Chapter 29

The silence in the room was almost painful. Thea had not moved, nor had Bucky been brave enough to speak. In fact, in the past four hours, Bucky had hardly said anything at all except whatever was needed to get the children settled or to discuss expectations or arrangements with Richard and the multiple security personnel that would be managing Steve's and his house arrest. Steve had pulled him aside for a brief, very urgent conversation in the odd little bathroom off the back service corridor—as they had felt that this was the least likely room to be bugged—but even that had been more of a whispered one-way briefing in which Bucky had done little more than nod his head. Actually, he would have to inform Steve later of the locations of the over two dozen listening devices or cameras he had found so far, but of course he'd only had the opportunity to search five rooms. There would certainly be more as the house was enormous. And the SAS were slippery bastards—which he could respect at the same time as hate, but SIS or whatever they wanted to call themselves these days were truly a f***ing loooooongtime thorn in his side.

When Bucky had slipped into Thea's old bedroom after putting Winnie down for bed, she had been seated at the window, looking out over the lawns towards the lake that she had pointed out to them earlier in the car. The room was approximately twice the size of the old apartment that he and Steve had been sharing in Brooklyn at the time he was drafted. The enormous, ancient bed hung with heavy, blue curtains was probably older than America. The fireplace was newer: that wall had clearly been modified when the newer wing of the house had been added. He could see why Thea had said the old electric heater was ugly, but Bucky could not help but think just how much he would have done to have a heater that modern and efficient at the time it was installed. Steve had always suffered from chilblains in the winter and usually came down with his worst chest infections in January or February. Bucky had spent many a night barely sleeping, as he'd listened to his friend hacking miserably.

Bucky turned his head to look around at the pale blue, panelled walls of the room—one entire side of which was covered in a mixture of photos of various Olympic skating stars, a large poster of a group of three men that he assumed were in some sort of musical group (what the h*ll was a house mafia anyway), and six excellent paintings of horses.

His head snapped around to look, as he heard her soft voice explain, "I begged my father to let me drag every single painting of a horse in here when I was 13 or so. I went through a phase. Well, a few phases as you can see from the other nonsense on the walls. Apparently, they never moved anything. I don't even remember those silly posters still being up there the last few times I came to Arnwell, but they must have been." Thea stood up and sighed with such deep exhaustion that Bucky started to move towards her. However, she crossed the room away from him as rapidly as possible whilst still leaning slightly into her cane, then reached out for the largest of the posters and ripped it down. She then began tearing at every picture and poster that had been taped or tacked up on the long wall on which the bed was located and then throwing them all over the ground. "If I don't take them down now…" she ripped the last one down and shredded it in one large movement, "then they will still be here when our children are my age. Richard is probably not even going to let anyone into this room now, Yasha. Can't you tell that it was a shrine already?"

He had no idea what to say, but she was right. Her family had been keeping the room as a shrine to her for much more than the past two years. Surely, she had been past the age of putting up posters for quite some time. "Yes."

"It will only be worse once I leave. It is silly. Why did I ever want a signed poster of Alexander Abt on the wall anyway? Just because Milena brought it to me, that didn't mean I had to actually put it up. I was so sentimental. I kept everything. Every scrap, every memento." She stalked over to an enormous double-width wardrobe and wrenched open the door. Inside were dozens of colourful, gauzy short dresses. "My ice-skating costumes."

Woah. Is that what women wore ice-skating these days? Those looked like tiny ballet dresses. Or something. Bucky had a sudden image of how beautiful Thea must have been out on the ice and clenched his fists in anger that she could no longer participate in the sport she had loved. "Oh. Well, they meant something to you, krasotka. It makes sense that you wanted to keep it all."

"Well, I don't now." She reached inside and scooped out an armful of the little spangled dresses and tossed them onto the floor. "What is the point?" She pulled out another large armful and said fiercely, "It isn't like I will be going to a fancy-dress party where I need to look like a silly ice princess. I should have donated them ages ago."

"You could do so now, couldn't you?"

"Probably not. Fashions change. I doubt anyone wears these styles now. It doesn't matter. I'd really rather they were burnt anyway." Thea pulled the last bunch of dresses out and threw them—hangers and all—onto the heap on the floor.

Moving quickly to catch her before she started destroying something else, Bucky looped his arm around her waist and said softly, "We can get rid of them if you want, baby, but it isn't urgent. We expect to have at least a week here before they transfer Steve and me to the US. We have time to go through all your stuff and see what you want to keep. Anything you want can be sent to us in New York."

"No. I do not want my last week ever at my family home to be spent looking at all the things that were taken from me, Yasha. I want to focus on where my life is now. I need to dwell on that instead or I think I might lose the plot entirely. I'm nearly there already."

Bucky knew that there was a lot more going on than he was probably aware of. He just hoped that he wasn't going to make any substantial missteps and that, perhaps, she would be willing to talk to him about it. "Ok, baby, I understand that. And I'm here with you now, right? I'm with you and we are doing this together, so no one is losing anything. However, we don't have to tear up the room tonight. Why don't you tell me about some of it? Talk to me about what you want me to know from then."

Thea pulled away and crossed the room again to the bed. As she climbed up on top of the huge, fluffy silk eiderdown, she patted the top and said sharply, "Well, come on then."

Bucky walked around to the other side of the bed and waited. Thea had laid on her stomach, facing the opposite wall. Aware that it was very unwise for him to be next to her on a bed at that moment as his own desperation was overwhelming him, Bucky compromised by propping himself against the side of the thick mattress and turning to face the wall where she was gazing.

The painting, which he had hardly noticed beyond its location during his detailed cataloguing of the room during entry, was astounding. It was, honestly, breathtakingly beautiful. Which was, unfortunately, another reminder of how strongly the Winter Soldier still lived in him. Bucky Barnes would have noticed an exquisite piece of art like that. The Soldier had simply decided that it was an excellent location for both video and sound recording devices, as well as a reasonable place to set at least two guns and several knives at the ready.

"Richard bought it for me the year that he first inherited the estates from our father. The trustees were furious that he would waste such a huge sum on one item, but I think the inheritance went to his head for a little while. Nevertheless, I think it is probably one of the most extravagant things that he ever bought. It is probably hard for you to imagine, but Richard had a serious wild side to him when he was younger. When he was 23, he had a horrible accident though. That was when he changed, really. But he used to be much more impulsive."

"I admit that I cannot imagine that. He seems extremely serious now, Bella."

Thea nodded. "Well, he had the accident and then inherited everything too young. He did not deal well with my RA diagnosis either, since he is such a worrier. And then Christopher died and I went a bit mad. Then I disappeared and was presumed dead for two years. Richard is the sort that tucks all his misery inside and then suffers bitterly and quietly. Things have not been easy for him."

Bucky leant both elbows into the mattress as he watched her. "No. I am sorry to think that I was the direct cause of some of that, Bella."

Thea finally turned her face towards him and he nearly lurched across the bed to lay his hand on her cheek when he saw the depth of her unhappiness. She leant heavily into his hand and sighed. "We cannot change the past, nor would I want to do so. We could not be together now if things had not begun as they did then, Yasha."

He insisted urgently, "I did not say that I regret it, krasotka. I do not. I need you, Bella. You know that I do."

"Well, unfortunately tragedy is a constant companion of the Arnwell family. For every successful development, there is usually something nasty that precedes or follows. I suppose that I ought not to have expected anything different, really."

Bucky frowned. He knew that tone and it was a harbinger of bad things to come. He needed to redirect her attention. "Tell me more about the painting, Bella?"

"Oh. Do you like it?"

"I think like or dislike isn't the way anyone should talk about it, Thea. It is supposed to touch the soul and make you think of your salvation, isn't it? I don't think that anyone could be unmoved by it."

Thea's eyes lit up with surprise and pleasure. "I am so glad that you say that."

"Of course, I do. It is a frighteningly emotional and very beautiful piece."

"I have another important work, actually, which was in my flat in DC. Mummy had a school friend, Letizia, who lived in Madrid. I went with Mummy to visit her when I was 8. Letizia's husband, Señor Basavilbaso, was an important collector of major Iberian religious works. That was how I first fell in love with that genre of art: I was entranced by the beauty of all Señor Basavilbaso's paintings. I stayed in touch with him over the years; he sent me books and I sent him letters. In a roundabout way, he is even the reason that I got the interview at the Prado. When he died, Señor Basavilbaso was kind enough to leave me a very special miniature of the Blessed Virgin. Richard purchased this painting from Letizia's estate for me when she died a few years after that."

"It is incredible, Thea. It must have cost Richard a huge amount."

"I never asked, of course, but I am sure it did. Richard is having it shipped to his house in DC. When we are settled in New York—wherever they allow us to live—then he says he will bring both pieces up to us."

Bucky stared at the large, gilt-edged painting of the Annunciation and breathed out harshly. "We are so different, Bella. Our experiences could not be more opposite from each other. I think the only things we have in common is that we came from English-speaking, Catholic families with 3 boys and 1 girl."

"I don't think that you are going to find anyone who has your life experience, Yasha. The similarities or lack thereof in our past are not nearly as important as where we both are now."

He did not respond for a moment. Finally, he looked away towards the curtain-covered windows and said uneasily, "I agree mostly, yet I also don't think that is true regarding our expectations for family life. Due to the terms of my repatriation agreement, we are going to be raising three children together in the same house as Steve and his family. And knowing Captain Old-school, he's going to want several more kids in addition to the twins. That's a lot of kids in one building, Thea. Now, I grew up living in very close quarters with a large family, but you…"

Thea eyed him with a frown and interrupted, "That doesn't matter, Yasha. We can suss out a plan to make it work. It is hardly insurmountable."

"Thea, baby, of course, we can handle it. You are an amazing woman, who has proved repeatedly that you are equal to anything that marriage to me has thrown your way. Even more incredibly, Bella, is how you…you filled my life with colour and beauty when I hadn't lived anything beyond black and white h*llscapes in decades. You did that, Bella. And wherever we are going to live in Brooklyn, you can be d*** sure that it won't be as nasty as that h*llhole in Minsk. Yet, somehow you turned even that tiny little room into the only place on earth that I wanted to be. Baby, I would live anywhere with you. I am just worried about how hard it is going to be for you. At least in all the s****y places we lived in Europe, we had privacy."

"We will have privacy enough. I don't think we will have a two-bedroom flat or anything even remotely close to it. Mary-Claire Rogers is not going to live anywhere that doesn't have plenty of space for her children. Or her wardrobe. Or somewhere for her husband to paint, apparently. Those are the three things she specifically mentioned when we talked about finding housing. Interestingly, Steve is equally determined that we choose a place in Brooklyn and not Manhattan."

"Of course, he is. He's a HYDRA-baiting needlessly foolish risk-taking idiot, but he ain't stupid."

Thea laughed. "Do you want to know what Mary-Claire told me that Steve said?"

"Sure. What did my genius pal say now?"

"That Bucky Barnes would have his guts for garters if he even considered planning to raise the kids anywhere other than a decent Brooklyn neighbourhood. Something about a promise you two made once."

Oh. Holy f***ing s***balls. That memory had not been there a moment ago. But now he had a distant voice that seemed like it was whispering in his ear, but staticky like a poorly tuned radio. A tiny, restive blond punk sitting up in his d*** sickbed—because, of course, he was—insisting with that worried look that had always made Bucky give in to whatever was being asked, 'Buck, promise me, ok? When we're grown up. You know. I just want our kids to know each other.' And he felt rather than heard his own hurt, shocked response. And remembered how he had never even considered that there could be any other way that their lives would work out. 'Don't be an idiot, Steve. We're gonna live next door to each other. It's a d*** guarantee.'

Bucky came back from the twisty annals of his mind and looked up to see Thea watching him with concern. "I was remembering. I didn't…I…"

She reached out and interlaced her right hand with his left. She always did that when she was trying to make some very serious point at the same time as reassure him that she still loved him—when she knew how uncertain, yet desperate he was to hear it. "Steve needs you, Yasha. When I was sick and you were in that cell at the Wakandan embassy, Steve told me then that he would do whatever it took not to lose you again. That he would always feel like that and that Mary-Claire understood. I doubted that at the time, but it turns out that he was right about that, too. She would find a way to move an entire mountain range to allow Steve to be able to stand at your side, since she understands how important the two of you are to each other. She talks about Steve the same way that I do about you, Yasha. She thinks he is literal perfection on legs."

So…yeah, that soothed one of his critical concerns then. He had been worrying about how Steve was clearly drowning in his love for Mary-Claire Rogers. Although he had also suffered quietly as he watched his newly super-soldiered best friend blunder about with his planet-sized infatuation with Peggy Carter, it had frightened Bucky far more to see how painfully in love with his wife Steve was. Steve's adoration of Mary-Claire was shockingly abject, which worried Bucky in the extreme, since he had not been able to tell the depth of Mary-Claire's feelings at all. Southern belles were an entity utterly outside his ken. But if Thea was this sure, then he would relax on that front. Steve needed a challenge, so he was always going to fall for a girl that he had to work to keep up with. However, Steve was all heart and passion, so it would break him to live with unrequited love. Even Bucky had barely survived that particular h*ll. "I don't deserve you, Bella. I know that I don't. I won't ever be able to do enough to be worthy of you. But I am going to spend every breath that I have left making sure that you and the children have everything that I can give to you."

Thea shook her head. "We need you. That is enough."

Bucky grunted with frustration. He was trying to send a d***ed message here. "Let me give you more than just enough, Bella. Please. Let me take care of you. Please, baby."

Her voice became quiet and soft in the special way it did when she spoke when she was feeling particularly emotional. Message received then. "Oh, but you already do. I know that you always will, too. I'm not refusing you, Yasha. You are the most romantic, thoughtful man alive, I think. I just feel that it is important that you know how valuable you are. You are enough."

Uncertain how to take either of those compliments, as they did not match what he knew to be the truth, Bucky decided, instead, that if she thought she'd been romanced before now…well…let's see what she said tomorrow.


Steve slumped back so his head was resting on the back of the long, ancient sofa where he and Bucky were sitting together. The shadows in the room were deep enough that the large portraits that hung along both sides of the room looked completely black. The heavy old brocade curtains were closed so even the light from the nearly full moon could not get inside. Only the soothing glow from the low fire and one lamp near the doorway illuminated anything at all. Steve's expression, however, was absolutely clear to Bucky. He had known that look for so long that he could probably recognise it in the absolute pitch black.

"So, what do you think, Steve? Is it possible?"

"Maybe. I don't know, Buck. It is risky."

"Yeah, well, so's just about everything you and I have done together since 1923, pal."

"It would sure be fun though."

"It isn't like they'd be looking for either of us at a f***in' baseball game, right?"

Steve snorted with amusement. "Well, it is the Dodgers."

"Yeah, still mad at 'em though. Cali-f***in-fornia, Steve."

"Well, what am I supposed to do, Buck? They didn't ask me for permission or nothin'. And I ain't gonna become a Yankees fan, ok? Not as long as I still breathe."

"Steve, no one is accusing you of being a f***in' moron. Though I'm wondering what you think about the new consolation prize team."

"Eh. It's baseball in New York, so I guess I'll take it even if Mets is a dumb name. At least they don't follow this new s*** that the so-called American league added to the mix."

"What's that?"

"Oh. Ohhhhh, Buck. You're gonna be so furious."

Bucky sat up with a jerk and turned to face Steve more directly. "Wadda ya mean, Steve?"

Steve laughed for almost an entire minute before he calmed down enough to say, "Conversation for another day, Bucky. Because, one, I got other things we gotta talk about right now and, two, I don't wanna wake up the household. Cause you're gonna be royally pissed off."

"What did they do? Did they ruin baseball, Steve?"

"Well, I mean, all the decent teams are still sensible enough because they're in the National League. Where anyone with any d*** sense would be, obviously. But seeing as, unlike you, I'm not a cheater and I don't like cheating ways…"

"Hey! I ain't the one as took a fuzzed ball into that game with O'Hanlon and the Carleton brothers."

Steve turned away from Bucky as he tried to hide his shifty expression from his friend's laser-focussed night vision. "It was the only d*** ball I had, Buck."

"Keep trying to sell that story, Steve. Maybe one day you'll find a buyer. In the meantime, what did they do to ruin baseball? S***. I mean, we fools all went off to war to freakin' save the world for freedom, goodness, apple pie, and the honest pure all-American wholesomeness that is baseball and they can't even keep their commie mitts off the best d*** game in the world? I lived with Soviet bulls*** for decades, Steve. And Soviet cr*p is utter balls, Steve. But I figured at least America—home of Barrett, Gerber, and Colt—still had sense."

Steve lurched forwards with a loud bark of laughter and then explained with a voice nearly choked with amusement, "Well, leave it to you to list America's top achievements as excellent weaponry and baseball. The travesty that I'm talking about though is called the designated hitter rule. Pitchers don't hafta swing a bat no more."

"Huh what?"

Almost giggling with glee at Bucky's reaction, Steve explained, "They don't gotta hit, Buck. They have a designated hitter that does it for them."

Enraged, Bucky whispered in horror, "Like a freakin' ringer?"

"Yep. Got it in one, Buck."

His voice raising to a low growl, Bucky demanded, "What the actual f***, Steve?"

"That was my reaction, too. But the dumba** who was teaching me about modern baseball when I was getting my 'Bring Cap into the 21st Century' lessons from SHIELD was a d***ed White Sox fan."

"Well, Chicago is for losers anyway."

Bucky could hear the pleased laughter in Steve's voice as he responded, "Not everyone is privileged enough to be born in New York, Buck."

"Huh, not everyone is even privileged enough to be born in the correct borough, Steve."

"True. Little spider kid is from Queens."

Well, no one was perfect. He'd liked that boy, actually. "Yeah, well, he seemed like a decent enough kid though. Not like he was from Jersey or nothing, jeez, Steve."

"Oh, Bucky, meant to tell you. I finally looked up what happened to Mack Peoples."

Ughhh, that bastard had been an oxygen thief. "Tell me it was gruesome."

"Very. Really, really appropriate. Remind me to tell you later. It's a good story, but I'm too tired to do it justice."

Bucky laughed. "Good. He was such a d*ck, Steve."

"That he was, Buck. That he absolutely was."

Now certain that he had Steve in a better frame of mind then earlier when the greyness of Steve's expression had made Bucky's protection instincts scream in agony, Bucky sighed. Time to get down to it. "So. Time to do get things done tomorrow."

Steve hissed out a long, low breath. "Aw s***, now?"

"Yeah, it's time."

"Well…well, ok. But for the record, Bucky, I do NOT like it."

Bucky laid his hand on Steve's arm and said seriously, "Didn't ask if you liked it. I don't f***ing like it. But it has got to be done."

After a pause, Steve said sharply, "Fine."

"So, how are we going to handle it?"

A much longer hesitation this time made Bucky worry for a moment that he had missed something. Was Steve truly not ready to take this step? But when he replied, Steve's voice was merely resigned. "I'll call him."

"Not without me there."

"No, no, Buck. I meant that I'll initiate the call. Video call."

Bucky took a surprised breath and then replied stiffly. "Right. Ok. Should be fun."

"Barrel of laughs, Buck."

At least he had somehow made Steve laugh again. Even if he had no idea why. "Shuddup, Steve."

"Buck?"

Bucky's head snapped up and he peered through the charcoal-hued haze of light to analyse Steve's face. "What, Steve?"

"Thank you."

"What the ever-living f*** for, Steve? Pal, I ain't done nothin'."

"Bucky."

He sighed. "Fine. Ok. I know. But you gotta understand, Steve. I was the Asset for decades. They suppressed everything that made me a person, but there was a reason it kept failin', ok? They had to keep wipin' me because just showin' me the news reports of your death wasn't enough to keep me compliant for long. But then you awakened James Barnes again. Thea made me human again, but you woke me up. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it for a while, Steve. If either of us should be grateful, then it's me. I don't like us talkin' about it. We're brothers just like we always have been. It ain't never gonna change. Right?"

Steve reached out and gripped Bucky's shoulder at the same time as he made a choking gasp. "Buck. Always. Always."