A/N: Written for July 4th 2024.

"Hey Dad, Mom needs another bag of ice," Rosa called into the house, where Deeks was filling plates with raw steaks and hot dogs.

The Deeks-Blye second annual Fourth of July cookout was well underway. Sam, Callen, and Anna, among others, had gathered in the back.

"Ok. Can you bring this out to Sam?"

"Sure. ¿Necesitas alguna ayuda?"

"No soy bueno. I'll be right out."

When he came out a few minutes later with a bag full of ice, he found everyone gathered on the patio, chatting and eating snacks. Kensi and Callen were grouped around Sam at the grill, while Kilbride was once again in conversation with an animated Roberta, sans Arkady. A blanket spread out next to the patio served as a temporary playpen for Caleb and Sophia, though they kept making attempts to crawl to the freedom of the grass, their progress impeded by Kensi and Rosa in turn.

"So, how soon can we break out the sparklers?" Callen asked after the third attempt, leaning against the railing they'd installed around the patio shortly after the twins started crawling. He held a beer in one hand, a cookie in the other.

"Let me get this straight, you want to put glorified sticks of fire, which happen to be one of the most dangerous fireworks available I might add, into the hands of my eight-month-olds?" Deeks clarified incredulously.

"I mean I'd give it a year or two. They probably should be able to walk or run."

"You're a menace," Sam commented without any heat.

"Didn't you let Aiden shoot bottle rockets out of an empty coke bottle?"

"He was ten and I supervised the whole time," Sam defended himself, waving his tongs at Callen.

"We thought we'd start out with snakes and smoke bombs and ease our way into the explosives," Kensi joked. She grabbed a cookie, and came to stand beside Deeks, wrapping her free arm around his middle.

"You can't tell me both of you never played with fireworks when you were a kid," Callen persisted.

"Ray always had a bag of stuff he got from some guy selling on the corner or out of a car trunk," Deeks admitted. Kensi tilted her up as he spoke, her eyebrows furrowing. "Most of it was stupid little trinkets that didn't work, but a couple times he got his hands on an actual fountain or firecracker with some power behind it. This one year, we were maybe twelve-thirteen, and Ray runs over to my house all excited and secretive.

He smiled at the memory; they'd been simultaneously too mature and hopelessly naive.

"Somehow he'd found like an M-80 or 100, completely illegally of course. So we waited until after dark, walked to a park, and for reasons I cannot explain, decided to light it on the playground."

"Oh no," Rosa muttered from the blanket. Caleb looked up curiously at her tone of voice.

"Yeah. We exploded a slide. Maybe a couple of swings. Fortunately, we were just smart enough to move away before it went off."

"What did you do after that?" Callen asked, sounding more curious than anything.

"We ran like hell. Promised to never breathe a word to anyone and snuck back into our rooms, praying that no one would figure out we did it," Deeks finished.

"And did they?" Sam asked in between flipping a few of the thinner steaks.

"Miraculously, no." Deeks chuckled, still amazed by the fact to this day. "There were a couple articles about it in the paper that week, but no one ever even brought it up to us."

"Wow, you never told me that story before," Kensi commented, tilting her head as she quilted up at him.

"Well, it's hardly my finest moment," Deeks said with a shrug. "After that, I never set off another firework with Ray again."

"Oh, that's so much worse than what I did!" Kensi said gleefully.

"Wait, what did you do?" Deeks asked.

"I don't think there's any reason to get into that now. Besides, it's almost time to eat."

"Nah, I got another two steaks to grill. You got plenty of time," Sam said, leaning back. "Spill."

"I'd love to hear it," Rosa piped up.

"I hate you all," Kensi sighed.

"Please, Kensi, not on Independence Day," Callen said with faux indignation.

"This might be better than fireworks," Rosa commented.

A happy Fourth of July indeed," Callen commented, raising his beer in a toast.

A/N: I decided that Rosa might be comfortable calling Kensi and Deeks mom and dad at times by now.