Bucky V: Back on the Field

Bucky knocked on Coach Phillips' door and waited for a response. He'd emailed yesterday to schedule this meeting, and as he stood there, he took a deep breath to remind himself that Coach wasn't shallow enough to dismiss him just because he couldn't be a star goalkeeper anymore.

"Come on in," he prompted, and Bucky stepped over the threshold. After seeing the expression on Coach's face, Bucky realized he hadn't seen him since before the amputation. He often forgot how startling it could be for people who didn't see him often. Coach recovered quickly and gestured for Bucky to sit down. "It's so great to see you back at school."

"Thank you. I'm glad to be back," Bucky replied.

"So, what is it you want to talk to me about?"

"Well, I wanted to ask if…" Bucky struggled with how to word this, unsure if he'd come across as desperate. "If there was still a spot for me at practice? I know I can't goalkeep anymore," he continued, realizing with a sinking heart that may be the first time he'd ever said that out loud. "And I won't be in fighting shape for who knows how long, but my doctor cleared me to resume physical activity and I…I want to train to hopefully be playing again by junior or senior year." Bucky finished his long-winded question and watched Coach's expression carefully to gauge his reaction. He looked…sad, which Bucky decided was probably not a good thing. Turning down the cancer kid couldn't be easy, but he had to prioritize the team's best interest. Bucky prepared himself to walk out of this office with no clue how he'd be spending his time after school for the foreseeable future.

"How dare you suggest that I'd even consider booting you out?" he asked warmly. Bucky released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Barnes, I want you on my team no matter what positions you can or can't play."

"Wait, really?"

"Of course. I care about more than just how fast you can run wind sprints."

"Good, because at the moment it's…not very fast," Bucky admitted sheepishly.

"Understandably so. You've had more important things to do."

"I guess." Bucky didn't want to talk about the past year right now; he wanted to focus on the next one.

"I do need you to promise me one thing, though," Coach warned.

"Anything."

"That you know your limits. I can't have you pushing yourself so hard that you get hurt. That goes for all my players, I just want to make it crystal clear."

"Of course." He didn't want a repeat of that incident in the park.

"Excellent. I'll see you on the field tomorrow after school."

"Thank you," Bucky said earnestly.

"You're welcome."

Bucky left the coach's office with a smile on his face. He texted Steve and Gabe to tell them the good news, receiving congratulations—and warnings to take it easy—from both. Bucky couldn't even bring himself to be annoyed by their hovering he was so excited. The next day's classes dragged on twice as long as they usually did, and Bucky glanced at the clock at least every five minutes, waiting until the end of last period so he could finally get out there. He'd gone back to the park with Gabe a few times to practice (with no further incidents, fortunately), but this would be his first time among his teammates in almost a year. He didn't even take the time to buckle his backpack across his chest before dashing to the locker room at the final bell.

"Good luck. Have fun today," a text from Steve read. "I'll be here for an SGA meeting until 4 if you need me."

"Thanks," Bucky wrote back quickly. Gabe joined him a few minutes later, his eagerness almost equaling Bucky's. Some of the seniors offered him high fives and congratulated him on their way to the field. The closer he got, the more his excitement grew, but also his nerves. All of his teammates' attention was on him, what would they think when they saw how weak he'd become in his time away? What if they made fun of him?

"I'm so glad to have you back," Gabe said, elbowing him lovingly in the side. "I had no one to talk to at practice."

"No one? You could make conversation with a brick," Bucky retorted. Gabe's laughter died down with a blow of Coach's whistle. As per usual, he wanted them running laps for warm-up. Just as he was about to follow the rest of the guys setting off around the track, Bucky heard Coach summon him.

"Yes, Coach?"

"I want you running the opposite direction," he insisted.

"What, why?" Returning to soccer practice represented return to normalcy for Bucky, but being singled out like this completely negated any of that.

"If you follow them, you're going to try to keep up."

Discouraged but understanding, Bucky trudged over to the track and began jogging in the opposite direction of all his teammates. Coach was right; chasing after them, he'd probably push himself not to fall behind, but the reality was, he was nowhere near capable of maintaining that pace without collapsing. It was a cruel reminder of just how far Bucky had to go before this stupid cancer journey was actually over. Every time he passed one of his teammates head-on, he failed to ignore the look of pity they inadvertently threw his way. He had to take at least minute-long walking break for every thirty seconds of light jogging.

By the time they got to actual drills, Bucky was exhausted, barely able to keep himself on his feet. Coach mandated he take a ten-minute break, so he sat on the bench and watched the guys nimbly weave through cones and dribble like it was no big deal. When he regained enough stamina to join in, Bucky realized that having both arms was more important for balance than he ever realized. Without a counterweight on his left side, agility became that much more difficult. He hadn't gotten this far in physical therapy; they just wanted him stable on his feet, not nimble. Between that and his bone-deep tiredness, he nearly fell over several times.

Two hours ended up feeling more like four, despite the fact that Bucky was only physically active maybe half the time. He wanted to growl or shout in frustration at his failing body. A year ago he would've finished this practice and wished for more, but now he felt completely drained. As the other boys waltzed back to the locker room, Bucky sat a little while longer, unsure that his legs would even carry him all the way back. Gabe moved to sit next to him, but Bucky waved him off. He wasn't in the mood for placation. Coach Phillips, however, he couldn't ignore so easily.

"Barnes," he said, standing in front of Bucky with his arms crossed.

"Yes, Coach?" Bucky replied, afraid that after the performance he just gave he'd actually be kicked off the team.

"Are you alright? I know that was a lot."

"I'm fine," he assured grumpily. "Just…slow, but you don't need me to tell you that."

"I don't like your attitude." Coach's tone was stern, but not angry. Bucky sensed that if he didn't shape up, it would cross that line very soon.

"I'm sorry. I just didn't realize it would be this hard to bounce back. I spent nine months waiting for the day I could go back to my normal life, and it's discouraging not to be able to."

"You're right, it is discouraging. I will never call you out for being discouraged. However, I will scold you for ignoring the fact that you participating at all today is a damn incredible accomplishment. You should be proud."

"Thanks," Bucky mumbled, embarrassed and grateful all at once. "You're the best, Coach."

"I know."

~0~

"How was your first day at practice?" Steve asked. Bucky had his phone propped up against the stack of books on his desk so he could FaceTime and finish his math homework at the same time.

"Terrible," he bemoaned. "I have less physical fitness than I did when I was three."

"I'm sure that's not true."

"Steve." Bucky locked eyes with him through the screen. "It's true."

"So what if it is? Bucky, I'm sure they told you how insanely toxic those drugs are. It's a miracle you're even able to make it through an entire school day."

"I'm not sure what I do can be considered making it through the school day," Bucky grumbled, running a hand over his hair that had just recently crossed over from bad buzz-cut to reasonable buzz-cut length. He'd done half days the first few weeks, and these full days were really getting him down. After practice today, he took a ninety minute nap before starting on his homework.

"Do you need to go back to half days?" Steve asked.

"I don't want to. Being with you guys is so much better than just sitting at home with a tutor."

"I'm sure it is, but you can't run yourself into the ground."

"I won't, I won't," Bucky promised, but at this rate he wasn't sure that was an avoidable outcome. "I just wish I would feel better faster."

"I know what you mean. Some antibiotics knock me flat on my ass for weeks, and those aren't nearly as potent as chemo."

"No kidding. Did you know I have to get an echocardiogram every year for the rest of my life to make sure the Red Devil didn't fuck up my heart?"

"No, I didn't. God, they really need to find better treatments for these things."

"Definitely. But if my heart does fail, maybe I can ask Tony for pointers."

"I'm sure he'd be more than willing to coach you through heart failure," Steve said sardonically. "But hopefully it won't come to that."

"Hopefully is the key word. Sometimes I feel like I'm only alive because of hope."

"Me too," Steve sighed.

~0~

Bucky didn't notice any improvement in his performance at soccer for a month. He gave it everything he had—but no more than that, between Coach Phillips' mandated breaks and Bucky's own drive not to pass out or throw up in front of his teammates. It was a day in late October when he finally made it once around the track without slowing to a walk even once. He also ran the day's drills with noticeably more success and caught Coach Phillips smiling at him on more than one occasion. He walked through the front door of the apartment with a smile on his face, one which was instantly wiped away by his mother reminding him that he had his three month scans in two days.

The tsunami of scanxiety was instantaneous. In the time since treatment ended, he'd been so caught up in forcing his way into a new normal that he'd forgotten just how different this new normal would look compared to the old one. As much as he'd hated chemo, it was the very thing killing his cancer cells, and now he'd gone three whole months without any of it. Three months was plenty of time for a relapse to take root.

"Make sure you talk to your teachers tomorrow and get any work you're going to miss on Friday."

"Am I missing the whole day?"

"Possibly," Mom informed him. "The appointment's in the morning, but I'm not sure how long it's going to take. If we get out early enough and you're feeling up to it, you can go in late and catch the last few classes."

"Okay," Bucky grumbled. He hated to think that he'd miss even more school for stupid cancer. Thursday, the day before scans, he couldn't focus in class at all, his mind cast back to the worst days of cancer treatment. Even the phantom pain was worse that day than it had been in months.

"You good?" Gabe asked him at lunch.

"Sorta," Bucky replied. He'd barely touched his food, his appetite still not fully recovered from nine months of intermittent nausea. "I have scans tomorrow."

Gabe didn't seem to know what to say. "I hope they're clear," he eventually decided.

"Yeah. Me too."

Steve called him after school to wish him good luck.

"Is this what you feel like every time you do a PFT?" Bucky asked him.

"It's more comparable to a throat culture, but yes. Although the stakes are arguably lower for me."

"Gee, thanks."

"I'm just trying to reassure you that you have every right to be nervous," Steve insisted. "This is a big deal, and it's something you have very little control over. That's scary."

"I know. I just don't want to think about what'll happen if they find something. I don't think I can make it through that again."

"You will, if it comes to that—which it won't."

"I wish I could be that confident."

"Then just trust me. Everything's going to turn out okay, Bucky."

"I do trust you," he admitted. "Don't make me regret it."

~0~

Just being in this place made Bucky sick to his stomach. It was an MRI that initially found his tumor, a bone scan which confirmed whether or not it had metastasized, and bloodwork which determined twice a month if he was healthy enough for the next dose of poison to be pumped through him. And now it was a CT scan of his chest, another bone scan, and more bloodwork which would confirm he maintained his remission status…or doom him to repeat the hellstorm he'd just escaped from.

They recorded his weight and basic vitals before going in for blood. Now that Bucky didn't have a port, peripheral veins remained the only option. And his peripheral veins sucked. Having only one arm tended to expedite that process; every time they needed a stick, they had no choice but to go for the same area. He suffered only one failed poke this time, fortunately. If they had needed more attempts, Bucky didn't trust himself not to completely snap what with how tightly bundled his nerves were today. Once they got a line in, they left it there so he could receive the tracer for the bone scan later. He remembered the first time he got one, texting Steve, who he knew was in class, with absurd questions to alleviate his boredom and distract himself from his recent diagnosis. Now, he could've done the same thing, but Mom looked like she could use a distraction too, so he talked to her about inane things like science homework and how Hudson Creek's other fall sports teams were doing this season.

The scan itself took about an hour—an hour of lying completely still—which would've sucked if the previous week of school and soccer practice hadn't made him tired enough to doze off for part of it. Thankfully the chest CT took a fraction of that time. Bucky and his mom sat in the waiting room for nearly an hour until someone ushered them into Dr. Pott's office. The room looked much the same as most of the offices here, with fancy diplomas framed on the walls and diagrams of different body systems. She even had a few posters about reducing cancer risk, which Bucky considered ridiculous. Anyone who stepped foot in this office was too late for reducing risk.

"How do they look?" Mom asked, nerves evident in the quaver of her voice. Bucky wanted to hold her hand or something, but she was seated to his left and he couldn't reach.

"Excellent," Dr. Potts replied. He hadn't expected her to outright say it so soon into the appointment, and he almost didn't believe it. Being back here had him subconsciously convinced that his cancer had returned. To hear that it hadn't was a massive weight off his shoulder.

"Really? That's wonderful news," Mom said. It didn't sound like she believed it either.

"Yes. These show no evidence of disease, and your labs indicate that your immune system is recovering beautifully. It's almost completely back to normal, which is exactly what we want to see three months out."

"That's great," Bucky stated. She continued, going into more detail about particular spots that sometimes presented concerns in Ewing's patients but looked fine in him. Honestly, Bucky stopped listening. "No evidence of disease" was all he'd needed to hear. Mom asked a bunch of questions about signs of relapse she could look out for, and whether she still needed to be as vigilant with things like fevers. Despite the good news they'd just received, she still appeared wound up so tightly she might snap.

After all that, Dr. Potts finally got to the 'but' in her analysis of how things were going: "I am, however, slightly concerned about your weight. You haven't regained much of the mass you lost during treatment, and even accounting for the arm you're still underweight."

Bucky knew this. He understood enough about calorie intake versus burn to know that he still wasn't eating enough to keep up with the exertion of soccer practice. "I don't think I remember how to be properly hungry," he admitted sheepishly.

"That's okay. A lot of people have trouble returning to a normal diet after cancer treatment. I can refer you to a nutritionist that can help you get back on track, but I'm afraid I have to recommend stopping soccer for a period of time if your weight doesn't come back up soon."

"What?" Bucky was only just starting to regain some skills and stamina, he couldn't quit now!

"I know you don't want to, and I hope it doesn't come to that, but running at a low enough body mass risks damaging the joints."

"We certainly don't want that," Mom chimed in. Well, duh. Bucky didn't know what the hell he would do if he was forced to quit soccer again, so he swore to himself that gaining weight was just another challenge he would conquer. Mom asked for the nutritionist's contact information, and they met with him the next week.

Bucky came home from that appointment with a stack of paper way too thick for its purpose and marginally increased confidence in his ability to achieve this goal. Naturally, he called Steve, who had the audacity to laugh.

"Sorry, I just think it's kind of ironic," he said breathlessly.

"What?"

"I'm pretty sure my parents got that exact same stack of paperwork when I was little. Let me guess, is the number one tip to put peanut butter on everything?"

"Yeah," Bucky sighed. "I don't hate peanut butter, it's not something I want to eat all the time. A guy can have too much."

"I used to wish I was allergic to peanuts so I wouldn't have to eat it."

"God, how scrawny would you be if you couldn't eat peanut butter?" he asked teasingly.

"Shut up. I once weighed more than you, remember?"

"That was one time. And it doesn't even count because I'm missing an arm."

"The numbers don't lie," Steve retorted.

"Why did I even call you about this?"

"For moral support?"

"Maybe. I know for a fact that my mom's going to be calling yours for the special CF recipes or whatever."

"The special CF recipes? Is that what you call them?"

"I dunno. That's what I heard her muttering to herself when she was writing her to-do list."

"Wow. I'll make sure she puts the ones without peanut butter at the top of the list."

"Thanks." Bucky skimmed over the notes again and sighed. Since when did something as simple as eating food become such a daunting task? "I'm just really scared it's not going to work and Dr. Potts will make me quit soccer."

"You can do this, Buck," Steve assured. "At least your pancreas isn't actively trying to sabotage you, so you'll be way better at this than I am."

"How reassuring."

"That's what I'm here for."

Coach Phillips is based on Tommy Lee Jones' Colonel Phillips from Captain America the First Avenger. I think he's the most underrated character in that movie, and I love his role in this story.

Also, to clarify: this chapter takes place before the ending of the previous. Flu season hasn't started yet.