Chapter 38- Family Bonding
Bucky sat down with his daughter firmly in his arms. Elizabeth had refused to leave his side and he would have been hard-pressed not to let her leave him again. Diana had said it better than he could when she said she could hardly bear to take her eyes from their baby girl. So both were content to sit there, Elizabeth's head on his chest and his flesh hand fisted into her dark hair while he sang to her softly in Russian.
"I love that song, Dad," Elizabeth muttered softly.
"I know. Singing to you was the only way to make you go to sleep when you were little. Your mother said my voice was calming," Bucky said, releasing her hair and tracing the shell of her ear.
"It was, James. You used to sing to me in the first days after HYDRA forced me to be your wife. Your voice was as soothing as a glass of warm milk. Not that I remember milk. I haven't had it in years," Diana said, tracing Elizabeth's dark eyebrows lightly.
"Really? I started drinking milk after Clint rescued me from the Red Room and HYDRA. I don't really like warm milk, though, except in hot chocolate," Elizabeth said as Bucky's fingers went back into her hair and he started singing to her in Russian. Bucky smiled to himself as she started singing softly in Russian as well.
"That's pretty," Sam said. Elizabeth straightened.
"It's from the movie "Anastasia." there is a song in there called "Once Upon a December." I discovered the lyrics in Russian and learned how to sing it," Elizabeth said. (A/N: The song really does exist in Russian and is really pretty. I discovered it last year. I figured Elizabeth/Yelizaveta would like Russian music and songs.)
"Anastasia? She was Russian, right?" Sam asked.
"Yes. The last Tsar had five children and she was his last daughter. There was Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia. They also had a boy named Alexei. Anastasia, her family, and the family servants were killed in a basement in Yekaterinburg. It's village in the Urals. I went there one time when I was young. It was after I had become a Winter Soldier and my handler wanted me to go there for an assignment. It was the first time I ever took a life," Elizabeth said, lowering her eyes, but not before Bucky saw the tears in them.
"How old were you, baby?" Diana asked.
"Five, almost six," Elizabeth said.
"Hey, not your fault. All those years you were following orders. You didn't have a choice," Sam said.
"I know, but I still did it. It was still my hands doing it and, like I told Thor's brother Loki, I have a ledger and it's covered in blood. I have a skill set and once I didn't care who I used it for or on. And I don't feel bad about S.H.I.E.L.D. falling. Like I also told Loki, regimes rise and fall every day. I tend not to cry over that. I'm Russian. Or I was," Elizabeth said, a sad smile on her face.
"May we talk to our daughter privately, please?" Bucky asked the man.
"Sure, man," Sam said as he left the room. Bucky pulled Elizabeth onto his lap and gently pulled her face into his chest. It took a few minutes for him to realize she was crying as her tears was hitting his chest.
"It's okay, doll. Daddy's here," Bucky said, pressing his lips to her ear.
"Dad, I'm such a terrible person. I've killed people. It WAS my hands," Elizabeth said weakly.
"From this I don't think you ever wanted to, baby," Diana said.
"No, but I still did. It would serve me right if you both hated me," Elizabeth said. Bucky twisted his flesh fingers into her hair and pulled her back so he could look into her eyes.
"It will never happen. I have done terrible things too as the Winter Soldier. I kidnapped your mother because I was ordered to. I was fortunate that she fell in love with me and she never was angry at me for it," Bucky said.
"Well, I was at first. It wasn't until you showed me that you had no choice. The first time you ever kissed me, I didn't want you to," Diana said.
"Must have been some kiss," Elizabeth said in a dry voice, her face still pressed to Bucky's chest.
"It was that. By the time I married your father, I wanted to kiss him. Your father's kisses are almost magical. Even in those first days, and he was ordered to kiss me, his love was what gave me the strength to live," Diana said.
Yelizaveta raised her head from Bucky's chest as the door opened and a doctor came in. "Yelizaveta Markova?" The doctor asked in the cold, clinical voice doctors were famous for.
"Yes?" Yelizaveta asked, standing.
"Agent Hill says you got hurt and that you need stitches," the doctor said, as a nurse brought in a cart.
"Yeah. I banged my head on a helicarrier railing," Yelizaveta said as she sat down on a hospital bed and her mother sat next to her.
"Doctor, this is one of the Avengers. My kid thinks the Winter Soldier is awesome because she carries a sword and speaks a million languages and she's the same age as my kid," the nurse said.
"Actually it's only 20 languages I know, not a million. That's an exaggeration," Yelizaveta said.
"How do you keep them all straight?" The nurse asked.
"Simple. The serum that makes Steve Rogers Captain America, I was born with. It heightened my intellect where I absorbed languages like a sponge. I used Hindi to get Dr. Banner on our side and I just took down Georges Batroc and he speaks French," Yelizaveta said.
"Take this. It's a sedative and relaxant," the nurse said, holding out a small plastic cup with two pills in it.
"I don't know if this would work. Sedatives are sketchy when it come to me. They might work for 20 minutes to an hour and then my metabolism burns right through it," Yelizaveta said.
"That is true. My daughter has my serum and I had to drug her every hour or two to keep her asleep. It's for the same reason that I can't get drunk," Bucky said, sitting on Yelizaveta's other side and wrapping his metal arm around her shoulders.
"Well, Agent Markova, if it doesn't knock you out it can relax you," the doctor said.
"Might do that. Well, here goes," Yelizaveta said, tipping the plastic cup on her lips and putting the drugs into her mouth. She felt Bucky wrap his flesh arm around her and lift her into his lap. Yelizaveta rested her forehead on his metal shoulder, his flesh hand rubbing her back gently and making her feel sleepy.
"We'll be back in 20 minutes. The drugs should relax her by then," the doctor said.
"All right," Bucky's voice said, moving his flesh hand to her face and stroking gently.
Diana watched, with happy tears in her eyes as Elizabeth fell asleep on James's lap. It was almost like their daughter had never been stolen. Elizabeth still gravitated to him like she always had. When she was little and had nightmares, James was the one to calm her down. She never wanted Diana to soothe them if James was around. Diana raised her hand to her husband's face and gently smoothed over it with her hand. James kissed the palm of her hand gently.
"I love you," Diana said in a soft whisper as she moved her hand from his mouth to his long dark hair and played with the strands gently. Before she married him, she didn't like long hair on a man, but on her husband it looked perfect. She loved to play with his hair and when he was kissing her neck she'd dig her fingers into it, loving the soft thick texture.
"I love you, too, doll," James said as she settled beside him and rested her head against his flesh shoulder and felt herself fall asleep.