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October 1930, Brooklyn, New York
Her scraped knees bleed, dripping onto her socks. Her hands bleed, too, and sting with grit, but still she curls them and pulls back and wallops, again, feeling the bruising across her knuckles as she makes contact with Trevor’s ribs. Behind her, Stevie’s struggling to her feet; she can just see her pop her fists up, ready to charge forward, when an ear-piercing whistle sounds from across the playground.
“Jamie Buchanan Barnes! What have I told you about fighting at school?” Sister Mary Catherine’s eyes slide over to Steve, too, but she doesn’t address her; Bucky’s used to being considered Steve’s bad influence.
Bucky looks at her feet. “It’s after school,” she says to the ground.
“What?” Bucky knows that if she looks up, the Sister’s mouth will be in that narrow, disappointed line that seems to come part and parcel with nuns talking to Bucky.
“You said I’d be in trouble if you caught me fighting during school again. It’s after school.”
The Sister looks ready to clod Bucky right around the head, but keeps her hands at her sides. “Take your smart mouth and get yourself home,” she says, with narrowed eyes. “And Siobhan Rogers, don’t think your mother won’t hear of this.”
Steve drops her chin like a bedraggled dog; she doesn’t like to disappoint her Ma. Neither does Bucky, come to it: Mrs. Rogers is full of kind words, and though she’s not likely to wallop you when she hears of fighting, like Bucky’s Ma might, the way she goes quiet and flat might be worse.
“Yes’m,” Bucky says, grabbing Steve’s arm and fleeing.
“Dratted nuns,” she says, when they get a block away from school. She doesn’t think she’d like them any better, hateful witches, even if she were more than half Catholic. Though, Steve seems to manage it alright, the catechism and confession. Last year, when she’d had her first communion, she’d even kept her white dress clean, while the brand new dress Ma bought Bucky when they celebrated her bat mitzvah barely lasted through supper. Steve doesn’t much care that Bucky’s hopeless at Mass and that, and she’s never cross when they both get in trouble for laughing at some joke Bucky cracked during morning service. Bucky figures it’s alright to be only-half-a-Catholic at St. Francis, so long as Steve’s there too.
By the time they get to Steve’s apartment, Steve’s knee socks have fallen down to puddle at her ankles, and she yanks at them, annoyed, as Bucky toes the brick outside the door to snag the latchkey. “You’re just gonna take them off,” Bucky says, but Steve pulls them up over the scraped patches on her knees defiantly. Bucky’s still in short socks, the summer weather lingering, but Steve gets chills real bad so she wears woolly socks right up to her knees every season but the summer.
They get inside, and Steve does take them off: her shoes first, lined up careful-like by the front mat — Steve’s always careful with her stuff, something Bucky’s Ma has noticed more than once. It’s not that Bucky means to rip her skirts or scuff her toes, it’s just — it just happens, when she’s doing things, and it’s not her fault that girls’ clothes are so fragile. Bucky trails after Steve as she walks to the kitchen, and Steve frowns at her when she takes the first aid kit out from under the sink.
“I’m fine, Bucky,” she says, and she’s not bleeding so far as Bucky can see, but she knows better than to leave it be. She’s watched Mrs. Rogers fuss over less than the bruise building up on Steve’s cheek or the gravel cuts on her palms.
“Hey, and what about me, punk?” She waves her hands at Steve, showing where the bleeding’s mostly stopped on her palms. Steve’s face falls.
“Buck, that looks real bad,” she says, stepping closer so she can take hold of Bucky’s hand. From here, Bucky can see where there’s dirt ground into the blonde of Steve’s hair, but no blood. Trevor had knocked her down right quick, right into the dirt, and she was still working on getting back up when Bucky jumped in and started scrapping. At least when he’d knocked Bucky over, she’d taken him with her. He’d better have a bruise or a shiner to show for it, if she’s gonna get any respect in the schoolyard tomorrow.
“Ah, it just needs a wash,” Bucky says, turning Steve’s palm over to compare. Steve’s is just red and dirty, nothing a wash won’t fix, and the bleeding really has stopped on Bucky’s.
++
February 1931
Snow blows against her, frosting her woolen mittens with a delicate layer of lace and numbing her nose. She pulls her cap down lower over her ears and turns up her collar, satchel clutched under one arm. She’d just as soon leave the damned thing in a snowdrift; maybe if she lost it she wouldn’t have to do her homework? But Steve would be put out – trust that nerd to not even use the excuse of the ‘flu to get out of doing her sums and history essays.
Bucky heads to Steve’s apartment after school every day, and her Ma doesn’t complain, just tells her to mind Mrs. Rogers and take care not to tire Steve out. She does bring Steve her homework, but always sets it on Steve’s dresser to ignore while she tells her about the day. Steve tires, but she listens, and Bucky talks almost the whole time she’s there, just shutting up to listen to Steve laugh, weakly, at her tales. She makes ‘em bigger and bigger, just to hear that laugh.
Steve’s never been out of school this long, going on five weeks. Bucky tires of the smell of her room, sour and damp, but never says a thing; she’d open the window only the wind outside has been raging for what seems like months now, and it’s absolutely not worth it if it makes Steve cough more.
Slipping the key out from under the brick, Bucky lets herself in. Mrs. Rogers works double shifts at the hospital on Wednesdays, so she knows that Steve’s probably bored crazy inside. True enough, Steve’s eyes brighten when Bucky ducks her head into the bedroom.
“You look like a cherry popsicle,” she says. Bucky rubs her nose. She thinks it’s cold, but she can’t really feel it yet. There’s a sketchbook balanced on Steve’s knees, and she’s not as pale as she has been.
“Yeah, well, you try battling a blizzard just to bring your hopeless best friend her homework. It better be worth it,” she says, dropping her bag to the floor. She’s leaving a puddle.
She stomps back to the front door to shuck her boots, hat, coat, and mittens, gathering them up to hang from the coat rack. The boots she leaves by the radiator in the kitchen, hoping they’ll be at least tolerably dry by the time she has to go home. In the kitchen she fills the kettle and lights a stove top burner, finding a couple of mugs and drizzling the bottom of each with honey. Steve will complain – a month of honeyed tea and she’s bored – but it’s good for her throat. Bucky figures she can suffer along with her.
While the kettle heats, she heads back to Steve’s room. “Whatcha drawing?” she asks, pushing Steve over so she can sit on the outside edge of the bed. Steve budges without complaint, and tilts the sketchbook towards her.
“I’ve been working on it for a couple’a days,” she says. The page is made up into little boxes, like the comics they share, and each one has figures painstakingly sketched in. The hero seems to be a fella with dark hair and the biggest shoulders Bucky’s ever seen, in real life or a drawing, square and boxy like a truck. On the page she’s looking at, he’s holding up his fists at a beastly looking guy, who holds his fist around the arm of a pretty girl.
“You’re a real artist,” she says to Steve, knocking their elbows together. She can feel the way Steve flushes with pleasure, how her shoulders tighten in to try to hide it. Bucky looks through the previous couple of pages – there’s no text yet, empty word bubbles waiting to be filled, but she can follow the story: chivalry and heroism. “Why don’t you –” she starts, and then stops quickly, not wanting Steve to think she doesn’t like it.
She starts again. “I mean, it’s real swell, Steve. This fella looks great! But why don’t you have the girl rescue herself?” She sneaks a look at Steve; she’s not dismissing the idea, face screwed up in thought.
“Dunno,” she says, like she’s surprised she hasn’t thought about it. “Guess I don’t know if anyone would want to read about that.”
“I would,” Bucky says, instantly. The heroes in the comics they get are swell, strong and brave and all, but she hasn’t ever needed a fella to save her. Steve hums, then flips the cover of the sketchbook closed and sets it aside. It’s not a dismissal, though: Bucky can see her brain turning the thought over and over.
In the kitchen, the kettle whistles. When Bucky comes back with two steaming mugs, Steve wrinkles her nose, but takes one and cups her hands around them. She won’t admit it, but she gets cold real easily, and having her hands out of the covers and sketching must mean they’re chilly and stiff.
“Did Rebecca tell you what I missed in class today?” Steve says, changing the subject. Bucky flops over her lap dramatically, just as she does every day when Steve insists on actually asking about school.
“Yes,” she says, voice muffled by Steve’s quilt. Steve’s hand, on the back of her neck, is warmed from the honey tea.
“Well?” Steve prompts, and Bucky drags herself up, with the theatricality of a broken puppet. Steve laughs, like she knew she would.
“Actually,” Bucky says, “you missed the very best part of history today.” Steve looks at her expectantly. “The Civil War, which means our most beloved president, the fifteenth.” Her class has a recital coming up – the Great American Poets – so she’s been practicing the triumphant rise of her voice required by Whitman, and employs it now.
Steve’s mouth is starting to turn up at the corners again, and she says, “I’ve always liked Lincoln,” prompting Bucky to clutch her chest and fall against her, wounded. She can feel Steve tremble with laughter against her shoulder.
“Gosh, Steve, we really do have to get you back into class, if you don’t even know that Lincoln was the sixteenth. My namesake, and you forget him?”
The bad luck to be named after the absolute worst President – so boring no one’s heard of him! The only interesting thing about him is that he never had time for getting married, a decision Bucky can fully respect. Named for her father: the way her Dad tells it, her Ma complained so much about being pregnant that he never thought he’d have another chance, girl or boy be damned. The way her Ma tells it, her Dad thinks a bit too much of himself. She always grins when she says it, though, but it’s not lost on anyone that Rebecca, Susanna, and Miriam all have perfectly normal names for Jewish girls.
“You’re lucky,” she says to Steve. “You’re not named after anyone.”
“My grandma’s name was Siobhan,” she says, shoving Bucky’s shoulder.
“Well, no one important, then,” Bucky says with a grin, absolutely earning the next shove.
She fills Steve in on the rest that Rebecca had told her; she ignores or forgets most of it, but Steve’s got books and homework and is smart – smarter than Bucky, certainly – so she’ll catch up. She takes care to leave before Steve’s too tired out, and as she leaves she sees Steve pick her sketchbook back up and flip to a blank page.
She can’t wait to see what Steve’s drawn by tomorrow.
++
May 1931
Sweat trickles down the back of her neck, and there’s still some grit rolling around under her tongue from the last inning. Underneath her palms, the grip of the bat is worn smooth. Tapping it against her toe, Bucky eyes home base, then Jimmy Spencer, who’s standing at the pitcher’s mound — a little pile of dirt heaped up in the center of the street — tossing the ball in one hand and glaring back at her. He’s never struck her out, not once in the years they’ve been claiming this block of 28th Street for their games. He won’t today; Bucky can feel it like a thrumming in her hands, her arms, her chest.
She takes the step forward that brings her up to base. Matty Bruno, squatting behind home, smacks his glove ostentatiously and spits in the dirt. Matty thinks he and Jimmy are big shots, Hank DeBerry and Dazzy Vance of the streets. Bringing the bat up over her shoulder, Bucky bends her knees, keeps her eyes on Jimmy’s hand, the ball that he rolls in his fingers. He scuffs his toe in the dirt, draws in his stance, brings his hands up to his chest and then winds up and —
The bat connects with a ear-splitting crack and Bucky doesn’t pause to watch the ball sail up over Jimmy’s head but starts to run, dropping the bat and aiming for first. Hitting her toes right on the edge of the chalk-drawn base, she twists and looks towards second; the ball has flown somewhere past the end of the block, and she can only hope it’s not made it into the main road or one of the shop windows, or they’ll all get a whooping tonight, but it means she’s cleared for third, running breathlessly toward Eddie, the third baseman who shouts impatiently, and ineffectively, toward the outfield.
Finally: home. She sets her eyes on it and in the cheering shouts of her teammates she hears Steve’s voice rise up, high and a little hoarse and powerful as all get-out, yelling her name. Matty’s got his mitt held up high, jumping on his toes for the ball, and Bucky feels the pounding of her feet against the pavement thud right up to her thighs. She won’t make it — she won’t — she throws herself forward, sliding into home on the sound of Steve’s voice.
After, they all shake hands. It’s sportsmanship, Bucky’s dad had told her once; it’s how we know it’s only a game and that we’re all friends still.
Since Bucky hit the winning home run, the next week she’s one of the team captains, standing at the pitcher’s mound next to Arnie Steinberg eying up the line of neighborhood kids waiting to be picked. She picks Steve first, like she always does when she’s captain, and ignores the way Arnie sniggers under his breath. Steve drags her feet a little when she comes up to join Bucky; if Bucky’s not captain, Steve gets picked last, or next-to-last, and Bucky knows she gets sore about it. But she likes playing, she does — Bucky’s seen her just about light up when catching a fly ball — and she’s not one to quit something just because someone else thinks she can’t do it.
They play well enough but they still lose that day, twelve runs to nine, and when they shake hands afterward Jimmy won’t look her in the eye, scuffing his feet in the dirt when he says, “Hey, Barnes, I gotta talk to you.”
“Yeah?” she says, dropping his hand and wiping hers on her thigh. His was clammy, damp with sweat.
“After,” he says, still not looking up. Bucky frowns but once they’re done cleaning up, she tells Steve to get started on home without her, that she’d catch up.
It’s just Jimmy and Arnie left, Arnie hanging back while Jimmy steps closer to her, still looking down at the ground. “You’re a real good ball player, Barnes,” he says. Bucky blinks.
“I know,” she says, a little cautious.
“But, uh —” Jimmy rolls his shoulders back, like he’s summoning courage; Bucky rocks back on her heels, just a bit, because she’s seen boys do that and it usually means they’re readying themselves for a fight. “Your friend isn’t. We, uh, we talked, and — we don’t want her playing anymore.”
Bucky takes one step back. She can feel her hands start to curl into fists without really thinking about it, and says, “Her name’s Steve.” They know; they’ve all known each other for years. Jimmy flushes up, blotchy red across his face.
“Yeah,” he says, not looking at her again. “Listen, would ya just tell her? We want you to keep playing, but —”
Bucky barks out a laugh, cutting Jimmy off. “I go where Steve goes,” she says. “So if you want me to keep playing…”
“Aw, don’t be like that,” Arnie says, finally piping up from his place behind Jimmy. “Everyone wants you to stay. Even though you’re a girl an’ all.” He says it like he’s giving her some great big honor, and she could just punch him right in the nose. She thinks about it, takes a jerking step forward; Jimmy flinches back, nearly falls into the dirt, and that’s enough of all of this for her.
“Don’t want to play with you stupid idiots anymore anyway,” she says. “I was getting tired of always beating you.” Something twists in her gut when she says it, though, cause she knows she always looked forward to their games. But they’re treating Steve like she’s useless, and Bucky’ll be damned if she just lets them. She spits on the ground at Jimmy’s feet and turns to leave.
“Wait! Jamie —” She pauses, and when she doesn’t turn, Jimmy comes up to her. “If you’re not gonna play anymore —” he says, awkwardly. When she glances up, his face is even redder than before. “Do you wanna — I mean, I got pocket money — we could go to the pictures sometime?” He finally looks up; Bucky’s pretty sure she’s gaping, and whatever was twisting in her stomach earlier snarls a little harder.
“No,” she says, the word startled out of her so forcefully that she snaps her jaw shut after, worried at what else might come out.
“Oh,” he says, shoulders falling. Bucky feels like she might vomit. She takes a strangled little breath and doesn’t let herself say anything else, just shakes her head again and runs away.
The next week, when Steve asks if there’s a game that afternoon, she shakes her head. “Don’t think I want to play with them anymore,” she says, forcing her voice to be casual.
“Oh,” Steve says, deflated. “Was it — I know I fumbled that ball last game, but I can do better —”
“No!” Bucky says, nearly shouting. Steve’s eyes go round. “I mean, they were being jerks after, Jimmy ‘n them.” She’s thought all week about what to say to Steve, about how much she can stomach to tell her. Instead of the truth, she says, “They wanted me to play outfield. You know I’m first base.” She grabs Steve’s neck in the crook of her elbow, grapples her a bit; Steve shoves at her good-naturedly but in the end snugs up under Bucky’s arm like she was meant to fit there.
“Jerks,” Steve agrees. Bucky thinks she maybe believes her. Maybe.
“’Sides,” Bucky adds, “I’ve got some dimes that need to be spent, and I betcha you’re tall enough for the Cyclone this year.”
++
July 1931
Bright and early on July fourth, Bucky climbs up the fire escape to Steve’s apartment and raps on the window. It’s Mrs. Rogers, not Steve, who opens the window up, but she’s smiling at her as she says, “Jamie Barnes, you know you can use the front door like a civilized person.” Bucky doesn’t say that it’s tradition, that it feels like good luck to do the same thing she’s done three, now four, years over. Steve’s never been sick on her birthday, and Bucky’s always come in through the fire escape.
Mrs. Barnes shuts the window behind her and calls for Steve, who stumbles out of the kitchen with a toothbrush in her mouth and her hair still mussed up all around her face. She grins, foam dripping down her lip, and says, “Hiya Buck,” around the toothbrush.
“Happy birthday, Miss America,” Bucky says, like she always does. She’s got Steve’s present tucked into her back waistband, and she pulls it out now, the paper a little damp and creased. Steve’s face lights up, and she starts across the living room to take it, when Mrs. Rogers orders her to go spit and brush her hair first. While she’s off, Mrs. Rogers looks pointedly at the kitchen table, where there’s one plate with a couple of pancakes stacked up.
“You’re growing like a weed,” she says, “and there were a few left over.” Bucky sits down happily and starts cutting the pancakes into bites. She ate at home, of course, but it’s true that these days most of her waking hours she feels like there’s something gaping in her stomach, a vast gnawing hunger, and she could eat ten meals a day and not satisfy it. They’re drizzled with maple syrup, just enough to make them sweet, and Bucky’s aware that the bites she’s taking are a little too big to be polite, but they’re good and Steve’ll be ready soon.
Just as Bucky polishes off the last bite, Steve comes back inside from the shared bathroom down the hall, clattering the door open. She’s maybe brushed her hair — it’s hard to tell with Steve, her wispy golden hair falls all about her face no matter what she tries — and her dress is buttoned properly. Bucky’s stuck her present on the corner of the table, and Steve yanks out a chair and sits right on the edge to open it.
Her eyes go wide when she gets it unwrapped, and she lifts the lid of the tin and strokes her fingertip gently against the little cakes of color. She’d been eying up the little watercolor set in Bucky’s dad’s store for months, so Bucky had worked after school stocking shelves to get it for her. The tin has little dogs on it, cartoons with floppy ears and brown patches over their eyes, the type of dog Steve wishes she could have but can’t, not in the tenements and not with her Ma’s schedule and especially not with the who-knows-how-many allergies Steve has.
“It’s the best, Buck,” Steve says, launching herself out of the chair to throw her arms around Bucky’s neck. Her mouth, cold still from brushing, smushes against Bucky’s neck, leaving a wet streak. Behind them, Mrs. Rogers makes the sort of sound parents make when they’re finding something charming. If they were in public, Bucky would protest her cooing, even though she’s not her own Ma, but Steve’s still young enough not to be bothered, so here, inside their home, Bucky isn’t, either. Steve pulls away, practically jumping with energy, and asks, “Can we go, now, Ma?”
“If Jamie’s finished,” she says, and Bucky shoves back from the table and carries her plate and fork into the kitchen. Mrs. Rogers waves her off when she starts to wash up, saying, “Out of my hair, now, and make sure you get a good spot on the bridge tonight.”
Last year they’d finally convinced all the parents involved that they were old enough to be out on their own all day on Steve’s birthday, and today Bucky has plans. Bucky’s birthday is during the school year, and in the wet, trudging month of March besides, but Steve’s is in the summer and always a holiday to boot. It’d be a waste not to have an adventure. They’re going to start at Prospect Park, Bucky’s decided, feeding the ducks and trying to sneak looks at the zoo animals through the fences. She’s been inside once, a family holiday shortly after the zoo opened, and she wishes she could have saved up the dollars needed to take Steve inside, to marvel up at the giraffes and catch the hippo galumphing around the water. But she’s scoped out the perimeter fence and thinks she’s found a couple of good places where they can peer in and see, if not the massive mammals, at least some birds or a monkey or two.
When they get to the park, Steve’s pleased enough with the ducks. They come here often, when Bucky can snag a stale heel of bread, and Steve’s always happy to visit her favorite duck. Mildred, she’s called her, though that was before they learned what the shiny green cowl that caps Mildred’s head meant. Nonetheless, Mildred-the-mallard remains a favorite, a little more fearless than the others, more apt to waddle right up to their feet and beg.
Steve tears off a little chunk of bread and drops it, grinning when Mildred catches it midair. Secretly, Bucky’s not certain that there aren’t half-a-dozen Mildreds, kindred ducks with similar plumage and a hunger for Ma’s stale challah or rye, but Steve swears up and down Mildred’s been the same for the past two years. She’s always had a better memory than Bucky, so it’s probably true.
‘Round the zoo, they peek through the fence just in time to see a peacock strut by, feathers fanned out in a cloud of blue, and to hear the excited chattering of a pair of macaques in a pen just out of sight. It’s a bit of a let-down for Bucky, but Steve charms her out of it by imitating the stride of the peacock, swaggering, holding the edge of her skirt out behind her for feathers. She butts her head insistently against Bucky’s arm, an unrelenting sort of bird, until Bucky finds herself falling to giggles, turning to chase Steve, her own shirttails fluttering.
Running down the path, they get told off by a peevish lady in a yellow dress and the kind of hat Bucky sometimes catches Ma staring at in the window of Abraham & Straus before declaring them “unnecessary frippery.” Steve look ready to apologize, but Bucky grabs her hand and pulls her onward. It’s Steve’s birthday, and no one should have to apologize on their birthday; besides, they weren’t doing anything wrong, just using the park like they’re entitled, she thinks.
After a couple of hot dogs and one more pass by the ducks, they’re ready to head to the bridge. The afternoon sun is still blazing, hot and bright, but families start lining up on the bridge long before dark to get the best spot to see the fireworks, and this way they’ll get to take their time getting there. All the storefronts in the neighborhood are cheerful, draped bunting for the holiday hanging over summer toys and floral dresses alike. They stop in at Dad’s store, too, its mish-mash of smells familiar from the way they linger on his coat at night, shoe polish and the dry scent of oats and the thick sweetness of molasses. Dad’s in the back, so they don’t bother him, but Marge, who works the counter, gives them a candy each, the maximum Dad will allow. Steve chooses toffee, as usual, but Bucky favors the tart lemondrop, sucking it to let the sourness pucker her mouth.
There’s a smattering of families on the bridge when they get there, and now Bucky figures they oughta be polite, so they say nice hellos to everyone they pass, stopping when they find those families one or the other or both of them know, from school or church or synagogue or the store. It’s slow, because somehow every mother wants to stop them both and ask after their families, so all full of caring she doesn’t know how. Usually they’re the type of things her Ma answers, while Bucky and Steve look polite and secretly try to make the other laugh with pinches or kicked ankles, but today, suddenly, they’re talking to her with that voice, sticky sweet and gossipy. She answers questions about the well-being of her Ma and sisters, right down to if Miriam finally got over the chicken pox (she has, two weeks ago), if Rebecca did well in the year-end spelling bee (second place and she’s insufferably proud about it), and if Bucky herself has been getting anything to eat, because she’s like a beanpole.
Those last ones make her want to spit. Her trousers from last fall show four inches of ankle now, and for the first time since they’ve known each other Steve’s head doesn’t reach her shoulder. A few weeks ago, her Ma sat her down and told her horrifying things about blood coming out of her body, and then gave her a stack of cloths and a tangled belt of strapping and pins that Bucky, thankfully, has not yet had cause to use.
Mrs. Henderson, the grandmother of one of Susanna’s classmates, says something about Bucky’s height and then, before Bucky can politely escape, pats her cheek and says, “No matter, soon enough the rest of you will grow in and the boys will start noticing you, just you wait.” Bucky’s honestly not sure if she says anything back, because all she remembers is grabbing a hold of Steve’s hand and running down the bridge, stopping only when they hit an empty spot near the center.
It feels like there’s something lodged in her throat, some big lump she can’t swallow around, and Steve’s looking at her with big, concerned eyes. “I don’t want boys to notice you,” Steve blurts out. They’re still holding each other’s hand, and when she says it, Steve tugs a little on Bucky’s, swaying them closer together.
Steve’s brow is drawn tight together, but Bucky laughs, thing in her throat dislodging and leaving just a fading ache. She pulls on Steve’s hand, so they bump into each other, and says, “You and me both, pal.” Steve breathes out then laughs, too, and soon they’re clutching to the railing and each other, giggling enough that Bucky’s stomach starts to feel like jell-o.
Bucky’s family shows up a few hours later, interrupting a very heated game of gin rummy that Steve insists she’s winning, despite Bucky being the better mental score-keeper. They bring with them ice cream cones, already melting in the heat, that Steve and Bucky gulp down before they run, sticky, over their hands. She’s happy to see them all, she is, but their presence, noisy and close, feels like the grazing touch that bursts a soap bubble, sending something shimmering and good away into the air. It feels silly to even think it; if Steve were to ask, she doesn’t know if she could even explain, just that the jostle of families crowding closer and the chatter of her sisters makes her feel like she’s lost something, something they carried between them, in their entangled hands.
The setting sun fades to a hazy twilight, the not-quite-dark that’s all they get in the city. Up and down the bridge runs a spark of excitement as they wait for the first of the fireworks to go off. Their long afternoon’s wait has paid off, and the five of them, Steve and Bucky and all her sisters, stand pressed right up close to the railing, with more people in rows behind them. Her shoulders brush against Steve’s on one side and Rebecca’s on the other, and whatever sadness passed through her earlier is gone.
The first firework takes her by surprise, caught up in her thoughts as she is. At its boom an excited shout runs through the crowd, and everyone presses closer to the edge of the bridge, attention rapt on the sky. A shower of blue sparks fall, just a warm-up, and as they fade away Bucky’s gaze slips over to look at Steve. Clutching the top railing, Steve tilts her face up toward the sky, mouth dropping open a bit. The next shot bursts into a bloom of golden sparkles, then a volley of quick-fire red bottle rockets zoom upwards. The sparks glint and glimmer in a play across Steve’s face, lighting up her blue eyes, and Bucky thinks it’s almost as good watching Steve as it is watching the fireworks themselves.
As though she can feel Bucky’s eyes on her, Steve looks at Bucky, mouth open in a broad grin. With the sky lit up so, she’s nearly golden. “I love them,” she says, simply, like she’s still a little kid who thinks the whole display is for her. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Bucky says, slinging one arm around Steve’s shoulders. Steve’s hair is sweaty and sticks to Bucky’s cheek, but Bucky doesn’t move away. Steve tucks her head under Bucky’s chin, still fitting perfectly despite the way Bucky’s whole body feels over-long and awkward these days. “They’re perfect,” she says, just loud enough that Steve can hear her, and turns her eyes to the sky again.