Okay, I lied. This chapter is the longest. There's one more later on that over 5,000 words, but it's not quite as long as this one. And since they both take place on the same day, I decided to post them as a double chapter.

Chapter 11: Twenty-Three More

He didn't know who to talk to first. Most of the crowd had compartmentalized into smaller groups. Steve headed first to Natasha, Kate, Nick, and Matt to participate in the car discussion. Bucky decided to mingle and drop in and out of the various conversations. He drifted first towards Josiah, who was deep in discussion with Gabe about the US able-bodied soccer teams' odds at the next Olympics.

"The women's team is going to win gold, but we'll be lucky if the men even qualify," Gabe said.

"I agree the women will probably do better, but you don't seriously think they'll win gold again?"

"I do. They've just added Morgenthau to the roster."

"I saw her play in college. She's not even that good."

"Sure, she does have a history of yellow cards, but she's easily the best striker I've ever seen."

"Whatever," Josiah grumbled. He noticed Bucky standing nearby. "What do you think?"

Bucky shrugged. "Honestly, I don't follow able-bodied soccer as much as I used to. But I can say with certainty that Morgenthau is more likely to get a red card and sit out the rest of the match than she is to secure a gold medal victory."

"See?" Josiah said to Gabe. The argument continued, but Bucky moved on. He listened to Bruce talking about his latest research to an eager-but-confused-looking Thor and strongly resisted the urge to pet Valkyrie where she sat by Thor's side. That was off limits for multiple reasons. Betty and Victor were also listening, though they definitely seemed more aware of the meaning of all Bruce's big words than Thor did. As he progressed to the next clump of people, Bucky nearly got hit in the head with an overly patriotic frisbee.

"Watch it!" he called. "I said whoever hits Steve."

"Sorry!" Jim cried. He dashed over to pick up the frisbee. Maria saw him do it and asked if she could participate. "Yes ma'am," Jim said with a flirtatious smirk.

"Not interested," Maria said flatly, before snatching the frisbee right out of his hand and tossing it to a waiting Timmy. Jim looked to Bucky with sad puppy dog eyes.

"That's Carol's girlfriend," Bucky informed him.

"Oh, okay." He perked right back up and ran off to take the frisbee from Timmy. A few moments later, Steve Danvers also joined the fray. Bucky expected Monica to stick close to her sister, so he was genuinely surprised to find her chatting with Wanda.

"I absolutely love these shorts," Wanda said. Monica had embraced the colors of the occasion almost as much as Steve; she wore a red top and white shorts patterned with blue fish. "Where did you get them?"

"I actually made them. Maria and I went shopping and I found a bolt of this fabric and I just thought it was the cutest thing."

"You make your own clothes?"

"Some of them."

"That's incredible. The most impressive thing I've ever made is a half-decent paprikash," Wanda said with a laugh.

"I'm sure it was more than half-decent."

Bucky wandered onward once again. Tony had evidently challenged Parker to cornhole, and the two were deeply engrossed. "It's simple physics," Tony insisted. "The trajectory of the bean bag." As he said this, he tossed one that didn't even hit the board.

"Uh-huh, sure," Parker drawled. He threw his own beanbag, which slid so close to the hole that it almost fell in.

"Nice one," Bucky remarked.

Parker grinned "Thanks."

Kate politely asked to join their game, and Tony switched out with her. She immediately put Parker to shame and landed three bean bags in a row directly in the hole. Parker looked positively dumbfounded. "Clint and I used to play all the time, when he was too tired or I was too lazy for archery," she remarked. "I guess I got pretty good at it."

"That's an understatement," Tony remarked. "Please teach me how to do that."

"I can try," Kate offered. Bucky left them to it.

MJ sat in one of the folding chairs, observing the competition with all the intention of a tennis judge. Bucky decided to join her. A few moments later, Steve wandered over with his first (and likely his only, knowing him) beer of the afternoon. "Hey," Bucky greeted. "You having fun?"

"Yep." Steve plopped down into the chair beside MJ and took a sip. Natasha, solo cup with who-knows-what in hand, sat in the next one over.

"You know," MJ began. "Independence from the British is more widely celebrated than any other holiday in the world."

Steve took another swig of his drink. "I hate to break it to you, but independence from your mother's womb is even more widely celebrated than that."

MJ's usually somber expression broke into a wry grin. Bucky, on the other hand, found this way funnier than she did, hence his joyous chortle that drew Tony and Parker's focus from their game. Steve also found it hilarious, and he laughed with his entire body in the way Bucky found hopelessly endearing. He clutched his left chest so hard that Bucky worried about the safety of the Yankee Doodle shirt.

"Does Russia have an Independence Day?" Bucky asked Natasha.

She nodded. "Twelve June is Russia Day."

"How do you celebrate it?"

"Similar to here. We have fireworks, concerts, no school or work. But this is better." She gestured to the festivities around them. The freedom frisbee, as Bucky had just christened it in that moment, sailed over their heads and bonked against a tree, falling to the ground. Jim dashed over to retrieve it.

"That thing is probably one throw away from breaking," Bucky warned.

"Nah, it's fine." Jim knocked it against his head for good measure and then tossed it back to Timmy.

Nick and Matt wandered over and found their own chairs. "Your yard smells nice," Nick remarked dryly.

"What does it smell like?" Steve asked.

"Healthy grass and, at the moment, beer," Matt said.

"And whatever Nat's drinking," Nick added. "You know you're not old enough to drink alcohol in this country, right?"

"What I don't know won't hurt me," she said.

"Not sure what that means. Anyway," Nick continued. "Matt and I were hoping to try our hand at cornhole, but I'm afraid we'd need some accommodations to do so."

"Don't be afraid," Steve assured. "Any party hosted here will always be all-inclusive to the best of our ability."

"Could you turn off the music?" Matt asked.

"Sure. Bucky?"

"On it." He paused the music playing on the Bluetooth speakers from his phone.

Steve turned to Tony, Kate, and Parker and asked if they'd be willing to let Nick and Matt have a go.

"As long as I get to watch them at it, I'm down," Tony said. He handed his three bean bags to Matt, and Kate handed hers to Nick. Several people also gathered to watch the spectacle, and the buzz of conversation around the yard died down as people fell silent to watch. Bucky had little idea how they would manage to play successfully without eyesight, but he eagerly watched to learn how.

They began by crouching down to feel the board with their hands, scouting out the circular cutout towards the top. Then they switched sides and placed their bean bags beside the board. "Do you want to go first?" Matt offered. Nick picked up a beanbag and nodded. Matt used his cane and tapped first the bottom of the board, then the top, then each side, right and left. Nick nodded and tossed the bag. It landed half on the board.

"I heard it hit," he announced. "How close was I?"

"About six inches short and four to the left of the hole," Steve told him.

"Not bad for a blind guy."

"How'd you do that?" Bucky asked.

"I know where the hole is relative to the sides of the board, and I listen to the taps to know where each side is in space."

"That's so cool," Tony said, awestruck.

"Alright, my turn," Matt said. "Nick, get tapping."

Nick did the same tapping pattern that Matt had done for him. Matt lined himself up to throw…and sank the beanbag right in the hole. It barely even touched the edges. The cornhole equivalent of nothing but net.

"Holy shit," Steve gasped.

"Did I miss?" Matt asked.

Nick poked his cane into the hole of the board and must've felt the beanbag in the grass beneath it. "No, you didn't. You bastard."

Matt smirked. "I guess I've just got a knack for it."

"No, what you have is three years of echolocation experience on me," Nick retorted.

"Just take your turn, man."

"Fine."

Nick took his turn and landed another on the board, but this one slid off. He heard it hit the grass and scowled. Matt landed another on the board, but this one didn't go in. Once they'd used all three of their bean bags, they paused to collect them by poking around the board with their canes. Bucky offered to find and gather them, but both insisted they'd rather do it themselves. Behind him, Timmy snapped a picture of the proceedings, the intense look of focus on both Nick and Matt's faces.

Before throwing their next round, they tapped the board again to reorient. Nick landed a few close ones, but not a single went in. Matt landed two more on the board and missed one. "You know cornhole is televised sometimes?" Parker asked. "Like, the professional league?"

"No. I've never heard of such a thing," Bucky replied.

"My dads like to watch it sometimes. I don't know why. It's nowhere near this exciting."

By the time Matt and Nick called it quits, the score was sixteen to seven, Matt, and the entire party had fanned out around them to watch. Since everyone's attention was already focused on the same spot, Bucky thought it was the perfect time to announce the seed-spitting. He re-started the music back up, just in time for "Kiss Me Deadly," one of Carol's songs, to pop up in the rotation.

"Participation is optional, but encouraged, even if you've never done it before," Steve assured. "Steve, get the seeds!"

"You bet." He disappeared into the house and returned with the massive container full of seeds. "This is two watermelons' worth, so I'm not sure we'll actually use all of them."

"It's good to have extras," Bucky said. "How do we want to distribute them? I don't want everyone's hands in the same container."

"Spoon?"

"Perfect."

They formed a line through the yard and Steve Danvers deposited a spoonful of seeds into each waiting hand. Bucky had never even attempted to spit a watermelon seed before, but Steve had told him it was way harder than it looked.

"Carol used to tell me she wanted to break the world record of sixty-eight feet, nine inches," Steve said. "She never came close, but she was better than anyone else I've seen in real life."

"Sixty-eight feet?" Steve said incredulously. "My record is maybe two."

"Yeah, it's crazy what people can do. Speaking of which, you guys have a tape measure?"

"Yeah, it's around here somewhere," Bucky said. "I'll go get it." He found the tape measure in the toolbox in their hall closet and handed it to Steve. Once the last person got their seeds, he briefly explained the origin of the Danvers tradition and did the honor of spitting the first seed. It flew an impressive ten feet. Nobody except Maria and Monica even came close. Jim and Gabe shared tape measure duty, while Timmy continued to take photos.

By the time everyone had gone three times, there was a layer of watermelon seeds in the trash can and grass stains on Jim and Gabe's knees from kneeling down to find and measure the seeds' distance from people. Since there were more seeds, some people wished to continue, including Thor, who was determined to beat his personal record of six feet. Bucky decided to grab a beer and watch the proceedings instead. Steve wanted to quit, but Maria convinced him to do just a few more.

He popped another seed into his mouth, a black one this time, and spit. It sailed way farther than anybody expected, and Gabe's measurement proved he tied the other Steve and Maria for the win. Steve's eyes widened comically. "Are you serious?"

"Yep. Congratulations to Maria and the Steves!" Jim announced. "Seed-spitting champs!" He made them huddle up so Timmy could take their picture. Steve still looked completely bewildered.

"I hope no watermelons sprout in your yard," Josiah remarked.

"If one does, we'll just eat it," Bucky replied. "Speaking of eating…" he checked the time. It was a quarter to six. He located Tony and asked if he was ready to start grilling.

"Absolutely." He reached into another pocket of his cargo pants and produced a folded square of fabric. As he unfolded it, it revealed itself as an apron that read, "I'm flippin' awesome" with a picture of a spatula. Bucky snorted through his nose when he read it. He also heard Timmy's chuckle behind him; hopefully, he'd get some good photos of this ridiculousness. Tony headed over to the grill and fired it up. Bucky showed him where all the grilling tools were and brought out the burgers, the mushrooms, and cheese slices.

"Alright, head count!" Tony called. "We've got meat and we've got mushrooms. But not the fun kind, Bruce," he clarified.

"Tony, what you smelled in my apartment that one time was herbal tea, not edibles," Bruce said, exasperated.

Tony shrugged. "Either way, it had you pretty mellow. Now hands up for mushrooms."

Parker, Wanda, Bruce, and MJ raised their hands, and Tony counted them as they popped up.

"Okay, I'm assuming everyone else will take meat or nothing. That math's simple enough. Of those for meat, who wants cheese?" Everyone's hand except for Jim's and Victor's shot up, and Tony counted. "Alright. Thanks everyone, you can return to your merrymaking."

"Nobody calls it that," Bucky jeered.

"Shut up and help me get this going."

"I'll grab the marinade for the mushrooms," Bucky said. He quickly ran back inside and returned with the container, into which he dropped four mushrooms. "These need to stay here for ten minutes or so, so they should be ready to go by the time you finish the first round of burgers. You washed your hands, right?" he asked as Tony dropped the first ones on the grill.

"Yeah, of course. Did you?"

"Just the one."

"Ha ha, very funny. Now go get partying. I got this."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay." Steve walked up to Bucky to ask for help getting all the sides and fixings from inside, but Parker, Josiah, and the other Steve all stepped in to kick him off set-up duty. He opened his mouth to complain, but Bucky shoved him back towards the party. "Go play frisbee with Jim and Timmy. They may or may not have been promised a reward if they hit you in the head with it."

"Okay, fine. But if you need any help, just ask."

"I'm sure we'll manage."

Bucky and his crew of helpers headed inside. He opened the fridge and started fishing out condiments and handing them off to whoever stood behind him. "Those can go on the table nearest the grill. The one that's different from the other two."

"Got it."

"Buns can go on that table too. There's a few bags on the counter over there."

Bucky pulled out the tray of lettuce and tomato slices and uncovered it, handing it to Parker. He handed off the coleslaw and the watermelon before grabbing a stack of paper plates and napkins. The tables were loaded with food by the time he got outside. Steve's timer for the green beans went off, but Bucky intercepted him on his way inside and took care of them himself. They'd made so many that they barely fit in their biggest bowl. He let Josiah carry it out for him. All that remained was to lay out serving utensils for each dish.

The smell of grilling meat began to waft around the yard. Parker kept Tony company by the grill, helping him keep track of cook time and internal temperature while also chatting about Tony's latest project. Bucky scanned the yard for Steve and found him standing well over six feet from Monica, with Maria and the other Steve beside them. He walked over to join them.

"She threw that beanbag at me so hard it exploded on impact," Monica explained bombastically. "I was picking little beanbag pellets out of my hair for days."

The others listening cracked up. Bucky hadn't heard the context of the story, but he could tell it was a doozy. Steve clapped a hand on his shoulder and explained, "Monica beat Carol at cornhole one time. She didn't take it very well."

"I see. Hopefully we won't have a similar incident today."

"I don't know, Nick looked like he wanted to slip something in Matt's drink after he lost."

"I'm sure he didn't." To prove it, Bucky called across the lawn, "Hey Matt! You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Just checking."

If Matt found the question suspicious, he didn't show it, just went back to chatting with Wanda and Victor.

"I love your hat, by the way," Monica said, gesturing to Steve's head.

"Thank you." He took it off to admire it for a second, running his fingers over the thorny stem of the rose. Bucky could see a line of crystallized salt on his forehead along where the brim sat, and some on the inside of the hat itself. All of Steve's hats had salt rings inside them from repeated wear. Even after washing, the scent still stuck to them. Bucky secretly loved it. He reminded himself to make sure Steve had a salt shaker when they started eating. Speaking of which, he ought to sanitize one and offer it to Monica too.

"It's much nicer than the CF merch Carol got me that one time," Monica said, eyeing Maria knowingly.

"That was hilarious, and you know it," she retaliated.

"What did it say?" Steve asked eagerly.

"It was a tee shirt with that little girl with the umbrella on the Morton salt logo. And it said, 'One salty bitch,'" Monica explained.

They laughed so loudly it turned the head of almost everyone at the party.

"Please let me see this shirt someday," Steve implored.

"I can send you a picture of it."

"Yes."

"Our mother wanted to burn that shirt," Maria said.

"When Carol showed it to me, I warned her that might be the case," Steve Danvers said.

"Oh please, when did she ever listen to you," Maria quipped. "I'm the only one of us with a little sister who can be bossed around." She punched Monica playfully in the arm.

"Hey! You haven't bossed me around since I was nine!"

"Whatever. I had a good run."

Tony called out, "First round is done! And first dibs go to Steve and Monica, naturally. Steve, there's not a hint of pink left in these things, I checked."

"That's okay, you don't have to," Monica insisted. "I can wait my turn."

"Yeah, and your turn is right after mine," Steve proclaimed before setting off for food. He grabbed his separate serving utensils from inside and filled a plate. Bucky knew he didn't have enzymes on him and decided to fetch them from the kitchen for him.

"Just half a dose," Steve told him when he approached with the bottle. "I know I'll be talking and eating at the same time so it'll take a while to get through all this," he gestured to his plate.

"Okay," Bucky said. Steve swallowed the pills with a swig of beer—his second, surprisingly—and took his plate over to one of the lawn chairs. Once he was far enough away, Monica took her turn, and everyone else started filing in behind her. Natasha told Nick and Matt where everything was and helped them get what they wanted. Bucky decided he could wait and went over to Monica to offer to get her salt.

She smiled. "Thanks, but I brought my own." She produced a salt shaker from her purse. "I never go to a party without one."

"Okay, great. Just thought I'd check."

The grill could only hold so much, so after the first round, things slowed down. Tony next cooked the portobellos before doing the last of the hamburgers. "Thanks for doing this," Bucky told him.

"No problem. I enjoy being grillmaster."

"I'm glad. We'll probably ask you to fill the position again next year."

"Next year? Will that party be as awesome as this one?"

"I certainly hope so."

"Sweet. I'll be there."

"Me too," Parker said through a mouthful of mushroom and bun.

"Are those any good?" Bucky asked him. "I've never made them before."

"It's great," he said.

When the last round of burgers finished, Tony and Bucky fought over who got served first, as they were the last two without a plate. Bucky ultimately won the argument and made Tony eat first. He added lettuce, ketchup, and pickles to his burger, and then cut the entire thing in half. Picking up the whole thing with one hand was way too difficult. Just as Tony promised, there was not a hint of pink on the inside, making it safe for Steve to consume. Then Bucky loaded up the rest of his plate and sat down in the grass at Steve's feet with his plate on his lap. The entire party had spread out through the chairs and the space between them. Thor sat on the ground by Bruce, and Valkyrie lay obediently by his side, but with her eyes focused longingly on his food.

"Bucky, can I get you a drink?" Gabe offered when he went back to the cooler to get one himself. Bucky realized he hadn't brought anything to drink over because he'd been carrying his plate. He'd already had a beer earlier, so he requested a water. Gabe handed him one before heading over to his seat by Jim and Timmy. Timmy stepped out of the circle briefly to take a picture. Bucky placed the bottle between the soles of his shoes and twisted the cap off. It was easier than doing it with his teeth. Steve flicked him in the back of the head for some reason. Probably just to be annoying.

"This is quite the crowd," Josiah remarked.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"Just that you're a popular guy with an incredibly diverse group of friends."

"Yeah, I'm very lucky."

"How many of you are Gravesen people?" Josiah asked. Tony, Parker, Nick, Nat, Bruce, Monica, Wanda, and Thor's hands shot up. "And the rest of you? How'd you find yourself invited to this lovely party?"

"Is that just a convoluted way of asking how they met Steve?" Bucky asked.

"Sure, whatever."

"His mom goes to my church," Matt explained.

"He stalked me on the internet," Steve said seriously.

"I did not stalk you!" Steve countered.

"That's exactly what you did, you punk," Bucky informed him. Steve flicked him in the head again.

"We sat at the same table in third grade," Jim and Timmy said.

Gabe added with a smirk, "Well, I met this kid named Bucky at soccer when I was, like, seven, and he never shut up about this Steve guy, so I made him introduce me."

"So you guys are the OGs, huh?" Josiah remarked.

"Yes," Jim declared. "If you're ever interested in embarrassing young Steve stories, we've got you covered."

Tony lifted his cup as if giving a toast. "I think I'll take you up on that."

"No, Tony," Steve said. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

"Oh yes I do."

"It's your birthday, it's practically a requirement that we embarrass you," Timmy said. Steve's ears turned red.

"Yeah," Gabe agreed. "What should we tell them, Bucky?"

"Please no." Steve sounded like he was begging, but the constant threat of laughter remained in his tone.

"Remember that teacher we hated in seventh grade?" Jim asked. "Mr. Waldau?"

"Oh yeah," Bucky said with a grin, instantly remembering the incident they were about to disclose. Behind him, Steve was already laughing.

"Mr. Waldau was our math teacher, and he was the absolute worst," Jim explained. "He assigned more homework than our other teachers combined, and on tests he would sometimes take off a quarter of a point for no good reason."

"One time he took of an eighth of a point on mine," Gabe added. "Because I shaded in my arrowheads when I wasn't supposed to. I didn't even know that was a thing."

Victor began to explain the difference in meaning between shaded and unshaded arrowheads, but he trailed off as soon as he realized that absolutely no one cared. "Sorry, continue."

"Anyway, nobody liked Mr. Waldau. But we did find some of his quirks amusing," Jim said.

"I don't think he was ever more than six feet away from a Mountain Dew," Gabe said. "The man had one on his desk during every single class period."

"Seriously? Mountain Dew?" Nick said incredulously. "That's literally the worst soda."

"I like it," Thor countered.

"You'd drink straight vinegar if someone dared you to."

"Yeah, I would. But I wouldn't…like it as much."

"Anyway," Gabe picked up the story. "He also had these glasses with one circular frame and one square one. It was so weird. Looking at him, you'd think he would be a laid-back, fun teacher, but he would snap at anyone who talked in class. Nobody liked him.

"After he marked the entire question wrong when I misspelled the units on a word problem about popcorn kernels, we decided to do something about it," Timmy said. "We convinced Steve to draw a caricature of him, complete with those funky glasses and a Mountain Dew."

"Was it a good caricature?" Tony asked.

Steve took an indifferent sip of his drink. "No, it was not."

"It was amazing," Bucky said with a laugh. He remembered the first time he saw it. They'd been eating lunch together at school when Steve showed it to them. Bucky had nearly spit water all over it, he was laughing so hard.

"It was certainly something," Jim continued. "We took this lovely caricature and we all snuck into the library and printed off a bunch of copies. They get suspicious if one person stands at the printer too long because you're not supposed to make copies, so we took turns printing off five or six each until we had a big stack."

"We put them up in all the boys' bathrooms, and scattered some on bulletin boards around the school that had spare tacks on them," Jim continued. "The day after they went up, Mr. Waldau didn't know what hit him."

Everyone in the group was either nearly choking with laughter or staring at Steve in dead silence with a look of complete incredulity. "You mean, Steve's not a complete goody two-shoes?" Parker asked in disbelief.

"Well, he was the only one to ever suggest that maybe what we were doing was a little mean-spirited and maybe we shouldn't actually go through with it, but he came around," Gabe said with a grin.

"Did they catch you?" Parker asked.

"Yeah, didn't they recognize your art style?" MJ questioned.

"No," Steve said. "The school didn't have security cameras in the hallways. And I'd never done a caricature before, so it was different enough that they didn't relate it to my work."

"Not that they'd try that hard to catch the culprit," Bucky remarked. "But they did drag us all to a school-wide assembly on respect and kindness."

"Oh God, sitting through that assembly was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do," Timmy said through tears of laughter. "I was trying so hard not to crack up."

"We couldn't look at each other or we risked completely losing our shit in the middle of a bunch of somber kids wishing they could be anywhere else," Jim added.

"That is so…middle school boy of you," Parker remarked.

"You may not have met us until after, but we were definitely middle school boys," Bucky said.

"Maybe the most middle school of all the boys," Gabe concluded.

"Except for Steve. But he's an old soul," Bucky added.

"Kind of comes with the territory," Steve remarked. "Twenty-three is about sixty in CF years."

"That's the truth, right there," Monica said.

The conversation went on for over an hour, with topics drifting from embarrassing, though sometimes heartwarming, stories about Steve, to previous Independence Day celebrations with Carol, and everything north, south, east, and west of that. As people went back for seconds, the supply of food steadily dwindled. Thor had exhausted their root beer stock almost single-handedly. Bucky made a mental note to buy double next time.

Before dusk began to fall, Bucky ended up in the chair previously occupied by Tony. Not only was it more comfortable than sitting on the ground, it gave him a perfect view of Steve. He was a generally happy person nowadays, but Bucky had never seen a more brilliant and genuine smile on his face than right now, when he was surrounded by this community that had more or less become their family.

As the sun neared the horizon, a bunch of people helped Bucky clean up and stick the meager leftovers in the fridge. They wiped off the tables and replaced the trays and dishes of sides with ones of desserts: Maria's beignets and Parker and MJ's cupcakes. In the cooler, Bucky stuck some popsicles.

He grabbed a sparkler from the box inside and stuck it in one of the cupcakes. MJ wasn't kidding when she said Parker spent a lot of time meticulously placing the sprinkles. The red and blue stars sat in the white frosting in gorgeous swirling patterns. Bucky brought the cupcake over to Steve on a plate with a mini dose of enzymes and a lighter. "Please don't sing," Steve begged when he saw the sparkler.

"If you insist," Bucky relented. Nobody liked that song anyway. He passed the box and a few books of matches around so everyone could get a sparkler. Instead of singing, they simply all cheered "Happy birthday!" as Bucky lit the sparkler in the cupcake and they all watched it burn down. Within the dimness of sunset, the yard lit up with two dozen sparklers. Bucky saw Timmy snap another photo. He was immensely glad he'd designated that job to him before the party; he couldn't wait to see all the stills from this incredible afternoon-turned-evening.

As sparklers began to die out, they plopped them in a bucket of water and headed for the desserts. Bucky learned that both the beignets and Parker's cupcakes tasted even better than they looked. "These are amazing," he told Parker.

"Thanks," he said sheepishly. "I took up baking as a kind of therapy to help with my food issues, and I guess I got pretty good at it."

"He's being modest," MJ said. "But what else is new."

"I'm glad they turned out good."

"Who's ready for National Treasure?" Tony asked aloud, lifting the projector above his head. "I need maybe ten minutes to set this bad boy up. Meanwhile, these chairs could use some rearranging for your viewing pleasure."

Together, they rearranged the lawn chairs to face the projector screen Tony was assembling. Between all the extras that had been brought by their guests, they had almost enough for everyone to have a seat. A few people volunteered to just sit on the ground. Bucky noticed Wanda and Victor sat somehow entwined enough to share a chair. If Steve was still the twig he'd been for most of his life, Bucky wouldn't have minded copying them. As it stood, they settled for an agreement to switch between a chair and sitting in front of it throughout the movie.

Naturally, the picture quality of Tony's outdoor projector was as great as any screen Bucky had ever watched on. And the audio quality was just as incredible. Bucky had never watched a movie with audio description on before, but he found it way less distracting than he ever imagined. Besides, he'd already watched this movie almost every July fourth for twenty-three years. Bucky didn't blow out a candle today, but if he had, he would've wished for twenty-three more.