On Birthdays and Traditions
As Theodore Altman got older, he realized that birthdays, despite each one being unique to their years, generally followed the same pattern. There was the first ‘Happy Birthday’ at midnight, quickly followed by a kiss from Billy. The breakfast in bed, usually omelettes or waffles. Lunch with his hero teammates. Later in the day there was a family dinner at the Kaplan’s with a cake and ice cream. A glass of wine and a toast with his eventual husband.
And the last hour of his birthday was always spent with Tommy.
It was the first time they did this, a scant two months after his mother’s death, that made Teddy realize that the speedster wasn’t the uncaring felon Tommy (and Eli if Teddy was completely honest) made himself out to be. It had started as an offhand remark when they were talking with the team. ‘I guess that’s why Mom always had us eat our cake outside. She must have missed space.’
Teddy had been ready to be mad when Tommy had practically kidnapped him, dumping him reasonably gently on a grassy hill. But there had been a blanket, and more stars than the Skrull-Kree prince had ever seen in his life. Two dozen slightly squashed cupcakes with melty messy icing, obviously made from a box mix and frosted before they were properly cooled. A sheepish grin and a silver framed picture of him and his mother.
So, their own little tradition was born.
An hour before midnight, Tommy picked him up and whisked him away. They never went to the same place, always remote and cloudless, the stars were a blanket of white above them. The homemade cupcakes got better every year, the chats more comfortable, the blanket, kept only for that occasion, a little more worn. And always between them sat a different framed picture of Sarah and Teddy.
Teddy didn’t really want to know how his brother, in all but blood, got those pictures. It would ruin the magic of it.
And it was magic, a small mundane magic. Isn’t that what love really is after all?