Fondue?
I sat in the pilot seat of the plane that my pa and Mr. Stark had been working on together. Clouds hung around us like fields of cotton, hiding the sky of stars from view. I had a pretty good idea of where I was going, following the brass compass that hung around my neck by a chain. The compass had been gifted to me by my father for my sixth birthday after I had made a point to him that I planned on following in his footsteps into being an aviator, along with a star map, my very first flying jacket, goggles, and toy planes.
There was shuffling behind me, and Mr. Stark appeared, sitting down in the co-pilot seat.
He wore a flying jacket with a striped button-up and red tie hidden beneath with a headset on his head. His hair was curled up in his short haircut and he had a freshly shaven mustache. He glanced over at me and stared, but I pretended not to feel his stares, continuing to push buttons and focus on the flight.
We established that I was going to drop Steve as close as I could to the Hydra factory in Kreuzberg, but now Stark was talking about ‘getting fondue’ after the dropoff. I rolled my eyes and held back a gag, I knew all the information I needed about how sex worked and what it was, I didn’t want the mental image of Mr. Stark going down on Peggy Carter stuck in my head. Especially as an imaginative person.
“So are you two…Do you…” I hear Steve murmur behind me, hesitant on how to word it, “…fondue?”
I wanted to smack Steve so badly at that moment.
Howard of course was enjoying it thoroughly, he was smugly smiling and his eyes twinkled with humor. I decided then that Mr. Stark was a pig.
I shuffled in my seat, and the plane shook to the left with my slight movement. There was some beeping that erupted and I quickly looked around for any sort of hint of what it was.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure.”
Mr. Stark grabbed the wall and gripped his seat, “Alright, who the hell decided it was a smart decision to let the kid fly?”
I glanced at him, “I thought you said you could fly this thing!” Steve hurriedly stepped up to the cockpit to look at the buttons.
“No, I said my dad was teaching me how.”
Everyone stopped moving and stared at me, I finally found what was wrong and clicked a few buttons, flipped switches, and it stopped beeping.
“Alright, move,” Mr. Stark was standing now, gesturing for me to get out of the pilot seat.
“What? No way,” I pinched my eyebrows together and quickly looked at my compass, ensuring we were headed in the right direction.
“You just said you haven’t flown!”
“You haven’t either!”
“Yes, I have!”
“Sitting in your failed flying cars that blow up don’t count, Mr. Stark.”
He held his hands frozen in the air, deeply exhaled, and turned around to look at Steve dead in the eye, “If we crash into the North Atlantic, I’m blaming you.”
“Way to have faith.”
Mr. Stark turned and glared at me like a child who was put in timeout, and grumpily sat down in the co-pilot spot.
The plane started shaking immensely and bright streaks of bullets flew past us. I started turning the wheel in hopes of dodging a few close ones, but mainly kept it going on course.
“Get back here! We’re taking you all the way in!” Peggy yelled at Steve, I looked back to see him running towards the door and Peggy trailing right behind him.
“Eyes on the sky, kid!” Mr. Stark was reaching over my arms, trying to grab the wheel from me. I quickly smacked his hands back and stared straight again.
Next thing I knew, Steve was out of the plane, free-falling to his possible death. I took an unsteady breath in. He would be fine, yes he just jumped into the ongoing battlefield, but he’ll be fine. He’ll be fine right?
I sure hope so or I’m killing him myself.
Peggy now stood right next to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her and she nodded.
I took another breath in and released my death grip on the steering wheel, replacing it with a normal hold to steer us home.
I sat on one of the many jeeps they had sitting around on the base. As soon as I had gotten back from the flight, my pa was there, awaiting my arrival. How he figured out what I was doing, I had no idea. All I knew was that Mr. Stark didn’t help the situation by telling my pa we were getting shot at mid-air.
My pa’s usually light-tanned skin was dark red and purple, the vein in his forehead popping out and pulsating. His brown hair looked like it had been yanked on and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot. The skin around his eyes were puffy and red like he’d been crying.
He had yelled at me the moment I stepped off the plane, telling me how I shouldn’t have ever even lifted off and that he had some nasty words to say to ‘that star-spangled-tights-wearing-fuck’ and ‘how dare he allow a 14-year-old fly a plane into an ongoing battlefield not knowing what kind of weapons they harnessed, I’ll bet he didn’t have a fucking plan then.’
But by the end of it, he fell to his knees and hugged me, balling like a baby telling me he was glad I was okay.
Then he yelled again telling me I was grounded for life and never allowed to go missing again. I wrapped my pinky around his and touched foreheads, signifying the promise we kept.
But now, I sat in a Jeep, mourning my brother who was late to sending a signal for us to pick him up.
There hadn’t been any more action since the night we dropped him off. It was as if they had never been there before and nothing had happened.
I flipped through the pages of his sketchbook, staring at one of me. He had drawn me getting told off by Colonel Phillips for throwing a grape juice at one of the soldiers who was bad-mouthing Steve. The soldier had apparently turned out to be allergic to grapes and was covered in itchy hives for a few days. I told him I had no idea he was allergic and that I meant to throw it in the trash that I thought was right next to him, but, as the Colonel pointed out, it was instead on the opposite side of the area.
I hadn’t known Steve watched my lecture while also seeing a man dripping in purple liquid blooming in hives. He had drawn the slight smile I had on my face and the fake drawn posture I held to perceive my innocence. By the time I knew Steve had seen it, he already taken the blame and the chores that were going to be assigned to me as punishment.
As I flipped to the next page, people all around me started running. I snapped the book shut and looked up to see a line of people clapping.
Why are they clapping?
I pinched my eyebrows together, and then I saw them. Steve Rogers and a brown-haired man next to him were leading hundreds of soldiers back to camp.
Abandoning the book, I jumped off the jeep, heart in my throat, and made my way across the yard and through the cheering crowd.
When I finally reached him, Peggy was standing fiercely in front of him, and he had a small smile on his face.
“Steve!” My voice cracked as I barreled towards him, crashing into his stomach for a hug. He took a few steps back, regained his balance, then finally hugged me back.
“Hey, Ara,” he said, out of breath. I immediately stepped back and smacked him on the arm as hard as I could, causing my hand to sting and buzz.
“You fucking dick! You were supposed to call me to pick you up, you prick!” I glared hard at him, trying to blink away the tears and look as livid as I felt.
But Steve just smiled, and looked over at the man next to him, whose eyebrows shot up and was staring at Steve, “You let a little girl talk to you like that?”
“Oh I’ll show you who's a little girl after I get done with you mister,” I pointed at him and started walking towards him, but was stopped by Steve’s arm.
“Bucky, this is Ara. Ara, Bucky.”
I stopped in my tracks and looked at him, “nice to know you aren’t dead then.”
His mouth broke into a smile and looked at Steve with something I couldn’t place sparkling in his eyes, “I like her. Can we keep her?”
“I’m no damn pet-”
“She’s already mine, Buck. But I guess we can share custody,” I gasped at Steve and hit him again, this time he feigned hurt.
“I’m not going to be shared like a dog.”
“No, not like a dog. Like a parrot.”
“Excuse me??”
“You talk a lot, sometimes I just need a break.”
“Steve Rogers, you better run before I kick your ass.”
“Oh perfect, I’m back from the dead and the first thing that I get to watch is Steve get his ass handed to him by a little girl.”
“You keep calling me a little girl and I’ll kick your ass too, Barnes!”
“My bad, you’re right. You’re not a little girl.”
“Thank you-”
“You’re our shared parrot.”
I stared at him and glanced side to side between Barnes and Rogers, blinking slowly.
The biggest smiles were evident on their faces, clearly taking joy from the situation.
Until I asked Peggy for her handgun.