I am VERY sorry for not posting. I promise I'm not dead! And I haven't forgotten this story.

A lot of things in this chapter were helped along by Griselda Banks. Thanks again! ^_^

This is: September 1, 2017

Chapter 9

Bittersweet

They stood in line for over ten minutes, Bucky bouncing on his heels with excitement. "Won't it be fun?"

There were two other boys with them, Italians, one quick-tempered, the other more easy-going. The friendlier one nodded, smiling. "I've heard it goes over fifty miles an hour."

Bucky felt Steve shifting uneasily next to him, and he felt annoyed all over again. Why did Steve have to be a wet blanket? He had a much higher opinion of his friend's bravery than that. "Hey, Stevie?" he asked, keeping his voice innocent. "How high do you think it goes?"

"Sign said eighty-five feet," Steve answered.

"Have you ever been on a roller coaster before?" Bucky asked the other boys.

They both nodded. "Many times," the rougher one answered. "Mio padre owns one."

The other boy rolled his eyes. "And my father owns a garage and fixes cars. It's not that big a deal."

"What about you, Steve? Ever ridden a 'coaster?"

Steve shot him a glare, though his voice remained neutral. "Once with you. Did you forget?"

"No, this one's just going to be waaay better."

He was so busy talking that Steve didn't even notice they were at the head of the line, until Bucky stepped up to plunk down his quarter. "Come on, come on," called the guard impatiently. He looked hot and bothered; it was a busy day for him.

"Come on," Bucky repeated, grabbing Steve's arm.

Steve glared at him. "I already said I didn't want to!" he growled under his breath.

The meaner boy was quick to pounce. "Ohh, baby's scared to ride the Cyclone."

"I am not a baby!" Steve snapped. "I just don't want to."

"Cyclone Coward. Cyclone Coward," the Italian boy began to chant. "Cyclone Coward."

His companion said something that Bucky guessed meant 'Shut up'.

Bucky cocked his head at Steve. "Seriously? You gonna take that? Come on. It ain't gonna kill you."

Steve shot Bucky a positively murderous look, before slapping his quarter on the counter and storming past Bucky to the platform where people got into the cars. Bucky hurried after him, grinning. Steve would forget about this once he had as much fun as Bucky knew he would have.

"Is it fun?" Khwezi asked.

"It looks like fun," Fundani said. He gave Avi's arm a little smack. "Khawulezia." His brother took his time withdrawing his hand from the bowl of nuts.

"Oh, it was fun." Bucky smiled. "For me. Until Steve threw up."

"What?" Khwezi stared at him.

Bucky made a gagging noise, and mimed vomiting, making the boys cry, "Ohhh!" and burst into giggles.

"All over my shirt." Bucky shook his head fondly. "It was just bad luck that the other kids were sitting behind us. He wouldn't stop making fun of Steve, and Steve just wanted to hit me, I think. 'Cept he was feeling too miserable."

"What did you do?" Avi asked, now shoving Fundani's hand away from the nuts, and grabbing another handful.

"Bought him an ice cold Coke," Bucky said, holding out his hand. Avi poured some of the roasted, salted seeds into Bucky's palm. "And got rid of my shirt," he added, before popping the delicacies into his mouth. He and Steve had gotten well sunburned that day. Aunt Sarah had scolded them both for losing their shirts, and Bucky had never told about Steve misadventure.

"Thanks," he mumbled through his full mouth, and Khwezi wagged his finger at him, in a perfect imitation of Umkhulu.

"Don't talk with full mouth."

Bucky held back his laughter, and rubbed his hand over the little head. He swallowed, and gently closed the sketchbook in his lap, before climbing to his feet. "Well, maybe we should do something useful before we have isidlo sakusihlwa with the elders."

He ducked inside, hurrying to the back room to leave the book on his desk. "Who wants to come to Nomlanga's with me?" Bucky asked as he came back out.

"Me! Me!" All three boys came clamouring around and Bucky laughed, scooped Khwezi up so the littlest one could clamber up onto his shoulders.

"Alright. Masihambe."


Nomlanga was a famous wood carver, whose hut was in the village. But he frequently travelled, doing custom work around the country. Bucky had purchased one of his carvings at a market as a Christmas present for Sam, six months ago, and if the man was in town, he liked to go and watch him work, and look at his beautiful designs. Of course, so did everyone else in the surrounding area.

There were a couple dozen kids already there, ranging in ages from babies to mid-teens—the usual. Khwezi dragged Bucky to the front, some of the kids greeting him, "Ingcuka Emhlophe! Mholweni!"

Nomlanga, a thin, wiry man, with a cackle of a laugh and unlit pipe permanently stuck between the gap in his front teeth, did not look up.

Khwezi settled in Bucky's lap, slumped back against his chest, his head resting above Bucky's heart. It was not the first time Bucky felt that surge of protectiveness.

He had a sudden clear picture of sitting in the grass at Prospect Park, one of the twins in his lap, Steve with the other, and Becca sandwiched between them. They were watching some children's entertainer, a man with a little dog that could jump through his arms and walk on its hind legs.

He glanced down at Avi and Fundani beside him, still nibbling on nuts, and felt that familiar pang of wishing Steve could be here.

Nomlanga was working on a larger carving, a couple feet long and half that high, of a warrior with a spear facing down a lion.

They'd been watching for maybe an hour, and Bucky had only had to break up two fights, when Princess Shuri showed up. All the little kids fell over themselves to greet her, and Nomlanga glanced up. He grinned and caught Bucky's eye, then started laughing. Bucky grinned back, guessing he found the Three Musketeers' reaction amusing.

They just waved over at Shuri, then called for Nomlanga to keep working. Khwezi didn't even look around.

After things settled down, Shuri took her time working her way up to the front, to sit by Bucky. She was wearing pants instead of a skirt, and sat cross-legged, a little girl in her lap, and half a dozen others sitting beside her or standing, leaning against her shoulders.

She grinned over at Bucky. "One big happy family," she said.

Bucky laughed, reached to grab the last of the nuts before Avi and Fundani could start a fight. "Sure, sister."

Shuri glanced at him, an unguarded smile crossing her face. "I have a surprise waiting for you back at your hut."

Bucky gave a mock groan. "Oh no, you're going to make a fool of me in one way or another."

Shuri kept a straight face. "No, not a fool. Just a big fool."

Bucky still had a hard time telling when Shuri was serious and when she was just making fun of him, so he couldn't help but wonder as they walked home, about half an hour later. Xoliswa, the princess's guard, followed a couple yards behind.

Avi and Fundani held her hands and skipped, singing a little song, while Khwezi walked beside Bucky, a little carved star clasped in one hand.

Bucky glanced down and found the little boy looking back, with a puzzled face. "Are you her ubhuti too?"

Shuri laughed, and Bucky felt his cheeks flush. "No," he said quickly. "But she does remind me a lot of my little sisters."

"You're making yourself sound old now."

Bucky shook his head, unable to hold back a chuckle. "See, only sisters can get away with that kinda thing."

"Is all your family gone?" Shuri asked. That way she had of dropping a serious question on him out of nowhere could be disconcerting, and Bucky blinked.

He took a deep breath. "Yeah. Steve did find JB and his family; he was Becca and Frank's son. Guess what their first two boys were named." He shrugged then, finding that 'old' feeling creeping up on him. "Steve's the only one I've got left."

"You have us too," she said, looking straight ahead. "If you'll take us."

They walked on in silence, Bucky unable to find any words that wouldn't make his voice crack.


Books.

It was a box full of books. Old, beat up ones with worn covers, missing dustjackets, and titles Bucky knew. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure, Tom Swift and His Sky Racer, Old Yeller, Gone With the Wind, Moby Dick, Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, Treasure Island… At some point he stopped naming them all and just stared. Two dozen books almost all of them ones he remembered reading, even if he didn't remember what happened in them.

"What?" It was really all he could come up with and he glanced helplessly at Shuri.

"Now you look like a little boy," she grinned.

Bucky didn't really pay any attention to that. "How did you–? I mean, where did you get these? And how did you know…? The only person who would know…" He picked up a hardcover copy of The Boys of Summer (one he hadn't read, but already knew he would enjoy), remembered the feel of a bat in his hands, Steve cheering him on.

"He gave me the list," Shuri said. "That was what I could find."

"You can read all those?" Fundani asked, perched on the table, swinging his legs.

"Yeah. I'd read, Steve would draw." They'd sit out on the fire escape sometimes when it got too hot, and Bucky was pretty sure he'd been reading a dog story, something about a wolf in the Artic, when he'd nodded off and dropped the book into the alley below and almost caused a nasty accident between two bicyclists. Steve of course had blamed himself for not shaking Bucky awake and…

Bucky shook his head at that that familiar ache. He would read these books and he would remember, and he would read them and enjoy them now.

He turned from the table where he had been unpacking the box, and without thinking pulled Shuri into a hug. Xoliswa stepped forward suddenly, frowning, but Shuri just hugged Bucky back laughing.

"You're welcome, Ingcuka Emhlophe. Just don't read them all at once. I think Captain Rogers was looking for some of those himself." She pulled back, cocked her head. "You are such nerds. You are these famous soldiers and yet you like to hang out in the lab with me, you like to read old books, and Captain Rogers is such a beautiful artist."

Bucky shrugged, and he spoke without thinking. "Can't judge a book by its cover."


Bucky was yawning over his journal, when his phone started playing Beethoven's 9th symphony. He gave a surprised laugh, before he scrambled to his feet. Good grief, how did Shuri do that? Assuming it was Steve, he grabbed the phone and hurried back to his sleeping mat.

It had been over a week since Steve last called, but Bucky was getting used to the silences. He had to.

Steve. Video call.

Bucky hit ACCEPT.

"Steve?"

"Hey."

The image was almost grainy, the camera jerking around before it steadied and Steve's face came into focus. Behind him was a pale yellow wall, with butterfly stickers on it?

Bucky frowned. Steve had that bleary look of having slept half the day. "Where are you? What have you been doing?"

"Brenham, Texas," Steve answered. He yawned suddenly, and a hand holding a mug that read What's up, Doc? in lime green letters, appeared. "And getting half-drowned."

Steve took a long drink while Bucky processed this information. "US? What the heck?! Are you trying to get caught?" He was scowling at his friend, as Steve set the mug aside, and sighed, rubbing a hand over the thick stubble on his chin.

"It's easy to go unnoticed in the middle of a hurricane. And I wasn't gonna let Sam deal with this alone."

"Deal with what? Okay, spill, Steve. And from the beginning. I got plenty of time."

"And I just woke up." Steve gave him a tired smile. "'M glad to hear your voice, Buck. It's been… pretty insane." He settled back against the wall, and Bucky figured he had the phone propped on top of something. "So we were... on the other side of the world, when we saw the news feed. Let's see, Saturday evening. Big hurricane had hit Texas." He grimaced. "Sam… didn't take that too well."

Bucky watched Steve's face as he talked, listened to the warm timbre of his voice. It was called Hurricane Harvey and it was a bad one. When he explained that Texas was where Riley's family lived, his wife, and all his wife's family, Bucky understood.

"They'd promised each other, you know, that they'd take care of their families if anything ever happened." Steve half-smiled. "Guess what Riley named his daughter?"

"Umm, Sam?"

"Yep, Samantha."

Sam had started calling people, trying to find out if Rachel (Riley's wife) and her husband were okay, then Rachel's parents, and finally Riley's parents. Riley's parents were the only ones who answered. They lived in Brenham, NE of Houston.

Riley and Rachel had lived in San Antonio, until, a couple years after Riley died, she had remarried and moved to Houston, or moved back since that was where she had grown up and her parents still lived. And Houston was getting drowned.

"Thanks to time change, it was still Saturday night, when we landed in Mexico. We… uh, you know, hitched a ride across the border. Sam wanted to go alone." Steve shrugged, took another mouthful of coffee. "I wouldn't let him."

Sunday afternoon, driving through two feet of water, they'd headed for Houston, stopping time and again to assist in rescue efforts.

"So wait, you're in Brenham now?" Bucky asked.

"Yeah. Got a call Monday morning that Rachel and Jason had evacuated to Riley's parents' place. So we worked our way through, helping wherever we could." Steve sighed. "Never seen so much water in my life."

Somewhere in the background, Bucky heard a bang, and Steve started to jump up, before he relaxed, and shook his head. "Man, you could knock first."

Faintly Bucky could hear Sam saying something about 'illegal phone calls', and Steve rolled his eyes. "At least say 'hi'."

There was some thumping, before Sam appeared, kneeling next to Steve and leaning in so his face filled Bucky's screen. "Hey, Barnes. Need to water any crops out there?"

"What are you wearing?" Bucky asked incredulously.

"Huh?" Sam sat back on his heels, glanced down at his big fluffy purple-and-white sweater.

"Yeah. Where the heck did you get that?"

"Hey, Ms. Mary-Jo gave it to me. And I'd like to see you make fun of warm, dry clothes after being wet for– what is it, five days straight?" Sam shook his head. "Man. I never seen anything like it, and I don't want to again."

"How are your friends?" Bucky asked. "Must be nice to see them again."

Sam half-smiled, sitting back against the wall and leaning on Steve's shoulder. "Yeah, I guess. Just wish it wasn't like this. Least Sammy's okay. She's six now. Last time I saw her was one time we came through Texas looking for you." Sam stopped abruptly.

Bucky gave him a faint smile. "Headed for Mexico. Barely managed to lose you guys. So they know they've got a couple of wanted fugitives in their house?"

Sam chuckled. "Yeah, they're good with it. You wouldn't believe this, but we ran into Brandon on our way. Ri's little brother. He's with the National Guard, and we ended up helping him sweep some houses, rescue a handful of pets, some folks trapped in their car. Like seein' Riley's ghost, except he's quiet, like Ri was loud. Heckuva soldier. He'd be proud."

Sam lapsed suddenly into silence, and Bucky recognized the 'hundred-yard stare'. "Hey, Steve. They feeding you alright?"

"Yeah. Good old home cooking. Kinda nice to be back…" Steve's voice trailed off, and he shrugged, smiled slightly. "Isn't home though. I'll try to make it back soon, 'kay?"

Bucky felt himself smiling back. "Okay."

Steve's face seemed to lighten, and Bucky could feel the warmth—as tangible as a hand-clasp—that passed between them. Then Steve gave Sam a little nudge. "I had no idea this guy liked Mexican food so much. He put spice in his 'hot 'n spicy' chili last night."

Sam blinked. "Yeah, no one makes it like Rachel. But Ri liked it cooler'n me

There was a call of, "Sammy! Uncle Sammy!" in the back ground, and Sam jerked his head up. "Hey, I better go. Later, dawg." He gave Buck a quick nod, and was gone without waiting for a reply.

Steve watched him go, then looked back at the camera. "He's actually happy, you know."

"Yeah," Bucky said. There was a long pause before he added, "Speaking of, thanks."

Steve raised one eyebrow. "For what?"

"Remembering." He shrugged. "Even when it hurts." (Where did that come from?)

Steve shrugged, but Bucky could see the gratitude in his sudden smile. "When does it not?"

"You know what Dr. Dal says: 'Wounds scar'."

"And sometimes I'm glad," Steve answered quietly. He lifted one hand as if to reach for Buck's shoulder, like he would if his friend was right there in front of him. "How are you doing?"

Bucky let himself actually stop to think about that. "I'm okay. You?"

"Could be worse." He glanced away for a moment. "That storm…" He looked back, and Bucky could see fear and wonder written across his face. "I used to think the weapons people come up with were powerful. But nature can do… so much more. I've never seen anything like it." He huffed and shook his head. "There aren't really words for it."

"Uh huh."

"And everything these people have lost. Rachel and Jason's house is half underwater. They got out with a suitcase each and that was it. But they have family, they have each other, they'll be able to rebuild. Can't say the same for a lot of folks."

"Yeah."

Steve blinked and gave him a faint smile. "Sorry."

"Don't be," Bucky shrugged. "Long week." He paused on hearing a loud gurgling growl. "And you're hungry. You always get a little weird when you're hungry."

"I do not," Steve protested, but Buck could see his mood lifting. "But I do think I smell lunch downstairs, so I should probably go eat."

They said their goodbyes, and hung up at the same moment. (He didn't know how they did that.) Bucky sat for a minute, before gently tossing the phone on top of the sketchbook, which lay just within arm's reach. He hit the light switch and lay down, pulling the blanket up over his shoulder. As his eyes adjusted he made out the now loaded bookshelves and smiled.

Something Becca was fond of saying: C'est la vie.

Ain't love 'til it breaks you
Ain't real 'til it shakes you
Ain't faith 'til you fall on your knees
We're living and dying
And laughing and crying
And finding the beauty between
It hurts, and heals, and it tastes
Bittersweet

-'Bittersweet' by Paul Brandt

Notes/Translations:

Xhosa:
Khawulezia: Hurry up.
isidlo sakusihlwa: supper
Masihambe: Let's go.
Mholweni: Hi/Hello