Marvel-ous Ninjutsu

00073. Happy Birthday!

Sunday, June, 21st, 1998

The day of Theo’s fourth birthday started the same as normal, he opened his eyes around five AM when Tao quickly pulled him into the mirror dimension. Within a few seconds he had made dozens of clones and was placed back in the real world. He sat up in his bed and looked over to where Milly was in her bed. She had somehow rotated around in her sleep, one of her legs was hanging out of the bed and she was drooling onto a little stuffed bear she slept with.

Theo smiled a little as he watched his little sister for a few minutes as he stretched his body and fully woke up. Afterwards he got out of his bed and quickly changed into a pair of green corduroy pants, white socks and a white shirt that had a green dino on it. He shook his head as he looked at what he was wearing. He couldn’t wait till he was older and he could pick his own clothes.

Theo then walked to the other side of the room and pulled out a light pink kid dress and a white shirt which had a pink bunny on it. He took those and a pair of pink socks and placed them next to Milly’s bed. Next he pushed Milly’s leg back into her bed before he poked her cheek a few times. After the third poke, Milly slapped at his hand but missed. When she didn’t respond, Theo poked her again as he whispered, “Time to wake up sleepy head.”

She didn’t respond, so Theo kept poking her cheek until she finally rolled over as she said, “Milly is sleeping, go away Te-o.”

“Come on Milly, if you wake up now, you can help me with the game for an hour or two before mom and dad wake up.”

Milly didn’t respond after a few moments, so Theo left her to sleep in as he moved out of the room and down stairs to work on the computer. His parents had finally given him permission to use the computer alone. So he normally woke up before anyone else and worked on his game for an hour or two before one of his parents came down stairs.

After about an hour he heard his parents as his mom went to wake up Milly and his father came downstairs to start breakfast. As his father passed Theo he said, "I see you weren't able to wake up Milly again."

Theo shook his head as he said, "She doesn't seem to be a morning person."

As he finished talking, both of them could hear Milly as she said, "Leave Milly alone, let Milly sleep, Te-o!" Followed by Daniel as she said, "If you don't wake up, you won't get any cake."

"Milly is up! Where is the cake?!"

Jacob smirked down at his son as he said, "Looks like you just need to give her the proper motivation."

A few minutes after Jacob walked into the kitchen, Theo’s mom came down the stairs holding Milly. She smiled at Theo as she said, "Thanks for picking out her clothes."

Theo looked up from the computer at his mom and Milly as he said, "You're welcome, I couldn’t wake her up though."

She patted his shoulder for a moment as she said, "It's fine. Now finish what you are doing and join us in the kitchen."

Theo did as asked and spent the next hour in the kitchen with his family enjoying a nice Sunday breakfast. Once breakfast was finished the family headed out to the park a few blocks away from their house. It was their Sunday family tradition, sometimes Peter and his parents would join them. Sometimes May and Ben would join them along with Peter. This weekend it was just Theo, Milly and their parents.

They spent a couple hours at the park as Jacob and Daniel talked with each other. They also watched as Theo looked after Milly as she played in the jungle gym. Theo also joined her, but used it as an opportunity to train his chakra control. He would climb around without keeping a tight grip on anything and use chakra to hold on. It wasn't the most effective way to train, but it worked well enough for Theo.

After they finished up at the park, they walked down to the library so Theo could check out some new books for the week. Milly also wanted to check out a book, but only because she wanted Theo to read it to her at bed time. Once Theo and his sister found books they wanted, the family headed back home for the day.

Theo knew it was his birthday and expected a little party with his extended family at some point later in the day like they normally did each year. But when they opened the front door, a bunch of people and some kids could be heard as they yelled, "Happy birthday!"

As the family fully entered the house, Theo could see that the living room and kitchen was decorated for his birthday. Not only was his extended family at the house, MJ along with her parents showed up. Jean was here with her parents and Jon along with Sara also showed up for the party.

Theo was surprised and smiled at everyone before he turned to look at Milly and his parents as he asked, "Thank you. But how did you stop Milly from not telling me about this party?"

Milly looked a little smug as she said, "Milly is good at keeping secrets."

Daniel set Milly down as she said, "I told her that if she said anything about the party, she wouldn't be allowed to have any cake or ice cream."

Theo laughed as he gave Milly a hug as he said, "That sounds more like it."

Milly puffed out her cheeks a little as she looked away from Theo, but she still returned the hug. Afterwards he gave both his parents a hug before he turned back around and said, "I would like to thank all of you for coming, I appreciate it a lot."

Jacob patted Theo’s head as he said, "You know you can act your age right? No need to be so formal like an adult.”

Theo looked up at his father as he said, “I am acting my age though.”

Jacob shook his head as he said, “Whatever, go have fun with your friends.”

The next few hours passed with the adults hanging out and talking as Theo and the other kids played some party games. Some of the adults also joined in on the games randomly, but it was mostly the kids playing them as the adults supervised them. During that time, Theo’s father ran the barbecue and made a bunch of hamburgers, bratwurst and grilled chicken kabobs. Once finished cooking all of that, he went into the kitchen to finish Theo’s birthday cake, it still needed to be frosted and the finishing touches added to it.

After another hour or so Theo’s parents gathered up everyone and wanted to let Theo open his birthday presents before they finished up the party with cake and ice cream. There were only a handful of gifts, one from each set of parents that showed up. Another from Ben and May along with the last one from Jon and Sara. As Theo went through and opened each one up, he became surprised and really happy. Everyone had given him books, each gift held two or three books each and they were all different types.

Peter and his parent’s gift were some sci-fi type books for middle schoolers. May and Ben had given him some classic’s including the Hobbit, while Jean and her parents had given him some adventure books. MJ’s gift was some goosebump books and Jon had given him these thin how to build go-karts from scratch booklets. When Theo looked up from that last gift, Jon, Jacob and Ben had big smiles, while Theo’s mom didn’t look too happy about it.

Once finished with those gifts, Theo’s parents shared a smile and then Jacob said, “Alright, the last gift is a little special and we couldn’t really wrap it. So we are gonna blind fold you first and then take you to it, alright?”

Theo nodded his head before his father put a blind fold on him. After he was picked up by his father, he felt himself get carried to the kitchen and down some stairs leading into the basement. After a few moments he could hear everyone else as they followed them down into the basement and heard different exclamations from everyone. After another few moments the blind fold was removed and Theo was left speechless.

About one third of the basement was converted into a bedroom with an attached bathroom. It was a massive space, easily four hundred square feet not including the bathroom. As Theo looked around the room to take it all in, Jacob asked, “What do you think? We know it’s a little big, but we figured you’d grow into it.”

Theo was stunned into silence for over a minute as he took in the room before he said in a low voice, “Thank you.”

Theo’s parents smiled at him before Jacob set him down as he said, “Your mom, Richard, Mary, Peter and Milly helped out with everything. Milly will give you a quick tour, I know she has been excited to show you the room since they finished it.”

Milly had the biggest smile on her face as she grabbed Theo’s hand and pulled him around the room to show it off. There wasn’t too much to the room besides a new twin bed with some night stands on each side along with a lamp and an alarm clock. Next to the decent sized bathroom was a small walk-in closet that was currently empty. There was also a slightly worn desk and a wooden chair with a lamp placed on the desk. The last part of the room and the most important part according to Milly was the right side corner away from the door.

While most of the room was painted in a plain white color, the corner area was painted in sky blue and had a bunch of hand painted clouds. In the very corner was a large bean bag chair with a light hanging above it. The bean bag chair was brown and had brown painted branches coming out from behind it on the wall. Those branches went to floating bookshelves on each side of it, which currently had a handful of books on the shelves. The whole thing was designed to look like a tree and the bean bag chair was a tree limb you could sit on. 

As Theo took in the reading nook, Milly waved at the area as she proudly said, “Milly told mom we needed a reading area. Milly painted the clouds herself.”

Theo smiled and pulled Milly into a hug as he said, “Thanks for the reading nook, Milly. I love it.”

Milly returned the hug as Theo’s parents came over. Daniel smiled down at her kids as she said, “You don’t have to move in right away. You can still share the room up stairs with Milly for a while longer.”

Jacob added in, “Only for six or seven months though.”

Theo and Milly looked up at their parents as Daniel said, “Your father is right, in six months, we will need you to use this room.”

Jacob looked over at the gathered people in the room who were still checking out the room as he said, “Let's head back upstairs to have cake and ice cream. Then Daniel and I would like to make a little announcement.”

It only took about ten minutes to set up the cake with candles and have Theo make a wish before he blew out the candles. After everyone had some cake and ice cream, Jacob called for everyone’s attention as he said, “While today is mostly about Theo’s fourth birthday, we wanted to let everyone know that Daniel is a couple months pregnant.”

It only took a moment before the room was filled with congratulations all around, especially from all the women who were in the house. Theo was surprised since he didn’t think his parents planned to have another kid after Milly and it turned out he was kinda right. He could overhear his mother talking with May and the other women as she said they were using protection but she still ended up pregnant. While it wasn’t planned they were just going to roll with it and that Jacob had since gone in for a vasectomy so they didn’t need to worry about another surprise.

Theo ended up sharing his piece of cake and ice cream with Milly when she used her puppy dog eyes on him. Not like he really wanted the sweets in the first place, so it wasn’t a big deal for him and it saved Peter from her attack. After that the party mostly died down and everyone left when it started getting dark except for their extended family who stuck around to help clean up. About thirty minutes later a knock was heard at the door.

Richard, who was seated closest to the door said, “I’ll get it. Someone probably forgot their keys or something.”

After Richard opened the door he asked, “Can I help you?”

“Yes, we’re looking for our daughter. Is Daniel here?”