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“You’re kidding me,” Rebecca says, staring at the pie.
Peggy laughs. “I’m afraid not. Jane positively insisted. Didn’t you, darling?”
Jane hides in Peggy’s blue skirt with the shyness of a four-year-old who wasn’t expecting to be asked to participate in the conversation. Peggy looks down fondly, lightly placing her palm on Jane’s hair. “This was all her doing.”
The pie smells divine, but the most striking thing about it is of course the decor: red white and blue circles, with a great big star in the center. It certainly stands out.
“It was an excellent idea, dear,” Rebecca says, managing to catch Jane’s eyes between the folds of fabric. “Steve would have liked it very much.”
Peter comes by to rescue Jane from her distress; the Moritas have arrived, and Jane and their boys are the same age. He kisses Peggy on the cheek, then lifts up their giggling daughter and whisks her off to the benches where the other children are waiting.
"You know," Rebecca notes, "if I'd known we were doing themed desserts I would have brought something a little more exciting than bagels and cheese."
"Nonsense," Peggy says. "At this of all events, if we didn't have at least one born and – dare I say - bread genuine Brooklyn dish, Steve Rogers would positively rise from the dead and..."
"Glare disapprovingly?"
Peggy chuckles. "Or thereabouts, yes. Anyway, don't feel bad, it was hardly any work at all."
For a moment Rebecca's confused, before realizing. "…Jarvis."
"Jarvis."
"I should have guessed." Howard Stark's butler was a close friend of Peggy's, and rarely hesitated to help when asked. Now that the Starks and Peggy are both living in DC and running their new agency – or at least Peggy is, god only knows what Howard Stark is up to any day of the week – Rebecca knows that Jarvis and Peggy had resumed their friendship and, it now seems, the occasional baking favor. "Well, he did a good job. A little tacky, but then everyone always did want to put their mouth on Captain America, so I suppose it's fitting after all."
Peggy's eyes widen with delight. "Rebecca Barnes!"
"Barnes-Proctor," Rebecca amends, just as she sees her husband approaching. "Speak of the devil."
Jon's got a slightly sheepish look on his face as he hands over a pink blanket-wrapped bundle; just as astonishing and precious as she was half an hour ago when she was in Rebecca's arms, but now definitely crankier. "Hungry?" Rebecca asks.
Jon nods."'Fraid she still likes your menu more than what I've got to offer."
"Babies do tend to do that," Peggy says with a smile, and peers in to look, touching a finger to Charlotte's nose. "You know, her eyes are so similar to James', it's remarkable."
"Oh, she's a Barnes looker, all right," Rebecca says, overcome with the warmth she feels every time she's reminded that there are still people who remember Bucky – the real Bucky, not the black and white photos they showed in the papers – who can see the strings tying him in the past to her little girl in the future. It's why she's grown to love these yearly reunions with the rest of the Howling Commandos, that Stark generously makes sure they can all attend. Where they once shared in grief, they now celebrate old memories and newfound joy.
Rebecca begs off, leaving Jon with Peggy, and goes in search of some privacy before Charlotte decides to complain about not having had any lunch yet with her all too vigorous pair of lungs.
She strolls away from the picnic area until she finds a small secluded bench, hidden from the path by a few trees and with a view of the Potomac, and beyond that, Arlington. Afterward, they'll all go down to the memorial and say a few words.
For now, though, she sits, covering her front with a blanket when Charlotte begins to nurse. "There you go," she whispers, and thinks, Hey Bucky, you're an uncle now. Her name is Charlotte and she's five months old, and she's going to know all about you when she grows up. Not what the history books or comic books say, but how you hate raw cabbage, and how you taught me to swim, and how you named our cat Elephant and it's still an unsolved mystery as to why.
If Bucky were here, he would probably be beet red and staunchly facing away to avoid any chance of seeing his sister breastfeeding, she thinks with a small smile. "Your uncle was a gentleman," she murmurs to Charlotte. "Someday, you'll know him well enough and see. Oh, the stories we have."
In the background, she hears Dum Dum Dugan's roaring laughter.
"Yes, some of them are even funny," she adds, and thinks of holidays and terrible costumes, and, suddenly, a pair of dashing red tights.
She smiles.
On second thought, Buck, I think I'm going to show her those comic books after all.
