eyes and an even brighter smile. He pulls the top off the box and moves the tissue paper, and the warm feeling in his chest is back because inside is a snowflake with Anthony written across it and a stocking that looks like the others with Tony at the top. “I get to have a snowflake and a stocking?”
“Of course, you do, darling.” Peggy replies. “You are a part of our family, Anthony.”
The hug the boy gave them and the pride that shined brightly on his face as he hung his ornament and stocking had both women holding back tears.
That evening while Angie supervised bath time, Peggy found herself answering a knock at their front door. It was Ellen, the Stark’s maid, who was full of apologies for stopping by unannounced, but she had some things she needed to bring by before she headed home for the holidays herself. She had a box of wrapped gifts for Tony from the staff and the Jarvises, who would be calling later in the week, “Mr. Stark is paying for the international calls.” Ellen says softly. Then she adds, “We would have taken good care of him at the mansion, but we’re all so very glad he’s with you, Ms. Carter. We all care about him a great deal, but we’re limited in how much we can show it, you know.”
Peggy nods. “Yes, I do understand, it's quite alright, Ellen.”
The last thing Ellen gives her is an envelope which turns out to be from Howard. It’s money and a note, ‘Get him whatever he wants, Peg. If the cash isn’t enough just use my charge accounts. Get something nice for yourself and Angie too, for putting up with me. You’re the best pal. Howard.’
“English?” Angie questions as she walks into the room. “What are you growlin’ about, hon?”
“Howard,” Peggy says simply as she hands the envelope to Angie before setting about placing Tony’s gifts under the tree.
“Don’t let him rile ya, Peg.” Angie advises her wife. “Yeah, he’s a selfish son of a bitch for leavin’ his kid during the holidays like this, and someday he’s gonna have to answer for being a piss poor father to that sweet boy. But on the bright side, we get to spend the holiday with Tony, we get to show him a real Christmas, not the dog and pony show Howard puts him through.” She walks over and wraps her arms around Peggy and smiles. “It’s awful nice having a kid around the house again, English, don’t ya think?”
Peggy can’t help but smile as she nods her agreement. “I have missed having little ones around.”
Angie kissed Peggy sweetly before telling her Tony was waiting on her to continue her story about the girl knight who’d fallen in love with the daughter of an innkeeper and was hell bent on getting her kingdom back.
The weekend was spent shopping in Manhattan so they could go to Macy’s and see Santa. Tony had thought a lot about what to ask for and when it was his turn, he daringly asked for toys his father would have huffed at because they didn’t seem to have a point or purpose. “A Stretch Armstrong, Hungry Hippos because my Aunties will play with me, Hot Wheels I’m allowed to play with.”
After Santa and a bit of shopping the trio head to Rockefeller Center to see the big tree and to ice skate. They get hot chocolate and roasted chestnuts as they walk around looking at all the store window displays. Aunt Peggy gets them tickets to see the Rockettes later in the week and promises a special night out. On Sunday after church, they have lunch at Woolworth’s before buying stuff to make ornaments which they make that evening, leaving behind a huge mess to clean up in the dining room when they were finished.
As Christmas Eve got closer, Peggy always liked to read Christmas stories to Mickey and Lucy. The three of them would settle in, in front of the fire and Peggy would read to them before sending them upstairs to their bedtime routines. She’d read the Christmas story from the bible, A Christmas Carol, The Gift of the Magi, The Little Match Girl, and a dozen other books, stories, and poems before ending on Christmas Eve with The Night Before Christmas. One of Peggy’s favorites, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L Frank Baum, is what Angie heard as she came into the room one evening to find Peggy in her favorite chair by the fire. There were two mugs of hot chocolate on the end table beside the chair and a half-eaten plate of cookies that Tony had helped them bake. Tony was curled up in Peggy’s lap, his head resting on her chest, listening to the story as well as the soothing beat of his godmother’s heart. Angie really had no other choice but to take a picture of the peaceful moment.
A part of Christmas Eve was spent at Angie’s brother’s house where Tony got to play with children his own age and have his first Feast of the Seven Fishes. He got to open presents from the Martinellis and Angie’s brother Vinny, whose wife Rebecca was Jewish, invited them to spend Hanukkah with them because Tony missed lighting the candles with Ana Jarvis. That evening they went to mass at one of the first Episcopal churches in New York to not only openly accept same sex couples, but had recently ordained one of the first women into the Episcopal priesthood. When they got home, Tony went through the nightly routine his aunts had created for him with no fuss, and after Aunt Peggy read The Night Before Christmas, Aunt Angie helped him set out a snack for Santa.
“Are you sure about this, Auntie?” Tony asks as he places the plate on the coffee table. “I thought Santa liked cookies.”
“He eats cookies all night long.” Angie replies as she sets a glass of milk beside the plate, a bowl of sugar cubes for the reindeer. “This will be a nice change of pace.”
Tony eyes the slice of Christmas pudding with cream and the puffy white balls Auntie Angie said were cookies suspiciously, but then he shrugged. If Mickey and Lucy never had issues with leaving this out for Santa, then he shouldn’t have any either, right? Once he was tucked into bed Angie sang Slight Night and his aunties kissed him and tucked him in tight.
Once Tony was asleep Peggy and Angie set to work placing presents under the tree and filling stockings. Peggy used her ability to change her handwriting to leave Tony a note from Santa thanking him for the nice treats, and then she and Angie head up to bed. If Tony were anything like their children, he would be up before the sun, and bubbling over with excitement.
He was up early but hesitated in getting out of bed. He wasn’t allowed to go to his parents’ room, he had to wait for Ana to come get him, but he wasn’t at home. He was at Aunt Peggy’s and Auntie Angie’s house, and everything here was different and in a lot of ways better. So as soon as Tony could see light out his window he jumped out of bed and ran down the hall to his aunties’ room and knocked gently on the door. He whispered, or at least he thought he was whispering, their names. “Aunt Peggy? Auntie Angie?”
“Come in, darling.” Calls Peggy.
Tony opens the door and peaks around it to find his aunts in their bed, sitting up against the pillows and smiling. “Aunt Peggy, Auntie Angie, it’s Christmas!”
Peggy opens her arms, inviting the boy to join them for a cuddle. “Happy Christmas, Anthony.”
Angie joins in on the cuddling once Tony is settled on Peggy’s lap and kisses his face all over. “Merry Christmas, Tony.”
There were lots of presents for Tony to open, from Santa, his aunts, Jarvis and Ana, the household staff, even his parents. But what Tony was most excited about was giving his aunts the present he made for them. Among the junk he was allowed to pick through in the basement he’d found an old tin that still smelled of tea and some parts from an old music box. The tin was shaped like an old travel trunk, red with straps painted on in gold. Tony had carefully touched up the paint and used the parts and pieces he’d collected to turn it into a new music box for his Aunt Peggy. For Auntie Angie he used some things he brought with him along with what he was able to scavenge around the house, to turn some old green glass bottles with the word schnapps on them into lights that she could put in her kitchen. Tony wasn’t sure his presents were very good at first because they had made his aunts teary but they both reassured him that they loved them, that they were better than getting something store bought that cost lots of money.
After Tony’s nap Peggy was able to get Maria on the phone so he could talk to his mother. Jarvis and Ana called as well, and much to Peggy’s surprise, so did Howard. By the end of the day Tony was wiped out but he was the happiest little boy in the world. As his Aunt Peggy tucked him into bed that night he sighed contentedly. “Aunt Peggy?”
“Yes, my darling?” Peggy replies.
“Can I spend every Christmas with you and Auntie Angie?” Tony asks.
Peggy doesn’t hesitate because she will do whatever she has to do to see Tony this happy as often as she can manage it. “Perhaps not all of the Christmas season like this year, but yes, Anthony, I promise that you can spend Christmas with us every year if you’d like.”
Peggy keeps that promise, she doesn’t give Howard a choice in the matter. Howard will still get to show off his heir to investors and business partners, but she gets to give Tony the kind of Christmas every child should have. In fact, it’s Peggy’s promise that saves Tony’s life on December 16, 1991, because Tony isn’t with his parents in the car that fateful night. He’s sitting on a piano bench in their home playing ‘Baby it's Cold Outside’ as his aunts dance slowly in front of the Christmas tree as they sing to one another and promising himself that someday he’ll love someone as much and as truly as his aunts love each other.
And he does.
“Pepper dear,” Peggy says from her chair by the fire. She’s holding out a snowflake which the strawberry blonde gently takes from her weather hand. “Put Morgan’s next yours and Anthony’s, love.”
“Yes, Aunt Peggy.” Pepper replies with a warm smile.
Tony leans down and kisses his aunt’s cheek. “Thank you, Aunt Peggy,” He tells her softly. “For all the happy Christmases.”