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Steve took a deep breath; breathed in… and out... He could smell the subtle bite of chlorine and the musty, humid scent associated with water. It was like coming home every time he stepped into a large indoor pool, and this one in particular held so many great memories for him. Even though he only came to this pool for this swim meet once a year, each time felt like a year and a second all at once. While the long, tiring, four day meet was going on, each day seemed like an endless blur of joy, elation, sorrow, and exhaustion as he and his teammates won and lost races and swam hundreds of laps.
This year in particular held an underlying sense of loss that increased as each day passed by. This would be his last meet with his team, the team he had been with for the last four years, who had helped shape him through hard work and friendship to be the person he was today. But he wouldn't let it be his last meet with Bucky, his best friend who also had his last meet today. Tonight was his last race, his last chance.
Bucky had already pretty much secured his place on the college swim team of his choice with his win yesterday in the 100 meter Breaststroke and the day before that in the 200 meter Breaststroke. If Steve wanted to be there with Bucky, then he had to win his own race the 100 meter Freestyle. He had to be the best, had to be the fastest here at the state level championship meet. Unfortunately, there were seven others who wanted that title, too.
As Steve walked onto the deck, his footsteps echoed within the large indoor pool, his sandals flipping and flopping with every stride. To his right were five stands of bleachers for each team to leave their bags, outnumbering the three on the other side of the pool. Above that, on the second floor, were the stadium seats for the parents and anyone who was not competing in the swim meet. Slightly to his left were the timers’ chairs, two in front of each of the eight lanes, ready to hold volunteer timers but not yet equipped with the stopwatches and score sheets to record each swimmer’s time. Above the timers’ chairs, covering nearly the entire two story wall, was the scoreboard. It was black and covered with thousands of bulbs that would light up red to display their messages. Just looking at it made him excited and apprehensive. It was here, on this board, that he would get the results of his race.
Directly in front of him was the pool. A standard Olympic size, fifty meters by twenty-five yards, it was a thing of beauty. Twelve feet deep at the starting end, it sloped down to eighteen in the middle, where the diving boards were, and climbed up to ten at the other end. Nine lane ropes, made from thick plastic rings threaded onto silicone coated steel wire, divided the pool into eight long lanes. Running lengthwise along the bottom of the pool were eight black tiled lines. They were there so that each swimmer had something to follow when swimming their laps.
Steve smiled fondly as his eyes took in everything. So many memories had been made here. So many best times. So many friendships. It was hard to imagine that this would be his last swim meet here. His last Long Course State Championship.
Sure, he could come back after he started college. Long Course State was open to swimmers of any age, unlike Short Course State, which was only eighteen and under. He laughed. As much as he loved swimming with his team, there was no way he would be here next year. He would be swimming in college then, and the only college swimmers who came to swim at State were the ones who needed their egos stroked by beating some high schoolers because they couldn’t cut it in the big leagues. And that would not be him.
Steve walked over to his team area, careful not to slip in the leftover puddles from the morning session, and sat his bag on the bleachers. Steve sighed and then laughed. He really needed to stop being so melodramatic. Warm-ups were going to start soon, and he had a race to win tonight. His race: the 100 meter Freestyle. And there was going to be some tough competition. Besides the six other swimmers who had swam fast enough this morning to make it into the top eight finals, there was Gilmore Hodge, the guy who out touched him in the 50 Freestyle. He would be tough to beat. And Steve needed to beat him.
While Steve was fast, damn fast, he needed to be the fastest. He had to be really attractive to recruiters for college teams if he wanted the best shot at swimming with Bucky. They needed to be Steve and Bucky, the with the fastest Freestyle and Breaststroke in the state. Not Bucky, with the fastest Breaststroke, and Steve, this guy who was pretty good at the 200 Free. He hadn't won the 50 Free (Hodge had beaten him), but he still had a good shot at being considered for college swim teams that Bucky was looking into because he had won the 200 meter Free. The 50 Free was somewhat of a toss-up; anyone fast could win it, not necessarily the fastest. There was a bit of luck needed to win the 50 because it was so short. Literally, just twenty-five seconds, and it was over. Ties were pretty common; as was being out touched by a hundredth of a second, which was what happened to Steve.
Not that Steve was giving excuses. Hodge had just been faster than him; one hundredth of a second faster, but still faster. He was ready for the 100 Free though. While the 50 was a “dive in, sprint, sprint, sprint, don’t breathe, sprint, sprint, sprint, finish,” the 100 was “dive in, sprint your guts out ‘til you want to die to the end of the pool, flip-turn, do it all over again, don’t breathe, and finish, then puke.” Well, puking was optional; though it was a sign of a good race. For some reason, breathing, a necessary thing for life and not puking, slowed swimmers down, and they were encouraged to consider it optional during a race; as long as they didn't slow down, of course. Annoying and painful, but just a fact.
Steve was startled by the steady arrival of the rest of his team. He really needed to stop angsting about the race. The evening’s warm-ups were about to start, and Bucky was finally back from napping in his hotel room. Steve stripped down to his swimsuit, grabbed his goggles, and made his way over to the lane the team was warming up in. Bucky looked up from stretching out his triceps and smiled, wide and beaming, his usual 'here comes Steve!' smile. Steve felt a rush of warmth rise up. It was time to get ready for the last race of his pre-college career.
~*~*~*~
After forty minutes of warm-ups and two hours of yelling and cheering for his teammates as they swam their races, Steve headed over to the cool-down lanes for a stretch and a few quick sprints to get his body warm and his heart rate going. Then he walked back to his team area to get an “encouraging” speech from the coach. Even though he probably already knew what Coach was going to say to him, it was still good to hear it again. Plus, it was practically an unwritten rule of swimming: visit the coach before and after a race.
As Steve traversed the slippery pool deck, making sure not to fall, he thought about how scared he used to be when confronted with Coach Phillips gruff, scowling face and the way he barked orders at them like boot camp. Now though, it made him laugh a little when some of the new kids cowered a little when Coach delivered his motivational speeches at the beginning of each session. Thankfully for the new swimmers, Coach Phillips only coached the older, more hardened members of the team, like Bucky and Steve, through their practices. Bucky had even made it his in practice mission to get Coach to crack a smile, and he often coerced Steve into helping out. Though Steve never tried hard to resist. Steve suddenly felt very old as he watched two thirteen year-olds get their pointers for before their race. This would be his last one.
After receiving the usual pump up speech (keep your head down, don’t breath, swim fast, and, Rogers, get out there and win this thing), Steve headed to the ready room, another place that brought back memories and made him feel melancholy. How many times had he sat in those annoying, uncomfortable, armless chairs waiting for his event to start? Since it was unusual for him not to make it back to the final swims, there have been many, many times. In that room, he had heard the latest gossip from the other teams, cheered as his teammates swam their events, trash talked with Gilmore Hodge, his longtime rival, and tried to keep Bucky from swiping food off the swim meet officials’ hospitality table (“It's for later, Steve, and I'll get you some, too!). He once even played a few rounds of Go Fish with the other competitors while waiting for the officials to figure out why the power was out.
Steve was early, so there were not very many people here yet. There was only Bucky. Unlike Steve, who was wearing a red track suit that allowed good body movement so that he could continue stretching but still be warm on the cool pool deck, Bucky was bundled up in dark blue hoodie with his towel wrapped around his waist. His hair was only slightly damp from his own warm-ups, and he had music in his ears. Steve wondered what Bucky was listening to this time. Bucky was known for his eclectic music tastes.
Bucky grinned as he saw Steve walk up, pulled his ear-buds out, and said teasingly, “So, Steve, you gonna win this thing?”
Steve rolled his eyes. “I’d better. Hodge out touched me in the 50; he’s not doing it in the 100. This is my race.”
Bucky laughed. “Yeah, I know. Make sure you kick ass.”
“I will.”
As Steve said this, he felt those stupid twistings in his stomach, the ones that people say are “butterflies” but really feel like worms. Yuck, he should not be getting nervous. He hadn’t been nervous before a race since he was fifteen and just aged up into the senior division.
Suddenly, a push from behind almost sent him tumbling into the pool. Luckily, the source of that abrupt shove also grabbed his arm to keep him from falling in. Bucky, the jerk, just looked at Steve, feeling no guilt, with his cocky smile on and the laughter in his eyes that said 'come on, Steve, I know you can do this.'
A man of many words, Bucky came off initially as flighty and a goof off. But though he teased and joked, it was at these quiet moments when he said the most. Because Bucky always seemed to know what Steve needed, and now Steve needed to keep his mind off the real reason he wanted to win so badly and on a lighter one like his so-called revenge for his defeat in the 50.
Steve gave Bucky a dirty look (even though the worms in his stomach were gone) and turned the conversation to the annoying music stuck in his head.
“Did you really have to pick Pokémon for your final walk-out?” Steve asked.
Bucky smirked and replied with no shame, “Yep.”
“Ugh. I still have that thing stuck in my head.” Steve scowled at him.
Bucky just smiled innocently at Steve and went back to his music.
~*~*~*~
Walk-out songs were one of the best things about State Meet. After everyone had swum the morning’s preliminary events, the swimmer that placed first got to pick the song that will be played when the top eight walk out from the ready room to the starting blocks. It was normally an inspiring song from someone’s pump-up music. Often rock or rap song and something with a good beat. Not so with Bucky. He picks songs that are much more… entertaining.
Bucky had won the Senior guys’ 100 Breaststroke every year. He hadn't before aging up at fifteen because he hadn’t taken practice very seriously. Also, back then, as difficult as it was to imagine now, Bucky and Steve hadn’t been very good friends.
Steve had always been a bit of a loner and very serious about swimming. Growing up, he had been sick in bed with asthma and his crappy immune system so much that his mother had homeschooled him rather than have him held back grades for missing class. Swimming had been one of the few ways to get out and socialize. Even though he loved to swim and was very good at it, he was still the tiny kid who couldn't push himself too hard without having an asthma attack. Puberty had been a life changing miracle. His asthma had lessened drastically, and he had started catching up in height to the other kids his age. Finally he was able to dedicate himself to swimming the way he had been wanting to, so he joined a year round swim team the April before he turned fourteen.
Bucky, on the other hand, was a natural athlete. Swimming was one of the many sports his mother had signed him up for when he was younger, and he stuck with swimming because it came so easily to him. He came to every practice, but he never pushed himself and never tried to really win. It infuriated Steve that this loudmouth clown was just as fast as he was without even trying. Steve, who lived and breathed swimming, had worked so hard to get to the place he was, who listened intently to every word Coach said about his stroke technique, struggling to master his best race: the 100 Freestyle.
In contrast, Bucky played around, making it through the practice, and not making Coach mad, but still goofing off. He would crack jokes, whine dramatically to Coach about every hard set of laps, do back-flips off the diving blocks, and constantly tease Steve about being so serious.
“Lighten up, Steve,” he’d say, wrapping an arm around Steve's shoulders or giving him a shove towards the pool only to grab him before he fell in. Bucky was always doing that. Steve would just scowl and glare, but never really tell him to stop.
Everyone loved Bucky, and Bucky seemed to love everyone. He was always making them laugh, teasing and flirting and being a lovable nuisance. Even Steve smiled few times at Bucky's antics. It was that winter, right after New Years and just before Bucky turned fifteen, that everything changed, and Steve almost lost him.
Bucky, his mom, and his little sister, Rebecca were on their way to swim practice. Steve never found out exactly what happened, just that there had been a four car pile-up on the interstate. The driver’s side of their small, silver Toyota had been crushed. Thankfully, Rebecca had been sitting on the passenger side, behind Bucky. But his mom hadn't made it.
That had been a tough time for everyone. The team was small, only about fifty swimmers, so a death hit them hard, mainly for Bucky and Steve's age group since there were only a few of them and they were so used to swimming together. Steve had only been on the team for eight months, but Bucky had been there since he was eight. Everyone knew the Barnes. Bucky’s mom had helped organize many of swim meets their team hosted, and she was often seen with Bucky's six year old little sister Rebecca bouncing around after her.
It wasn't too surprising that Bucky had stopped coming to practice. But as the days went by and there was still no Bucky, the silence during those two and a half hours became deafening. No one had realized what he had done during their long, tiring workouts until he left and they had a large, gaping, Bucky-shaped hole in their lives. Coach Phillips was constantly trying to call him and had visited him at home a few times.
After attending Mrs. Barnes' funeral, Steve didn't seen Bucky for two months. Bucky missed Short Course State Meet that spring. The team didn’t even have a Senior guys’ relay; Bucky had been their fourth guy. Steve had been so mad at him for that. His mother had died; it was horrible, but the team needed him. At least, that's was Steve told himself, lap after lap, as he swam quietly fuming at Bucky not being there. Coach Phillips’s expression grew darker and sadder every time he visited Bucky's home to see how he was doing. But it was obvious to Steve: Bucky needed the team as much as the team needed Bucky, and Steve was going to do something about it.
So, Steve had gone to see Bucky. Steve didn’t really know why he thought that it would make a difference, but he had to say something. The team needed Bucky, he told himself, and Bucky's mother wouldn't have wanted him to quit swimming. On the last day of the two week break between the Short Course fall and winter session and the start of the Long Course spring and summer session, Steve asked his mom to take him by Bucky's house. However, once Steve was there in front of Bucky, he lost any thought on how to convince Bucky to come back to the team and turned into a stuttering, awkward mess.
Steve was in Bucky's room. Bucky, who Steve hadn't seen in two months. Bucky, who Steve (and the team) had missed so much during the long, exhausting practices. Bucky, who looked tired and dirty and wasn't smiling. Steve had never seen Bucky without a smile. It was kind of scary and unnatural, and it made Steve even more nervous. He managed to spit out a monologue about the team and not giving up and some other stuff that he couldn't remember. Bucky said that he would think about it, and Steve left feeling miserable and nauseous.
Steve must have said something worthwhile because the day after his visit, Bucky showed back up to practice. It had been weird, too. Bucky was the same as he used to be, smiles, jokes, and everything. All except for his newfound dedication to swimming and to driving Steve absolutely crazy with his pranks and whining and pulling on Steve's feet when they were swimming and his wide beaming smiles that he seemed only to direct as Steve.
But Steve had also changed a little. The saying 'you don't know what you have until you lose it' was very true. Steve smiled more, laughed, took swimming a little less seriously, and soaked up all he could of Bucky's presence. With Bucky's new devotion to swimming, he quickly joined Steve as one of the fastest people on the team. Bucky and Steve became training partners, and they were soon inseparable. Bucky didn’t tease Steve for being so quiet, though Bucky did always give Steve a good shove when he thought he was being too solemn, and Steve tempered Bucky's wildness and kept focused during practice.
Later that year, during the summer at Long Course State when they were fifteen, Bucky came up to Steve before the 100 meter Breaststroke.
“Hey, hey, Steve, you ready to see me win this?” Bucky asked, with a huge, shit-eating grin on his face.
Steve turned away from the women's Breaststroke, looked over at him, and raised one eyebrow. He and Bucky had been getting good at speaking to each other without words.
Bucky laughed. “What’s with that look? Don’t think I can do it?” He made a hurt expression with his bottom lip sticking out and tried to turn innocent, soulful eyes on Steve. And the keyword there was tried. Considering how often Bucky used the “kicked puppy look,” he never was any good at it. Steve thought it had something to do with the near five feet eight inches of swimming muscle he had going for him. Nevertheless, Bucky often tried it on Steve, and it was met with its usual amount of success: laughter from Steve (a rather new thing back then).
“Well,” Steve said with a smile, “go for it.”
“Yep,” Bucky said. “And I have my music all planned out.”
Steve eyed him nervously. “Why do I have the feeling that’s a bad thing?”
Bucky just grinned and walked off to get ready for his race, whistling happily.
~*~*~*~
Sure enough, Bucky had won the morning session of the 100 Breaststroke and was seeded first for the evening finals. It turned out that Steve had reason to fear his music choice. That moment was one that Steve would treasure all his life. The song Bucky chose was so completely him, not because it suited him, but because it was happy and so ridiculous that everyone could not help but laugh.
Eight big, buff fifteen and up guys walked out to the starting blocks with the Sesame Street theme music playing loudly over the pool’s sound system. And there was Bucky, grin on his face, singing along on his way to lane four, the top seed’s lane. Steve thought the announcer kept it playing extra long just for him.
~*~*~*~
After that, whenever Bucky qualified first for a race at a preliminary/finals swim meet, it became a tradition for the team to try to guess what music Bucky would pick this time for his walk-out song. They never did get one right, even with him picking the most absurd songs. Bucky played SpongeBob at the next State, and it went on from there with Captain Planet, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Gillian’s Island. This year, their final State Meet, he topped them all and played the music from the first Pokémon series. They all groaned and just shook their heads.
Steve wanted to moan just thinking about it. It was still stuck in his head. Time to fix that though. He pulled his iPod from his jacket pocket, situated his ear buds, and cranked up his music. He was a bit different from Bucky and their teammates about his pump-up music. Steve didn’t listen to classic rock, rap, or country at meets; he needed instrumental to get him in a racing mood. No words, just the rising and falling of violins, cellos, and other stringed instruments. Tonight he was going with his old favorite, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “A Mad Russian's Christmas,” after which he’d play “Wish Liszt (Toy Shop Madness).” It worked every time. In fact, “Wish Liszt” was going to be his own walk-out music.
~*~*~*~
Steve heard the gentle, almost dainty, piano that began the opening melody for “Wish Liszt” followed quickly by a screaming electric guitar. His friends the stomach worms came back, and he almost puked. The swimmer for lane one exited the ready room where all the competitors for the Men’s 100 meter Freestyle had been waiting. They walked in a long column, eight of them in order, to their lanes, stood behind the appropriate starting block, and finished stretching out. Steve was in the lead spot, lane four. Next to him, in lane five, was Hodge. Steve gave him a friendly good luck nod, trying to settle his nerves, and Hodge nodded back. Steve looked over to lane seven, where Bucky was seeded sixth. He had his usual grin, but Steve must have looked nervous because Bucky did a shoving motion with his hand and stuck his tongue out. Steve smiled and turned his gaze to the pool; his wormy buddies settled down.
“Wish Liszt” was cut off, and three short whistles were blown. The announcer began calling out their names and teams, starting with the guy in lane eight, then lane one, and finally he would end with Steve. The stadium was filled with cheers from the spectators and their teammates as they watched the last race of the night.
Steve clapped as each name was announced, cheered and yelled when Bucky’s was called, and waited for his own.
“And swimming in lane four, for Howling Aquatics, our top seed tonight, with a time of 54.26, Steve Rogers!”
Then Steve heard that one long whistle. The cheering quieted, and all eight of them stepped onto their starting blocks. Steve took his get ready position: right foot forward, left one half a foot length behind it. The toes of his right foot were barely touching the edge of the block. He leaned over and let his fingertips caress the edge.
“Take your mark,” the starting official said, and Steve grabbed the block, all his weight on his right foot, just barely still staying on top. The wait for the start signal seemed like forever and an instant, both at the same time. A thousand thoughts rushed through his head, yet later, Steve couldn’t recall a single one. Then, he heard it, the electric beep, and he leapt off the block, pushing with his arms as well as his legs. Up, up, then down into the water with a dive. Lovely dive, he thought for a moment, but then it was gone, left behind him as he practically flew across the pool.
Steve started off strong. He could do this. The water moved well under his palms; each stroke felt powerful. As he approached the twenty-five meter mark, he turned his head slightly to breathe and looked over at Hodge. He was keeping pace with Steve, but that was all right. It was at the second half that Steve needed to lose him.
The other end loomed ahead; the flip-turn was coming up. Steve had to nail it. he kicked the speed up a notch, lengthening his stroke and kicking that last little bit to the wall. He flipped, turned, and pushed; his feet were on the wall for only a fraction of a second. And then he was off again, sprinting, hauling his butt to the finish. And there it was, the final lap.
Steve breathed and saw Hodge an arm’s length behind him. Excitement gave Steve an extra burst of adrenalin, but he had to keep focus, stay ahead, and not let his form fall apart. He took his last breath and kicked it to the end. Kick, kick, kick. Pull, pull, pull. Don’t breathe. Go, go, go. There was the finish. Steve pushed out his last bit of energy and then some as he swam and reached for the touch-pad that would record the instant he met contact with it.
Bam! Steve lifted his head just enough to suck in deep lungfuls of air. He could hear the yelling, screaming, and cheering of everyone watching the race. Slowly, he looked up to the scoreboard, almost reverently, and saw his time and place. Steve had done it. And now, the meet was over.
~*~*~*~
It was over. That was the only thought in Steve's head. He had won; it was almost guaranteed that he could get on the same team as Bucky, that Bucky wouldn't settle for less because Steve couldn't keep up with him. But then why was he feeling so sad now that it was over. He wondered why he wasn’t excited, why he wasn’t out of the pool and cheering with his family and teammates, why he almost felt like crying. It was ridiculous.
The lane rope that Steve was leaning on dipped down; Bucky swam over and threw an arm over Steve's shoulders.
“Ready to go cool down?” Bucky asked.
Steve shook his head in a negative. Bucky leaned towards him so that his face was next to Steve's and said, “Come on, now; don't be sad, Stevie.” Bucky only called him Stevie now when it was just the two of them.
Steve didn't look at him. It was childish, he knew, but he suddenly was filled with doubt, insecurity, and a wild possessiveness. He didn't want their bubble of just Steve and Bucky to end. He didn't want to go home and not see Bucky at practice the next day, where it was just the two of them swimming laps while Coach Phillips glowered nearby. It was selfish, but he didn't want Bucky to go off to college, be on a team of amazing people even with Steve there with him, and realize he could have so many other, better friends than Steve. Friends that Bucky didn't have to tease and prompt into smiling and laughing. Friends that weren't so serious and boring and that wanted to go to parties with Bucky and didn't have to be bribed. Friends that-
“Hey,” Bucky leaned even closer and whispered, “It’s not over, you know.”
Steve peered sidewise, into Bucky's eyes. He could see Bucky's lashes and all the swirls of blue and grey in his irises. Bucky was grinning that shit-eating grin that always seem to mean that he knew something Steve didn’t.
“What?” Steve asked, not getting quite understanding what he meant.
Continuing, Bucky said, “It’s not over. This is just the beginning. It may seem like our world is ending, but really it's just making room for even better, more amazing things for the both of us. Isn’t that what you told me that first time you visited after my mom died? Well, I did embellish it a little.” He smiled then, not a big one, but one that made the corners of his eyes crinkle and his nose scrunch. “Let’s go,” Bucky said softly, and pushed off to start his cool down, confident that he had said everything that needed saying.
As Steve watched him swim off, he felt a warm glow of happiness and something else catch hold and burn brighter and brighter in his chest. He still didn’t remember saying that to Bucky and wasn't completely sure that he had. Bucky did like to screw with him a lot.
Steve pushed off, ready at last to begin his own cool down, and he happened to look back to the scoreboard. He saw his name with a one next to it. A little farther down was his time, 52.89. Steve chuckled to himself. That was pretty fast.