Chapter 6: Fury Assembles a Team

After signing the adoption papers, Bucky's first order of business was to text Jack from soccer and ask for everything he might need to know as a cat owner. Jack's reaction? "You're getting a cat?! Send pics!"

"Pics in exchange for information," Bucky replied. He probably should have done this before actually adopting the cat, but he wasn't exactly in the state of mind for optimal planning. Alpine mewled contentedly from his new carrier, which the shelter graciously provided. Jim, Timmy, and Gabe were all staring at him and making the sorts of faces usually reserved for human babies.

Jack sent him a long list just as Terry said, "You're good to go. This guy must have an interesting backstory. He's already neutered, and the missing forelimb is definitely not congenital; there's a surgery scar. When we brought him in the vet said he's about three years old."

"Must've been a rough three years," Bucky said.

"Yeah. But I'm sure the rest of them will be great." Terry flashed him a smile.

"I'll certainly try to make them great. Thanks."

Bucky walked out of that shelter having fulfilled his promise to Steve. Not only that, but the circumstances and timing of this particular cat ending up here led him to believe that Steve, somehow, helped him do so. Otherwise, what were the odds of a three-legged cat who picked fights in alleyways getting rescued and arriving at this shelter only a day before Bucky decided to go look for one? Not likely.

"Are you going to keep his name?" Timmy asked as they got into the car. Jim drove, so he sat shotgun. Gabe and Bucky sat in the back with the carrier between them.

Bucky hadn't even thought about changing his name. "Probably not. I don't know what I'd change it to."

"Alpine is a pretty good cat name," Jim said.

"Yeah, it is. They said he's named after the street they found him on. I like that significance."

"Cool. Alpine, prepare yourself to be smothered by a cat lover who's been deprived of properly loving on cats for twenty some years."

"I'm not gonna smother him," Bucky insisted. "He was a stray, he probably doesn't like that much human contact."

"You never know. Hiro was a stray but she wanted to be held almost nonstop the first month or so we brought her home. She'd get downright mad if you stopped petting her," Jim said.

"I'm sure Alpine's personality will come out in his own time. There's always an adjustment period with adopted pets," Gabe reminded them.

Bucky just hoped Alpine wasn't the kind of cat to want total independence and nothing to do with his human. The whole point of this was to give him something to take care of.

On the way home, they stopped at the pet store to get everything on the list Jack sent. Bucky went with his recommended brand of everything and decided to assess later if anything needed to be changed. One cartful of litter supplies, wet and dry food, lint rollers, and cat toys later, they were on their way. Bucky knew he'd be back here for everything they undoubtedly forgot, but for now he was just excited to show Alpine his new home.

It wasn't that easy, though. As soon as he stood on their front porch with the carrier in his hand, he stopped in his tracks. He was about to bring a cat into his and Steve's house. Something that could easily kill his husband. And it didn't matter. Because he was already dead.

"Something wrong?" Timmy asked, coming to a stop just behind Bucky.

Bucky swallowed back a sob. He didn't want to break down in front of his friends right now. "Yeah. Just feels weird, after so long keeping pets out of here."

"I can imagine."

Without further hesitation, he went inside. The boys carried all the supplies inside and laid them by the front door at Bucky's request. He'd decide where to store everything later. Bucky took the carrier into the living room and opened the door. Alpine hesitated to leave the small, dark space, but once he did, he immediately started exploring every corner of the room.

"That didn't take long," Gabe remarked.

Bucky watched the cat with admiration. Much like Bucky, he was so used to his missing limb that he moved with all the confidence of a cat with four paws. Fleetingly, he wondered how he lost it in the first place, but soon realized that he didn't really care. It didn't matter how Bucky and Alpine got there; they were the same.

Jim, Timmy, and Gabe stayed for an hour and a half. The four of them followed Alpine around the house like an obsessive fan base, watching his every move. If he was perturbed by the entourage, it didn't really show. Bucky was torn when his three friends had to leave. On the one hand, their company was the only thing keeping him from a sobbing breakdown over having a cat in his house. On the other, he thought a sobbing breakdown might actually feel good compared to bottling it up like this and knowing that the longer he waited the more it would hurt when it eventually spilled over.

They all exchanged hugs, and the second the door closed behind Jim, Bucky burst into tears. There was a cat in his house and that was wrong wrong wrong but it didn't matter because Bucky wasn't allergic and Steve was gone. He collapsed to the floor in front of the sofa and threw his head back against the cushion, tears streaming down the sides of his face. Bucky had always loved cats, and this is what it had taken for him to finally get one of his own. He would gladly continue to admire them only in pictures and videos and occasional visits to friends' houses (always followed immediately by a strip, a shower, and a load of laundry), if it meant Steve were still here.

As his chest constricted with grief, another sensation drew his attention: a repeated bumping against his side. Bucky glanced down and saw Alpine rubbing against him. He brought his hand under the cat and lifted him to sit on his chest. The cat's bright blue eyes gazed at him with unquestionable concern. "I'm okay," Bucky told the cat. "Everything's just a little harder for me right now, okay? I lost someone very important to me."

Alpine meowed.

"Have you ever lost someone important?"

He meowed again. Bucky chose to interpret it as a sound of assent. Somebody must have taken care of him at some point, yet he ended up on the street again. Whatever happened to that person, Alpine must miss them. Bucky hugged the cat closer to his chest and let the weight ground him. No animal could ever fill the gap Steve left behind, but Bucky could already tell that life with Alpine would be leagues better than life with nobody.

~0~

The Fourth of July was less than three weeks away and Nick hadn't heard so much as a whisper about getting the Avengers together. He understood why; Parker and MJ had a newborn on their hands, Bruce and Betty had a newborn due any day now, and everybody was still reeling from the loss of Steve. Nick was probably the only one even thinking about celebrating anything, and that made him worry that if he proposed it nobody would want to participate. But it felt wrong to do nothing. He knew if they weren't distracted by each other's presence like they'd been for the first week afterwards, if they weren't able to lift each other up, they'd drown in grief.

For that reason, he mustered the courage to call Bucky and ask if he still wanted to celebrate. "I haven't even thought about it," was his response, predictably.

"I totally understand if you don't want to host, but I would like to at least do something to acknowledge the day."

"I'm okay if we still do it at my house. That's part of the tradition. But I can't do all the setup by myself."

Nick didn't expect him to even offer that much. He grinned. "That's okay. I'll enlist some helpers and we can do most of the work. All you have to do is let us know when we should show up."

"Okay. Steve and I usually started prep at eight in the morning and people started coming over at two or three."

"I can be there at eight." Nick would have to ask someone for a ride, but he knew at least one Avenger would be just as excited about this as he was.

"Great. Thank you for offering."

"No problem. I'd hate to see this tradition die. I look forward to it every year."

"Me too."

"Sounds good. I'll be in touch."

"Thanks, Nick."

Nick hung up and switched to his text thread with Matt to ask, "What are you doing this weekend?"

"Nothing. Why?"

"Do you want to help me plan a party?"

"On one condition."

"Sure."

"We can decorate with lights."

Nick didn't see any reason why they couldn't do that. "Sure thing."

~0~

In addition to Matt, he also enlisted Dawn to be the working eyes of the party-planning team. She was almost as excited as he was. Nick invited the two of them over to his apartment on a Saturday, two weeks before the party. He assigned Matt as scribe and Dawn to the computer to browse Pinterest for decoration inspiration and other sites should they decided to buy anything. Nick already knew that Bucky had the cornhole set and the Freedom Frisbee, and that Tony still had his projector. The party was almost an entire month after his surgery, so he should be able to make it. Nick told Matt to write on the to-do list to ask Tony if he'd be up for the trip.

"Sure thing." Matt wrote that out on Nick's Brailler. Dawn could read it just as well as Nick could, so there was no reason to have a version in print.

"We'll definitely have to do some grocery shopping and some cooking," Nick continued. The food traditions were as important to the Avengers Fourth of July celebration as anything else. "Make sure you write down low sodium green beans."

"That was the first thing I wrote down."

"How'd you know about that?"

"I've been to five of these parties and my taste buds are more acute than the average person's. I know they're always low sodium."

"But do you know why?" Dawn asked. Nick knew she knew the answer despite never having attended one of Steve's birthday parties. She knew the answer because Nick told her the story one time.

"Something to do with Carol."

"Close enough. Steve bought her low sodium because of her heart condition, that one time they celebrated at Gravesen."

"That's nice."

"Yeah. Anyway, there's a bunch more that we usually it. It's a potluck sort of thing. However, this year there's gonna be a lot fewer people in attendance." Nick doubted that both Parker and MJ would make it, if either of them. Babies that young weren't really supposed to be around large groups of people because their immune systems weren't developed yet. And by July, Bruce and Betty would also be new parents. That meant Nick and Matt would need to pick up the slack.

"Dawn, what's the market for outdoor lights looking like?" Matt asked.

"There's not much that's red white and blue. Everything's Christmas lights," she said. "Wait, Matt, can you tell what color a light is?"

"No, but I figured everyone else at the party might object to blatantly Christmassy lights in July."

"Found some!" she exclaimed. "Turns out just looking up 'red white and blue lights' gives you exactly what you're looking for. I was just browsing all lights hoping to find the right color combo."

"Excellent. Order some," Nick said.

"Yes." Matt certainly sounded excited.

"Steve always made the hamburger patties from scratch. Matt, how are you with raw meat?" Nick asked.

"Average, I guess. How about you?"

"Probably about the same." Nick cooked meat at least once a week because he loved when his apartment filled with the smell, but he'd never made patties from scratch like Steve did. It didn't sound too difficult though. "We can ask Bucky to commandeer his kitchen the morning of the party. We can go shopping on Friday or Saturday. Dawn, will you help?"

"Sure thing."

"Okay, so that covers food, entertainment, and some of the decorations. Anything we want besides lights?" Steve and Bucky didn't usually put anything special up besides lawn chairs. That, and Steve's Yankee Doodle shirt. Oh shit. "Wait a minute, I just had an idea. We should think of something special to do with Steve's shirt." Nick had never seen it, but Bucky described it in great detail to him—much to both of their amusement—and he knew how special that shirt was to Bucky. To have the party without the shirt there in some respect would be upsetting.

"Yeah, that's a good idea."

"What shirt?" Dawn asked.

"Bucky bought him this stupid tee shirt for his first birthday after they were married. It's got one of those 'Hello, my name is,' stickers on it and says Yankee Doodle Dandy. He wore it at this party every year."

"Oh, that's adorable. What can we do with it? Would Bucky want to wear it?"

"I don't think so," Nick said.

"What if we put it up somewhere?" Matt suggested. "Like a painting or something."

"Sounds kind of shrine-like," Dawn pointed out. "That could be a good or bad thing, depending on the vibe you're going for."

"Yeah, you're right. I think it could work," Nick said.

"I'm looking at tee shirt display cases as we speak," Dawn announced. Suddenly, she started laughing.

"What is it?"

"They make ones that are shaped like muscular torsos. You can put the shirt on it just like a person."

"Now that's creepy."

"Yeah, definitely not the move for this occasion. What if we hung it with clothespins on a line? We would put it up alongside letters that say Happy Fourth or something."

"I like that idea," Nick agreed. "Not too shrine-like or funeralish."

"Perfect. I'll order one of those."

"If the letters come separately, then Matt or I could actually help put it together," Nick said.

"Gotcha. Found one."

"Great. Is there anything else?"

"Invitations?" Dawn suggested.

Every year prior, Nick had just been sent a text invite and a shared note to keep track of who was bringing what. But official invites sounded like a cool idea, especially since this year was the first where people might question whether or not they were having a party. "I think I'll put that down as your responsibility. We don't have time for physical invitations in the mail, but an Evite will do."

"On it."

"Is that all?" Matt asked.

"I think so."

"Be honest Nick," Dawn said. "Did you want to do this because you secretly love celebrating your birthday like this?"

"What? No! My birthday's in January." Matt didn't know his secret. Only his family, doctors, and Carol had ever known his actual birth date.

"Wait what? Nick, what's she talking about?"

"Nothing. Dawn clearly has her months confused."

"I don't believe you. My lawyer senses are tingling."

"That's not a thing."

"I can literally hear your heartbeat speeding up, which means you're lying."

"That's bullshit. People can't hear heartbeats."

"Try me, Nicholas."

"Fine. January fourth is actually my half birthday. Growing up, I didn't want to lump two celebrations into the same day and it just kinda stuck. More recently, I just didn't want to steal Steve's 'Mr. Patriotic' thunder."

"Wow. That's so…I don't even know the adjective."

"Shut up, Murdock."

"Your secret's safe with me."