Bucky XII: Revenge of the Wolf

He scored a ninety six percent on that essay. Jim offered to proofread it beforehand, and so did Steve actually, but he refused. Bucky ended up pouring over a decade of conflicting emotions into that essay, and he didn't want to bare that side of him to his best friends. Steve didn't let anybody read his either, and Bucky suspected he had a similar reason. Mrs. Dormer even wrote at the top of his paper, "Use this for your applications!" underlined multiple times.

Bucky didn't even have the vaguest idea where he wanted to go to college, his current career aspirations extending to making the US National Amputee Soccer team and not much further. So far, he'd only narrowed down the field to schools within reasonable driving distance because his mother had not-so-subtly hinted that she wouldn't allow him to go farther than a reasonable one-day drive away. Not that Bucky necessarily wanted to be that far away from home. Tony and Bruce had both stayed within four hours by car, the former at MIT and the latter at Penn State. Gabe had his sights set on Howard University, and Jim and Timmy were both eying smaller schools around the northeast.

"I know applications won't really kick into gear until the beginning of next year, but I can't help but feel like I should have more figured out than I do at this point," he told Steve. Jim, Timmy, and Gabe had gone to another baseball game, and Bucky had decided to hang out at Steve's instead.

Steve shrugged. "There's so much out there it's hard to narrow it down. Do you at least know what you don't want?"

"I don't want to go too far. Not that my mom would even let me if I did want to."

"Well that's a start."

"What are you planning to do?"

Steve seemed embarrassed to even answer the question, and Bucky regretted asking. It must seem almost pointless to apply to college, when his future was so uncertain. Eventually he did answer, albeit solemnly "My dream would be to become a child life specialist and work somewhere like Gravesen."

"Oh." That was the first Bucky had heard of that, though it made perfect sense. Steve would excel in that field of work, since he practically did it already with the other patients at Gravesen.

"Yeah." Steve shrugged again. "But you don't have to know exactly what career you want to go into when you choose a college. You can always change your major."

"Yeah."

"Maybe I should see if there's a school that will let me practice with their soccer team during the year so I can keep my skills up. Because I want to start working with the amputee team as soon as possible."

"That's a start. I'm sure you can work something out."

"Yeah."

The college conversation all but exhausted, they turned on the baseball game and tried to spot their friends in the crowd. After last year's game when they caught that home run, their interest in attending games in person had waned a bit because they knew no experience would ever compare, but they still went occasionally. Every time, Bucky was invited, and every time he said no, much to Steve's dismay. But he didn't care if his best friend disapproved of his decision. Besides, for one, cancer had left him with a healthy degree of germophobia and he had no desire to sit squished in among strangers on unclean bleachers, and second, he enjoyed the one-on-one time with Steve. His best friend was always more willing to be open and vulnerable when it was just them. Bucky wondered if anyone else knew about his aspirations to be a social worker. It had sounded like the first time Steve said that out loud.

~0~

Whether through Coach Phillips or some residual connection with Ulysses Klaue, Bucky didn't know, but he received a personal invitation to a week-long training camp with the US National Amputee Soccer team that summer. With a little research, he discovered it was highly selective. For the rest of the year, he worked his ass off at practice with the goal of impressing the team. By the time school let out, he could crank out five one-armed push-ups in a row and almost do a pull up. He had also cut down to only one extra break in the middle of practice, and Coach let him run in the same direction as all the other players.

His first encounter with the team: watching them scrimmage with each other while sitting in the bleachers with the five other kids chosen for this program. Bucky found himself next to a guy around his age named Josiah Bradley. "They're insanely good," Josiah commented.

"They sure are." Bucky physically could not look away from the action on the field. It was even more mesmerizing than watching two-footed players. The coach, a man who'd introduced himself as Eric Lamberg, blew the whistle and gestured for the recruits to join him down on the field. The players crutched over to the bench for some water and gathered around.

"Welcome to the US National Amputee Soccer team," he said to the six of them. "We are so thrilled to have you here to work with us. Now I'm going to tell you a little bit about how we do things here. If you are here expecting this to be any easier or less competitive than elite able-bodied soccer, go ahead and show yourself out." Nobody moved, so Lamberg continued. "We are a Paralympic team, and we will hold you to all the same expectations as the average Olympic athlete. That being said, we are also here to have fun and support each other. Understood?" The newbies were obviously intimidated by the speech, but they all nodded. Bucky had expected nothing less intense. "Now, I'm going to have the team introduce themselves, and afterwards I'd like to get to know you. Share your name, when you started playing soccer, and—if you're willing—how you became an amputee."

Bucky listened as all the players introduced themselves. Most were in their twenties or thirties and had been playing nearly their entire lives, although a few only took up the sport after losing their limb. In addition to learning their names, Bucky learned that there were way more ways to lose a leg than he initially thought. Some had tumors like him, there was even a fellow Ewing's warrior, while some had been born without a limb or had lost it in an accident. Their goalie, a man named Riley who appeared in his mid thirties, refrained from explaining how he lost his arm.

"I'm John, John Walker, and I was born lucky, as we say," one of them said. Apparently, that was how they phrased it when one was born with limb loss. It was kind of ironic, since his name was Walker. The rest of the team evidently already recognized this as a running joke. One of the players lost his leg in a skiing accident involving an avalanche and being stuck under snow for hours. He'd also gotten frostbite and lost his little finger, which, in conjunction with his last name Pinkerton, led to the nickname "Pinky."

Suddenly, it was the recruits' turn. The kid Bucky had been talking to earlier went first. "My name is Josiah, I've been playing soccer since I was six, and I lost my leg to Ewing's sarcoma when I was twelve."

Bucky instantly felt connected to him. "I'm Bucky, I've been playing since I was five, goalie since I was nine, and I also had Ewing's." Josiah offered him a fist bump. Once everyone had introduced each other, Coach Lamberg paired them up. Bucky got to work with Riley, whose first words to him were: "I'm glad you're here because I'm planning to retire soon."

"Oh good, I didn't want to boot you out or anything," Bucky retorted.

"Such confidence. I like it. We're the lucky ones because we don't have to worry about all the extra rules playing on crutches."

"Yeah. Last summer I worked with Klaue in the Netherlands and the principles of play are really similar to regular soccer."

"You got to meet Klaue? Wow. He's one of the best out there."

"That's why I picked him," Bucky said, hoping he didn't offend Riley by suggesting he wasn't as good.

"You made the right decision. And now you get to train with me too anyways."

Bucky grinned, and they got to work. It was exhausting. They worked out on the field almost all day for the entire week, with an hour break for lunch in the middle. Since the workshop was for people from all over the country, they provided housing for all the athletes from out of state, and Bucky ended up with Josiah for a roommate; he came all the way from Baltimore.

"I cannot believe I actually got invited to this thing," Josiah said on their first night.

"Me neither," Bucky sighed. "I didn't think I'd be good enough."

"How fresh out of treatment are you, again?"

"I finished chemo about two years ago."

"And you're already at this level? That's incredible, dude."

"Thanks. Getting back into soccer after that was probably the hardest thing I ever did in my life."

"No kidding."

~0~

While he was there, Bucky took advantage of the opportunity to talk to the coach and ask if he'd had any players in college and what their situation was. What he heard was even better than expected: the American Amputee Soccer Association had a partnership with the University of Virginia's soccer team. If he got recruited by the amputee team, the school would offer him the same scholarship they would offer a player recruited to play on their own team. Bucky raved about that opportunity to Josiah that night, and he, who had also just finished his junior year, strongly considered applying. By the end of the week, Bucky not only felt more confident in his goalkeeping capabilities after working with Riley and the rest of the team, he also had at least a starting point for applying to schools in the fall.

The rest of the summer was marked by nothing more than a noticeable decline in Steve's health and him finally being listed for lung transplant. Bucky tried not to let his concern show too much, knowing Steve got enough of that from his parents, but it was hard not to freak out when he knew there existed a ticking clock with an unknown number of years on it. If Steve had been given a number, he didn't share it with Bucky.

As senior year kicked into gear, Bucky set three goals for himself: apply to UVA and a few other schools he'd decided on with the help of his parents, continue to improve at soccer practice (including accomplish a pull up), and between all of that spend as much time with Steve as he possibly could. For that reason, he declined Gabe's invitation to go upstate for their traditional "first week of school is over" celebration. He didn't explain why, and Gabe didn't need to ask.

Their first soccer game of the season marked Bucky's first time back on the field since freshman year. He was beyond nervous, to the point that he almost didn't want to leave the locker room, but Gabe coaxed him through it. Bucky hadn't played defense in an actual game since he was nine or ten, and he worried he'd be immediately noticeable as the worst player on the field. His nerves washed away when he saw the stands.

There was so much gold he thought his eyes might flash with cartoon dollar signs. Almost every single spectator had a sign, a shirt, or face paint shining bright in the color for pediatric cancer awareness. When they saw him, they immediately started howling and cheering, "White Wolf! White Wolf!" Bucky felt a single tear escape his left eye, but he quickly wiped it away so nobody would notice. He had never felt so loved by so many people in his entire life.

As for the game itself, Bucky played an entirely mediocre match. He wasn't atrocious, but he certainly wasn't the defender to be feared by any stretch of the imagination. The entire time, he imagined his future in the goal of an amputee soccer match. Coach Phillips', Klaue's, and Lamberg's encouragement from over the years kept up a steady chorus in his mind. They won the game five to one, the team's largest margin of victory in twenty years.

Later that week, Bucky would make the front page of the school newspaper again. One of the photographers caught him and Gabe mid celebratory chest-bump after the game ended. He wasn't allowed to modify his school jersey, so the empty left sleeve was in full view, flapping about. Bucky didn't care one lick. The headline called the game the "Revenge of the Wolf," and the article strongly suggested that it was the morale boost surrounding Bucky's return to the field that pushed the team to such a definitive victory. Bucky didn't think that was actually true, but it was nice to be credited.

Their team captain, Monty, threw a massive victory party right after the game ended, but Bucky decided not to go. He didn't want to dim the memories of this day with an alcohol and strobe light induced headache. Gabe didn't attend either, instead asking their friend group if they wanted a smaller celebration at his place. Jim and Timmy, who'd both attended the game, immediately agreed. Steve hadn't been able to make it. He'd apologized to Bucky at least thirty times in the days leading up to the game, and Bucky didn't think he'd ever stop feeling guilty no matter how many apologies Bucky accepted.

So, it was just the four of them, but Bucky enjoyed himself nonetheless. At one point he went to the bathroom, only to return and find his friends deeply engaged in a game involving knives and fingers. "Who suggested this?" he asked as Jim stabbed the knife between each of his fingers in quick succession.

"All his idea," Timmy said, nodding to Jim. He stopped and passed the knife off to Gabe, who repeated the exercise, going even faster than Jim had.

"Let me see that," Jim scoffed. He took the knife back, spread his left down on the table, and start stabbing the spaces between his fingers. Gradually, he picked up speed until the blade became nothing but a silvery blur. An idea crept into Bucky's mind. "Let me have a stab at it," he said when Jim stopped. Jim gave him the knife without batting an eye, but Timmy and Gabe shot him funny looks, probably wondering what the hell he planned to do. "I'm telling you all right now that nobody will ever beat me at this," he announced.

With the knife in his right hand, he just started stabbing the table in front of him, mirroring the pattern that he would use if he was trying to avoid his left fingers splayed on the table. By the time he sped up to the rate Jim had quit at, everyone else at the table was already laughing. Bucky moved fast enough that he definitely would have shredded his hand, but of course there was nothing there for him to hit. Just to show off a bit, he flipped the knife, caught it, and victoriously slammed it down onto the table. "See? Unbeatable."

The boys started clapping. Gabe smacked him on the back in celebration, eyes brimming with tears from laughing so hard. "Impressive," he admitted. "Although technically cheating."

"The rules just say go as fast as you can without hitting your fingers. Can't hit what you don't have," Bucky said with a shrug.

"Just don't try to win any bets with that logic," Jim warned. Bucky joined in on their laughter, but as the night wore on, he began to feel an emptiness amassing within him. He loved hanging out with these guys, but the four of them being together without Steve just felt intrinsically wrong. Whenever silence fell for longer than a few seconds, he listened out for the quiet puffing sound of Steve's oxygen, but he never heard it that night. He started to feel guilty for even attending this little get-together when he could have gone over to Steve's to tell him all about the game. When Bucky checked his phone before going to bed around one in the morning, he found a text from Steve sent at nine fifteen containing yet another apology for missing the game, a congratulations on winning, and a second text reading, "Have fun at the after party." He must have gone to bed right after learning the results of the game. Bucky sighed, thinking to himself as he drifted off, "I would've had more fun if you were there." How long would it be before Steve left and he started thinking that about everything?