Chapter Text
“This is what I’m talking about, Buck, this is the real superhero shit. No fighting necessary, just using my wings and your superpowers to save some lives,” Sam told Bucky, ebullient and beaming as they left the site of their most recent mission, a crane collapse in Midtown.
It was hard to keep up even a faux-grumpy facade when Sam was this happy, so Bucky didn’t bother.
“Yeah, yeah, to the rescue, I hear you,” said Bucky, grinning back at Sam and knocking shoulders with him. “You’re just happy you got to show off your fancy pararescue skills.”
“Hell yeah I am!”
Not even the prospect of giving some interviews to the press currently clustered around news vans just beyond the safety cordon seemed to make any impact on the bounce in Sam’s step. Bucky wasn’t immune to the high of success either, not today. The crane collapse could have been an unmitigated disaster, but between Sam flying people out of the building the crane had crashed through, and Bucky pulling people from the cars and buses the crane had ultimately landed on, they’d gotten everyone out alive with the help of first responders.
They’d done good work, work that had nothing to do with violence or fighting, and no matter what the anxious and pessimistic little voice in the back of Bucky’s head muttered about the injuries of the people they’d rescued or the possibility of that damaged building collapsing, Bucky was determined to consider this particular mission as an unqualified win. Probably the post-accident investigation would reveal some infuriating and depressing systemic failure or something—an inspector bribed, maybe, or corners cut for the sake of saving money. It seemed like that was always the case, nowadays: terrible and ugly truths behind bright facades.
That was for future Sam and Bucky to be angry and disappointed about though. Right here, right now, Bucky was choosing to be happy, goddammit. Dr. Raynor would probably approve. A solid half of their recent sessions amounted to her telling him to please just lighten the fuck up already. Not in those exact words, of course, but Bucky was pretty sure that was the subtext.
They’d almost reached the gaggle of waiting press when a new voice rose above the din to catch Bucky’s attention.
“Bucky! Hey, Bucky! Wait, excuse me, just—Bucky, over here!”
“Sounds like you’ve got a fan,” said Sam with a grin.
“Or an especially persistent reporter,” retorted Bucky, frowning as he tried to find just who was calling for him.
He scanned the crowd of reporters, but the voice wasn’t coming from them, they were all clamoring for Sam. No, whoever wanted to get a hold of Bucky had snuck past the press and was currently trying to get past the couple of cops manning the safety cordon. Bucky’s automatic threat assessment didn’t register the guy as dangerous: white man about as tall as Bucky, in his thirties, disheveled but in a suit and tie, unarmed, nothing in his hands. He could be a kook of some kind, but he probably wasn’t an imminent threat, not with the way he was apparently trying to earnestly negotiate with the cops.
“You got this?” asked Sam, and Bucky waved him on towards the reporters.
“Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I’ll see what this guy wants.”
“Sir, you can’t come through here—sir! This area has not been cleared yet, sir, please go back behind the cordon—” said one of the officers, her tone more exasperated than anything else.
The suited man waved wildly at Bucky, and now that he was closer, Bucky could see that he was sweaty and red-faced. Despite the general air of dishevelment, he had a good-natured, guileless kind of face, with thick, dark eyebrows over oddly familiar blue eyes.
“Uncle Bucky!” he called out—which, what the hell?—then he gave an apologetic smile to the cops still blocking his way. “Excuse me, I’m sorry, I just really need to have a quick word with Sergeant Barnes—Uncle Bucky, over here!”
“Excuse me, what did you just call me?” Bucky asked the guy.
The only people who called him Uncle Bucky were Cass and AJ, and this guy who looked to be about the same age as Bucky (well, Bucky’s apparent physical age, not his actual age) was a far cry from Sam’s adolescent nephews. Despite Bucky’s sharp tone, the man beamed at him.
“Bucky, thank god you’re alright! We’ve all been trying to find you for so long, and Rikki texted to say you’d been spotted here, and I was closest, my office is just a few blocks away, actually, so I ran all the way over here hoping I’d catch you in time—“
“I’m sorry, who’s we? Who are you?”
“Right! God, of course you don’t know—“ the man said, shaking his head, before he smiled cheerfully and offered Bucky his hand. “I’m Thomas Barnes—Tom. I’m your sister Becca’s grandson. Which makes you my great uncle! Hi!”
Bucky stared at him. Tom’s grin turned slightly nervous, but it didn’t falter as he let his hand drop.
“What?”
“You, uh, do remember Rebecca, right?” asked Tom.
“Yeah,” said Bucky, and only barely stopped himself from fiddling with his dog tags. They still had Becca listed as his next of kin. “Yeah, I do. What do you mean you’ve been trying to find me?”
He’d known, theoretically, about Tom’s existence, and the existence of all the rest of his sisters’ kids and their kids and their kids’ kids, a big and vibrant family tree still in bloom. Bucky was just a small branch that had withered and fallen off long ago, and he’d figured it was for the best if it stayed that way. But maybe his sister’s family didn’t agree.
“We’ve all been so worried, I can’t believe I finally managed to catch up with you,” said Tom, still beaming. “I don’t want to interrupt your, you know, superhero thing, just—can we talk? Once you’re done here?”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Just, uh, give me a few minutes to wrap all this up.”
Bucky made his excuses to Sam—I’ve got to talk to that guy, about a thing, he’d told Sam, and gotten the hairy eyeball for it, but Sam had let him go with nothing more than a narrow-eyed and intrigued call me when you’re done—and then he commandeered the nearest free cop car to do a quick look-up of Thomas Barnes on the mobile data terminal. He ran some more searches of his own too. There was nothing unexpected: no criminal record, a contact page at an accounting firm a few blocks away, the usual assortment of personal and professional social media. If this guy was a HYDRA plant of some kind, or some other variety of bad guy, his cover was good.
It was the Facebook page that convinced Bucky that Thomas Barnes was exactly who he said he was. While social media personas could be faked with ridiculous ease, an individual’s social network was a hell of a lot harder to manufacture wholesale, and this particular social network was extensive, stretching far beyond the Barnes family. Bucky got six degrees of separation out from Thomas Barnes’ social network, and found nothing but real, actual people and businesses with vast networks of their own, no obvious fakes in sight.
Listen, just because Bucky refused to use pretty much any social media, didn’t mean that he didn’t know how it worked. He still had no idea what the hell his great nephew? Grand nephew? What even was the right term? Anyway, Bucky had no idea what the guy wanted, but he could at least be sure that he was who he said he was. The old instinct to cut and run reared its head again, pricked back to life by the knowledge that someone had been—was still—looking for him, but Bucky shoved it down in favor of his curiosity.
Tom was waiting for him at a cafe a few blocks away, looking significantly less red-faced and flustered now.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask, you’re okay, right? Not hurt or anything?” asked Tom.
Bucky blinked, surprised. “Uh, yeah, I’m fine.”
“You want some coffee or tea, water? Or, if you’re hungry, this place has some great sandwiches—“
“I’m good, thanks,” Bucky interrupted before he got a rundown of the entire menu. “Just—what’s all this about? Why have you been looking for me?”
Tom’s brow furrowed. “I—we’re your family, Bucky. That’s—that’s why we’ve been looking for you.”
“Yeah, sure, but—I don’t—I’m not expecting anything, here. You guys don’t have to—I know it’s weird. I know it’s not—safe, or, or easy, what with all the, you know, Winter Soldier shit,” said Bucky haltingly.
Tom’s face suddenly took on an urgent and concerned expression. “Bucky, are you safe?” he asked, voice gone hushed.
“I—what?”
“We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for years, Bucky, the whole family. Ever since they tried to pin that thing in Vienna on you and we realized it wasn’t, you know, all some crazy conspiracy theory that you were still alive. But no one would answer any of our questions, and we figured you must have been on the run, and then the Blip happened—though Rick said Captain Rogers did write to let them know you’d been, you know, blipped.”
“Oh.”
“Then there was that stuff about your pardon in the news, but we couldn’t find anything out about it, or about what happened to you after. And believe me, we’ve been trying. Mia and Jess have written so many letters and made so many calls to our congressional reps, to the Pentagon, to the Avengers—hell, even to the President! We never got any answers. Honestly, we were starting to seriously worry you’d been disappeared to some black site somewhere. You haven’t been disappeared to some black site, have you?” asked Tom anxiously.
“Uh. No? I mean, obviously I’m here?”
“Right, yeah, obviously, but you’re not—“ Tom looked around, then leaned in and whispered, “You’re not being coerced into, I don’t know, superheroing for the government or something? After that thing with the Flagsmashers, we were kinda worried about that.”
Bucky wished he could laugh off that possibility, but the thing was, Tom’s concerns weren’t out of left field. During the whole confusing and rushed process of his pardon, Bucky himself had been worried that he’d be forced into becoming the Winter Soldier again. Oh, they might have dressed it up as serving his country and atoning, but it would have been the same thing, just with maybe less torture. The only reason that Bucky hadn’t bolted had been the knowledge that he still had a few exit routes: a handful of old offshore HYDRA accounts that he’d appropriated as compensation for the decades of torture and enslavement, places where he’d be able to disappear, the offer of sanctuary in Wakanda.
To his surprise, he hadn’t ended up needing any of it. He’d gone over the pardon paperwork word by word with his lawyer—Jen Walters, Banner’s cousin, apparently—and Colonel Rhodes had thrown his whole weight behind the whole thing too, with the end result that Bucky was free and clear, with backpay and his pension to boot. He was grateful, of course he was grateful, but part of Bucky was never going to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it was both disorienting and comforting to know that someone else had been harboring similar fears.
“I’m free, for—uh, for good, hopefully,” he told Tom. “Well, apart from the mandatory therapy.”
“Well, that’s embarrassing,” said Tom, and when Bucky raised an eyebrow, he flushed and rushed to add, “Not the therapy! I meant, embarrassing for us, that we haven’t managed to get a hold of you until now. Like, all this time since the Blip, you really were just in Brooklyn, and we couldn’t find you? I’m really sorry it took so long.”
“That’s—you don’t need to apologize, really,” said Bucky, shifting in his seat. Maybe he should have gotten coffee, it would have at least given him something to do with his hands. “Anyway, not like I’ve been in Brooklyn all this time. I’ve been down in Louisiana with Sam and his family pretty often, or in DC. And, you know, missions. I, uh, don’t exactly make a habit of being easy to find either, generally speaking.”
“That makes me feel a little better, I guess,” said Tom with a grin, before earnest anxiousness overtook his expression again. “And you’re good on the money front? And your health, you look good for being over a hundred, obviously, but honestly you seem kind of skinny, maybe you should order a sandwich, do you want a sandwich, here, I can—”
The nervous pace of Tom’s fussing became abruptly, heart-wrenchingly familiar: three generations removed, and yet Tom sounded just like Bucky’s ma when she went off on a motherhenning tear. In that moment, Bucky missed his mother so much and so abruptly that he felt flayed with it, any protective armor he’d managed to build up stripped away in an instant. God knew what his face was doing, because Tom immediately looked stricken.
“What? What is it, are you okay, oh my god, you really should have eaten something, shouldn’t you, you were a one-man jaws of life today, that has to take it out of you—“
“It’s fine,” said Bucky, his voice coming out scraped and raw. He cleared his throat and continued, “Just—you sound so much like my ma right now. Your—your great-grandmother.”
“Yeah?” said Tom with a wide but tentative smile. “Everyone always says I gotta tone down the motherhen instincts, good to know I come by it honestly, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
“I—I’m sorry. I know you must miss them a lot. Your parents, I mean, and your sisters. We figured you’re the one who’s been leaving those nice flower arrangements at their graves?” Bucky nodded, and Tom continued, “Jess was this close to staking out the cemetery, hoping we’d finally catch up to you. She’s gonna be so happy you’re okay, really, everyone’s gonna be so happy.”
Bucky stared at Tom for what had to be far longer than was socially acceptable. Tom couldn’t possibly mean that, right? He had to be exaggerating, or maybe he was just an earnest and friendly guy, because otherwise Bucky did not at all understand how his well being—a total stranger, no matter what blood they shared, and a former brainwashed assassin to boot—could possibly make Tom and his family happy.
“None of you even know me,” blurted out Bucky. “I don’t—I don’t get why you’ve been trying so hard to find me. I don’t know why you’d want to have anything to do with me.”
Tom frowned. “You’re family, Bucky. We don’t want to make you feel pressured or anything, we know you don’t know any of us. But just because Grandma and Aunt Eleanor and Aunt Jean are all gone, doesn’t mean you don’t still have a place with us, if you want it. We’re in your corner, you know? That’s what family’s for.”
Bucky did not, in fact, know. He’d dissolved into dust then came back to life and stepped onto a raging battlefield to fight literal aliens moments later, and yet this moment right now was more confusing and disorienting than any of that. He had no idea how to respond to any of this.
“Okay,” he ended up saying.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overwhelm you,” said Tom, grimacing. He rummaged around in his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a pen and a business card that he scribbled something on the back of, before sliding it over. “Here’s my number. If you want to meet the rest of the family, or just talk more, whatever, you can call or text any time. No pressure, okay? It really is just enough for us to know you’re doing okay.”
“Thanks,” Bucky said, taking the card, and Tom smiled.
“It really was great to meet you, Bucky.”
“You too,” he said automatically, and tried to return Tom’s smile.
After Tom left, Bucky stared at the business card for a while. Sam would have joked that his cyborg brain was processing, but right about now, it felt less like processing and more like stalling out.
“Are you having, like, a crisis or something, Sarge?” called out the woman behind the cafe register.
“Little bit, yeah!” Bucky said.
“You want anything, or are you just going to sit there and brood attractively?”
That startled a laugh out of Bucky and he grinned at her and said, “I’ll take some hot chocolate, if you’ve got any.”
A few minutes later, he had a cup of surprisingly elaborate hot chocolate, on the house, since you just saved a bunch of people’s lives and all. It had a small mountain of peppermint whipped cream, and also a snowman-shaped marshmallow perched precariously on the rim. It seemed early for Christmas-themed foodstuffs, it still being mid-November, but the marshmallow was pretty tasty. Bucky drank the hot chocolate slowly, and tried not to think about anything at all, and especially not Tom or the assortment of other Barneses Bucky had glimpsed during his brief investigation of the man’s Facebook.
He texted Sam an update: meeting with that guy went fine. You need me for anything?
Nah, head on home unless you’ve got a burning desire to be a human forklift, nothing but the cleanup left now.
You staying here tonight?
I’ve got that VA thing tomorrow morning, so I’ll fly back to DC in a bit. See you Thurs?
Bucky responded to that with a thumbs up emoji, then he finished up the last of his hot chocolate, making sure to carefully wipe away any whipped cream or hot chocolate mustache he might have acquired, left a hefty tip in the tip jar, and headed out. He could have taken the subway or called a cab, but instead he walked, his mind racing well ahead of his feet, though it wasn’t going anywhere especially good.
His phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to see a text from AJ, who’d only just gotten a phone of his own a few weeks back and who seemed to delight in being able to text Bucky and Sam whenever he wanted: you never told us you can tear apart a car!! That was so cool, uncle bucky!!! Bucky grinned and was about to reply when another text came: also you did a really good job saving those people, love you!
The boys were always so free with their affection. Were all kids like that? Bucky had a dim memory that maybe they were, that maybe he’d been that kind of kid once himself. The memories were hazy and patchy though, and he didn’t know if it was time or the chair that had taken them. Whatever the source or reason for Cass and AJ’s cheerful affection, it made Bucky’s chest go tight every single time, and today was no exception. Thanks kiddo, love you too, he texted back, and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
The further he got from the site of the crane collapse, the more mildly concerned looks he garnered for still being in uniform, so for the sake of maintaining the public peace if nothing else, he figured he ought to take the train back to Brooklyn. He was waiting at the platform when his phone buzzed again, this time with a text from Sarah.
Judging by the news, today’s mission went well, but I didn’t see you with Sam in the press interviews, you okay?
Yeah, I’m fine, just had something to take care of. How’s Dina’s visit going?
Sarah’s mother-in-law—former mother-in-law? Bucky had no idea what the etiquette was when you were widowed—was in Delacroix through the upcoming holidays, visiting with Sarah and the boys. As far as Bucky could tell, this was a happy occasion more than it was a stressful one, but the last time he’d video chatted with Sarah, there’d been a hint of strain around her eyes when she’d talked about Dina.
Good! She’s out with the boys right now, actually, no doubt spoiling them rotten. You up for FaceTiming?
Waiting for the train, call you when I get home?
What had started out as Sam and Bucky often being together when Sarah FaceTimed Sam, or Bucky calling Sarah to let her know they were okay when Sam was stuck in meetings or debriefings, had somehow evolved into Sarah and Bucky calling each other, and not just after missions, and not just to talk about Sam. They were friends by now, Bucky supposed, beyond only having Sam in common, and Bucky was, frankly, pathetically grateful for it, because talking to Sarah was easy.
She was more or less the only person Bucky found it genuinely easy to talk to, in this century. There was baggage and history with most of the Avengers and their associates, and even with Sam, Steve’s shadow loomed over both of them sometimes. When it came to talking to other people, civilians, Bucky usually felt like it was horribly obvious how out of place he was, and it didn’t help that his first helpless impulse was usually to honesty, which, when you were a time-displaced formerly brainwashed assassin science experiment who was over a hundred years old, was just uncomfortable for everyone involved.
God, he’d barely managed to say, what, five actual sentences to Tom? The prospect of talking to the rest of his family was frankly enough to make him want to re-enter cryostasis. Hell, the prospect of meeting the rest of his family at all was making him genuinely contemplate going on the run again. That was probably the kind of thing Dr. Raynor would call avoidant, self-sabotaging behavior.
But talking to Sarah? That was almost always easy. He didn’t entirely know why. He just knew that conversation with her flowed easily, more easily than it even did with Sam. With her, Bucky wanted to talk, and he didn’t, usually, with most other people, not beyond the necessities, anyway. Today was no exception, even if he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her about the family who had apparently been looking for him all this time.
His phone buzzed again as the train screeched into the station. Another text from Sarah: you mean you don’t just parkour your way across NYC?? What kind of superhero are you??
Bucky grinned down at his phone, and answered, the kind who commutes, you’re confusing me with the spider kid.
Texting with Sarah, and anticipating the welcome prospect of FaceTiming with her soon, were almost enough to make him forget about the card burning a hole in his pocket with its phone number and improbable promise of family.