dear_mun | → testing, one two three....

[ ~~slaps with a shark~~ ]

Today is your name day? That is cause for celebration.

[ you old fart ]

[ ~~wow rude~~ ]

Well, it's the fourth. [ He seems pretty gosh darn proud about that. ] So the whole country kind of celebrates with me.

[ Although he realizes a second later that Thor might not get why. ]

[ ~~asgardian courting ritual deal w it~~ ]

Would they not normally?

[ yo. his whole realm celebrates on his name day. is this not a Thing????? ]

[ He laughs. Not in a mean way, because Steve doesn't have a mean bone in his body unless he's killin' nazis ~~wrong movie~~ ~~or is it?~~ It's just, sometimes Steve feels like he's from another planet, but Thor actually is. Or another realm, whatever. ]

No, and—it's not actually my birthday they're celebrating. The fourth of July is Independence Day. It's like...America's birthday.

And there are fireworks and parades... [ So what if they're not for him? But he pretty much is America so...they might as well be. ] I can't really complain.

[ idk what is a movie? and y'know. everyone is the first to point fingers that thor is an alien or whatever, but, midgardians are to him. so. idk where i was going with that, actually. shh. ]

I see. [ there's some beard stroking action going on here, rest assured ] You are Captain America, are you not? So is that not... one in the same? Do they know you share the same date?

[ Steve doesn't really care if Thor is an alien or a god or whatever; he just sees him as a friend. A friend who also happens to be a powerful ally. Seriously. He's seen some of the things Thor can do and sometimes he just feels out of his league.

But Steve's a naturally humble man.

That's why he kind of laughs and shrugs his shoulders in response to Thor's question. ] Some of them, probably. [ Like ~~Coulson~~ avid Captain America fans. And the government. ...Which Coulson also happen~~ed?~~s to be a part of. ] But it doesn't really matter, whether people know or don't know. I just like to see them celebrating the nation and...the values that I stand up for.

That's enough for me.

If you tell Tony, he'll throw you a hell of a birthday bash.

Yeah, that's...why I wasn't planning on telling him.

[ Not that there's any real way to stop him from finding out, but... ]

He might do it anyway.

[Wry smile.] Details of your life aren't exactly hidden.

Tell me about it.

[ Especially now that they're in the ~Information Age~ or whatever. Can't keep anything a secret anymore. ]

But it's the Fourth of July, so he might already have plans. [ Hopefully plans that don't involve a surprise birthday party for Steve. ]

Edited 2013-07-03 20:23 (UTC)

[She winces. Yeah. She hadn't thought about how crazy the place was gonna get.] If it gets too much, I'm sure there'll be plenty of alcohol on hand.

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of.

[ He smiles, seeming somehow resigned. ]

...Alcohol doesn't really have an effect on me. I have a—super metabolism, I guess. [ STEVE ROGERS' ATTEMPT AT A JOKE. ]

We could probably test that, if you wanted.

[ Oh, he has tested it.

Several times. ]

What are you suggesting, Doctor?

Just a thought. I don't know how much the scientists really looked into the changes to your metabolism post-serum, and after you disappeared, there wasn't exactly much data to work with.

(no subject)

oldglory - 2013-07-08 15:15 (UTC) - Expand

I'm eighty-four, [ Natasha offers, which is maybe as close as she'll get to saying that she actually likes Captain America. ]

Happy birthday.

[ Come on, Natasha. He's a super likeable guy. ]

Thanks. [ Look at that charming, boyish smile. ] You look good for your age, if you don't mind me saying.

[ One might even say he's a super man.

Ha.

Haha.

Ha. ]

You're not the first to say it.

[ Actually ma'am he's a super soldier. ]

I don't doubt it.

But how many of them knew your true age?

Two.

[ And if that's not a sign that Natasha likes him (as in, likes him enough to say something honest about herself), well. ]

[ Steve's not so good with headgames, likes things more direct, but even he gets it. Because he knows Natasha. Frankly, he's honored to be one of the two.

It shows in the little upwards turn of his mouth. ]

You sure do play your cards close to your chest.

Let's call it a lifetime of old habits.

[ With how old they are, it's actually a lifetime. ]

Does it ever get tiring?

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It's basic arithmetic, Stark. [ Tony he does not need your sass on his birthday. ] Are you trying to tell me you can build the Iron Man suit but you can't find the difference between two numbers?

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[ Actually punching Tony in the mouth would probably be a better birthday present. But Steve has this policy of not attacking his friends and allies.

At least, not without a really good reason. And, tempting though it may be, Tony's smart mouth doesn't actually count. ]

Well, ninety-five or twenty-five, I'm pretty sure I'd celebrate the same way. [ Hardly anything to ruminate about. ] With fireworks, and maybe a barbecue if anyone's around. But a lot of people have plans for the Fourth of July, and as long as they're celebrating that, with whoever they want to celebrate it, I'm happy.

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[ Yeah, he won't. He won't even come close. Even though their personalities go together like oil and water and their beliefs are often contrary, Steve has a begrudging respect for Tony.

Sometimes it's not even that begrudging.

This is not necessarily one of those times. ]

It's not depressing. It's...

[ It's modest. It's simple. It's Steve.

And this... This is what he wanted to avoid. Tony says fireworks and Steve imagines an over-the-top pyrotechnics display that takes down half the neighborhood in a fiery blaze.

But Tony's actually kind of offering to do something nice for him, having a birthday or a Fourth of July celebration (they're pretty much the same thing), and he can't possibly say no to that. Plus, he's pretty sure that if he did, Tony would just do it anyway.

He does debate it for a good 30 seconds though. ]

You can just bring yourself, and your—whoever. Leave the fireworks to me.

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[ What Tony considers having a stick up his ass is what most people consider a sense of propriety and common decency, which Tony consistently seems to lack. He's a lot like his father in some ways, and in other ways...he's worse.

But then there are those qualities that Steve likes, or if he doesn't like them, he at least admires them. More than anything, Tony frustrates him, because he has all the potential to be a good man but it gets twisted up somewhere (probably around his liver); or maybe Tony frustrates him because he is a good man, but he doesn't fit into Steve's cookie-cutter ideals about good and bad. He forces Steve to think and rethink his views about the world—much like everything else he's encountered in the modern era.

Tony's a different kind of hero. He's sarcastic and abrasive, he doesn't think before he speaks or acts, or else he just thinks too fast for anybody else to keep up, he has an ego the size of the moon, but, above all, he's full of surprises.

And a lot of Steve's negative assumptions about Tony (not all of them, but the ones that really mattered) were wrong.

Fortunately, Steve's the kind of guy who can admit it and grow from it, and even come to like someone that he wouldn't have imagined he ever could. They probably wouldn't be having this conversation otherwise. ]

Sparklers are classic. [ Like him. ] Anyway, you don't have to be a scientist to know a thing or two about fireworks. Trust me, I can handle it.

[ Besides, it's not like there won't be a dozen other fireworks displays going off in the city if Steve fails to deliver... ]

I think you always showed them, Captain, but I don't believe your years away from us count toward your true age.

[ He smiles, and it's one of those floating-on-air, soft-around-the-edges smiles he gets whenever there's Peggy. ]

It sure feels like it sometimes. Time stood still for me, but...not for the rest of the world.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, time out! You're ninety-five? Uh-uh! No freakin' way!

[ He likes your exuberance, son. ]

Technically.

But I was kind of...frozen in time [ literally ] between 1940 and 2012.

[She's not quite a "son," but you're close enough.]

Holy crap! Man, I gotta say, ya look pretty freakin' good for a human popsicle. And, y'know, a human in general. N... not that I'm inta nonhumans or anything. Unless you're not a human.

...

Man, screw dis place.

[ LMAO whoops. Can't blame him, he's an old man. ]

Yeah, the guys who thawed me out did a bang-up job. [ Whoa whoa whoa. Take it easy, miss. ] But I am—human, that is.

[ Well.......superhuman. ]

Guess you heard about the incident in New York?

[Given she's a female AU of a male character, you kinda have an excuse.]

Uhhh... New York, yeah, yeah! That, uh, thing that happened there. Kinda fuzzy on the details, but, uh... why doncha fill me in, huh?

[ Ok I'm not completely off my rocker then :D' ]

There was an attack. From outer space. [ That's what he thought the 'nonhuman' reference was to... He imagines people must be pretty freaked out about aliens after the incident.

He is.

But he's Captain America so he can't exactly let it show. Not that he would even if he weren't Captain America; it's not just not his style. He always keeps a level head, even when he's trying to reconcile the existence of gods and aliens. ]

You must not be from around New York.

Yeah! I'm from Boston!

[Her accent backs that up pretty effectively.]

Y'know, like two months ago I woulda told ya you were freakin' nuts, but after takin' a walk around dis place for like ten seconds? Ha! So how'd it go? Everything turn out okay?

You sure did.

Happy Birthday, Steve.

Thanks. [ :') ] Couldn't've done it without you, though.

Me? Nah, I wouldn't go that far.

[Mooore like, I don't want to think of what would have happened otherwise. But he's not going to mention that part.]

I would.

[ It's all right, Bucky doesn't have to mention it. There's an unspoken understanding between them, the kind that only best friends or brothers could have. Of what they mean to each other. ]

We've always been a team, Bucky.

Damn right we have.

[He'll pretend his voice isn't a little choked up.]

If you weren't awake for most of those years, do they still count?

[ Well the more people keep asking him that the more he thinks not. ]

On paper, I guess. Not so much physically or...mentally. [ But there's still that generational gap and sometimes he does feel like somebody's grandfather. ]

The long and short of it is, I don't really know.

[ it counts enough for the age jokes, anyway. ]

You've still more than beaten the odds.

[ Natasha needs to stop spending time with Tony.

But now he smiles. ]

Seems like it. But it wasn't without a whole lot of help.

[ wow tony getting credit for her sense of humor? r u d e. ]

No, but the same's true of everyone who's achieved something great.