A/N This one got a bit away from me. But I wanted to work in a line from S01E04: The Miracle Job into this universe somehow, and the prompt helped me navigate ;P

PART 1 OF 3

Of all the people Bucky's ever met, none have been as unshakeably stubborn as Steve Rogers or Rebecca Barnes.

So, it shouldn't truly surprise him, it shouldn't surprise him one tiny bit, that a chance meeting in a crazy coincidence would mean she wouldn't stop until she tracked him down again.

It all started because Eliot wanted to see something from when his father was a kid. Bucky told him he'd been born in Indiana and grown up in New York, he just neglected to ever mention the year. So, when summer came and Eliot had a long break from school and Bucky's boss laughingly told him to "take the kid on a vacation, for cryin' out loud," Bucky decided it there would be enough of a crowd to get lost in to take Eliot to Coney Island. Eliot ran wild, dragging his dad to various rides and then to the games section, where Bucky spent hours teaching him tricks with darts, guns, and throwing, until Eliot had a zoo of giant stuffed creatures and an aim that would eventually rival his father. When Bucky told him they should head back to the hotel to store his loot, a ghost from Bucky's past walked right up to him, stopped, and stared.

"Bucky?" the woman asks, covering her mouth with her hand before reaching up to touch his face.

Bucky panics, grabbing Eliot's shoulder and pulling him behind him, before shaking his head and urging his son out of the park instead.

"Daddy, who was that?" the boy squeaks, worried now as his father deems him too slow and picks him up like a little kid, nearly running people over in his hurry to get away.

"Someone I knew a very long time ago," Bucky mumbles, concerned he'd been too lax. They were going to find them, now. They were going to take Eliot from him. They were going to make him forget his baby. All because James hadn't been careful enough. He knew he was scaring the young boy, but he couldn't help himself, memories of a frozen, secret wasteland, of pain and children who'd lost their childhood ingrained too deeply to allow any other thought in, anything other that the urge to protect.

He doesn't stop until they are in their hotel room, and he is planning on how to get them out of there as discreetly as possible, checking every window and keeping an ear out for any threats while his son panics on the bed.

"Eliot, you listen to me, and you listen good. If I ever tell you to run, you run, and no matter what, don't look back. Don't come looking for me, just get yourself somewhere safe."

The little boy is crying now, but trying very hard to be brave, sobbing silently as he wipes his eyes with his sleeve, clutching one of the plushies tightly to his chest as he watches his father hurry about the room.

Bucky slows down a moment, kneeling in front of his son so he can wipe his tears away with his thumbs and meet his terrified eyes.

"And never, ever forget Daddy loves you, okay?"

Eliot sniffles, nodding, then reaches out for his father.

Bucky holds him tightly, rocking him back and forth and rubbing his back, sitting tensely on the bed as he listens for the distinctive sound of the gathering of a Hydra strike team.

Eventually, Eliot falls asleep. Bucky curls around him and holds his son close.

They're at the train station waiting to go home when she finds them again.

"It is you!" Bucky hears, a delicate hand wrapped an unfeeling arm stopping his instinct to flee.

Becca had been just 17 when Bucky last laid eyes on her. Barely growing out of the awkward stages of puberty and coming into her own. Now, the eyes that looked upon him were wiser, fiercer, heartbroken, and more determined than he could have dreamed.

"Becca," he whispers, a complicated slew of emotions rising in him. She watches the terror take hold of him, grabbing his hand before he had a chance to run.

"Come with me," she begs him. Her eyes pled for him not to run, and he had always been hopeless when it came to his little sisters. "Please, Bucky."

He does a visual sweep, unwilling to go back to Hydra, even for her.

Fortunately, she'd brought a car.

He loads Eliot (and all his prizes) in, sitting in the back seat while a young woman drove in the front. Becca sits next to him, gripping his hand as though he'd disappear again. She has a point.

They pull up to a brownstone and Bucky holds Eliot's hand as they climb the stoop.

When Becca opens the door, Bucky is shocked still for the first time in many, many years.

"Ma."