Birthday fun

[rogers_that]

It all started with a cake. Not enough stories these days did anymore, especially not in the lives of the Avengers. This wasn't just any cake either. It wasn't store-bought, picked up from the grocery with a hope that the teenager doing the lettering spelled a name correctly. It wasn't from a fancy bakery, though the person who had taken it upon himself to do the baking could have afforded something outlandish. No, this cake came from various boxes and cartons, the contents of which were painstakingly mixed together in more or less the way the recipe card was read off.

There may have been some corners cut, the eggs might not have been carefully folded (mostly because how do you fold eggs when they're goopy), the buttercream might be too runny, but the result was still fairly remarkable.

Even more remarkable was how intact it arrived, in a box in the back of an Audi, to all the usual fanfare Tony himself enjoyed when speeding through the security gates that those working at the Compound feverishly rushes to open for him. One scratch on that car would mean less of a Christmas bonus for everyone.

The cake was transported carefully from the back of the car towards one of the living quarters, a building shared by most of the non-retired Avengers. It did not need to be announced, so the man carrying it didn't bother to knock. Not at the front door and not at the recipient's bedroom. There was no need. No one would be awake anyway.

The time on his watch read 11:58 and so the cake was forced to wait a full two minutes until the day rolled over to be dramatically presented.

Tony Stark burst through the door and JARVIS started the Star-Spangled Banner on his cue, red and blue lights flashing. It was all beautifully patriotic, much like the cake itself, decorated to resemble Captain America's shield. "Happy Birthday, Grandpa!"

Comments

[rogers_that]

Steve had really tried no to let anyone know when his birthday was. The Smithsonian, which he had visited just out of morbid curiosity what it would say about him, had posited that his recorded birthday of July 4th was a gimmick to help Captain America sell war bonds. And that his real birthdate had been lost to the annals of time.

He preferred to keep it that way.

Not that he hated birthdays, some of his fondest memories were waking up on July 4th with the heat already baking the inside of their little tenement, his Ma having got fresh eggs special for the day to make him pancakes before school. But those days were long gone, and he didn't want his birthday to be a spectacle any more, he just wanted to forget how out of time he was.

Which was why he was really unimpressed when he bolted awake at the sudden intrusion of light and noise, dressed only in some sweatpants and nothing else, hand already on the shield at his bedside before he realised what was going on and sank back down to the edge of the bed with a groan.

"Tony-- it's the middle of the night, what are you doing here?"