july 4th swings & shenanigans
“So, happy birthday, Steve,” Harper murmured, nudging her feet against the floor to set the porch bench swinging. “Quite the patriotic baby, weren’t you?”
“Should’ve known how I’d turn out, I guess, yeah,” he laughed, twisting around to face her. “D’you know, this is the first time in, let’s see, at least 72 years that I’ve had a proper celebration?” he added wryly.
“Yeah, I mean….” Harper blushed, glancing over at him in case she’d overstepped. He didn’t seem to be bothered. “What are the extra two years for, though? Bucky and all of them never put on anything for you?”
“Nope, not with everything that was going on. The first year I’m not sure anybody noticed, except to rush me to about a million performances to capitalize on the extra levels of patriotism. The year after that it was a matter of Go Stevie! Let’s have tomorrow’s coffee portions today!”
She chuckled at that. “Well, birthday boy, did we do you justice?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Yeah, you did.”
She sighed and leaned her head back to rest carefully on his arm, stretched across the back of the seat.
“I played on this swingset with Harper before we could even talk, I think,” Heather mused, spinning in her seat and nudging Bucky’s legs playfully.
“Can’t say I remember that far back,” he said in a low voice. Heather looked up in alarm, afraid she’d pushed a button she shouldn’t have. What a bad subject to bring up, she realized. Goddammit.
Before she could worry too much, he continued, “But it’s funny you should say that. I don’t think”—he gave a short, exasperated sigh—“especially not now, but regardless—I don’t think I have too many memories of being small that don’t involve Steve somehow. We didn’t have playsets or anything, god no, but I’m certain we were running up and down those sidewalks almost as soon as we could walk.”
“Sidewalks, swingsets, I think it’s all the same for kids, you know? We spent just as much time staring at blades of grass, I’m sure,” she answered.
“Mmm,” he said softly. “I feel like Stevie and me should feel a lot older than you guys, with everyone telling us we’re what, 93 or some shit? But mostly it just feels like we all got thrown into this new adventure together somehow. New friends, different time. Same life. Kind of. I don’t know. I don’t feel like a grandpa, Heather.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re not,” she assured him quickly. She propelled herself off the side of the swingset, her too-small seat flung sideways toward him so he could lay a hand on his arm. “We’re your new adventure, and you’re ours.”
Harper and Steve silently watched their friends on the swings. “God, I knew Heather was still a kid at heart,” she said after a minute. “She always did love that playset.”
“She’s not the only one,” Steve answered. Bucky and Heather’s arms were now linked, and Bucky was pushing off from the ground so the pair of them rocked and twisted around in their seats. "I haven't seen Bucky this playful since we were basically kids. God, you two really have been good for him. For both of us," he added, nudging her gently with his shoulder. "I know found you guys a while ago, but in the past few weeks, Harper, you've just..." he paused. "God, I don't know. I had all this regret, that I should have landed the plane and lived somehow, that I could have been more use alive back then than today. Finding you, and finding Bucky again, now I'm questioning that thinking for the first time."
She smiled up at him, her bare skin covered in goosebumps as she tried to discreetly rub her arms in the now-cool air.
"You okay?" he asked, bemused and concerned all in the same breath.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm totally--" she began, then paused, shivering involuntarily. "Nah, fuck it, I'm freezing out here. But I don't wanna go in. I'm too invested in whatever's happening over there." She nodded towards the swing set. Heather and Bucky had stopped swinging, but were now holding on to each other’s swings to hang closer together. She couldn’t suppress a small giggle.
Steve laughed. "If you say so," he answered, not protesting in the least. As he spoke, he was already removing his leather jacket. "Here, this, uh, should be plenty big enough for you."
Harper's heart skipped in her chest as she saw what he was doing. "You're giving me your jacket?" she asked, her voice higher pitched than usual as she hugged herself and grinned. This was exactly the sort of thing Steve would do, of course; she didn't know why she was so surprised and suddenly elated at the gesture.
"Of course I am. Can't have you spectating our friends' budding relationship in discomfort," he retorted, feigning indifference, but badly. As soon as the jacket was tucked around her shoulders he replaced his arm in its position behind her, but this time he deliberately rested it on her shoulders, drawing her close. Harper sighed, heart still leaping, as she let her head rest in a nook beneath his shoulder, hardly even noticing what was happening across the yard anymore.
"I like the sound of that," Bucky had answered Heather, sinking into her touch surprisingly easily. "Bucky Barnes's adventures in the future," he announced, with a hand gesture and a dramatic flair. He stared off into the yard and smiled sadly. "I just had to take...a detour...to get here, I guess."
"....oh. I guess you can put it that way." Heather's brow furrowed and she looked up at his face to gauge his tone. He didn't look happy, for sure, but the tortured expression of a few weeks ago was hardly there. She was suddenly overcome with pride. It had been barely over a month since he had been sleeping in Harper's bedroom, crying in the corner with despair and confusion at Disney movies. He'd never be okay, not completely, and she knew that. But he was getting close.
"Do you think Bucky will ever be...okay?" Harper said quietly, biting her lip and huddling close into Steve.
He paused for a while before answering. "I...I don't know. Sometimes I don't think I'll be okay, and I haven't gone through a fraction of what he has." He sighed. "I just hid under some ice for a while. I was safe. The right people found me. And if I can't be okay, what does that mean for him?"
Harper all but whispered back, “But you can be okay. I know you can.”
Heather shivered in the cooling air, huddling closer to Bucky’s swing. When he stayed silent, she took his arm again, but this time followed it down to his right hand, which she took in both of hers. His skin was reassuringly warm, and he slowlgrasped her hand in return, closing his eyes and letting out a breath. She let go of the swing, and they sat there in silence, tethered by their touching hands and the hopes and thoughts that each imagined was being communicated, somehow, in the strength of the grip.
Harper let her eyes droop, the heavy warmth of Steve’s arm giving her a sense of comfort and safety she couldn’t remember feeling for a very long while. The shapes of their friends could no longer be made out across the shadowy lawn, which was just as well. Before letting sleep take her completely, she managed a few sentences.
“Happy birthday, America…and Steve. Happy Birthday, Steve."
