Fireworks for Steve
July 4th, 1918.
The first home Steve could remember was a large old tenement and a bedroom with no windows. The 19th century had been a time of mass exodus. Immigrants had come to America seeking asylum, and in some ways, they found it. In other ways, life was just as hard as before. Brooklyn hadn’t been prepared for such a surge of people. The housing, if you could call it that, was ramshackle and crowded. Shoe-box homes were dim and dank. Fires were common. Clean air and running water were commodities one could not easily come by. Children still starved.
Steve’s mother, Sarah, came from Ireland. She grew up in a Brooklyn tenement and slept in a bedroom with no windows every night. She did not have much, but she was fiercely herself. She was strong and, as her mother would argue, headstrong, but always had a keen sense of what was right. She fought to keep bullies away from her lunch money but shared it, too. She learned to bandage scrapes and cool bruises instead of throwing punches. Sarah wanted out of those tenements from the second she was in them and knew she could make it out. Her Achilles heel, sappy as it was, was love.
Joseph Rogers had been a stunner. Not quite tall but not quite short, either, lean, boyishly blonde. His eyes were blue and true. An only son who matched Sarah’s status as an only daughter. He didn’t have money, but Sarah never cared. She loved him, and he loved her. But love didn’t award them time, and it wasn’t long after they married that the war came. Joe went off to Europe, kissing a then-pregnant Sarah goodbye. He didn’t come back.
Steve was born wailing, and it had been music to Sarah’s ears—July 4th, 1918, a warm and sunny day in Brooklyn. Sarah’s savings were quickly stripped bare; midwives had a price, a sick baby had a price, food had a price. The world had a price. She didn’t get to leave the tenement house as she’d intended, and her all-American boy followed in her footsteps, waking up each day in a dark room. But Sarah, both strong and headstrong, taught her son a skill no other of nature's creatures could seem to master. She taught him to grow without light.
July 4th, 1941.
Steve lay on his back, one leg dangling off the side of his skinny twin bed, and watched the sun crawl in. His window was small, and the light always brought an odd red tint as it reflected off the brick of the neighboring building, but it was warm. His eyelids fluttered closed as he welcomed the soft light.
Twenty-three today, Steve figured himself a man now. His father had been twenty-three when he’d gone off to fight. To die. His mother was only twenty-two when she’d born him. What did he have, he wondered, save for his life and a little place with more than one window? He ran through an abysmally short list: the apartment, his drawings, one pair of shoes he could deem ‘nice enough to dance in,’ not that he’d danced much. He’d done more dancing in his socks. He had a best friend, Bucky. He had Bucky. The crawling sun reached his face, and he thought about Bucky.
When the sunrise was through, the neighbors settled into their routine of arguing. It wasn’t tenement housing, but the conditions still promised strife. Steve hummed through the beats of his favorite Glenn Miller record to tune out the muffled voices. Left foot back if you’re leading, he remembered.
“Yankee doodle, do or die,” Tremendously off-key singing broke through the barrier Steve had built in his head to divert his attention from the sounds of the neighbors. It traveled from outside the window to the front door, dipping in volume but still loud enough to be heard through the thin walls, “A real-life nephew of my Uncle Sam.” There was a pause, then hands drumming on the door, “Born on the Fourth of Julyyyyyy! Open up!”
There was only one person who ever sang that damn song every Fourth of July.
“Bucky?” Steve called, sleepily pushing his blanket aside as he sat up. He instinctively peered out his window even though he knew he couldn’t see the front door from there.
“Obviously!” Steve could hear Bucky’s smile, “Lemme in, punk!”
“Gimmie a minute,” Steve called back, ignoring the continued drumming on the door as he scrambled to the foot of his bed and shook out the one relatively clean shirt he’d left crumpled on the floor. He pulled the shirt on and hustled out of his room, abandoning his patch of sun.
Tanned skin, freckles, and sea-blue eyes—Bucky was summer incarnate. He looked like light. Steve wasn’t given time to dwell on Bucky’s looks, though, because the instant he opened the front door, Bucky was already engulfing him in a bear hug, “Happy birthday, you bastard.”
“Thanks, Buck,” Bucky smelled like smoke and sun-baked skin. With his earlier woes easily forgotten, Steve didn’t want to pull away, “Is that song going to haunt me forever?”
“Of course,” Bucky replied, pulling back. He stopped and let his eyes linger on Steve for a moment. Steve looked back, eyes catching on the new little pink scar disrupting the hair in Bucky’s eyebrow. Before Steve could speak, Bucky barged into the apartment, “It’s your song.” Bucky said boldly. As always, he looked out of place, too put-together, against the background of Steve’s shoddy apartment. “It’s even called Born on the Fourth of July. Just like you.”
“It’s not called that.” Steve turned and watched as Bucky grabbed a cup from the cupboard and turned on the tap. He tried not to think of how his heart leapt when he saw the scar on Bucky’s face and instead focused on the immense comfort he felt in seeing Bucky assume space in his life.
“But really,” Bucky continued, not caring to recognize he had the title wrong. Steve relished how oblivious Bucky was to his emotion; it let him feel everything. “What are the odds that you and America share a damn birthday?”
“One in three hundred and sixty-five,” Steve answered, obediently swinging at the joke Bucky teed up for him. He closed the front door, trailed Bucky into the kitchen, and rested his weight against the wall. “How’d you get work off?”
“Today’s a federal holiday, punk. No work.” Bucky held his glass at its rim and dipped one finger into the cup as he filled it. He kept his eyes on Steve.
“No way. Today ain’t a federal holiday.”
Brimming water stole Bucky’s attention, and the conversation stalled. He paused, removed his finger from the water, and turned off the tap. He shook the water from his hand before throwing his head back and downing the glass.
Steve’s gaze was innocent, going where any artist’s would, the spot of fantastic contrast where the back of Bucky’s dark brown hair met the collar of his pink linen shirt. It easily slid to Bucky’s throat. He watched as Bucky’s throat moved, briefly yet entirely entranced by how Bucky’s skin pricked up and the few short hairs he must’ve missed while shaving. He didn’t look away until Bucky’s chin tilted back down, the glass parting from his lips. His gaze shot to the floor as he dug one of his fingernails into his palm and kicked himself for staring at Bucky so openly.
“Sorry,” Bucky exhaled, fortunately still unaware of what Steve felt. Steve looked up to see Bucky wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I was thirsty my whole way over.”
“S’okay.”
“You didn’t hear about that, though? The whole Fourth thing?” Steve shook his head no. “It’s new, as of today. My old man thinks it’s because we’re goin’ to join the war. ‘Boost morale while we can,’ he said.” Bucky traced the lip of his cup with his finger, “First thing I thought was, hey, I’m always gonna be free on Steve’s birthday now.”
Steve smiled and unclenched his hand, letting the pad of his finger feel the indent he’d left in his skin. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Bucky said, placing the glass he’d been holding onto into the sink. “So happy, uh,” his brow furrowed as he went into his head momentarily. “Happy one hundred and sixty-fifth birthday, America, but happier twenty-third birthday to you.”
“Twenty-three,” Steve parroted. He suddenly remembered an image his mother kept of his father, a man somehow both young and the oldest he would ever grow to be, “I’m getting old.”
“Hey,” Bucky’s voice pulled Steve to the surface again, “I’m twenty-four; don’t call twenty-three old. You’re a spring chicken, Steve.” He reached forward and playfully pushed Steve’s shoulder, “Twenty-three is nothin.’”
Steve smiled, though, sometimes, he felt like life had aged him more than it had aged Bucky, even though Bucky was older. It seemed impossible to Steve that Bucky could ever be anything other than young. Like light, youth suited Bucky; it defined him.
Steve shrugged, “I still think I’m gettin’ old.”
“You ain’t,” Bucky paused to let Steve fight back, but there was no contest. Bucky slapped his hand on the counter, “Anyway, Yankee-doodle, I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition?” Steve couldn’t help but laugh a little. Bucky’d always had a propensity for reading and, resultantly, quietly harbored what Steve figured to be one of the most expansive vocabularies in Brooklyn. Most folks they knew got by with few words and back-pocket expletives, but Bucky sometimes sprinkled something unexpected, like proposition, into a conversation. Steve found it eternally endearing. “What’s your proposition, pal?”
“Okay, so,” Just about anything, good or bad, that Steve ever got into had started with Bucky saying, ‘Okay, so.’ Bucky continued, “I can’t tell you exactly what I have planned, but a clue is that I borrowed the car.”
“That ain’t much of a clue.”
“Hm,” Bucky held his smile and chewed at his bottom lip, trying to think of another clue. He hummed more of the chorus to George Cohan’s “The Yankee Doodle Boy,” not “Born on the Fourth of July,” and tapped his fingers on the counter. He knew the silly song because his ma was a fiend for all the music that came from Broadway. Neither of the two of them liked the song, but they loved the annual routine of pulling Steve’s leg with it. Bucky landed on his clue, “Mm—second clue. You’ve gotta bring your swimming shorts.”
“We’re goin’ swimming?”
Bucky hesitated as he spoke, “Yeah,”
“Go on.”
“But that ain’t my proposition.” Steve shook his head at the roundabout way Bucky had taken to telling him the plan. Bucky grinned, then spoke, “The proposition is that we drive for a long while, then swim. Is that alright with you?”
“Sure,” Of course it was alright, “Longer than the drive to the beach?”
“Longer than the drive to the beach.”
Outside and away from the shadows of buildings, the wind and sun tangled themselves in Bucky’s hair. Steve followed Bucky down the stairs and into the thin road beside his apartment block, watching as the swirling air animated the scene before him. Clothes hung to dry on landings moved, slapping against their posts, the leaves of frail trees swayed, and Bucky’s hair, shining red where the light passed through it, danced. Steve thought it looked like fire.
Bucky had left his hair loose, wavy and wild, a sure sign of midsummer. The sight filled Steve with unexpected and bittersweet nostalgia. It was uncommon now for Bucky to leave his hair untamed; back when he was only nineteen, he’d told Steve that brushing it back with tonic made him feel more ‘adult.’ Steve thought the sentiment only highlighted Bucky’s youth. Still, eventually, Steve associated the style with Bucky’s foray into adulthood and, in turn, associated Bucky’s more unkempt hair with childhood. Coupled with the warm morning light and the radiance and instability of July, Steve couldn’t help but get caught in thoughts of the past.
Sunlight invaded every corner of the interior of Bucky’s old Ford—the only shadows Steve could see were the ones their limbs made against the vivid background. Bucky had figured out the issue with the screwy ignition, so Steve had been spared the performance of a manual start-up, and with the press of a button, they got on their way.
They’d been on the road for a while, stopping and starting in traffic, filling time talking about their own personal nothings. Bucky, no surprise, lamented about yet another lost love; Steve begrudgingly detailed his latest job applications. With the brilliant steel and concrete of the Whitestone bridge now fading in the rearview mirror, Bucky finally posed a real question and shot an expectant look at Steve, “Any guesses as to where we’re headin’?”
“Some place upstate?” Steve asked. They were driving North, and he knew Bucky’s family liked to journey up into the hills for holidays and vacations. Bucky had a sweet spot for the woods out there. He passed that sweet spot onto Steve through years of pulling him along on family trips.
Bucky smiled, “Bingo.”
“That’ll cost you a fortune in gas, Buck.” Bucky was always one to make an effort for occasions, though also occasionally impractical, “We can stay here, find somethin’ to do.” Bucky, eyes back on the road, shook his head no; he wasn’t taking the bait, so Steve added, “You could give me more dance lessons.”
That made Bucky raise an eyebrow, “I thought you were against the dance lessons?”
“Yeah, okay, I didn’t mean that part,” Steve smiled. He then remembered how he’d felt that night, drowning in turbulent emotion on Bucky’s couch, post-dance. He’d since told himself it could be a secret forever, that the chemistry between them could transform into something stable enough to be buried and hidden away under layers of rocky ground. It would cool down, neutralize, and be forgotten in time. But as much as he wanted to bury what he felt, he still couldn’t will himself to dig its grave. He pushed memory aside, “But, Buck, I mean it. You don’t have to do this for me.”
“I want to do it.” Bucky’s voice was so unbearably genuine; the simple honesty of wanting as words in the open air almost made Steve flinch, “Get out of town, go somewhere no one knows who we are. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Bucky’s voice trailed off, briefly lost in the trance of running road. He shrugged, “And it’s your birthday, Steve. I saved up. It’ll be worth it.”
“You’re a fool, Bucky.” Steve thought but didn’t say: and a romantic.
“I’m your fool, remember?”
Steve couldn’t help but smile, “Right.”
The further out of the city they drove, the more the roads bent, twisting to snake around the foot of each hill. Steve, growing somewhat car-sick and thankful not to be behind the wheel, crossed his arms and leaned onto the dash. It was nearly as hot as putting his forearms on a griddle, but he didn’t mind the sting. He rested his head on the bend of his wrist as Bucky mumbled something about the green of the trees.
It wasn’t long before Steve drifted. His dreams were of the disorienting variety, the kind you might fall into when only half-asleep, where consciousness is going but has yet to slip entirely. At times, he almost felt as if he were awake; every image he could conjure was still sun-soaked, just as the car had been, but now coming to him as over-exposed stills. Bucky’s pink shirt flooded with light, the sheen of the bridge they had crossed, the hills thick with forest, his parents when they were young, the lip of a cup, shiners, ballgames, and blood. The images shuffled around in his unconsciousness until merging, woven in with some inevitably forgettable bits and pieces of imagined conversation. When he finally opened his eyes again, the world was unbelievably green.
“Welcome back, sleepyhead.”
Steve squinted through the haze of sleep that surrounded him. He pulled his head from his arms and sat straight, “How long was I asleep?”
The car was parked and thus cradled in an overwhelmingly lush landscape. “‘Bout an hour,” Bucky answered, “I was just thinking about how to wake you up.”
The cloudiness of stirring subsided, and Steve remembered they were somewhere upstate, here for his birthday. Lying around at home in Brooklyn that morning was like a faded memory from another life. He looked at Bucky, “Where are we?”
Bucky’s smile was soft, “The lake.”
The lake didn’t need more introduction than that. The place was an almost mythical feature in their time of shared boyhood. Bucky had introduced Steve to the spot years and years ago on a rainy afternoon adventure, a day when the rest of the world stayed indoors—it had been so good, filled with splashing, jokes, and rough-housing. In the quiet of that rainy day, Steve felt he and Bucky were the only two people on Earth. Bucky had felt like they’d been transported to some other planet, like something out of one of the sci-fi novels he liked to read. The day gleamed in memory, and in hearing they had returned, Steve matched Bucky’s smile.
Shade couldn’t provide respite from the heat of July. Steve stood outside the car, absentmindedly pushing the door closed, eyes lost in dappled light. The green leaves overhead filtered the white sun until it was yellow. He thought of the lights in the dance hall, with their golden glow, and dully listened as Bucky rifled through the pile of belongings he’d left in the middle seat of the car.
“Okay, question,” Bucky called. He was peeking over the top of the car, the lower half of his body obscured by window pane and red metal.
Attention abruptly grabbed, Steve looked over. “What?”
“If I were to say I got you a gift, would you want it now or later?”
Steve dropped his slightly dumbstruck expression and smiled, “You didn’t have to get me anything, Buck.”
Bucky shrugged, “It’s birthday tradition, punk. Now or later?”
“Now.”
“Good answer,” Bucky briefly ducked into the car, popped back up, shut the door with his knee, and quickly rounded to the front with his hands clasped behind his back. He stood confidently before Steve and put on a playful grin. "Pick a hand.”
“You really didn’t have to get me anything.”
Bucky rolled his eyes, and once again, Steve’s gaze caught on the small scar on his eyebrow. The sight made his chest feel tight. “Too late for that now. Pick a hand.”
“Alright, left.”
“Another good answer,” Bucky pulled his left hand out from behind his back, revealing the first gift. It was a sketchpad, a nice one, bound with red leather. A little charcoal pencil had been fastened to the side, tied with twine. “Bec helped me pick it out,” Bec, short for Rebecca, was Bucky’s younger sister, “She said the thicker pages are better for drawing, but I don’t know. I figure she knows more than me.”
“Bucky,” Steve was stuck, unmoving, staring at the gift. In the face of such kindness, he felt guilt for ever, in his whole life, feeling any ill-will or jealousy towards Bucky. “It’s too nice. I can’t take that.”
“Well, you can, ‘cause it’s for you. I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” Bucky pushed the corner of the book into Steve’s chest, “Take it, Stevie. You just gotta draw me, alright?”
“Alright,” Steve replied, taking the sketchbook. It was soft in his hands. “Thank you, Bucky.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome, pal.” Bucky played it off but was beaming when Steve looked up at him. Steve wasn’t sure if Bucky’s cheeks were pink or if it was the reflection of his shirt on his face. “Okay, now pick my other hand.”
“Two gifts?” Steve smiled, “You’re spoilin’ me.”
“I am.” Bucky replied, “But this one is small, so don’t get your hopes up.”
“Right hand.”
The second gift was a Brooklyn Dodgers collectible celluloid pin decorated to resemble baseball stitches. In the center, in blue ink, it read, ‘Brooklyn Dodgers1941 Season.’
“I tried to get you the one with Camilli on it, but they’d run out,” Bucky explained. “I thought this one was decent, at least.”
“Decent? It’s great,” Steve had seen the pins before; they were sold by vendors all around Ebbets Field, but he’d never even considered they were something he could buy for himself. "Did you get it at the game?”
“Yeah,” Bucky laughed as he tossed the pin to Steve, who’d been staring at it but had yet to take it. Steve scrambled for a second but caught it. “I nearly caved and gave it to you that day when you put me through the wringer for leaving the stands.”
Steve turned the pin over in his hand, admiring it. “You did miss a great game.”
“But, I thought it would work better as a birthday present.”
“It’s a damn good birthday present.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the last one. Happy birthday, patriot.”
“Thanks, Buck.”
“Now, let’s go swimming.”
It was a short walk from where Bucky parked to the lake. To Steve’s half-feigned chagrin, Bucky took the time to sing more of the song “Yankee Doodle Boy” as loudly as he could. When Bucky finally finished his second round of the chorus, born on the Fourth of July, Steve threw his shoulder into Bucky’s, who, in turn, threw an arm around Steve’s neck. Walking with Bucky through high grass in the middle of summer made Steve think that, maybe, just maybe, living to see twenty-three with what he had wasn’t so bad after all.
The lakeside was packed, swarmed with people enjoying their day off. Colorful umbrellas dotted the landscape, breaking up an otherwise exclusively green image; little fold-up lawn chairs took up the shade underneath them, and people, with children, friends, or in couples, took to the water. It was a sweet view, and Steve was sure he would draw it.
Bucky took off into a nearby grove of trees, explaining he was going to change into his swimming shorts. Steve watched Bucky leg it into the trees and disappear in the brush before he turned to watch the lake.
The wind rippled the water, aquatic plants pulled with the current, and a tiny turtle climbed through a patch of shade along a low tree limb. Steve squatted and wrapped his arms around his knees, getting even with the spot where the turtle made its trek. It moved so slowly, but it wasn’t laborious at all, and Steve wondered if the little guy had any plans as to where he was headed.
“Hey,” Bucky called, padding his way through the grass behind Steve. “What you lookin’ at?”
Steve didn’t turn to look at Bucky; instead, he waited until Bucky reached him. He pointed, “There’s a turtle.”
Bucky crouched beside Steve. From the corner of his eye, Steve could see Bucky had changed into his red swimming shorts, the ones with the white band around his waist. Steve thought the color was flashy, and the shorts were short, but he knew they were Bucky’s favorite pair. “Huh,” Bucky spotted the turtle; it had just made it into the sun, “Wonder where he’s goin'.’”
Steve watched Bucky wade out into the water. He sat on a stone in the grass, avoiding the mud, and opened the sketchbook Bucky had given him. The first page was already marked:
Steve,
Happy Birthday, YOU. My life is Better with you in it, so Thanks for being born. Enjoy this sketchbook. Draw me something, won’t you?
YOURS,
Bucky.
Steve smiled at the words in his hands. YOURS, again, YOURS. Shielded by the high stalks of grass surrounding him, he followed instinct and pressed the pages to his face. They were cool on his warm skin, and when he inhaled, they smelled of wood pulp and charcoal.
It wasn’t a moment concerned with thought; it was something more mammalian, even animalistic, an ancient action communicating something left latent in the body. A relic of some forgotten, irrational impulse, a fill-in for where words failed. When he pulled the book away from his face and opened his eyes again, the world was dazzlingly bright. He peered through the green grass and saw Bucky’s naked back, muscles contoured by shadow.
Steve drew summer scenes as they played out before him: the turtle sunning, Bucky’s shirt draped over a branch from that same tree, the umbrellas and chairs in their places, Bucky’s outline, and cuffed limbs half-submerged in lake water. He was adding a horseshoe-shaped shadow to a sketch of Bucky’s arm when Bucky called out to him.
“What happened to swimming later?” Bucky shouted.
Steve slapped his sketchbook shut and looked at Bucky, who was splashing his way back through the muck near the shore. “Got carried away.”
“Yeah, you must’ve,” Bucky parted the tall grass stalks, encroaching upon Steve’s enclave, “I’ve been waitin’ for you.”
“Sorry.”
“S’alright,” Bucky was coated in a thin layer of water droplets that had just begun to evaporate. He shook out his wet hair and found a rock to sit on by Steve, “What’d you draw?”
“Nothin’ good.”
Bucky smiled, “That ain’t true.”
Steve looked at Bucky, so beautiful and relaxed in his swimming clothes. He thought Bucky would be a perfect model for anatomical study. His lean build unabashedly displayed the spots where muscles met, formed shapes, and moved. He knew he would never ask Bucky to sit for it, though. He didn’t even want Bucky to see the sketches he’d made of him. “How do you know? You ain’t seen it.”
“Everything you draw is good, Steve.”
Steve smiled and shook his head, “No.”
“Okay, then show me,” Steve shook his head, and Bucky laughed, “If you’re gonna say they’re bad, you’ve gotta prove it.”
“No, Buck.”
“Aw, come on.”
“They just didn’t turn out right, okay?” It should’ve been an easy lie; these looked decent, but plenty of his drawings didn’t turn out right. Not a hard thing to say. But Steve had the poker face of a silent film actor, and Bucky could read any lie instantly.
“I don’t care,” Bucky shrugged, frustratingly calm, “I wanna see why you’ve abandoned me for the last hour.”
“Abandoned you?” Steve laughed, eyebrows raising.
Bucky grinned, “Yeah, so lemme see it.”
“No.”
“Come on, sweetheart.”
Bucky knew Steve would roll his eyes at the word ‘sweetheart, ' he almost always did. He’d said it so Steve would do so, and in that little moment where Steve’s guard dropped, he pounced, grabbing Steve’s wrist.
“Bucky!” Steve instantly clambered back, laughter in his voice. He gripped the sketchbook tightly as Bucky used his other hand to try to grab it. “Buck, quit!”
“Come on, lemme see,” Bucky’s face was suddenly so close. Steve’s heart did backflips in his chest. The sharp corners of Bucky’s mouth pulled into a smile as he pressed himself closer, eyes following the book he was trying to wrangle away, “What’re you hiding?” He gave Steve a playful, squinting glance, “Huh, punk?”
“Nothin,’ Bucky,” Steve laughed and pulled back again, falling off the rock he sat on and into the mud, crushing a few grass stalks. Bucky followed, still gunning for the sketchbook. Drops of water fell from his hair and into Steve’s eyes, “You’re a menace!”
“Am I?” Bucky, grinning, teased. He reached down and poked two fingers into Steve’s soft side.
“Yes!” Steve squirmed, still blinking away water. He warned, half-joking, and while pinned, pathetically, “Bucky, I’ll kick you.”
“Kick me, then,” Bucky laughed.
Steve squirmed more; he couldn’t kick Bucky from the position they were in, so he settled on kneeing him. When Steve's knee met Bucky’s thigh, Bucky reared up in pain and laughter but didn’t let go. They rolled over one another like two waves meeting in the water.
“Come on, Buck.” Steve had not loosened his grip on the sketchbook. “It’s bad.”
“Just show me.”
“I don’t wanna,” Steve said, his voice softening. His playful, panicked tone had disappeared, and he sounded honest, “Let me go, Bucky.”
“Fine,” Bucky relented, a playful dog releasing its bite, and finally dropped Steve’s wrist. He straightened up, brushed the mud from his legs, and offered Steve a muddy hand. Steve took it. “You’re lucky it’s your birthday. I still wanna know what you drew.”
“Well, stay curious, then,” Steve muttered, dropping Bucky’s hand when he got vertical again. He straightened his arms out in front of him and assessed the damage the wet mud had done to his shirt.
“I will.”
Bucky found the mud to be the perfect excuse to get Steve undressed and into the lake. ‘Treat it like a bath,’ he’d called over his shoulder as he walked back into the water. Steve wasn’t about to treat the stagnant lake like a bath, but it was hot out, and he figured he could humor Bucky and get in. He ducked into the grass and changed into his standard blue swimming shorts. A few yards away, Bucky splashed down onto his back, breaking the lake's surface and sending waves Steve's way.
“Come on, Steve.” Bucky called, “Water’s fine.”
Steve took off his shirt and tossed it onto the branch where Bucky’s hung, “I’m coming.”
The water was nice and cool, and the waves Bucky had created now lapped gently against Steve’s shins. As he stood exposed, skinny and shirtless, pale under the sun, Steve was reminded that there was still a world around them. Humans and other animals sharing the lake. Children were playing, women and men were swimming, and a whole host of people had sprawled out on the nearby grassy hill. Childhood insecurity crept over him like a shadow falling on a stone.
“So,” Bucky said, laying out on his back in the shallow water, “How’s twenty-three feel so far?”
Bucky’s knack for pulling Steve from spiraling into thought was always dead on.
Steve looked to the far side of the lake. A mother, showered in sunlight, held her child on her hip. A man took down an umbrella. A bird flew from its perch. “Alright, I guess.”
“Just alright? Even here?”
Steve looked back to Bucky and smiled, “Well, this is good.”
“Damn right,” Bucky replied. He lazily splashed at Steve, only managing to hit him with a few drops of water. “Why just alright?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Steve waded out further, watching his fingers create tiny currents as they cut through the water.
“Does to me.”
“You’re too nice.”
“I know. Tell me, why just alright?”
Steve sighed, “It’s just that I haven’t done much. With myself, I mean.”
“That’s a lie.”
Steve smiled at Bucky’s ability to take a stance on the issue instantaneously. “I don’t know. My dad,” Steve paused, realizing he had forgotten to breathe for a moment. His inhale was shaky, “He was twenty-three when he was drafted.”
“So?”
“So I’ve done less than him. I don’t even have a job, Buck. Or a family. Or a girl.”
“You’ve got me, asshole,” Bucky splashed at Steve again, pulling another smile out of him, “And my family. And you’ll get a job ‘cause you’re a hard worker. And if, for some reason, you can’t get a job, you stay with me. Things will work out, Stevie.”
“Yeah?” Steve broke his eyes away from the lake and looked at Bucky, “You know all that ‘cause you’re twenty-four?”
Bucky huffed a laugh, “Yes. You’ll get it when you’re twenty-four.”
Steve smiled, “Oh, will I?”
“You will,” Bucky nodded, “But by then, I’ll have learned the wonders of twenty-five, so good luck catching up.”
“Doesn’t seem like a fair timeline.”
“Sorry, pal. Should’ve been born earlier.”
“Damn.”
Finally, they swam. Bucky shot like an arrow to the far side of the lake, moving through water that wouldn’t dare add resistance to his path. Steve followed, stopping to pant and tread water at times, muscles burning by the halfway point. Bucky cheered him on from the opposite shore.
Amid his arduous journey, Steve began to craft an odd exhaustion-induced narrative. As he swam, he likened Bucky to some small god, of the water or otherwise, and himself to a mortal. Bucky was vaguely religious; he’d been raised Catholic, but it seemed to Steve that the only divine law Bucky followed was that of his own nature. Self-reliant and nonchalant in his sureness that the world would work his way. Kind. Free. With everything in him, Steve hoped the mortal world he knew, of war in the news and insecurity and struggle, would never change Bucky’s nature. Bucky patted him on the back and congratulated him for making it over when he reached the bank.
Steve sat shirtless and sketched until the sun reddened the skin of his shoulders, at which point he pulled his shirt back on and sketched some more. Bucky came by a few times, playing like he would steal a look at Steve's drawings but not escalating to the point of rough-housing like they had earlier. After some time, Bucky left the lake for good and lay in the grass to air dry. Steve watched the rise and fall of Bucky’s chest as it moved in perfect time with the swaying of the grass surrounding him. Some small god, he figured.
The drive back to Brooklyn was uneventful. Bucky hummed any song he could think of, including Steve’s birthday song (he hummed that one a few times), and as the sun fell from its spot high in the sky, Steve slept with his arms folded on the dash. He didn’t wake up until Bucky pulled the wheel for his last turn and parked the car in front of his apartment.
“Hey,” Bucky said softly, “You mind if we do somethin’ real quick? I’ve got one last birthday trick up my sleeve.”
Steve sleepily sat on his landing, watching Bucky as he crouched in the blue of dusk at the end of the stairs. Bucky counted down, three, two, one, set a match, and booked it toward Steve. He dove down next to Steve just as the firework he’d lit erupted. A ball of fire soared into the sky, quietly whirring before exploding into light—streams of orange and white dropped like otherworldly rainfall.
Bucky grinned as he watched the light, “Fireworks for Steve, every year.”
“I think they’re meant to be for America.”
“Nah. Not to me, they’re not.”
The blue sky was turning black, the warm night was cooling, and Bucky still had to drop off the car at his folks' place before walking home. He initiated the back-and-forth of saying goodbye with a hug, but before he could go, Steve insisted he wait for a minute.
“This is for you,” Steve explained, carefully folding the paper he’d just torn from his sketchbook, “To make up for not letting you see what I drew.”
“You’re kidding,” Bucky laughed, taking the paper. “It ain’t my birthday.”
“Yeah, so don’t look at it now. Look at it later.”
Bucky smiled and ran his fingertip over the jagged edge Steve had torn, “Okay. Thanks, Steve.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Steve shrugged.
“It is to me,” Bucky replied. Steve couldn’t help but once again get caught on the little pink scar adorning Bucky’s eyebrow, even in the dark. He remembered the red of Bucky’s blood. “You’ve gotta stop doin’ that.”
Steve furrowed his brow. “What?”
“Lookin’ at it,” Bucky answered; he reached up and brushed his finger along the scar, “It ain’t that bad, is it?”
“Oh god,” Steve had no idea Bucky could tell that he was looking at the scar. “No, sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Bucky laughed.
“I’m sorry,” Steve repeated, shaking his head. He spoke rapidly, “I think I just, I think I feel guilty about it. ‘Cause I was there when it happened. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, punk,” Bucky smiled, “Here.” He locked eyes with Steve and clutched his hand. Steve’s breath hitched as Bucky raised his hand, “Feel it. Push.”
He grimaced as Bucky forced his finger into the thin skin of the scar, “Jesus, Bucky.”
“It doesn’t hurt or anything; I don’t want you feeling guilty.” He pulled Steve’s hand back down but still held it. “It was my stupid fight. It’s on me.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Bucky smiled and released Steve’s hand. Steve let it fall to his side but made a fist, an unconscious attempt to rub in the memory of a touch. “Now quit starin’ at it. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Steve smiled, “Sorry.”
“S’okay. Don’t be sorry,” He slapped the folded sketchbook paper against his palm, “I’m gonna go home and look at this. Happy birthday, pal.”
“Thanks, Buck. Get home safe.”
“I will,” Bucky took off down the stairs into the night and waved the paper in the air, “G’night, Stevie.”
“Night, Buck,” Steve called.
Even from the landing, he could hear Bucky humming about being born on the Fourth of July until he hopped into his car and drove away. Steve went inside, kicked off his shoes, and laid on his back underneath his window.