Logs:Birthday (Red, White and) Blues

Birthday (Red, White and) Blues
Dramatis Personae Rocket, Sam, Steve
In Absentia Tony, Lucien	2024-07-01 "You're a fucking genius, figure it out!"
Location '<PRV> Sam and Steve's Apartment - Harlem'
This is a third-story walkup in an aging historic building which, while not entirely crumbling, has a certain worn and shabby look, its plumbing and fixtures often in need of repair. The apartment has two small bedrooms, but makes up for it with capacious common areas. A single long space serves as living room and dining room combined, is semi-open to the kitchen, and has a surprisingly large bathroom with an antique claw-footed tub. Tall, drafty windows let out onto the fire escape from the living room and both bedrooms, and let in excellent light from the southern exposure. The sleek art deco motif that runs through the living room furniture, while not strictly matching, has clearly been worked to coordinate. The dining set, coffee and end tables have been crafted with complementary geometric patterning, ebony accents providing a dark contrast to the warmer swirls of maple burl that feature most prominently. The sofa, love seat, and chair fill out the rest of the living room, a matching set upholstered in plush burgundy. The numerous lamps do not all match, some of them clearly temporary supplement for the inadequate overhead lighting. Once, there was a lovely maple pecan spice cake here on the table as well, but now there are only ruins, relocated to the coffee table. Rocket is slumped over with his head resting against the table, turned to the side, with his hand in the tragic remains. His regularly slim figure is being strained against his tight flight suit. He groans and grumbles, "I'm gonna die... this is it..." This doesn't stop him from bringing his clasped hand back to his mouth to feed himself what very well may be the deathblow. Steve did not take time off from his workout regimen for Canada Day, and is only now returning from his run. Zenobia was evidently through well before he was, because he's carrying her easily in one arm, her head and paws hanging over his shoulder, panting happily. "You big baby," he chides fondly, thumping her on the side as he lowers her to the floor. She scrambles for her water fountain where she starts slorping loudly and messily. He straightens up and frowns when he sees the roughly raccoon-shaped lump on the coffee table. "You alright, Rocket?" He transfers his frown from Rocket to the remnants of the cake to the box that it came in. He plucks the card off of the box, but doesn't open it. His eyes are fixed on his name elegantly calligraphed on the envelope. "What the --" He bites back the rest. Pushes his other hand through his sweat-damp hair. Tries again, at a more normal volume. "Can you read English? Shouldn't've just assumed, on account of how well you speak." "Eyugh..." says Rocket as he looks up towards Steve. "Are you alright?" he asks at Steve's initial reaction, "English? I can read. I can read lots of languages. Yours is the one with the funny little rotating glyphs." He pushes himself upright with a groan, his tail curls back around his hips. His gaze drifts around the room, momentarily settling on Zenobia, and then back at the remains before him. "You have something you want me to read?" he ventures. Steve sets his jaw hard. Turns the card around to show Rocket the gracefully written "Steve" on the front. "Can you read this?" Rocket squints at it, and then looks up towards Steve. "It says Steve," he says flatly, then reaches up to poke the 'S' with an icing-ed claw, leaving residue when it taps against the paper. "They're wiggly letters." Steve clenches his jaw even harder. "They're not 'wiggly', they're --" He sputters, flailing for a suitably dignified-sounding adjective. "-- sophisticated!" His voice is rising again. "Do you know what it means when a package has someone's name on it?" Rocket leans back as Steve's voice rises again, then bares his teeth defensively, "They aren't sophisticated, they're just wiggly!" He looks again at the card and looks up at Steve, his own voice rising in response, giving the justification, "I didn't want to read it!" "They are too --" Steve clamps his mouth shut. It's hard to say whether he recognized how juvenile he was sounding or how loud he'd gotten. Zenobia has drunk her fill of water and is now wandering over to nose at Rocket and lick the icing from the tabletop beside him. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he hisses, trying to keep his voice down. "That was -- you don't --" His broad shoulders slump, and he suddenly just sounds tired. "It's my birthday." "I don't know what the hell is wrong with me!" Rocket shouts back, jumping up to his feet, "I don't know why I ate your birthday! I don't know what a birthday is!" His fur is standing on end to make him more big and intimidating, but since it's only his head, neck and tail that are not covered in flight suit, it does not actually do much for intimidation. "And why are you getting mad at me and not her?! She's lived here way longer!" says Rocket, pointing accusingly now towards Zenobia. Sam's bedroom door opens, somewhere in here. He's dressed in crisp deep red button down and old jeans, soft house slippers, and has not emerged fully from his room. "Yo, y'all mind lowering the volume a bit, I got --" he's starting to say, polite but insistent, but he cuts himself off as he actually peers out of the door and into the living room. His mouth twitches to the side, eyes cutting from Rocket to the remainder of the cake to Steve. "-- Damn. Too late to tell you Luci sent over a cake, huh." "How the heck can you not know what a birthday is?" Steve blurts, anger and sadness briefly eclipsed by sheer bafflement. "It's right in the word! Do you know what 'birth' and 'day' mean?" He's not waiting for an answer. "You're a fucking genius, figure it out!" He looks up at Sam and blushes. "Sorry. I'll --" He glares daggers at Rocket. Stalks into the kitchen. Hucks a dish rag at the raccoon and sets a cleaning spray on the counter. "Clean this up. Then pack your stuff. You're going to Stark." Did he literally just come in from the killing heat? He's evidently heading right back out into it. At least he snags a Gatorade from the refrigerator, first. He's halfway out the door and getting ready to slam it when he hesitates. Swallows. Keeps his voice even and low. "I'm going to the gym." While Rocket's arms are flexed forward as part of his intimidation display, the dishrag hitting him shocks him into a more off balance stance, leaned back. He looks to the rag with shock and then up to Steve again with hurt and anger, and starts to wave the rag about, "Fine! Me and Stark, we're going to be best friends! We're going to have a whole bunch of birthdays and you're not invited! Get out of here, I'll show you getting out of here!" He huffs and waits until the door is closing for his posture to slump and he says to Sam, more wearily, "You listen to feelings, right? I feel..." His stomach grumbles in protest of all this abuse. "Kinda sick." Sam shoots a worried look at Steve's back, but he's quiet until the door closes. His head tilts, brow creasing. "You should have a birthday," he decides. "Don't have to be when you were really born. Good for your friends to have a day to celebrate you being here." He glances back at his computer, then to his watch. "I do. Lemme rustle you up a bit of ginger ale for that belly and see if any other feelings shake out."