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Nancy supposed it was a sign of what her life had become that it didn't phase her to wake up and see Spiderman on the floor of her dorm room playing fetch with Tippy. Mew was laying in his lap leaving white fur on the black spandex and digging her claws in mercilessly as he ran his free hand over the curve of her back. The only really strange part was the perfectly innocuous tupperware container sitting next to his knee, it looked like it was full of scraps of paper. It truly should have been more surreal. Instead she got up and walked over, tapped his shoulder with her knee and asked, "Do you need anything to drink before I run off?"
"No, I'm fine," She got the distinct impression he was smiling under his mask, "but If you happen to know when Squirrel Girl is going to wake up....?"
He indicated Doreen's bed where she was snoring contentedly, tail twitching as she slept soundly on. Nancy wrinkled her nose thoughtfully and shook her head, "No telling. If you choose to wait you could be waiting for awhile, her morning class was cancelled and she was out late last night. ...Something about Dr. Doom and genetically modified potatoes?" She shrugged and grabbed her clothes for the day and her backpack, "Either way I have to go, good luck."
~~~~~~
When Nancy returned to her room a couple hours later, full from breakfast and done with her own first class of the day, Doreen was awake and sitting at her computer, going back and forth between searching furiously for *something* and looking intently at a single scrap of paper. She looked...harried was actually the only word that could apply. Tippy was curled around the back of her neck watching with what Nancy would almost swear was amusement.
"So...is this about Spiderman coming over this morning?" Nancy sat down next to Doreen and made grabby hands at the paper. She remembered the tupperware container from this morning and surely that's where this had come from. It was all very mysterious. Especially considering when Doreen handed it over, eyes losing a little bit of their aimless panic, all Nancy saw on it was the name Thor written in blocky all caps letters, underlined about twelve times.
Doreen nodded miserably, "The Avengers have decided to do a Secret Santa with....everyone I think. I thought it would be fun until I realized I would have to come up with a gift for Thor! The limit is fifteen bucks, apparently so Tony Stark doesn't ruin it for the rest of us? What can I buy, for fifteen bucks, that would be good enough for a God? I can't spend fifteen dollars on Poptarts, what kind of gift is that?" She wailed the last part out, causing Tippy to startle and run off, chittering with a kind of aggrieved air. "Wait...Nancy! Nancy you can knit something! I'll buy yarn and you can knit something for Thor, right? It'll be perfect!"
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The frankly desperate look in Doreen's eyes had clearly made Nancy temporarily lose her mind because she had agreed, knowing full well that nothing Doreen roped her into was as simple as it sounded. The thing was she had agreed. She had promised she would help. She had to keep reminding herself of this as she quietly trailed behind Doreen and THOR ODINSON (who Doreen had asked for advice on being a young superhero with other life commitments like school, and was listening to with ridiculously wide eyes and a look of such fake innocence she was shocked he hadn't figured them out,) waiting for him to put down Mjolnir, her measuring tape crushed between her sweaty palms. Her current hiding space, behind a huge ficus in one of the hallways of Avengers tower, was only going to work as a hiding place so long as no one else came into this particular tower until they were done. They wouldn't be done until Thor stopped using his hammer to *gesture with*. She began to zone out after awhile, Thor really could talk couldn't he? It took her a moment to realize he had even set the hammer on the floor behind him so he could gesture more clearly with his hands and fingers.
Sneaking up behind a God isn't easy, but she got the measurements she needed and got out, so it was a victory for all Nancy-kind! Plus he had smelled like Cedar from so close and Doreen had smiled at her over his left shoulder and winked.
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The pattern wasn't as hard as she feared. Once she had the yarn, a pretty red tweed that was soft but fairly strong, finishing the project only took a little bit of time. The actual knitting part was soothing, even if making the corners come out right took some work it was soothing work. Soothing work that *didn't* involve stalking superheroes. The finishing touch was a huge silver button that almost looked like a shield, and in her opinion looked perfect against the rich red. The best part was they had managed to not only stay on budget but save just enough on the yarn and the button for Doreen to add a box of pop tarts to the small green gift bag she was tucking the hammer cozy into carefully. Apparently Spiderman would be back in the morning to pick it up and drop it off, as well as dropping off Doreen's own present from the superhero who had drawn her name. ...Really this whole thing should be more surreal why wasn't it more surreal?
~~~~~~
Winter break was actually pretty boring. Nancy hadn't planned on that. Being home with her family was nice, sure, as was being in her own room, but she missed the chaos a little bit. At least she'd had plenty of time to catch up on her fic? Tomorrow though, tomorrow she was meeting Doreen for lunch, and they would exchange gifts and she would find out what Doreen had gotten from her own Super Secret Santa. She'd knit Doreen some socks, a nice green pair with brown squirrels around the cuff and a pair of knee-highs out of a really luxurious bamboo yarn in variegated golden yellow and deep smokey purple. They probably wouldn't compare to whatever Super Secret Santa had gotten but she was proud of them, and the small knitted bow she made to replace the ribbon around Tippy Toe's neck. She wasn't even sure she was worried about what Doreen had gotten her, there was nothing to make a girl's Christmas bright like seeing Thor on TV in an interview with the hammer cozy she had designed just for Mjolnir on display for the world.