Newfound Family

Labour Day Fun

The next afternoon, after a family BBQ that Clint and Steve cooked for the family, they headed into town for the fair.

Because there were too many people, they ended up having to take two trucks. The Barton's piled into their SUV, and Steve, Nat, Peter, and Wanda ended up following in the Barton's pick-up truck.

Wanda was happy that Nat forgot her booster seat. It made the seat belt a little less restricting, although she caught Nat staring at her in the rear-view mirror, as she was pulling the shoulder strap away from her neck.

"Is it bothering you, Wanda?" She asked, popping her sunglasses off her head and onto her face. The early September day was super-hot and sunny.

"I'm okay." Wanda squeaked, letting the seatbelt go.

Nat reached back to give her knee a reassuring squeeze.

"Don't worry, the drive isn't very long, milaya."

Wanda nodded, focusing her eyes on the passing farmland. It was much different than New York, in which her only ride consisted of the hour car ride to the mall. It was pretty much all highway and tall buildings in the background. But Iowa was different. Much calmer; fewer cars and buildings, and mainly cornfields, apple orchards, and cows.

Beside her, Peter was aggressively pressing the buttons on some portable gaming device.

"Peter," Steve laughed, glancing at him in the mirror, "The ride is only half an hour. You can't last that long without your Gameboy thing?"

"It's a Nintendo Switch, Mr. Rogers. And no, I can't. I'm so close to beating this one part!"

He answered, never taking his eyes off of the screen. His tongue was out in concentration.

Wanda looked over. It looked to her like he was riding horseback through a field, some weird enemy chasing him. Not as fun as Mario kart, where you could play with other people.

Steve rolled his eyes and sighed playfully.

"Kids these days, you can't pry the electronics from their hands." He joked, mainly just to get a reaction out of Peter.

"If I might add Mr. Steve,"

"It's just Steve, kid." Steve corrected Peter.

"Sorry, Steve, whatever. But I'm pretty sure that video games are probably more fun than whatever you did as a kid in the 1940s."

Nat rolled her eyes.

"Peter, you have just learned the hard way. Never bring up the good old days to Steve. He won't be able to quit."

Steve shot her a playful look.

"Well, I'm sorry that kids in my generation actually took the time to play outside. When I was Peter's age..."

They all collectively sighed. This was going to be a long thirty minutes.

...

After following the Barton's SUV into the fairground parking lot, they all hopped out, joining each other at the front gates. Steve and Clint joined Nat by popping on a pair of sunglasses. It was a very rare chance they would get noticed anyways, as they were in a small town in the middle of Iowa, but wearing sunglasses lowered their chances even more.

Steve placed a ballcap on Wanda's head.

"Here you go, Baby Witch. Don't want you to get sunburnt."

Nat couldn't help but smile. The bond between the two of them grew stronger every day. She was just waiting for Wanda to start calling him Dad. It was pretty much inevitable at this point.