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Bucky sat on the fire escape, the girl who called him Uncle had given him the address, had said he was welcome. It was an odd thought, being welcome. The Winter Solider had never been welcome. He tried to think of the last time that he had been welcome somewhere, blond hair and a wide smile flashed before his eyes. Punching that smile away burned before his eyes. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the images, focusing on the girl in the kitchen again. She was familiar, though her eyes seemed to belong under a bowler hat and her smile seemed like it should speak another language. She held memories with a softer edge than blond hair and a wide smile.
Steve. That was the name, the man on the bridge, the man he knew, the man he had tried to stop, the man he had saved. She said she could find Steve, he wanted to find Steve more than anything, he feared to find Steve more than anything. Around her the memories came back at a trickle, enough to help him find out who Bucky was, who he was, but they didn’t burn behind his eyes.
Bucky looked through the window, watched her move around the kitchen, a familiar smell wafting through the window. He couldn’t place it, he could place so little. She could help, she had said she would, that she knew stories that should be part of the lost memories. Would hearing the stories bring back the memories? He had to try. Maybe if he found some of the soft memories, the others wouldn’t burn him. Maybe he could talk to Steve again, maybe if he figured out how to be Bucky again Steve would forgive him for being the Winter Soldier.
Sammy was stirring the pot of Poppa Dugan’s pasta sauce when she heard a tapping on her window. She glanced into the living room and saw her ginger tom Pixel raise his head towards the noise. Sammy smiled to herself, taking a pull from her beer.
‘The door does work, Uncle Bucky,’ she said as she padded across to slide open the window. Sure enough there was a shabby looking Uncle perched on the fire escape. He shrugged.
‘Would have had to go by your doorman.’
‘Still trying to stay inconspicuous then?’ He nodded. ‘You know the doorman’s there to protect me from strange men entering my apartment.’
‘You don’t seem as though you need much protection.’
Sammy smiled. ‘Flattery, Uncle? You’re learning. Come in then, and shut the window behind you, dinner’s nearly ready. I’d apologise for the place being a mess, but you’re family, you can deal.’
Bucky slipped silently into the apartment, closing the window behind him, ‘I don’t need dinner, I’m fine.’
Sammy raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you eaten dinner?’
‘...No.’
‘Then take off your coat, sit down and stop being stupid. I grew up with two brothers, I always make far too much food in any case.’
‘Yes Ma’m,’ Bucky replied peeling off his rumpled coat and sitting down he watched Sammy pad back into the kitchen. Someone else flashed across his eyes, red lipstick and no nonsense.
‘Is that one different than the leg you were wearing yesterday?’ Sammy’s prosthetic leg was in full view in the pyjama shorts she had thrown on once she got home.
‘Yep, I’m testing this one out. I see how they go around the house for a couple days before I take them outside, far easier to deal with my knee blowing out in here than on the Subway.’
‘Who are you testing it for?’
‘Me, of course! Didn’t I mention what I do?’
‘You said you worked in a lab.’
‘Designing prosthetics, set up my own company out of university, didn’t seem fair that I had fancy StarkTech limbs cause of my family while everyone else had to get around with clunky non mobile things. I went it alone for a while, wanted to prove that I could, to make my own name, then I let Stark buy me out a few years back. Now they deal with the management while I focus on improvement.’
‘That one looks great,’ he said, gesturing to the leg. Sammy smiled and raised herself up on one toe, pirouetting around the kitchen.
‘It’s got promise, but yours is fascinating.’ She tilted her head to look critically at the shiny metal arm. ‘Might be able to make some improvements, at least tidy it up a little.’ Bucky looked instantly defensive. ‘Sorry, I’ll leave well enough alone.’ He regretted his defensiveness as she turned away. Don’t let anyone close, an order burned into his mind. But that was The Winter Soldier’s order. He had come here looking for Bucky.
Sammy turned her attention back to dinner as the water began to boil and dumped a packet of pasta in. Meanwhile, Pixel made his way from the couch and jumped onto Bucky’s lap, butting his head against Bucky’s chest. Bucky smiled, remembering another cat. Steve could barely feed himself and the dumb kid had to bring home a stray.
‘The dogs would have killed him Buck.’
‘So you decided to let them have you instead?’
‘I just wanted to save him.’
‘And you did, just sit still while I find something to patch you up ,ok?’
‘I see you’ve met Pixel. Since you don’t want me tinkering with your tech is there any particular reason for you dropping by? Or was it just the pleasure of my company?’ Asked Sammy, cracking a beer and putting it on the table by Bucky before taking a sip from her own.
‘Hrm?’ he said, his attention entirely focused on scratching Pixels ears, lost in the memory that they brought.
‘Just the company then,’ she said and went back to the kitchen to grate cheese.
‘What, no,’ Bucky started. The memory slipped away, leaving a sensation of warmth, not fire. He returned his attention to Sammy, much to Pixel’s disappointment. ‘I actually wanted to ask you a favour.’
‘Sure thing Uncle,’
‘Could you tell me some of those stories?’
‘Which stories?’
‘The ones the other Commandos used to tell you.’
‘Weren’t you there for them?’
Bucky nodded. ‘It’s just...what happened, the reason that I’m still here. It screwed with my memories, but the longer I’m away from the process the more comes back. I was hoping that hearing some of what happened might...jog things along.’
‘I can do that.’ Sammy smiled at him, ‘but wouldn’t getting them direct from the source be better? Some of the old bastards are still around, I could - ’
The faces flashed by, blood and mud covered, so much pride. They’d never forgive what he had done, he had killed people, people those faces could have loved - ‘No! No. I’m not ... ready for that.’
‘I already put a call out for Uncle Steve to get in contact with me. Is that okay?’
Bucky took a long pull from the beer. Blond hair and a wide smile, it hurt less everytime time. ‘Steve,’ he said softly. Sammy looked at him, worried, ‘Steve’s ... different.’
Sammy nodded and drained the pasta while she thought out loud. ‘Well, I’ve got a childhood’s worth of Howling Commandos stories, anything in particular you feel like listening to over dinner?’
‘Whichever one’s your favourite,’ said Bucky, feigning indifference as he returned to scratching Pixel. In the park she had said that humanity drew her to a story. That was what he needed to find, humanity.
Sammy dished up the food while she considered the long list of stories.
‘Well then,’ she said, putting a bowl in front of Bucky and the plate of cheese between them, ‘let’s start with the Howling Commandos celebrating the Liberation of Paris. Sound good?’
‘Sounds perfect,’ said Bucky. Sammy nodded and retrieved her own bowl, and another beer from the kitchen before sitting down.
‘Watch out for Pix, he’ll eat half your meal if you let him.’
‘He’s ok.’
‘Then let’s begin,’ said Sammy with mock seriousness, sitting down. ‘The Tale of the Uncles celebrating the Liberation of Paris.’ Bucky smiled, slipping a fingerful of sauce under the table to Pixel. They never had been able to find quite enough food for that stray. He wondered what had happened to it when they left.
The meal lasted them until after the Commandos left the Moulin Rouge. Sammy told the story well and before long Bucky could see it. The flashing lights and coloured skirts of the dancers, Steve blushing at the cancan, Gabe’s translation of Frenchie’s rapid fire narration, the memories flowed along Sammy’s words softly, the harsh edges smoothed by distance. It was another beer until Bucky began correcting the story; when the Commandoes hit the French Quarter, he began remembering things differently. Sammy giggled when he pointed out the errors, which inevitably made one of the Uncles look better, though Sammy suspected that Bucky was exaggerating his story in places in return. She even got to hear the real end of the story after Bucky galloped down the Champs-Élysées on a stolen horse, with Steve running after him. Bucky remembered challenging Steve to a race, telling him the horse would at least even the playing field.
‘Come on punk, I’ll race you to the Arc!’
‘Buck, what are you doing?’
‘Only way to get a fair chance these days!’
Sammy didn’t know about that, the others had still been crowded around a bar when Bucky and Steve pelted by. The other Uncles had never been able to fill in what happened between that and Steve arriving back at camp with Bucky slung over his shoulder. Though Bucky himself didn’t remember much more of the story after he fell off the horse, that was a different loss, a clean blackness: There was no fire at the end of the memory. When the story ended Bucky fell quiet, lost in the warmth of remembering. Sammy stood to clear the table. As she put weight on her prosthetic it crumpled, nearly sending her crashing to the ground. Bucky was out of his seat, catching her before she hit the floor.
‘You okay?’ He asked, a wild panicked look in his eyes. He remembered too many falls breaking bone, the sick crunch he had heard all too often, he remembered blond hair and hidden pain.
Sammy chuckled and patted his cheek. ‘This is the problem with testing the damn things, sometimes they fail the tests. Give me a hand to my workshop, it’s the red door.’ Bucky nodded, and swung her into his arms. ‘Uncle Bucky! I can hop, you know.’
‘This is easier.’ He said roughly.
Sammy snorted, as she leaned over to open the door with a thumb print.
‘That’s awfully secure.’
‘I take my work home with me, Uncle -hence my current predicament. There’s a few million in R&D behind this door.’
‘How do you deal with this when you’re on your own?’ Bucky asked worriedly as he deposited her in a chair.
‘I can take a fall, Uncle, then I hop in here, or fix it wherever I am. I’ve got crutches around if I need them as well.’ Sammy absently flexed the joints. ‘Hrm, I suspect prolonged sitting combined with alcohol consumption resulted in slowed reactivity. I can fix that,’ Sammy grinned up at Bucky, ‘but not tonight. I’d rather get back to story-telling.’ She disconnected the limb quickly. ‘Now where did I leave my other leg?’
‘Uhhh...’ said Bucky looking around the room, which held dozens of limbs in various stages of completion. He was lost amongst Sammy’s “organisational” system, well she knew where everything was.
‘There! The silver and white one by the computer desk.’ She pointed to the limb in question, still fiddling with the problem prosthetic. Bucky obligingly handed it to her, breaking her concentration. She considered both for a moment.
‘Actually, screw it. I can’t be bothered putting the thing back on.’ She put both down on the work bench and hopped up from the chair. Bucky once again immediately appeared beside her, an arm around her waist to steady her. ‘My crutches are behind the door.’
‘Why use them?’ A flash of begging someone - Steve - to use crutches, to not walk to soon, to not do himself anymore damage.
‘Well, I’m not going anywhere for the rest of the night and I don’t feel like putting a leg back on.’ She slotted her hands into the crutches. ‘Come on, before we get back to stories I’ve got something for you.’
‘For me?’ Why would she buy him something, what did he deserve? He stuck close to Sammy’s shoulder as she swung herself through the apartment. He knew how to do this, he wouldn’t let her fall again.
‘I bought it for you yesterday, after you disappeared on me.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Happens,’ Sammy shrugged. ‘I grew up around spies, remember? I’m never sure if you bastards are going to be there when I turn around.’ She swung around to face Bucky, ending up nose to nose with him, he jumped back an inch, ‘You always turn up eventually, though,’ she smiled, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Now, where did I ....’ she muttered to herself moving back into the kitchen, leaving warmth behind her as he stood stuck still. He tried to think of the last time someone had touched him out of nothing but kindness. Bucky let her move away from him this time, stopping at the table to clear the dishes, this he remembered: in a tiny apartment filled with rough coughing, with his mother nagging him, in a freezing army mess. Dishes had to be cleaned, this at least, was the same
‘Here it is!’ she said triumphantly, moving the empty pasta packet and holding up a little black cell phone.
‘What’s that?’
‘A phone, Uncle Bucky. Just a little burner, I bought it with cash so it’s untraceable and I’m the only one with the number. Have you used a cell before?’ Bucky considered this for a moment before nodding. ‘Good, that makes it easier. I’ve pre-programmed my number, just hit 1 to call me.’
‘Why?’ he asked, dumping the dishes into the sink and filling it with water. Sammy decided not to mention the dishwasher. She pondered the question.
‘Well… in case you need me. In case I finally take a fall too hard and need you. In case Uncle Steve gets in contact. I just like knowing that there’s a way of getting in touch with the people I care about.’
Bucky smiled, steam rising around his face.
‘That can’t be easy in a family full of spies,’
‘No. Although it does remind me of another story: The Tale of Uncle Gabe Calling Home for Christmas.’
‘Sounds interesting,’
‘Well when you wash my dishes you get rewarded. I’ll empty the sauce pot so you can do that too.’ Bucky turned and lifted her again, hands warm from the water, setting her down on the counter.
‘You just sit right there and tell the story, missy. I’ve got this.’
‘Well at least hand me something to lubricate the vocal cords, Uncle mine.’
Bucky passed her a beer over his shoulder and she began talking again, and this time she didn’t stop. Through the dishes, feeding Pixel, Pixel forgiving them both for being dumped on the floor when Bucky caught Sammy, through many more stories and a couple more beers until finally, lying on the couch with her leg across Bucky’s lap and Pixel asleep on her stomach Sammy finally began to yawn.
‘I should let you get some sleep,’ he said, patting her knee, his mind filled with the soft warmth of memories. The sharpness was still there, the wrong memory could still burn, but now there was more than just pain, now he could begin to see why Steve would wish to talk to him. What he could do to be forgiven.
‘Mmm,’ she said stretching absently. ‘Do you want to crash here?’
‘Well...’ he glanced out the window at the cold dark of the city, thought of the perch he had made himself, tactically secure, on top of an unfamiliar building built where there had once been blond hair and wide smiles.
‘Uncle Buck, I live alone in an apartment with two spare bedrooms. In New York. The point of this is for family to crash whenever they need to. ’
‘If you’re sure,’ he looked down at the niece he had just met. He should stay, maybe he could help her. Maybe Steve would call her.
‘Since you haven’t shown up with a gunshot wound at 3am, you’re hardly the most trouble I’ve ever been caused. In any case I wouldn’t mind a chance to have a closer look at that arm,’ she flicked the metal arm so it rang like a bell. ‘Plus, I can keep telling stories.’
‘Well, in that case, ok’ he said smiling slightly. Sammy broke out into a giant grin and settled down deeper into the couch.
‘You can sleep in the room with the blue door, second on the left. There’s some spare clothes in the closet and drawers. Take whatever you need.’
‘What I have is fine.’
‘What you have looks like you pulled it out of a dumpster.’
‘Nice words from the girl who fell off her own leg.’
‘Brat,’ muttered Sammy closing her eyes, just for a second, and what felt like a second later she was being lifted off the couch, and tucked carefully into bed.
Bucky closed the door softly, ghosting through the apartment so he wouldn’t disturb Sammy, he picked the phone up off the counter, tucking it securely into a pocket. He checked the doors, the windows, making sure everything was locked, that she was safe. Only then did he let himself drift to the blue door, a bedroom, a bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept in a bed.
‘Hey Buck, we just got a tip off about Zola. We’re moving out first thing tomorrow.’
‘Then get out, would you? I wanna enjoy sleeping on an actual mattress before we’re back to sleeping on rocks.’