2

Green Paint

"Were you, er, iced?"

Important Facts About Ida:

She owns an old, beaten up green van which is always at the mechanic's,

she loathes white chocolate but adores black

and

she doesn't much like surprises (in fact, she downright hates them. There's something about returning home to find 'oh hi Ida, did you know you were once named Gertrude? Bahaha. You sure lucked out on the name game, huh?' Ida bears a grudge against her adopted brother for that one.)

When Aunt Becky says: "Ida dear, I'd like you to meet my brother, Bucky" I receive a unpleasant jolt of surprise (this is, by the way, a colossal understatement) but I'm not given any time to respond, for she speaks again: "And would you go and put the kettle on. Bucky," there is a certain hesitance in her words, "what kind of drink would you like? Tea? Coffee? Water?"

He raises his head and stares at her. "I don't know."

I'm certain a frown wedges itself on my brow. How … strange. Well, the whole situation is beyond strange but not knowing you preferred beverage is quite strange. On the scale of strangeness it ranks maybe a 4.8. Out of 3. But then, he may just be indecisive. Or then again he may genuinely not know his favoured drink which is rather strange, unless he is in the middle of a crisis ('Do I even know what tea is anymore?!')

"Coffee," he says suddenly. Abruptly. "I'll have coffee."

The question of 'how do you take it?' hovers on my lips but Aunt Becky is giving me a warning look, so I simply turn and go back into the hall to the kitchen, where all the kitchen knives are. I mean. Where all the drink making things are. Ah-hem.

I'll give him a black coffee, I think as I fill the kettle and switch it on. He doesn't look like the type who has milk – I imagine a bitter black would do him nicely. With the kettle on and a cup ('Don't worry, be happy' painted on the side, along with a bright yellow smiley face – a gift from Philip) ready- No. I'd better change that. It doesn't quite seem to fit him.

The cup is exchanged for a plain white one and the instant coffee is mixed with boiling water. Will he take sugar? I'll give him one. No, no I won't.

My mind is numb, yet racing at the same time. A paradox. Two actually: one, how am I going to get us out of this situation – because this can't be 'my brother, Bucky' so I should probably call the police. And two, if this is 'my brother, Bucky', why does he look much, much younger than his younger sister?

Paradoxes. Why can't life be simple?

I slip a kitchen knife up my sleeve. Just … to be safe.

When I walk back into the living room, I have a cup of black coffee on a tray with a little, ceramic jug of milk and some lumps of sugar perfectly balanced in a little pyramid. I try hard not to frown or look worried.

(I am a cool and calm and collected cucumber. I am graceful like a swan. No. Like TEN swans.)

What if Aunt Becky has been conned by- I look at his face and shove a stool towards him with one foot. The magazines (The New Yorker and one of the many home owner ones: "Chic Bathroom Flooring" it proclaims) slide off and I set the tray down.

"So … " I say, suggestively. Come on, Auntie, give me something to work with – you can't just say that this man who looks at least as young as Philip is your long dead brother without a little explanation.

But she doesn't say anything. Rather, she smiles at 'Bucky' and tells him how she and Scott renamed me after Aunt Ida – can you remember her? she asks.

He looks at her and frowns. No. He can't.

He stirs his coffee and takes a hesitant sip. It's like he doesn't know what to do with himself. I sit down next to him on the couch, maintaining my distance – but not too far from Aunt Becky, and not too far that I can't leap at him with a knife. (Because I'm so very capable of doing that.)

"So – where have you been?" I ask him.

He sets his cup down and watches me. His eyes are almost … haunted (perhaps I imagine this – I'm better at reading voices than faces) and his silence is disquieting.

I stare for far too long and it feels like someone has pushed me into the ocean and there's sharks there and the sharks are trying to hypnotise me like snakes do and yet I can't look away and –

(Analogy game: Poor. Very poor.)

I swallow, stare at his gloved hands instead of his face and pursue my line of questioning – Aunt Becky's words are far too absurd to be a reality. Surely. I mean, come on. This kind of thing doesn't happen.

"We, er, I was always told that you died in the war."

He still looks at me.

"Okay. Um. Have you- I mean were you, er-" This is ridiculous. "Were you, er, iced?" My voice rises at the end, going up a pitch. I clear my throat and rush hurriedly on. "Like Captain America?"

Captain America.

That gets a reaction. But it doesn't look like he wants to answer it. "Maybe."

"Bucky is going to stay with us for a while." Aunt Becky announces, stopping me from questioning him further. "He's been away and now it's time for he and I to get properly acquainted." The knitting needles clink as she drops them, leans over and pats his knee. "Letters can only go so far – I've still got all yours, Bucky. Perhaps you might take a look at them later."

He is grateful for that. I don't know how I know this. Perhaps it is the look he gives her; a quick glance, but it is there – the gratefulness, I mean.

I begin to feel distinctively out of touch.

"And we'll have to look through the photographs. I've got a few albums. You sent me quite a few, you know. You always looked like you had a marvellous time, though I don't suppose you would have told me if it wasn't true."

We are silent and the clock ticks away, and suddenly I feel absolutely tired – by work and paradoxes. And my Aunt's acceptance of a paradox. And my small, niggling feeling that there might be truth in the paradox sitting on the same couch as myself, I haven't read all those S.H.I.E.L.D. files for nothing. Also, I have a knife up my sleeve: what if I accidentally cut myself?

"I think," I say slowly and with deliberation. "That it might be nice to have something to eat. The supper is in the slow-cooker – it's chicken," I address, er, Bucky (innocent 'till proven guilty perhaps?). "I hope you like it though I suspect that I put too much chili in it. If you are staying here then you need a place to sleep – haven't got any bedding with you have you? Sleeping bags? Pillow?"

"No," he says quietly. "I haven't."

"Right. Yes. Okay then …"

"He'll have your room." Aunt Becky has placed her glasses on her nose and looks at me over the top of them.

My eyebrows shoot upwards, and if I was in a more dramatic mood I would clutch at my chest and declare myself to be hurt! Mortally hurt!

But I'm never dramatic (ah-hem), so I simply nod.

We need to have some DNA testing done. Or maybe the photographs will prove that it is truly he – James Buchanan Barnes. But for now, I can smell the chicken and I'm going to need to prepare my room.

It appears that I will be sleeping on the couch.

I bite down a bit of the annoyance at being displaced. Love your neighbour and all. Though I suppose in this case it would be 'love your adopted aunt's long-lost (possibly not, and if so revert back to 'neighbour') brother as yourself.

Do unto others.

Would I want to sleep on an old, floral couch which smells faintly of spilt peppermint tea and musk? No, no I would not. He can have my room then, and I'll be left with a peppermint and musk feeling of virtuousness.

Reluctantly, I put the kitchen knife back into the drawer, feeling a little bit like an idiot as I do so. (I mean, really, how dangerous could he be?)

The chicken stew smells delicious and great burst of steam spirals upwards as I open the lid. Three bowls are filled, and I take two in to Aunt Becky and Bucky. Ha. That rhymes. Almost. Wonder what Poe would make of it ('quoth the raven, nevermore', no doubt).

Aunt Becky takes hers and I leave her telling Bucky of the miracle of Philip's birth ('I was rather old, the doctors said that it was quite impossible and I had given up all hope of a biological child when suddenly … out popped Philip. Though of course, it wasn't so very sudden. You should have seen Scott's face when I told him …').

She's talking to him. Trusting him.

And he's listening to her, watching her carefully, almost as if she's throwing him a life line. One that is … confusing him?

(You know what? I utterly despise paradoxes).

She's not senile – at least, she's weathered remarkably well for her age; still as bright as a button. Only yesterday did she tell me that she wouldn't be surprised if Philip wasn't part of the whole S.H.I.E.L.D palaver (her words, not mine) I told her that he was far too lazy to do such a thing, and besides, his fiancée wouldn't let him.

She snorted and said that his fiancée had as much observational skills as a rock and wouldn't be able to tell if he was 'one of those alien invaders, dear – Chitauri wasn't it?'

I was left duly stunned (one, by the reference to … that time … that I'd thought I'd done a good job shielding her from and two, by the non-belief in Emma's, er, intelligence) and so I'm reluctant to believe that she has allowed a hobo into our flat and is now talking to him as if he is her long-dead brother.

My own supper I take into my room.

I ignore the pale green walls (green is a soothing colour, and thus it permeates my entire room – even the curtains are a soft lime print) and set my bowl down on the bedside table.

I strain my ears for Aunt Becky's voice – there it is; a pleasant mid-pitch with a beautiful little tinkle – and hear the slow accompanying male voice which means that Bucky is talking to her.

I frown and take my coat off, hanging it up behind the door and then kneel beside my bed. It's a little dusty under here but there it is – wedged between a spare blanket and a hockey stick. The photo album is a deep purple and I open it and am confronted with Uncle Scott's face, old and lined with crinkles

His date of birth and date of death still leaves ache, but if the years don't eradicate the pain, they do dull it. I turn the pages from the Proctor family tree to the Barnes' one.

And … there he is. Looking as dashing as I thought him when I was nine and saw his picture for the first time.

James Buchanan Barnes.

I always thought that Philip resembled him – he has the same wide mouth and eyes that can harden and soften with his mood. The eyes …

There is a picture of him that was taken not three weeks before his death, and I know that if I turn the photograph over there would be a scribbled note: "Becky, picture as requested. Thanks for the soap but it smells of flowers. You're injuring my rep. with the ladies. All's well here. Hope the punk's treating you well. Yours, Bucky."

A cheerful little note but his eyes tell a different story – a harder one.

And then I know.

His hair may be longer. He may have the beginnings of a beard. But … it's him.

Not him in his photo – first taken when he joined the army. Not even him when he was in the 107th. He's changed.

But it's him.

Known Facts about Bucky Barnes:

He wrote frequent letters his sister

He was a lifelong friend of Steve Rogers, right up till his own death

and

He apparently has more in common with Captain America than friendship as he is very much alive and looks remarkably well aged for a war veteran. And, oh! He's in my living room.

I … have no words and stare blankly at my green soothing wall. Soothing. Right.

I look at the bed. The sheets had better be changed. The room is rapidly cleaned and I manage to grab a spoonful or two of my stew in between hurriedly cramming everything into the wardrobe, ramming my romance novels as far as I can underneath the bed and stashing my bran-new walkie-talkie thing (Philip gave it to me – as well as its very long-winded name) after them.

I walk back into the hall and hear the trail end of Aunt Becky's words: "… we'll help you Bucky. You can stay here and we will." Her voice is a little weak and a little helpless. I straighten my spine; if Aunt Becky wants to help him then she jolly well will (though I'd vastly prefer him somewhere else. Possibly Timbuktu. I hear the weather is nice there.) I enter the living room and see Aunt Becky with her hand in Bucky's and they both look so, so darn sad that I nearly walk out again.

"Let me help you Bucky, just for a little while. Ida and I- well, you needn't be alone. Stay with us. We won't judge Bucky. Whatever has happened ... please …"

Bucky is looking at her. His eyes … I should probably stop trying to describe his eyes. But if I were to draw an analogy here, I'd say that they look as if hope as dawned on a wounded world full of kicked puppies and kittens. But I'm not going to draw an analogy. Because I'm terrible at them.

He clears his throat and his voice comes out a little hoarse: "Even with this?" And- what, what is he doing? He's standing and taking his jacket off. And then his long-sleeved shirt.

My mouth by this time, I'm sure, has dropped to the floor. Scratch that – it's dropped clear through to the earth's core.

And then he is standing there, looking down at Aunt Becky and he's got a metal arm.

Aunt Becky isn't shocked. She is looking up at him with eyes which are tear-filled and full of sympathy.

"Even with that, Bucky."

He watches her impassively: "I've killed people."

"Of course you did, dear. You fought in a world war."

He opens his mouth as if to correct her, but changes his mind.

Aunt Becky gestures to the couch. "Bucky … you are my brother. Whatever has happened, has happened. Now sit down and put your shirt on. And eat your stew. Ida's put too much salt in it again, but then … it's much better than the last meal."

He stands still for just a moment – a heartbeat. And then he says: "Okay."

I can read voices – I have them in my ear all day ranting, weeping and yelling at me. This one … holds confusion and, and vulnerability.

But then he looks up at me and the nothingness drops back over his face like the curtains at the end of a Broadway show.

I grab my metaphorical jaw and close my mouth. "It hasn't got too much salt in it." I say, instead of the obvious jumble of words (the basic meaning of which translates to a huge: Wha-?!) "It's got too much chili."

Because really, these things totally happen every day. Why - long-dead men frequently appear looking remarkably well aged for dead men and all have, have ... metal arms. Special metal arms that do not look like the usual prosthetic limb fare.

An everyday event.

Nothing unusual about it at all.