"You know Bucky Barnes?!"
Rocio was upon her before Mina had even fully entered the dining room. Despite the fact that it was probably cutting off her circulation, the eight year old was still proudly wearing her "Soldier Arm". Mina was surprised she could even put it on anymore, a thought that brought on the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia. When the two of them had constructed the costume four years ago, Mina had needed to roll the ends of the glove up and then safety pin it to the top of Rocio's sleeve to keep it from sliding off. Now it didn't even reach her shoulder anymore.
"I never mentioned that?" Mina asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No!" Rocio exclaimed
"Oh," Mina shrugged, rounding the table and passing by a wiggling Ravi in his booster seat.
Rocio fell into step behind Mina letting out an indignant and frustrated sound. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"
She had an amazing and irritating talent for both shouting and whining at the same time. Mina breathed out her annoyance through her nose.
"Rocio," she said, flatly. "Do you really think I know Bucky Barnes and kept it a secret from you?"
The little girl pouted for a second as she thought it over before slowly shaking her head. "You're not very good at keeping secrets."
"Hey," Mina pointed a finger at her. "I never told anyone about your crush on Spider-Man did I?"
"I was six!"
"And yet, old enough to propose," Mina grinned, remembering finding the letter Rocio had addressed to Spider-Man with haphazardly spaced and sized letters. It had taken a few attempts to decipher some of the spelling, but it had proven excellent material to tease Rocio about for the past two years.
Her niece scowled at her and marched back to the table, dramatically throwing herself back into her chair.
Mina turned back to the stove and the probably cold eggs, smiling to herself in victory. It was a brief moment of peace as she dished eggs onto three plates because the moment she popped the first one in the microwave, the interrogation started back up.
"Well, if you don't know him, why was he here?"
"He wanted to talk to me and your mom," Mina said, watching the eggs spin round and round.
"About what?"
"The weather."
"Mema!" Rocio hit her hand against the table, causing Ravi to jump in his seat and stare at his sister with wide eyes.
Mina whirled on her niece. "Rocio Ishani, you know better."
"Sorry," Rocio mumbled, casting her eyes down to the table-one of her tells of genuine embarrassment and regret. The microwave beeped, and Mina sighed, switching the plate out for another one.
"I don't know what he wants to have a conversation about. He was here for three minutes and you did most of the talking. And even if I did know," she added on, stopping Rocio before words could come out of the little girl's open mouth. "I don't think it's a child friendly conversation. Which means when he comes, you're going to your room."
"He's coming back?"
Mina nodded. "When your mom comes to pick you up," she said, stopping the eggs with six seconds left on the clock. She took the two plates to the table, setting the hot one down in front of her and the warm one in front of Rocio. She raised her eyebrows at her niece, gesturing with her head to the kitchen before turning back to get Ravi's plate. Rocio trailed her in, pulling out the silverware drawer to get forks for the three of them, and tearing off three paper towels as napkins. She still hadn't quite grasped that Ravi wouldn't be using a napkin however much he needed one. Instead, she ripped one half sheet into a quarter, as if that would convince him to use it in the same way that the small bright green fork convinced him to be somewhat civilized in his eating instead of using his hands.
It was a few more minutes before they were all at the table, ready to eat.
"Your arm, please," Mina said, gesturing to Rocio's glove. The little girl put up no fight, shimmying out of it and lightly laying it on the empty chair next to her, signature side up so she could admire it all of breakfast.
While the interrogation seemed to be over, talk of the Avengers was not. Most of the breakfast conversation revolved around ranking the Avengers from most powerful to least powerful, and most helpful to least helpful, and the ever ambiguous "best" to "worst." And then, as it did with young kids, talk bounced from subject to subject-connected only by the vaguest semblance of eight year old logic. It ended with a request to watch Wild Kratts after breakfast.
They did.
They did a lot of other things after breakfast too.
They made and played with play dough and stopped when they noticed Ravi was alternating between building with his and eating it.
They each drew pictures for Leela with varying degrees of realism, had a fashion show turned impromptu dance party, and played hide and seek during Ravi's nap. (Rocio was such a good hider that Mina hadn't found her until after Ravi woke up, and she was definitely looking very hard and not reading a book.)
They painted each other's nails, and built an epic race car track for Ravi and made individual pizzas.
They raked leaves outside and picked a few favorites to press in books and even found time to fit in a small hurt self/strong self activity before Leela arrived.
They were in the middle of deconstructing eating their creations when the front door opened.
"Where is my family?"
Mina looked up with a smile and gestured towards the door, but Rocio remained put. "We're in here!" she shouted, fingers sticky with peanut butter and fluff.
Leela sauntered into the room, her emerald green suit still pressed and wrinkleless despite a day on the job. She arched her perfectly threaded eyebrows as she looked at her younger sister and daughter and the table all covered in graham cracker crumbs. "Looks like you three had a good day."
"Yep!" Rocio chirped, and Leela clicked forward and into the corner of the room where Ravi was playing with his two cars on a section of the track.
"How is it my two year old is the least messy of the three of you?" she asked, bending over to press a kiss to Ravi's head. He squirmed away, continuing to move his cars along the track.
Mina laughed as Rocio licked a finger clean of peanut butter. "Because Ravi takes after you, and Rocio takes after me," she said, grinning at Rocio. Leela frowned and crossed back over to the girls. "Don't worry though, I think we're all adventured out, so tomorrow we're just going to sit and stare at the walls."
"No!" Rocio shouted, and Leela hushed her.
Mina tilted her head as if thinking. "I guess we could wash my car," she said, tapping her chin with a finger. "And the baseboards do need some dusting."
Rocio let out a dramatic groan, and Mina laughed, picking up a napkin to rub away at the spot of marshmallow fluff on her chin.
"Well, if you're not going to clean my house, you can at least clean your hands."
Rocio gave her a look of exasperation that she should have been much too young to even think about giving. Nevertheless, she slid out of her chair and headed to the sink, Leela stopping her en route so she could press a kiss to the top of her daughter's head.
"How was work?" Mina asked as Leela sunk into Rocio's vacated chair.
"People are idiots," Leela rolled her eyes, giving a sigh.
"Says the literal genius," Mina returned, and Leela snorted, shaking her head.
"It doesn't take a genius to follow simple instructions. I'll lay everything out for them, and even with pictures, they can't complete a single build without running into some potentially catastrophic error."
"That's not what you want to hear from the lead engineer at Stark Energy."
Rocio skipped back to the table, and Leela scooched out her chair, gesturing for Rocio to come sit on her lap. The little girl veered off early though, instead attempting to climb into Mina's lap. Mina shook her head, casting a quick glance at her sister who dropped her open arms.
"Your mom's missed you," Mina said, gesturing with her head across the table.
"I live with her," Rocio whined.
"And?" Leela asked, moving her chair back up to the table. "I still miss you when I work."
"Really?" Rocio asked, walking over to the chair next to Leela, and claiming it.
"Really," Leela assured, placing an arm on the back of Rocio's chair, gently combing through her daughter's hair with her fingers. She looked up at Mina offering a small, weak smile before looking back down at her daughter. Her brow creased. "What are you sitting on?" she asked, tugging at something underneath Rocio. The little girl joined her mom in looking down, her eyes lighting up as she recognized the object.
"My Soldier Arm! Oh yeah! Guess who we met today!"
"Who?" Leela asked.
"No, guess!"
Mina would have to teach her niece about the art of not playing a guessing game after making the answer so obvious. Then again, it still seemed so surreal that Bucky Barnes would turn up at her doorstep, that even with the "Soldier Arm", she doubted that Leela would guess.
Leela pursed her lips, putting on a show of thought. "Was it-"
There was a knock at the front door interrupting Leela's guess. Rocio practically launched herself from the chair, already halfway out of the room by the time she could scream "I'll get it!"
"No!" Ravi shouted. His usual reaction when Rocio was too loud, too energetic, too Rocio.
Leela exhaled a laugh at her son before turning back to her sister. "This was too much sugar," she said, circling a finger around Rocio's half-eaten creation. Mina laughed, and Leela smiled, and it felt nice for things to be normal between them-easy. Even if it was just for a moment.
A moment that was brought to a screeching halt by Rocio dragging Bucky Barnes into the combined kitchen and dining room by the hand.
"We met Bucky Barnes!" she chirped.
Leela's face went slack, only managing to get out a small "Holy shit." Mina's eyes didn't linger long on her sister though. Instead her gaze was drawn to Bucky Barnes who looked vaguely amused.
"Rocio, release your captive," Mina prompted, and reluctantly, Rocio released his hand, taking a few steps back towards her mother to give him some space.
"Is this-are you-what is happening here?" Leela asked, looking between Bucky and Mina and Rocio, as if one of them had a reasonable explanation for this. Mina had only ever seen her sister this flustered twice before. Both of the previous occasions had been heartbreaking and traumatic and she'd never quite gotten to experience how funny flustered Leela was.
"He wants to talk to you and Mema about something!" Rocio filled in.
Leela's head whipped to Mina. "You know him?" she whispered in Hindi, as if this was some secret conversation for Mina's ears only.
Mina shook her head. "No, he just came by this morning and asked to speak with us."
"About what?" Leela asked, furrowing her eyebrows and looking back to Bucky.
"I don't know."
For all of the differences between Leela and Rocio-and there were many-their brain processing was eerily similar.
Bucky cleared his throat, drawing the sisters' attention back to him. "I um-I don't know if you want-" he gestured to Rocio. "Here for this."
"Rocio, go to your ro-the playroom," Mina corrected.
"I promise I'll be quiet if you let me-" Rocio started, and Leela cut her off.
"Rocio, take your brother and go up to the playroom please,"
"But-" Rocio's face melted into the start of a complaint, but there a sharp cut of her mother's eyes stopped her dead. Mina remembered being on the receiving end of that look quite a few times while she was growing up. If anything it'd grown in power.
Rocio stomped forward, taking Ravi by the hand who whined and complained until she let him pick up a few cars to take with him, and the two exited the room, heavy footsteps echoing up the staircase.
Mina turned back to Bucky who was staring over Leela's head, at the wall of family pictures.
The idea had hit Mina four years ago after Rocio woke up crying from a nightmare. Together, they spent the night going through old photo albums and Facebook albums, searching for the best pictures of the family. They ended the night with about forty pictures that needed to be framed or professionally printed, and the whole project took about a week to finish.
Every time they ate lunch together over the past four years, Rocio would choose a picture, and Mina would tell her the story behind the picture. Mina's eyes flitted amongst the pictures now.
There was the first time Leela held Mina as a baby which was also the first time Mina smiled. Leela's high school graduation-one of the few pictures with both of their parents in it, hovering on either side of Leela as six year old Mina sat on her hip. Leela and Hector's beautiful wedding day. Leela and Hector at Mina's high school graduation. Leela and Mina at the baby shower for Rocio, and Leela and Hector at the shower for Ravi. There was one of Rocio's grandparents meeting her for the first time, and a good number of photos documenting Mina's visits out to the family. Before the blip.
During their four years together, Mina and Rocio had also taken pictures of memories the family couldn't be there for and hung them on the wall, reminders of stories to tell should they ever return.
Rocio and Mina moving into a new house.
Rocio's first day of Kindergarten, first, and second grade.
The two of them and Rocio's ill-fated hamster, Churro.
Birthday parties and day trips that the rest of the family should have attended.
Bucky stared at the pictures, his frown deepening.
"Would you like to sit?" Leela invited, allowing her collected professional persona to seep into her voice and straighten her spine.
The super soldier nodded, choosing the chair at the end of the table, closest to the door. He wet his lips, his eyes drawn from the pictures and down to the wooden table. It was strange seeing an Avenger-someone who had fought Thanos-seem so nervous in the company of two ordinary women.
He reminded Mina of the fourth graders who entered her office.
The fourth graders were always so hesitant to work with her-terrified of opening up and showing even a glimpse of vulnerability. It took three sessions just to get them to admit that they weren't fine and a few more before they lost the skittish look in their eyes. She doubted Bucky would be pried open by bags of chips or any of her fidgets, but she figured she'd at least try.
"Can I get you something to drink?" Mina asked, and Bucky shook his head.
"I don't want to take up too much of your time."
Mina nodded, and Leela cocked her head. "So what brings an Avenger to my sister's house?"
He wet his lips and then looked up at the pair. "You're part of my efforts to make amends." Bucky made an attempt at a smile.
Across the table, Leela's chest constricted with barely suppressed laughter, and the corners of Mina's lips twitched in and out of a smile. Whoever had advised him to smile, surely hadn't meant for him to smile like that.
"What are you here to make amends for?" Leela asked, her voice steady and betraying none of her amusement.
"I…" his eyes drifted back to the wall of pictures looming beside them. "I'm the one responsible for your parents death."
Mina felt the world stop.
Or maybe it wasn't the world, maybe she stopped. Maybe every single atom within her stilled for a moment. Maybe her brain shut down and heart paused its beating, keeping her from thinking or feeling anything other than the numbness of shock. Because as surprising as it was for Bucky Barnes to show up on her doorstep at ten in the morning, she never expected he was responsible for changing her entire life.
"I know there's nothing, I could ever do to truly make amends-"
"You don't need to make amends."
Everything seemed to restart then. Her heart picked up its beating, and brain whirred into action, sifting through memories and thoughts she'd long ago pushed to the back of her mind and locked there to remain untouched even by years of therapy.
Her skin prickled with flashes of images. The dark figure at the top of the staircase, the glint of metal she'd assumed was a gun in his hand, the cold blankness of his stare as his eyes bore into hers. And then the horror and sick relief of finding her parents in the moments after his disappearance.
"They were horrible people, and I'm glad they're dead. Thank you for salvaging my childhood"
"Mina," Leela gasped, horrified.
"You hated them too," Mina argued back. "Don't pretend you're not glad that Rocio and Ravi never have to meet them."
"Our relationship with our parents aside, they were still our parents. The least we can do is not thank the man who murdered them in their sleep."
Bucky for his part looked completely bewildered as his eyes darted between the two arguing sisters.
Mina shook her head. "You were more of a parent to me than they ever were."
"And it's because of that that I remember you waking up screaming every night for three years. So if you're not going to ask for amends for our parents' murder, at least ask for amends for what you had to go through because of him."
"My nightmares aren't because of him," Mina dismissed. Leela would never believe-let alone understand-the reason behind Mina's nightmares.
Seeing the argument was fruitless, Leela tsked and dismissed Mina with a flip of her hair, turning instead to address Bucky. "Why?"
"Why…" Bucky stumbled along, confused by the conversational whiplash or the vague question.
"Why did you kill our parents?" Leela demanded.
"Does it matter?" Mina asked.
"It matters to me."
The sisters stared at each other, and Mina shut her eyes, bowing her head in surrender. Leela didn't understand. If Mina had it her way, Leela would never understand. She would never burden her sister like that.
Bucky swallowed hard. "I wasn't told the specifics of every...assignment. All I know is that your parents were working on something HYDRA wanted, and when they were offered a chance to join the cause, they declined. I was tasked with elimination and retrieval."
"Retrieval?" Leela pressed
"Of their research."
Leela gave him a single nod before looking down at the table in front of her. "I didn't even know they were conducting their own research."
Mina felt her skin prickle, an icy hot sensation shooting through her veins. Carefully calm, she reached across the table, palms open for her sister's hands. Leela placed her hands in her younger sister's. "They never let us get to know them," Mina said gently, squeezing Leela's hands. "That's why I'm angry and you're hurt."
Even as she said this, she could feel Bucky's gaze on her, intently studying her motions and facial expressions.
She looked back at him. "Thank you for coming to tell us. I'm sure it wasn't easy."
He nodded, his brow still slightly creased as he looked at her. And then his gaze flicked to Leela, and Mina released her breath.
"I know it doesn't mean much-it doesn't change anything, but I'm not the person who did that anymore. I am no longer the Winter Soldier. I am James "Bucky" Barnes."
Leela nodded, releasing her sister's hands and looking Bucky square in the face. Her own expression was completely neutral, not a trace of a tear or any of the hurt she'd voiced.
"If you want to make amends, you should come here for Thanksgiving."
Neither Mina nor Bucky had been expecting that. Mina's instinctive reaction was to snort out a laugh as if it were a joke, and Bucky looked like the very dictionary definition of confusion: brow knitted together, eyes narrowed, mouth hanging open.
"It would mean the world to my daughter. You can think about it as replacing a memory of my daughter meeting her grandparents. Mina's right, this will probably be a happier memory anyway."
"You have to come!" Rocio rushed into the room, both of the women shouting her name in a mixture of surprise, horror, and reprimand. The eight year old made no excuses or explanations. Instead she stood by Bucky's chair, peering up at him with a bright intensity only a child could muster. "Please."
Bucky looked away from Rocio to Leela and then Mina. "Ok."