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Steve was glad to be back in New York - Washington was nice enough but it wasn’t home. He had missed this big city, even if, from the first moment he had run out into Times Square, he couldn’t help seeing how much had changed. Of course so many things hadn’t, it was still New York, and he hoped that Bucky felt the same way. Steve figured that if he couldn’t help but see the ghosts of their childhood in the movie theatres, the streets, the alleys that the two of them had grown up in, maybe Bucky would as well. If Bucky was trying to get his memories back then Steve was sure that this was where he would come.
‘So what’s the next move?’ asked Sam as they jogged through the grey pre-dawn of Central Park. They had been gradually working through what remained of Steve and Bucky’s childhood neighbourhood, hoping that if Bucky had come home he might have been seen. No luck so far, but Steve couldn’t help hope that Bucky had been here, no one had been able to find him for seventy five years, and Steve had only started looking. Steve shrugged. ‘I’m just hoping he’ll surface.’
‘Well I’m happy to eat Stark’s food until he does.’
‘We’re still mopping up Hydra, there are plenty of ways for you to earn your keep.’
‘Hey, now my wings are rebuilt, I’m happy as long as I get into the air.’
Before Steve could reply his phone went off, an unlisted number blinking up on the screen. Probably Natasha or Clint, so much for a quiet morning.
‘Hello?’ He said, pausing at the side of the path. Sam looked like he could used a break anyway - not that he’d admit it.
‘Captain, I apologise that you don’t know me but I’m Kim Morita, the grandson of Jim Morita and I’ve got information for you about Bucky Barnes.’
Steve’s heart stopped for an instant, he didn’t know this voice this person could be anyone. He may not even have what he promised, it might be a trap. But this wasn’t the first time he had been contacted by the descendants of the Howling Commandos, they had all turned into one big extended family after the War. Still it didn’t hurt to be careful.
‘How do I...’
‘When you rescued everyone from the cells the first thing my grandfather said to you was “I’m from Fresno, Ace!”’
Steve smiled at the memory, ‘Alright son, you’ve got my attention.’ He said, waiting for information about some vague sighting of a metal armed man somewhere.
‘He’s staying with Sammy Dernier.’
‘What? Where?’
Steve listened to the directions numbly. Sam watched him worriedly as he ended the call.
‘What was that, man? You look like you just got gut punched.’
‘Bucky.’
‘On the phone?’
‘What? No, one of my, nieces I guess, who knows where he is.’
‘Niece, huh - that’d be one of the kids of the Commandos right? They seem a trustworthy lot, so it’s a solid lead at last.’
‘Not a lead Sam, an address.’
‘No kidding, what’s your move?’
Steve went quiet. Up until now, Steve had been so focussed on just finding Bucky that he had barely processed what he was actually going to do when he did. Their last encounter had hardly gone well, but if he was staying with someone with the last name Dernier then maybe he did remember the Commandos…
Was he ok? Would he remember Steve? Was he even Bucky anymore? Those files that Natasha had given him flashed in front of Steve eyes, every line of the pain that his best friend had been put through.
‘Steve?’ said Sam worriedly.
Steve shook himself out of his reverie. ‘Yes...right.’
‘Where we headed?’ Sam asked.
‘To Bucky.’
‘Figured as much, let’s go.’ Sam grinned, and finally so did Steve.
‘On your left,’ he said taking off like a shot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sammy was woken up by an unholy banging on the front door. She swung herself out of bed, shouting:
‘Uncle Bucky! Do not shoot anyone until I get out there, I’m coming!’ She grabbed her leg and quickly strapped it on. He had scared the pizza boy half to death the other day and this sounded like a family emergency. She glanced at the clock, at this hour of the morning, it had better be a damn emergency. She grabbed her Glock from the night stand and strode out into the apartment, better safe after all. When she got into the living room Bucky was already there, guns out and pointed at the door.
And of course her phone had to go off, ‘One moment!’ she shouted to whoever was behind the door.
‘Kim you’ve got thirty seconds,’ she said answering the thing, when she saw a cousin’s name.
‘Just got in contact with Uncle Steve, gave him your address and number.’
Sammy eyed the door. ‘Thanks, Kim.’
‘You ok there, cousin?’
‘Fine and I’ve gotta go,’ she said hanging up and tossing the phone onto the couch.
‘You good?’ she asked Bucky who nodded to her. She had gotten used to answering the door like a military operation, even if she was pretty sure of who was on the other side, so she ghosted forward and checked the peep hole. She still half expected to see some beat up looking cousin on the run from the giant mess that was S.H.I.E.L.D. these days. But sure enough, waiting on the other side was an out of breath blond superhuman.
‘Well hell, it seems like you’re not the only Uncle who’s useless at using his phone.’ Bucky relaxed his grip on his guns with a questioning look as she put hers down on a bookshelf. ‘It’s Uncle Steve,’ she clarified, and Bucky stiffened with shock.
‘Here? Now?’ He whispered,
‘Well outside the door now in any case.’ Bucky slid his guns back into their holsters and ran his hand through his hair, then glanced at himself. The soft t-shirt and jeans that he had taken from Sammy’s closet were a mark up from what he had been wearing when he arrived. But this was Steve, Bucky thought, the one constant in all of the memories that he had found since meeting Sammy was Steve. Was he ready for this? He thought he’d have more warning, more time to prepare to meet him again. Steve had never been much good at waiting. Maybe this was better, tear off the bandaid.
There was another knock on the door, softer this time, more nervous.
‘I doubt he’s going to care about how you look’ Sammy said softly. ‘You ready?’ Bucky nodded this time, and Sammy opened the door.
‘Hello, I’m...’ began the man outside the door breathlessly.
‘Uncle Steve, I do know who you are,’ she said, smiling up at him. He nodded, scratching the back of his neck absently.
‘Right, of course. I got a message, about where Bucky is?’
‘Oh I might know something about that,’ she said opening the door a little wider, and turning around towards ... an empty room and an open window.
‘Oh, merde.’
‘What?’ asked Steve, puzzled.
‘Sorry, swearing in French is a bad habit I picked up from my Grandfather, along with a pack of useless family - including you and the Uncle that just dove out the window.’
Steve was dumbstruck ‘The Uncle...Bucky? Bucky was here?’
‘When I opened the door he was, and now he’s run off.’ Sammy sighed expansively. ‘Well, come on in, Uncle.’
‘He was here?’ Steve had honestly expected another dead end, or to just miss Bucky, he had barely allowed himself to hope that he might actually be in the apartment.
‘Yes Uncle Steve, he’s been crashing here for a bit over a week on and off. I’ve been telling him stories about the Howling Commandos, the ones I grew up on. It’s been helping him remember.’
‘A week? Is he ok?’
Sammy shrugged. ‘Relatively. Come inside, you might as well wait for him to show up in here. I’ll make breakfast.’
She walked into the kitchen, expecting Steve to follow and started to pull out ingredients. Steve stood in the doorway, stunned by how close he had come to finding Bucky. After what had felt like a hundred dead ends. He was actually in the place Bucky had been staying. A moment ago there had been nothing but a door between them.
‘Would you come inside, Uncle? You’re letting in the cold, and Uncle Bucky never uses the door.’
‘Right, sorry.’ Said Steve as he stepped into the apartment and shut the door behind him. ‘How’d you find him?’ Sammy turned back to Steve as she began mixing pancake batter.
‘In Central Park, believe it or not. The Uncles showed me enough photos growing up that his face looked really familiar, and I like talking to people so I went over and talked to him. Wasn’t till about halfway through the conversation that I realised he was actually Uncle Bucky.’
‘You just accepted that?’
‘Uncle Steve, the Commandos – including you and Bucky – are my uncles and grandfathers, and more than half of the family is S.H.I.E.L.D. What can I say, a long dead Uncle turning up in a park looking homeless barely registers on my scale of weird.’
‘Really?’
Sammy chuckled. ‘OK fine, it definitely registers. But he’s family, he needed help, I gave it to him. Now how about we try and get the big coward back here for breakfast?’
Steve glanced at the window. Sammy wandered over and stuck her head out, in case Bucky was just perched on the fire escape, but there was no sign of him.
She grabbed her phone off the couch, dialling as she returned. ‘Uncle Bucky I am making bacon, eggs and pancakes and I am going feed your entire helping to Pixel unless you get back here.’
‘He has a phone?’
‘I gave it to him, at least this way I can get in contact somehow when he runs off.’
‘Does he do that a lot?’
Sammy shrugged and she fired up the grill. ‘On occasion, seems to need the space sometimes. A hot meal usually brings him back soon enough.’
Steve smiled. ‘Bucky could never resist a good meal.’
Sammy looked over at Steve, nervously at attention and filling her whole damn living room. ‘Would you sit down, Uncle? He’ll be back when he’s ready.’
‘What if he’s not, though?’
‘Well, considering that I don’t think an hour passed in the last week without him mentioning your name I find that highly unlikely.’
Steve’s eyes widened and his hand gripped the table. ‘He talks about me.’
That was more than Steve had dared hope for. Bucky thought of him - he actually knew who he was.
‘Yes Uncle Steve, he does.’
‘Then why?’ Steve’s eyes flicked to the still open window.
‘Because the last time he saw you he broke everything and put multiple bullets in you; he’s afraid you’ll hate him for it, and has no idea how to cope if you hate him.’
‘I could never hate him,’ said Steve, finally sitting down. The fight on the helicarrier flashed through Steve’s mind, the desperation to get that final chip in place, to not have to fight his best friend. The bullet wounds had hurt less than the feeling of landing punches on Bucky, than seeing the pain and confusion in his eyes and not being able to do anything about it. Bucky had always been there to help Steve, and when Bucky was hurting Steve hadn’t been able to do enough.
‘I suspected as much, but I’m not the one you’ll need to convince. How do you like your eggs?’
‘Sunny side up, please.’ Sammy nodded and turned her attention to the food as the smell of bacon filled the apartment.
Steve looked around the room, searching for something to say, to make conversation that could pull his mind away from the memory of Bucky’s pain, until his eyes came to rest on her bookshelf.
‘Is that a Cap helmet?’
Sammy grinned and walked over to the shelf. ‘The original one you stole off a USO girl in fact. Before they gave you something that was a little better quality than a costume helmet.’
‘What? How did you get that?’
‘Aunt Peggy bullied it out of Howards estate when I got sick.’ Sammy said, picking the helmet from where it sat on the shelf and sticking it on her head at an angle.
‘You were sick?’
Sammy tapped her prosthetic and returned to flip pancakes. ‘I didn’t cut it off for kicks. Honestly it made them harder.’
‘Why did she give it to you?’
‘Well I guess she figured the story of the sick little boy who fought for his country might help the sick little girl fighting for her life. And every bald kid in the ward had a bandana. I like to stand out.’
‘Did it help?’
‘Sure, though I never thought it was fair that they managed to make you a superhuman inside a half hour and they couldn’t get rid of cancer inside a year. Anyway the story about the flagpole always made me laugh.’ Steve smiled. ‘But then I always did have a thing for being cleverer than everyone.’
‘You and Tony must get on.’
‘Hah! Just the opposite - he’s family and I love him, but leave us in a room alone for five minutes and we’ll be shouting.’
‘I know the feeling,’
‘Everyone who’s been in a room with Tony for five minutes does.’
‘No kidding,’ muttered Steve.
Sammy smiled, flipped the helmet off her head and handed it to Steve. The two settled into silence as Sammy turned all her attention to the food and Steve prepared himself for whenever Bucky decided to come back.
He ran his hand over the familiar metal. This was the second time in his life that he had ever been without Bucky and he had been wearing this helmet when the last separation ended. He wasn’t even surprised to find it here. Of course Peggy had been responsible, she had got Steve to Bucky last time they had been apart. It was only right that a piece of that was here.
Bucky had, during the last week, figured out exactly how long it took Sammy to cook breakfast, so just as Sammy was putting the pancakes down on the table there was a tap at the window. Steve’s head snapped around and Sammy hooked the helmet back up and stuck it on Steve’s head before striding over to the window, and looking at Bucky questioningly.
‘We were out of orange juice,’ he said apologetically, holding out the bottle. Sammy just sighed.
‘Well, you’re not wrong,’ she said and moved away from the window so he could climb in. Steve shot out of his chair, his eyes fixed on Bucky as he climbed in the window.
‘Well Uncles,’ Sammy said, dumping food onto a plate, ‘I have just a ton of work to get done this morning so I’ll be in my lab if you need me.’ She said taking the plate and striding towards her office.
‘Sammy, wait...’ said Bucky.
‘Have fun catching up!’ and with that the door closed behind her, and there were Steve and Bucky.
‘I thought you were dead.’ Was all Steve could get out.
Bucky blinked. ‘Well I’m still not used to you being taller. Nice helmet.’
Steve’s hand shot up. ‘Oh, yeah, Sammy stuck it on me.’ He took it off and set it on an empty chair.
‘She does that kinda thing.’
‘I’m noticing that.’
‘She’ll also get grouchy if we let the food get cold,’ Bucky said carefully moving closer to the table, and Steve. He moved like a wild animal, trapped between wanting and fear. He put the bottle down on the table and grabbed a glass. ‘You want some?’
‘Sure, Buck.’
A ghost of a smile echoed across Bucky’s face. Buck, he’d been remembering being called that since Sammy started telling him stories. But now that it was real again, he wondered if he could live up to it.
‘I’m sorry about everything’ they said together. Bucky’s eyes snapped up from the glasses, really looking into Steve’s for the first time in so many years.
‘What do you have to be sorry for?’ They echoed each other again.
‘Steve, would you shut up for a second.’
‘Sure, Buck.’
‘I’ve been killing people for years, I damn near killed you! That’s what I have to be sorry for! What the hell did you do wrong?’
‘I should have found you sooner.’
Bucky waved a hand dismissively. ‘Don’t be stupid, catching that Hydra asshole was more important than dragging my body out of a canyon.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
Bucky narrowed his eyes. ‘What happened to me wasn’t you, Steve.’
‘I was the reason you were out there.’
‘The draft was the reason I was out there, you just made life a little more interesting than lying in a ditch somewhere. Hell, Steve – without you Zola would have just had his hooks in me far sooner.’ Bucky sat down opposite Steve with a thump and forcefully speared a pancake with his fork, flicking it onto Steve’s plate. ‘Eat your breakfast.’
‘You know, if I don’t have anything to be sorry for then you sure don’t.’
Bucky snorted, spearing his own pancake. ‘Seventy-five odd years of murdering people would argue with that.’
‘That wasn’t you.’
‘I know a lot of it wasn’t me, but they couldn’t have made me into the Winter Soldier if the Soldier wasn’t already a part of me. The army taught me to kill before you found me Steve.’ Bucky rubbed his eyes and took a ragged breath. ‘Truth is, even when we were fighting shoulder to shoulder a part of me liked it. The power of it, the purity of it… of course another part of me hated the part that liked it. All they did is strip away the second part, and there the Soldier was, waiting for them.’
Steve narrowed his eyes at his friend - he’d half forgotten just how monstrously stubborn Bucky could be.
‘Then why am I still alive?’
Bucky snorted. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I was unconscious when I hit the river, Buck. The Winter Soldier wouldn’t have pulled me out. But you did.’ Bucky was silent. ‘I’ve read the file they kept on you, Buck. You were always there, they could only keep the Soldier under control by constantly stripping you away. You’re a stubborn jerk, you fought them all the way. Even before you saw me they could never keep the Soldier around long without you shining through. But when they hurt people it wasn’t you, it was him, and them.’ Bucky was quiet, drowning his pancakes in maple syrup. ‘You forgave me losing you Buck, and like it or not I’ve forgiven you for being lost.’
Bucky snorted. ‘You always had more forgiveness than was good for you, and too much fight.’
‘And you were always too quick to blame yourself for things beyond your control.’
Then breaking the argument came a banging on the door, Bucky was out of his seat in a flash, guns in his hands, in front of Steve covering the door.
‘Sit down, Uncles, the doorman called up.’ Sammy reappeared from her lab and walked to the door. ‘You were travelling with a fellow named Sam, right Uncle Steve?’
Steve took his eyes off Bucky for the first time since he climbed in the window to look guiltily at Sammy, ‘Oh, no, I left him behind.’ Hearing this Bucky relaxed, and settled back down into his chair.
‘Mmm, guess you did.’ Sammy muttered, opening the door on a panting pararescuer.
‘Have...you seen a...super-human asshole... who can’t wait... for his friends?’ huffed Sam leaning against the doorframe.
‘Sorry Sam.’ Said Steve sheepishly.
‘Ass,’ muttered Sam, catching his breath.
‘You must be Sam, I’m Sammy,’ said Sammy cheerily. Sam straightened up and offered her his hand.
‘That’s not going to be confusing,’ he muttered with a grin.
‘Well if anyone gets confused they can count the legs to tell us apart.’
Sam laughed. ‘Pleasure to meet you, you must be the niece with info on Bucky.’
‘Info, an ex-Russian assassin sleeping in my spare room, something like that.’
‘Sorry about the wings,’ said Bucky, waving his metal hand at Sam.
Sam blinked and looked at Steve. ‘He okay now?’
‘Seems like,’ said Steve, even though he could hardly believe it himself.
‘Well okay then.’ Sam offered a hand to Bucky. ‘Pleasure to meet you, man.’
Bucky hesitated, but Steve caught his eye and that wide smile that Bucky remembered appeared on his face as Bucky reached out a hand and shook Sam’s.
Sammy nodded happily. ‘Say Sam, want to come over here and check out my lab? I’m actually kinda a prosthetic limb expert myself, I’ve got a few questions to ask about that wingspan of yours - after all, these two have some talking to do still.’ Then she paused. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Ah, no,’ said Sam, slightly stunned by Sammy, and not quite recovered from trying to keep up with Steve on foot.
‘Right, wait there.’ She said and bustled back across the living room and over Bucky’s shoulder put together another plate of breakfast, clicking her tongue at the amount of food still on the table. ‘Uncles, do remember to eat while you talk.’
‘Yes Sammy.’ They both answered.
‘She’s a pistol,’ muttered Steve to Bucky, nodding to Sammy.
‘Would you expect Dum Dum to raise anything else?’
‘I thought she was Dernier’s?’
‘She’s both of their granddaughters.’
‘Well... that explains a few things. Let’s be sure to keep her away from explosives.’
Bucky chuckled. ‘I don’t know, remember the look on Dernier’s face after we found that arms dump outside Paris?’
Steve actually laughed at this, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d really laughed, but suddenly remembering the sheer joy on Dernier’s face was the funniest thing that either of them had ever thought of and Bucky was laughing too. The pair of them sitting at a breakfast table and laughing so hard they could barely breathe: at Dernier, at all the years that had passed in the blink of an eye, at the fact that they were both alive and sitting in the apartment of their friend’s granddaughter, at Sam’s confusion at the laughter, at the fact that they couldn’t stop laughing. It was a purge and a relief and an utter joy, as the pain of all those years melted away and they might as well be sitting in another New York apartment laughing at a dumb prank they had pulled. If they could laugh like this again, then, just maybe, everything might be alright.
Sammy grinned. ‘Come on Sam, you can eat in my lab, they’ll be utterly useless for a while. I’ll show you around…I’ve actually got some ideas about those wings of yours.’
‘I’ll follow your lead.’
And leaving the giggling super-soldiers to their meal Sam and Sammy disappeared into the lab.