So there was some weird thing when I updated a chapter to add an author's note it considered it as another chapter to add to my story, so that's why the chapter numbers might be off in notifications.
Bucky was finally freed from his therapy "prison", as he sometimes referred to it in his mind. Never to the doc's face, because he was pretty sure that she would reprimand him and that was something he tried to avoid at all costs.
But sometimes, he couldn't bite his tongue and said something that she would give him a disapproving look for.
Even if she seemed like she was disappointed when he would say things like this, she somewhat enjoyed it because she found some of it funny.
Like when he tried to tell her that she was wrong about his lack of friendships.
He sounded like a little kid arguing with his parents for more screen time as he tried to tell her that he actually had friends. His phone at the time said otherwise, with just Steve, Sam, and Percy in his contacts.
He drove back to the tower, where sure enough, Percy was standing on the curb and waiting for Bucky.
"Sweet ride, but we've got somewhere that we've gotta go." Bucky looked confused, the top down on his car.
"Am I allowed to know where?" Percy grinned and got in on the passenger side.
"Not now, but I think you'll be able to figure it out at some point anyway." Percy shut the car door behind him and buckled his seatbelt.
"Turn left," he said as Bucky pulled away from the curb.
"Okay. So, is there anything I need to know about this place? What's my chance of making it out alive?" Percy grinned, putting his arm over the car door as Bucky drove down the street.
"Umm, ninety-five percent chance of coming out alive. Unless something goes sideways, I think you should be okay." Bucky almost stopped his car and turned around immediately after hearing that he may not come out alive.
"What do you mean ninety-five percent? I don't have much confidence in this if that number doesn't increase to, say, about a hundred."
"Turn right," Percy said, giving Bucky the directions to his secret destination. "But I mean, ninety-five is pretty good. And besides, it's a cool place." Bucky sighed, pressing the heel of his hand into the steering wheel and turning it around the corner.
"Fine, I'll take it. I've had worse odds."
•••
Bucky didn't even have as much as an idea as to where Percy was taking him; he just drove the car where Percy told him to and asked very few questions. He just shut up and drove with his brother, who was wearing a pair of jeans, blue Jordans, and an "I Survived The Argo II" shirt.
Leo had made all of the seven a t-shirt commemorating the prophecy.
Bucky wore a pair of jeans, a pair of black Nike shoes and a black t-shirt. Percy turned the radio on, pushing the button to rotate through the stations until he found one playing rap.
"What is this?" Percy looked over to Bucky, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.
"You've never heard Lil Uzi?" Bucky thought for a moment and shook his head.
"Don't think so. But I like it." Bucky listened to the new song that Percy apparently liked.
"How old is it?" Percy thought for a second.
"Um, I think That Way came out in like 2020. It's been, like, 4 years, so kind of a while." Bucky dug a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on, looking across the car at Percy as they drove down some backroad.
"So you're insinuating that it's an old song?" Percy leaned his elbow on the car door where the window was rolled down and propped his head up in his hand. He knew that he should probably choose his next words carefully, because Bucky hated it when people called recent things old.
He said that it "made him feel older than he already was".
"Umm… I'm kind of trying to find a good way to say it. What if I say this: it's older by my standards, but not by yours." Bucky threw his metal hand up in the air, shaking his head as the wind tousled his short hair.
"So you're saying that since you're young, it's old. But since I'm old, it's not old." Percy laughed and tried to run his fingers through his hair to get it back in place.
"Umm… yeah, you kind of saw right through that." Bucky laughed at his brother, who he thought was going to have to bring him up to date on the modern world.
"To be fair, I was conscious at that point. I was just trapped inside a glowing yellow rock." Percy shrugged.
"Me too." Bucky had forgotten that Percy was blipped as well; when you've been alive as long as he had been the years kind of run together.
The backroad that he drove down seemed oddly familiar to Bucky, even though he couldn't put his finger on why.
All backroads look the same, so maybe it just reminded him of one he'd been down before. But it felt like so much more than a reminder; it felt like it should be a significant memory in his brain. But for some reason, he couldn't get anything to register in his brain.
"Are you leading to my own kidnapping?" Percy scoffed.
"No offense, but… you're anything but a kid." Bucky grinned and shook his head at another old joke.
"That's not very nice. So what would you consider me?" Percy decided to just feed the fire since he had already done it before.
"A senior citizen's grandpa."
"Ouch," Bucky replied.
"Oh, turn right here." There was a skinny dirt path that was a little sketchy looking for Bucky's liking.
"You're making me drive my brand new birthday present through that?"
Percy shrugged. "It's just a Ferrari," he said sarcastically.
"You're kidnapping me, I'm calling it now. When I drive into that woods, there's going to be some creep with a bag to put over my head, and then you're going to get out and help him drag me to some broken-down shed." The idea was a little over dramatic, but with Bucky's past you couldn't blame him for automatically expecting the worst.
"I am not kidnapping you. But someone here might," he said, referring to Tyson, whom Bucky had met on some of their Iris messages back and forth. Tyson had taken an extreme liking to Bucky, almost like he had to Percy. Tyson saw Bucky as a big brother and loved getting to talk to him.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Bucky's voice got higher pitched as he asked this. Percy looked over to Bucky, who put the parking brake on the car and left it sitting perpendicular to the entrance to the woods.
"I am not moving from this spot until you tell me what I'm going to find in those woods." Percy shrugged, propping his feet up on the dashboard and unbuckling his seatbelt.
"I guess we'll be here for a while then, because I'm not telling you. It's supposed to be a surprise."
Bucky reached across the car and shoved Percy's knees toward the car door.
"Get your feet off my freakin' dashboard! Tony Stark was nice enough to give me a brand new Ferrari for my birthday and you're going to get footprints all over it." Percy fell sideways over the console between their two seats, smacking his head on the gearshift.
"Okay, why don't you just throw me everywhere!" Percy sat up and made a show out of dusting off the dashboard with his hand.
"Since we're going to be here for a while, how much do you know about cars?" Percy shrugged.
"I know a good amount. I would work with Leo on the cars he got. By the way, I'm still not going to tell you." Bucky threw his hands in the air.
"Then I'm not moving from right here." Percy turned away from him and looked to the other side of the car, and then sat on top of his seat since the top was down.
"You do realize that I can drive, right?" Percy moved behind Bucky and put his legs outside Bucky's shoulders.
"And?"
"And I can drive us in." Bucky turned around and looked up to meet Percy's eyes.
"But you aren't going to, because I'm the adult here and I'm telling you no." Percy scoffed, biting back a laugh and a snarky comment.
"What? Say it," Bucky said, knowing that Percy was about to say something smart.
"I think it's clear that you're an adult. I mean, as old as you are and all…" Bucky glared at him over his seat.
"Choose your next words wisely, Jackson." Percy smirked, holding back a laugh.
"Alright, I've had enough. I'm too ADHD to sit here forever. You're going to drive on that path in the woods, and if anything happens to your precious baby then I can get one of my friends to fix it." Bucky considered this for a minute, but then he shook his head.
"It's not the car I'm worried about, Perseus. Who's going to fix it if something happens to me?!" The pitch of Bucky's voice got higher as his question left his mouth. Percy shrugged, swinging his legs as he sat on top of the car behind Bucky's seat. The backs of his high tops collided with the seat beside Bucky's shoulders, and it was slowly driving him insane.
"Oh my gods, Percy. I know that you're ADHD and I am too, but I'd rather sit still than be dragged into some shady shack in the woods, but sit still!" Percy scoffed and laid back.
"That's like saying, 'There's a bowl of triple fudge brownie ice cream on the counter right there! But don't eat it, because I don't want you to.'" Bucky shook his head and pulled his sunglasses down from the bridge of his nose to stare coldly at Percy.
"Don't bring triple fudge brownie ice cream into this conversation!" Percy knew that triple fudge brownie ice cream was Bucky's weakness, along with coconut cream pies, peanut butter cookies, and teddy bears.
Bucky would never admit it to Percy, but he was bored out of his mind and bouncing his leg under the steering wheel. He was about to break down and drive into the woods, but then he was pretty sure that he heard something in the underbrush and immediately dismissed the idea.
Secretly, Bucky wanted to be a dad someday. The chances were small, but there was always the little piece of hope in the back of his mind. He loved being around little kids; to him, the happiness rolled off them in waves. They always gave him a reason to laugh. That was why he always enjoyed when Tony would bring Morgan to the tower. Morgan had taken a particular liking to Bucky, maybe because he would play Barbies and even let her play with his hair. He had a younger sister, a long while ago, and that was how he thought of Morgan. As a little sister, but to some degree he even treated her like a daughter. When Tony had said no to a cookie, Bucky snuck an extra one for Morgan and slipped it to her later when they had their campout in a pillow fort they constructed in the living room. Surprisingly, no one caught it.
"Why not? Fine. It's like having a coconut cream pie on the counter and not being able to eat it." Bucky set his jaw hard and turned to face Percy.
"I tell you not to bring triple fudge brownie ice cream into this and then you just keep going with my other worst weaknesses? Makes a lot of sense."
"Is there anything I can do that will make you happy?" Bucky pretended to think for a moment.
"Nope. But I guess I could play what you call 'old person music'.."
Percy rolled his eyes. "You are literally impossible."
Bucky smiled his biggest smile and replied, "Thank you."
Bucky bounced his leg and Percy hit his heels against Bucky's seat as their ADHD prevented them from sitting completely still.
The song finished and changed.
"Ooh. Rockstar," Bucky said, turning his radio up.
"How do you of all people know this song, just by the opening two notes? I didn't expect you to be well versed in Post Malone." Bucky rolled his eyes and drummed his hands on the sides of the steering wheel.
"I'm going, screw waiting here. If I die, I die. At least I'll be in a Ferrari listening to Post Malone." Bucky started the car with his thumbprint and Percy scrambled down into the passenger seat.
"Finally!" Bucky put his right arm on the steering wheel and adjusted his sunglasses with his metal hand.
"Not today, death. Not today," Bucky muttered under his breath as he drove into the woods.
He looked around, the music still playing as he drove down the path with his right arm over the car door.
He couldn't believe his eyes.
There, in the middle of the woods, stood the wooden Camp Half-Blood arch as if it had been waiting for him.
"No way! I haven't been here in almost a hundred years." He grinned and drove through the arch, which was barely wide enough for his car.
"See? Now do you get why I told you that you have a ninety five percent chance?" Bucky shrugged and kept driving toward the heart of camp, where the campers that had been sparring and sitting around the campfire stopped in their tracks. Swords clattered to the ground, laughter silenced, food stopped halfway into mouths.
The car ran with the noise that Bucky loved to hear. It was a noise like a toned-down race car; not quite as loud. It was classy because it was quiet enough to be a civilian car, but ran loud enough to be cool.
In short, Bucky was very fond of his new acquisition.
The campers started to whisper, speculating as to who the newcomer could be.
Bucky opened the door and shut it behind him, Percy doing the same.
"What in Hades-" Dionysus had suddenly wandered out of the Big House, looking between the campers and the blue Ferrari parked in the middle of camp.
"Hi, Mr. D," Percy sighed, leaning against the car.
"Patrick Johansson? Who is this? How did he get in?" Dionysus eyed Bucky carefully, eventually looking down to his metal arm.
Bucky tried extremely hard not to laugh, remembering all the stupid names Dionysus came up with when he couldn't remember anyone's real name. He couldn't hold it completely, allowing a small giggle to escape his lips.
"What are you laughing at?" Dionysus studied Bucky long and hard.
"I feel like I remember you." Bucky smirked, not about to tell him who he was. "Wait. You're Jameson Brown!" Chiron strode out of the Big House, noticing the blue Ferrari first; even before Percy or Bucky.
"BROTHERS!" Tyson's voice boomed from across the camp as he saw Bucky and Percy leaning against the car.
"Hey, man!" Bucky had never actually met Tyson in person, just talked to him over the Iris messages with Percy. Tyson hugged him, more than thrilled to finally meet another brother that he didn't know he had.
"New car! I love those," Tyson said with a huge grin. Bucky couldn't help but notice the purple Camp Jupiter shirt that some of the campers wore. Percy had informed him that the camps had combined, and Bucky remembered thinking that this was a good idea.
"Yeah, me too." Tyson was a good four inches taller than Bucky; at six-six, Tyson was just about taller than anyone.
"Me three!" Leo's voice cut through the crowd of campers as he tried to get to Bucky and Percy.
"Remember the guy I told you about that could do an oil change in five minutes? That's this guy," Percy introduced. Bucky smiled and looked at Leo; his grease-stained jeans and chest, a white (or used to be) towel draped over his shoulder. The magic tool belt that Percy had told him about was around his waist, as per usual.
"You're the guy that Percy talks about all the time! The cool one that can destroy people in arm wrestling contests," Leo said, looking up to Bucky, who had tucked his sunglasses into the pocket of his jeans.
"I do, I destroy everyone in arm wrestling contests. Only with some WD-40," Bucky joked, knowing that Leo was a Hephaestus kid. Leo laughed, looking at Bucky's arm.
"Is that, like, a titanium-gold alloy?" He studied the arm carefully, trying to figure out what it could possibly be made of. Bucky grinned and shook his head.
"Nope. It's vibranium-gold alloy," he replied. Leo wrinkled his nose.
"Vibranium?! Where did you get so much?" Bucky smiled at Leo's enthusiasm about anything to do with machines or metal.
"I have some friends in Wakanda." Leo's eyes turned to saucers.
"Did you say Wakanda?! They're literal legends for all they do for like, technology and stuff." Leo was such a bubbly kid, Bucky couldn't see how anyone could ever dislike him. According to Percy, no one did.
"I think I could hook you up. I'm friends with the king and his younger sister. His sister is the one that's in charge of all their technology, and I'm allowed to visit whenever I want," Bucky replied. Leo's reaction was instant; he looked like a little kid in a candy store as he thought about everything he would get to see.
"That would be awesome! You're the best!" Bucky smiled.
They formed teams to play a game of capture the flag; Romans versus Greeks. The Greeks started on one side of the woods, the Romans on the other. The rules were simple; grab the other team's flag, preferably without any deaths.
Bucky didn't take a sword, just one of Leo's pocket knives from Bunker 9.
"Are you sure you just want a pocket knife? That's it?" Bucky grinned and flipped the knife in the air and caught it by the handle.
"Completely sure." Bucky started on the side with the Greeks, ready to, "kick some Roman butt", in the words of Leo.
"READY! GO!" Chiron yelled, unleashing the chaos. Bucky tried not to fight anyone if he didn't have to, but there were a few Romans who came toe-to-toe with him that he had to fight off.
Even after all these years, he could still remember where they always hid the flags. He made it to the flag, until he came upon a boy guarding it.
"Oh, crap," Jason muttered under his breath.
"Look, can I just kinda… take the flag without a problem?" Jason smiled and shook his head.
"No. I have to guard this, because, you know… it's how the game works…" Bucky cracked his neck and shrugged.
"Okay. I tried." He and Jason ran at each other, Bucky trying to fight around him. But Jason used his wind powers to push Bucky away from the flag.
"Are you… a Zeus, or a Jupiter?" Jason smiled and tossed his head to flip a lock of blond hair out of his face.
"Jupiter. And sorry that we had to meet this way, I'm sure you're a nice guy." Bucky shrugged and tried to fight against the wind.
"That's okay. It's part of the game. But Leo said you're pretty cool." Jason shrugged.
Bucky was playing along with this conversation to get to the flag, but he had to distract Jason first to do it.
"Look, I'm sorry, but… this is kind of a setup. You see, you're surrounded. I'm not here alone." In the split second that Jason turned to look around for the other campers who weren't actually there, Bucky got around Jason and pulled the flag out of the gravel by the river.
"Sorry, man," Bucky said, holding his right hand out for Jason to shake.
"Hey, it's cool. It's for the game," Jason replied, shaking his hand with a grin.
Bucky and Percy spent the rest of the day at camp with the other campers, telling stories and playing games the entire time. Bucky hadn't had so much fun being utterly childish in a hundred years.
Quite literally.
But finally, after they had eaten dinner at camp, Bucky and Percy had to return to the tower. Bucky had a huge collection of phone numbers from the campers. He had been added into the Poseidon cabin group chat, which had just been created since there was now a third person.
Bucky and Percy pulled out of the camp, waving to all the campers.
"This won't be the last time we go there," Bucky said to Percy after they were down the road a bit.
"So you aren't worried for your life anymore?" Bucky grinned and shook his head.
"You're never letting that go, are you?" Percy shook his head.
"Nope."
Bucky pulled up to the sidewalk outside the tower, parking his car and walking in with Percy. What he saw immediately put a huge smile on his face.
"Uncle Bucky!"