It was just under half an hour later that Loki and Scott (or just Scott) finished setting the table, just in time for Maggie and Cassie to finish dinner. Scott was getting excited and hyper and angry all at the same time making sure everything went perfectly in the middle of the table, so Loki wisely left the room to tell everyone dinner was served.

To be fair though, Scott did actually calm down a lot during dinner. He forgot all about everything being perfect and just pulled lots of super-strong crackers with everyone (there was a lot of cracker-pulling, but everyone struggled with them except Loki and the cloak, the latter apparently being able to pull crackers despite having no hands). It might've been technically the first Christmas dinner for five years, but it only felt like a year to him. Only last year, there had been less people and Cassie had been a lot smaller.

The most miraculous thing that happened during the entire dinner was that, when Hank had pulled one of the crackers, he had actually not complained about wearing the flimsy paper hat that came with it. As in, he hadn't resisted that much when the cloak (which was balancing a flimsy crown on its collar) had forced it on his head. That being said, Scott had a sneaking suspicion he was a little wary of the cloak, with it being... unusual. But he wasn't complaining – now Scrooge was getting properly into the Christmas spirit.

So nice food was eaten, a bit of early alcohol was drank, crap cracker jokes were told, and random conversations were had. Cassie and Maggie had outdone themselves with the meal, and no one had a bad word to say about it.

In short, it was the best Christmas dinner Scott had ever had, and he'd had plenty. Maybe it was the food, maybe it was the people, maybe it was the feeling of being squished between Hope and Loki at the table, maybe it was just him having drank a little bit too much champagne for the early afternoon, but it was by far his favourite Christmas meal. Ever. E-V-E-R.

Everyone was so relaxed yet so hyper at the same time, and the crackers were loud. Like, loud, loud. They'd definitely been worth investing in.

So there they were, the nine of them, all with stupid Christmas jumpers and stupid Christmas paper hats, telling stupid jokes and watching a stupid hyper cloak fly around the room and occasionally attack them with hugs. Good times, good times.

And now dinner was over, it was time for games.

"OK then guys," Scott said, and everyone went quiet to listen to him. "Who's ready for some games?"

"I think we should do Just Dance," Cassie smirked, slightly evilly. Scott knew why – that girl was a total boss at Just Dance, and she knew every dance off by heart. Scott was not a dancer, and he was always totally thrashed by Cassie.

Before he could dispute the idea, the most unlikely person agreed to this. "I'm totally up for Just Dance," Stephen said. Everyone stared at him, silent. Scott's family were all like Scott and had seen Cassie's moves. Stephen had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

"Cool!" smiled Cassie. "Finally, someone who will agree to go against me! She looked around to Stephen's other side at Loki. "What about you Loki? You wanna be Player Three?"

"I'll pass," Loki said. This surprised Scott a little – this guy wasn't normally one to back down from a challenge.

"Too scared to go up against us, Cassie," Stephen said, shaking his head. The others laughed a little.

"Nah, I just don't want to humiliate you both," Loki countered.

"Burn," said Scott and Cassie at the same time.

"We need to do group karaoke," Janet suggested. "All of us taking turns to do a line or something."

"Hell yes!" shouted Scott enthusiastically, not caring how loud he was being. "I'm amazing at karaoke!"

He was met with silence and eight unconvinced faces staring back at him.

Scott coughed awkwardly. "I have a karaoke machine and a few Sing It games, so we can all work together on that?"

Cassie sighed. "Yes, karaoke machine, but please, please, no more High School Musical songs. That game has been way overused."

Scott scoffed. "Whatever. What a ridiculous thing to say."

Janet stepped in to rescue the day (or, to Scott, ruin his chance to hear Loki and Stephen doing a duet to Breaking Free) and said, "I was thinking maybe just YouTube some songs, then we don't need to worry about passing the mic."

"But... but... passing the mic is so... necessary," said Scott, hurt. "Are you lot trying to get out of singing cheesy teenage songs?"

Everyone responded with an immediate yes.

Then Stephen, being the king of compromise, said, "Why don't we do some of both?"

"Good plan," Scott said before anyone could protest, shaking the wizard's hand awkwardly around Loki, who was between them. "But as well, we have to find time to play all the classics, like Monopoly, Guess Who, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuit, Avengers Top Trumps..."

"That's a thing?" asked Stephen, confused.

"Yep," Scott nodded. "Me, you, Hope and Loki are on it. But Loki's card is outdated and he's still in the villain section."

"Bet I'm the best card," said Loki.

"You don't have a picture on your card," Scott said, sighing. "Also the info isn't correct. But hey ho. I'll never let you forget I have a higher magic rating than you."

He felt the mood change significantly next to him. Oh damn. "What?" asked Loki, and Scott couldn't tell whether the more dominant emotion was confusion or anger. Probably confusion.

"Look, I didn't make them," Scott said, his hands up in surrender the best he could without hitting either him or Hope. He shouldn't have chosen to seat them on the side with four people. "The people that did make them clearly didn't know you were magic."

"Idiots," he thought he heard Loki mutter. He almost couldn't stop himself from laughing.

"Well, on that note," Maggie started, "I'll start getting this stuff away while you lot set up the karaoke station."

"It's OK, Strange will do it, won't you Strange?" Loki said. Stephen hit him, but made a portal to the kitchen sink and put all the dishes in like that. Lazy, but Scott didn't see anything wrong with that.

Everyone started to head into the living room, and Scott went to follow them all, but Stephen grabbed him to hold him back. He turned to look at him. "What?" he asked.

"Do you seriously think it's a good idea to play competitive games with Loki?" Stephen asked him as though he'd lost his mind. "And Top Trumps is cards. You know the last time I played cards with Loki, he beat the devil."

"Uh, he cheated, didn't he?" Scott asked, scratching his head.

"Yeah, but that's not the point," Stephen said. "I wouldn't have guessed it if Mephisto hadn't said so."

"OK, and the relevance of you telling me this is..."

"I'm just saying, you might want to watch out," Stephen said seriously. "I feel like things are going to get really, really heated up in there."

Scott thought about this. Was this such a good idea after all? "Well, um, maybe we'll start off with something calm. Trivial Pursuit? We can all play that, and things won't get too competitive."

Stephen nodded. "Good idea. We'll save Top Trumps and Monopoly until the end."

Scott felt his face pale. "Oh, damn, Monopoly isn't going to be a good idea. Not with Loki and Hank in the same place."

Stephen nodded, gravely. "Don't worry, I'll be on standby in case things get messy."

"Good thing I guess," Scott shrugged. He sighed. "OK, let's not put this off any longer."

The two of them, followed by the cloak, made their way to the sitting room. Everyone was crammed onto the two sofas the best they could – Maggie and Paxton squashed onto the two-seater together, which was normally Scott's seat, and Hank, Janet and Hope were on one side of the corner sofa, leaving Scott his favourite corner. Cassie was kneeling in front of the TV cabinet, plugging in the PlayStation, getting Loki to help. That wasn't going too well, because Loki had apparently never seen a PlayStation before.

"So, you get the wire that connects to the PlayStation and plug this end into the TV," Cassie was patiently explaining to him.

"Right," Loki nodded. "Makes sense. Everything was so much simpler in Asgard. We didn't have wires."

"You invented wireless thousands of years ago? Cool," Cassie said. "Did you have Bluetooth?"

Loki blinked confusedly in reply.

Scott went to interrupt them before Cassie's or Loki's brain exploded. "Hey guys, so what we putting in first?"

"We're doing Sing It: High School Musical first," Cassie sighed, and Scott's heart lifted considerably. "Only three songs of your choosing, then we're moving on, or we'll never get through the games."

Scott didn't mind. This game was his favourite game ever. "OK, so long as I get to make the rules and choose the songs."

"I said you can choose the songs..." Cassie said quietly, stopping when she realised she'd already lost her dad's attention.

"OK everyone," Scott said, addressing the room. Everyone went silent. Scott got into lecture mode. "I am going to set the rules for this game." He coughed unnecessarily, although everyone was silent already. "Rule Number One: everyone, including you Scrooge- I mean Hank-" (Janet laughed) "-has to participate. Rule Number Two, we go in the order we're sitting in, or will be sitting in when everyone has sat down, so we're starting with Paxton and Maggie, then passed to Janet, to Scrooge- Hank, to Hope, to me, then whatever order we can squash Cassie, Stephen and Loki in. Then whatever poor sucker has to sit on the end has to run over to Paxton quickly and pass the mic."

"Strange," Loki nominated immediately. Stephen scowled at him.

"Rule Number Three: everyone is only allowed to sing one line before passing on the mic," Scott continued. "The lyrics will be at the bottom of the screen for those that don't know the songs. But I don't think anyone here hasn't seen High School Musical, right?"

Everyone nodded, but Loki said, "Not me." Was it Scott's imagination, or did Cassie say she was jealous?

"Well then, you get to discover the joys of Troy and Gabriella's confusing teenage relationship," Scott said.

"Oh, lucky me," Loki said sarcastically, and half the room laughed. Excluding Scott. What was with all the High School Musical hate? High School Musical was amazing!

"Anyway... I think that's it. Any questions?" Scott asked.

"Do we have to?" Hank asked immediately, which Scott had expected, quite honestly. The answer was easy.

"Yes, or I will get Stephen to set the cloak on you," he answered, and the cloak perked up at the mention of its name. Wait... was "Cloak" actually the cloak's name? Imaginative.

"Fine," Hank said. Scott noticed Stephen smile slightly.

"I hope you all know that this cloak is beyond my control," Stephen said. "I'm just putting it out there that it has a mind of its own."

"I think we guessed," Cassie laughed. "That cloak likes everyone."

"Yep," Stephen nodded, as the game started to load and Cassie passed the Sing It microphone to Paxton, who wasn't too pleased about starting. "There's only two people in the entire world its not too keen on, and that's the devil and Wanda Maximoff."

Hope and Hank exchanged a very quick glance. Scott nearly missed it, it was that quick, but he didn't see an immediate need to worry... maybe they just recognised Wanda's name?

"Maybe she's special," Cassie shrugged. "OK, let's get this game started!"

"Yes!" Scott shouted, then dived into his seat in the corner. Everyone laughed when he misjudged the landing and collapsed on his head. Cassie squished herself next to her dad, Loki made himself comfortable on the arm of the sofa and Stephen, with the aid of the cloak, sat in the air next to him. Then Scott realised, wedged between his daughter and his girlfriend, that actually he needed to get up. "Hey, can someone pass me the TV remote and console controller?"

Being just about the only one who could move, Stephen collected said items from the coffee table and threw them at Scott, who put up his hands to protect himself. "Hey!"

Scott started flicking through all the songs. So many choices! How could he only choose three?

He bit his lip, then made up his mind. "OK everyone, I've got it. This one's called A Night To Remember."

"Oh no, why?" Paxton complained, because of course, he would be starting. "This song is embarrassing."

"Tough," Scott said, and Cassie started giggling at the prospect of what was going to happen. He pressed play on the song. "All right then, get ready."

The music started playing. Paxton was going red, so he hid his face and microphone behind a cushion. "I just want to say," his slightly muffled voice said, "that I apologise for having to make you all hear my crap singing voice."

"Can't be any worse than mine," Scott shrugged.

"No, that's not possible," Cassie agreed immediately, and everyone started laughing.

Scott shushed everyone and thankfully, silence was restored just as Paxton had to start singing.

His voice muffled, he sang, "Guess now it's official," then passed on the mic to Maggie. He wasn't too bad, Scott thought.

"Can't back out, can't back out, no," Maggie sang, with her surprisingly good singing voice, then passed on the mic to Janet.

Janet couldn't stop herself laughing as she sang her line, but Hank didn't even sing his line and just passed the mic straight over to Hope. She didn't even get chance to tell him off because this bit was fast.

"Don't panic," she sang, then passed quickly to Scott, who basically shouted, "Panic!" But, as usual, he got the line perfect.

He passed the microphone to Cassie, who just had time to clear her throat before singing almost perfectly, "Now do we have to dress up for the prom?" and passing the microphone to Loki.

Being Loki though, he wasn't going to settle for the lyrics. Instead of "Dude I don't think we have a choice," he sang, "Dude what the f*** is this song?" And yet he managed to get score multiplier to x2 and get a perfect score without even singing the lyrics. Everyone laughed except Stephen who needed to get ready to sing, and Cassie even clapped and said it was a valid question.

Then poor Stephen had to sing in a squeaky falsetto. "Yeah it's the night of all nights," he sang, then quickly made a portal to pass on the mic to Paxton.

He and Maggie had apparently decided to share their lines and put their heads together and sang, "Gotta look just right," also in a squeaky falsetto, meaning they lost Loki's x2 multiplier.

Janet sang her line ("Dressing to impress the boys") OK, skipped Hank and passed the mic straight to Hope. "Do I want classic or vintage or plaid?" she sang, passing it onto Scott, who sang, "Where's the mirror?" He got a perfect score! He was totally acing those four words so far!

Cassie and Loki were both a good singing duo though – both of them getting perfect score, Cassie winning a x2 multiplier with her "I think this tux is too baggy, too tight," and Loki winning a x3 multiplier with his "It makes me look weird," line.

In the little music gap when he passed on the mic, he said, "Yeah it does." Scott agreed very much. Especially with that little dance...

Stephen went pink as he had to put on another squeaky falsetto. "Should I go movie star glamourous, sassy or sweet?" and passed the mic through the portal.

As Maggie and Paxton sang their line, Loki said, "You should definitely go as Dr Sassy Strange."

Scott, Hope and Cassie burst out laughing. That image was too much. Stephen just went pink and did a Paxton – hiding his face behind a cushion.

They sang through the whole song quite well, though towards the end everyone was either hiding behind a cushion (Stephen and Paxton) ignoring their turns (Hank) or laughing their heads off and therefore getting crap scores (Scott). Janet, Hope and Team Maxton (Maggie and Paxton) were doing OK, Stephen just sounded muffled, Scott was ruining everything by laughing, Cassie and Loki were both laughing, but managed to pull things together when it was their turns and were just about getting perfect scores every time still. Scott just couldn't. Everything about the situation was making him laugh, and the still-lingering image of Dr Sassy Strange wasn't helping.

The song finished on a total surprise though. Janet was just passing over the microphone to Hope, like she had for the whole song, but Hank took the mic instead and sang, way too enthusiastically and terribly, "And never, ever, ever, never, ever, ever, never, ever, never, ever, ever forget!"

Despite failing miserably and being everywhere on the notes scale, everyone clapped and laughed at this unexpected plot twist. Scott certainly hadn't been expecting it. The laughing was starting to hurt now.

"You know this means you're going to have to join in on all the songs now, right?" Scott told him. "And put on your Santa hat. Stop being such a Scrooge."

Hank sighed. His answer was surprising. He was just silent as he jammed his hat on and didn't complain. Silent! No complaining!