Summary: He… likes the colour. Was red his favourite colour, before? He doesn't know. Maybe it was. [A bucket full of Bucky-feels, and a sort-of origin story for the red Henley Bucky's wearing in the Cap 3 trailer.]
AN: THIS MOVIE IS GOING TO KILL ME DEAD. THE LEVEL OF FEELS I AM EXPERIENCING ALREADY AND WE'VE ONLY BEEN EXPOSED TO THE TRAILER -Just –I'm going to die. It's going to kill me dead. Death by emotion. The Tony feels; the Steve feels; the Bucky feels; and the hurt and the agony and the redemption and the – bloody hell, the everything, and…. just. I'm doomed. Mark it down now, kids; May 6th is the day I die.
…
The Story of the Red Henley
…
He… likes the colour.
It's this… deep, faded red, and it makes the shirt look warm and lived in and comfortable.
Bucky can't remember the last time he felt comfortable.
(His memories might be slinking back, creeping in like dogs who snuck out the side gate overnight and are hoping to slide quietly back into the yard without their owners noticing that they were ever gone, but Bucky still can't remember a lot of things.)
(But he does remember some things. Random things. Precious things.
Things like… the cheapest but most nutritional chicken soup it's possible to make, and the cold winter days and hacking coughs it was made to combat. Things like a warm hand on his shoulder – small, once, and reaching upwards; and later, large and heavy, and reaching out at a level height.
Things like art supplies worn down to stumps, and protests and complaints when brand new ones were brought home to replace the old – complaints like "We coulda used that money for food, Buck," and replies like, "Don't hafta spend money on things I steal, Steve," and the predictably outraged, "Bucky!" that follows like clockwork.
Things like "I thought you were dead" and a warm shoulder supporting his weight and a "Not without you."
Things like the flash of pearly white teeth – sometimes flashed in a shy smile and swiftly hidden with a ducked head, and sometimes visible for longer, glimpsed through lips quirked in cheeky delight and matched with eyes that glint like the brightest of beacons; the kind of beacons that lead lost souls safely home.)
So.
The shirt looks comfortable.
The shirt looks comfortable, and it looks warm.
It looks comfortable, and it looks warm, and it's not black.
Bucky's tired of black.
(Black is the best colour for camouflage; for disguise. For blending into the background. For not being seen. Black… is dull; emotionless; a void. Bucky's been wearing black for longer than he cares to remember, and he's tired of it.)
The comfortable-looking, warm-looking, not-black shirt has been pre-loved (that's what the sign above it says, at least – Pre-Loved shirts: $2), and it's sitting on a hanger on a rack on the street outside a second-hand place that says it's in support of diabetes.
Did diabetes exist, before? Before, when Bucky was just Bucky – not "Bucky who was once the Winter Soldier and is trying to learn how to just be Bucky again"? He doesn't know. He knows what diabetes is, but he can't remember when he learnt it.
Did he learn it in school, in between bouts of bouncing his leg impatiently and flicking bits of balled up paper at Steve as he waited for break?
Or did he learn it in war? Maybe someone he knew was refused entry to the Army because of it? They refused Steve on the grounds of his asthma (not to mention everything else), so maybe Bucky knew a diabetic? (Did Bucky even know anyone other than Steve before the war? Because he doesn't remember them, if he did.)
Or did he learn it after? With the Soviets, or with HYDRA? Was it something he had to learn so he could exploit it? So that he could taint someone's food, maybe, or keep them from their insulin for too long – make it look like an accident? Bucky doesn't know.
But the place with the shirt supports diabetes.
That's good.
Bucky doesn't know if it supports research into the condition, or supports victims of it, or a combination of both, but it's good. Either way, it seems like a good thing to support.
Which is why it's a shame he doesn't have two bucks.
Buck doesn't have a buck, even, and he vaguely remembers a joke about that, from when he and Steve were kids. The memory floats, murky, to the surface.
Because there were a lot of poor kids in their school, but Bucky and Steve were right down there amongst the poor-est, and it's hardly surprising that some of the other kids found that an easy thing to make fun of.
And Bucky remembers holding Steve back, because the guy (and he was such a little guy then; so, so small and so, so fragile) had taken enormous offence on Bucky's behalf to the teasing, but Buck's never thought that he's worth enough for Steve to risk himself for – he's never thought that before, and he's never gonna think it ever, because Steve is so much better than Bucky is; so much brighter and bolder and good, and Bucky's never deserved Steve's friendship, and he sure as hell isn't worth Steve getting hurt on Buck's behalf – so he'd held Steve back with one hand at his collar and one arm wrapped around his tiny, tiny chest and he'd made a joke out of it.
"Yup, that's me," he'd said. "Buck the Buck-less. And none of you have a nickname that rhymes half as good as mine, so what do you say to that?"
And the bullies had sneered at him and mocked the name for a few moments, but ultimately they'd given up and left him (them) alone, because it's hard for a bully to mock someone for something they're already mocking about themselves, and they'd left and Bucky had left Steve go and Steve had scowled at Bucky and brushed himself off and told him that he shouldn'tna had to do that, he shouldn'tna have to put himself down just because those bone-headed cads have more'n we do–
And it probably looked like he was looking at an angel or something, the way Bucky remembers looking at Steve, because sure, the bullies might have money, but they ain't got Steve, and Bucky knows which one he'd choose to have, always and forever, and Bucky remembers scoffing and saying, "Wadda they know about havin' anythin'?" and cuffing Steve around the neck again and dragging him off to go nick a baseball off somebody to play with, and… yeah. That hasn't changed.
Because Bucky is still Buck the Buckless, and he still knows that if someone gave him the choice between Steve and all the riches in the world, he'd tell all the riches that they could go hang.
And – noble, yes, and loyal, but that still leaves him with the problem of the comfortable, warm, not-black shirt being two dollars, and Buck not having two dollars.
And – he could steal it. Sure, of course he could steal it. He was the Winter fucking Soldier not all that long ago; stealing a shirt wouldn't even make the list of Most Amoral Things he's done even if the list was ten pages long, and it certainly doesn't feature on the list of difficult things he's achieved over the last 70 years.
And even if all his training and years of practice at going unseen abruptly abandoned him and he failed to nab the shirt without someone noticing, he's still a faster runner than almost anyone besides Steve, and he doubts someone's gonna go to the effort of chasing him down for a stolen two-dollar shirt anyway.
But, diabetes. The shop supports diabetes. It's a charity shop. He'd be stealing from charity.
And, yes, charities exist to help those in need, and he is a person in need (the clothes he's wearing now were thick and strong once, but he's been through a lot since he first donned this outfit, and the shirt he's in has become someone threadbare and torn, and he really needs a new one. Plus, the one he's wearing is black. His pants are black and his shirt is black and his jacket is black, and Bucky's just really, really fed up with black) but this isn't a charity that supports homeless former-assassins, it's a charity that supports diabetes, and Buck has a lotta nightmares and a currently empty stomach, but he doesn't have diabetes.
He presses his lips together and puts the (warm, comfortable, not-black) shirt back on the end of the rack, where he first pulled it from, and turns away.
He's barely taken two steps before a voice speaks up from behind and to the right of him.
"Y'alright, son?"
And Bucky would be startled, if he hadn't noticed the man before he'd even stepped fully outside, but fortunately for all involved, Bucky had noticed him – noticed him before Bucky even paused to look at the shirt, spotted the old man pottering around inside tidying shelves and dusting and dismissed him as not a threat, even when the old man caught sight of Bucky a few moments later and started covertly watching him.
Bucky nods once, short and dismissive, eager to be on his way.
"You interested in the shirt?" the old man asks, and Bucky pauses for a moment and then nods again.
And then he says, "I haven't got two dollars," because sure, he could just walk away and ignore the man, but that would be rude, and he's been trying to remember how to be more like the James Buchannan Barnes he once was, and he has a feeling that James Buchannan Barnes would think about as highly about being needlessly rude to old people as he would think about stealing from charity, so.
The old man smiles gently, understanding soft in his gaze.
"Well, it's only two dollars," he says, and gestures. "Reckon this place can manage a dip in today's bottom line if it's only that much. You go on now and take it."
Bucky blinks, caught off guard, and stares at the man for a long moment.
The old man matches his gaze for a few seconds, then huffs out a sigh and bustles down the two steps until he's standing on the other side of the rack to Bucky, and he lifts the shirt off the rail and takes the hangar out.
"As the owner, I can give away things, if that's what I wanna do," he says, and holds out the now-folded red Henley.
"But," says Bucky, because he's not used to random acts of kindness and he can't quite wrap his head around what's happening, and gestures in the direction of the sign. "Diabetes."
The old man smiles again, eyes crinkling up warmly.
"Well," he says, drawing the shirt back so he can hold it under one arm as he fishes around in his back pocket. He pulls out a handful of notes and counts out ten, and extends the lot of them out to Bucky.
Bucky stares.
"You're gonna take this, and then you're gonna give me back two in exchange for the shirt," the man prompts, when Bucky fails to reach for the money. "And then you're gonna take the remaining eight and you're gonna go down the street to the bakery on the corner and you're gonna buy yourself somethin' to eat."
Bucky continues staring,
"Why?" he manages to ask, and the look the old man gives him is sad.
"Because you look like you've been through hell, kid," he says. "An' it ain't right how they treat returned soldiers like you – don't look so surprised, son, you've got that military look about you, an' I seen enough o' you folks doin' it rough in shelters to spot one o' you when I see you – an' I can't help you much, but if I can do even a tiny bit by givin' you the means to buy a warmer shirt and a bit of food, well, then, I'm gonna."
He shakes the notes at Bucky again, who – after a long pause and a bit more baffled staring – reaches out with his non-metal hand and takes them.
"Now," the old man says, all business all of a sudden, taking the shirt out from under his arm and smiling a patented shop-assistant smile at Bucky. "You're after this Henley here? That'll be two dollars, if you please."
Bucky stares for a few seconds longer, but the old man is holding the shirt ready in one hand and has his other extended out to receive the payment, and he just stands there waiting, utterly patient, until Bucky uses his gloved metal hand to count out and separate two dollar-bills, and reaches out to put them into the man's waiting hand.
"Pleasure doin' business with you," the man grins, and thrusts the shirt in Bucky's direction. Bucky reaches out and takes it, tentative.
"And you take care now, y'hear?" the old man says, earnest, and then he beams a smile at Bucky. "Have a nice day!"
And he turns around and clambers back up the stairs into his shop, without so much as a backward glance.
Bucky stares after him. And a minute later, when the old man still hasn't made a re-appearance, Bucky looks down at the shirt in one hand and the eight dollar-bills in the other.
"Thank you," he says belatedly, and then looks down the street towards the bakery. Looks back down at the notes in his hand, considering, and – after a moment – starts walking.
(Bucky does go to the bakery, and then turns into an alley a couple of streets away to eat his cheese-scroll and to then take off the thin, torn black shirt and throw it in a dumpster.
The Henley is just as warm and comfortable as it had looked on the hanger.
And – Bucky he doesn't know what his favourite colour was, before – but he's decided now that it's red.)
…
end
…
AN: Well, I'm not dead. This is the first thing I've managed to finish in, like… a year? Two? I've lost track.
To all you waiting on updates for Give You the Sun or Carbon Copy (are any of you still out there? Because I wouldn't blame you if you weren't), all I can say is that I am truly sorry for the monstrous silence, promise that I'm working on it, and, if you're interested, direct you to my profile for a further explanation as to the reason behind my lack of activity.
But – here. My very first MCU fic. I'm quite delighted to finally be adding to the fandom I've already been a part of for so many years. Leave me a comment?