Chapter 33: Indiana
Bucky spent the next couple of months in a whirlwind of controlled chaos that involved paperwork, dodging interviews, standing in line at the DMV, phone calls with his sister, training with the Avengers, and mandated therapy sessions. At least the government had agreed to keep Dr. Abodon as his therapist.
He glanced at the time on his phone, grabbed his duffel bag from the bed, and headed next door to Steve's room.
"Hey, buddy," he pounded on the door, "we leave in five."
The door opened and Steve stood there, dressed in jeans and a buttoned shirt, the shield in one hand and a massive leather satchel in the other. "You know the jet's on our timetable, right?"
They were getting the use of one of the smaller jets for the trip to Indiana—mostly because of the nightmare his arm and Steve's shield presented with commercial flights.
"Look, Rogers, I told them we'd be there before noon."
"We will be, Jimmy." Steve grinned and punched Bucky playfully on the arm.
"Call me Jimmy again, Wee Stevie." Bucky held up a fist. "Go ahead."
Steve held up a placating hand. "Okay, okay. I'm ready. Let's go, Nervous Nelly."
They made good time with Steve piloting and landed in the tiny municipal airport. A cold breeze nipped their faces, and Bucky stuck his gloved hands in his pockets.
Jimmy was there to greet them. "Bucky, Steve, it's great to see you both." He shook Steve's hand, then leaned in and hugged Bucky. "Mom is beside herself. The whole family's excited to meet you."
The family. Bucky shared a glance with Steve, then took a deep breath.
The people he was going to spend Thanksgiving with were related by DNA, but he didn't know them. There were only two people in the world who felt like family to him. One was standing beside him with a shield on his back. The other didn't have much time left in the world.
His nephew Jimmy was a good guy—had to be, he was Becca's son—but how could anybody Bucky barely knew feel like family? He worried Becca and her family expected too much from him.
Steve's hand landed on Bucky's back, giving him a gentle push forward, and he followed Jimmy to a white SUV.
They made small talk during the ride until they arrived at a turn-of-the century white farmhouse with a black roof and a detached garage. It sat alone in front of a cluster of trees.
"You sure pack light, Bucky," Jimmy said as he led the way to the front door.
Bucky's reply caught on his tongue when the door opened and Becca shuffled out eagerly, her arms outstretched and a huge smile on her face.
"My big brother!"
Bucky dropped his duffle bag and wrapped his arms around her tiny frame. She smelled like vanilla and cinnamon. "Hello, Becca. Thank you for inviting us."
She slapped his shoulder blade but kept the hug. "You're family. No invite is ever required for you to visit." Finally, she pulled back and gazed at him. "You look great. How was your flight?"
"Steve got us here in one piece, so I can't complain." He threw a teasing look at his friend.
She ushered them inside to the aroma of warm food, a room full of people, and instant pandemonium.
Two boys, a little girl, and a beefy brown Pit Bull instantly rushed Steve.
"Are you really Captain America?" one of the boys asked.
The little girl bounced on her feet. "Can I touch the shield?"
"How many pounds can you lift?" asked the other boy.
"Amelia, Bobby, Justin, leave Steve alone," Jimmy berated as Steve insisted it was okay.
Bucky chuckled as he watched Steve interact with the little ones. The dog stuck its nose in Bucky's crotch. He gently tried to bat it away, which the dog took as an invitation to jump on him, butt wiggling at an impossible speed and slobber leaking from its jowls.
"Easy, boy." Bucky scratched the dog behind the ears, smiling at the pooch's unrestrained enthusiasm.
A man with salt-and-pepper hair and a woman with eyes that reminded Bucky of his mother came up, and the man gently guided the dog away with an affectionate "Scooch pooch." He gave an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that. He has no concept of personal space."
"It's no problem," Bucky assured him. "What's his name?"
"Pooch," the man answered with a grin. "Original, I know."
The two looked to be in their sixties. He recognized their faces from one of the photos Becca had given him—Gwen and Richard, Becca's other two children.
Richard leaned forward and shook Bucky's gloved right hand. "I'm Richard. Mom told us so many stories about you, I feel like I know you, man. It's really cool getting to meet you."
"Thank you." Bucky managed a smile he hoped looked warm instead of creepy. "I've seen a few photos. I recognize you both." He looked at the woman. "You're Gwen?"
The woman tucked a strand of her ash brown hair behind her ear and nodded. "Yes."
Her hesitation was obvious, so he didn't bother extending his hand. Instead, he simply bowed his head an inch and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you."
His eyes scanned the other faces in the room. He didn't recognize anyone, and Jimmy came forward to begin introductions.
Fred and Jamie were his sister Margaret's children, who had been known to most of the family as "Aunt Maggie." He could see a hint of resemblance in their eyes. Jamie had Maggie's nose for sure.
Then he was introduced to George and Lorelei, Jimmy's adult children. Amelia was Lorelei's little girl and the Captain America fan Jimmy had mentioned during dinner at the compound. The two boys belonged to George.
There were more introductions of spouses and in-laws—fifteen people total in the Proctor family circle, not counting Steve and Bucky. It was a lot to take in.
"Let's get you settled," Jimmy said. "We set up a couple of spare bedrooms. One's an office, but there's a comfortable pull-out sofa. I promise, the mattress won't kill your back."
"Thank you." Bucky was grateful for the short reprieve as he followed Jimmy upstairs and down a hall.
"Here's your room." He told Bucky. It was modest, with a full-sized bed and a large workstation against the wall that held a sewing machine. "Mom uses that mostly for hemming these days."
Bucky set his bag on the bed and slipped out of his jacket. He looked down at the black gloves covering his hands. Sleeves hid his arm, but even though his metal arm wasn't a secret—especially not with all the press coverage—it felt out of place in this house, with ordinary people in a small town.
He couldn't very well keep the gloves on the whole trip. That would be even more awkward. With a resigned huff, he yanked them off.
After Jimmy finished giving them the tour, they returned downstairs. Bucky kept his hands in his pockets initially, until Becca came up to him with a small plate filled with sugar cookies, cheese, and crackers.
"To hold you over until the main course," she winked at him, then shoved another plate into Steve's hands.
They ate at the kitchen counter with the family clustered around. Richard, Lorelei, and Jamie chatted at the nearby empty dining table while the food cooked. A few people were in the adjacent living room. Gwen and Jimmy worked in the kitchen while Becca sat on a stool, stirring a pot of gravy on the stove. Pooch hovered in the kitchen, sniffing the air, obviously hoping to clean up anything that managed to fall to the floor.
Bucky held the plate with his metal hand, which he hoped made it less conspicuous, and ate with his right. Nevertheless, most of the eyes around him drifted to the vibranium hand. Gwen's eyes hovered longer than most, and she stiffened and averted her gaze when she caught herself staring.
"That's so cool!" little Justin ran up to him. "Iron Man made that arm for you, didn't he?"
Bucky set the plate on the counter. "Yes, but he had a lot of help from a very nice doctor."
"Justin!" Richard called from the dining table as he waved a finger at the boy. "Let the man eat in peace."
"It's okay." Bucky held out his metal hand, palm up. "Give me five."
The boy grinned and slapped the palm.
"Oh wow!" Bucky yanked his hand back. "You're strong. If you break it, Iron Man's not gonna be happy."
"I can't break it if Iron Man made it!" the boy insisted.
"Ah, so you're smart, too," Bucky answered with a smile.
"Are you stronger than Captain America?"
Bucky looked at Steve to see a curious, playful glint in the other man's eyes.
Leaning closer to the boy, Bucky lowered his voice. "Well, let's just say I'm pretty sure I could beat him in a left-hand arm-wrestling match."
Amelia and Bobby ran into the mix, apparently taking the exchange as permission to unleash their curiosity.
"Can I touch it?" Amelia asked.
"Does it have any cool stuff like Iron Man's suits?"
Bucky rolled up his sleeve and let the children explore the arm. He surprised Amelia by flexing the plates, and she jumped, then laughed while Bobby begged him to do it again and again.
"What happened to your real arm?" Amelia asked.
"Amelia," Lorelei chided.
"It's okay," Bucky reassured, then looked at the girl. "I lost it when I was a soldier in World War II."
"Fighting Nazi bad guys?" Bobby asked.
"Yeah."
"Did you really save Captain America's life?" Amelia asked.
"Yes, he did," Steve answered, a swell of pride in his tone.
"So, Bucky," Richard turned his chair around to face them, "what was Mom like as a girl?"
Lorelei eyed the conversation with a friendly smile.
"An angel!" Becca answered from the kitchen.
"Of my three sisters, she was the craftiest, and that's saying a lot." Bucky took a bite of the cookie. "She was always underfoot, trying to be in the middle of whatever Steve and I were up to. We spent half our teen years trying to ditch her."
"And we were only successful about half the time," Steve chuckled.
"Like the Black Cat movie." Bucky shook his head. At the time, he was furious, but looking back, he'd give almost anything to be a teenager again with annoying sisters underfoot.
"Oh, come on, it's been eighty years and you're still upset over that?" Becca piped up.
"You blackmailed me into letting you in with us. I had to buy you a ticket. Then you had nightmares, told mom, and I took the heat. Dad made me clean the stove, the bathroom, shine his shoes, and press his clothes. You got cookies and milk and mom snuggling with you 'til you fell asleep while I was doing chores for days."
Becca laughed as she stirred the gravy.
Bucky threw a look of mock frustration at the dining table group, then he chuckled. "I was the oldest and the only boy, so I got no slack. Becca was the youngest, so she had our folks wrapped around her little finger."
"They had movies back then?" Jamie teased. "How scary could they be?"
"They weren't anywhere near as graphic as what's out now," Bucky conceded, "but there was a sweet spot before they started enforcing the Hays Code when movies were actually edgy."
"What's the Hays code?" Lorelei asked.
"Censorship," Bucky said.
"The precursor to the movie rating system we have now, only everything had to be what we'd call G-rated," Steve explained. "PG if they were pushing the envelope."
"You know what I'd love to hear about?" Richard said, sipping on a beer. "The Howling Commandos."
That was all the prompting Steve and Bucky needed. They spent the next hour and half regaling a captive audience with war stories, most of which involved Dum Dum's antics and times his mouth got him in trouble. Remembering was bittersweet. Morita, Dernier, Jones, Falsworth, and the others had been his family, getting him through many brutal, cold months on the front lines.
When they got the fifteen-minute call for dinner, Steve and Bucky helped set up another table and chairs for the large group. Bucky set the tables while Steve carried food from the kitchen, despite Becca and Jimmy trying several times to shoo them away.
They stuffed themselves at dinner, while the family entertained each other with stories of Bucky's sisters during the decades he missed. Becca reminisced about their folks, and her eyes teared up at one point. The table got quiet.
She looked at Bucky with a sad smile and shimmering eyes. "Mom never gave up on you. They never found your body, and she set a place for you at the table every Thanksgiving and Christmas." Tears streaked along Becca's cheeks, and she scrubbed at them. "And now, you're actually here for Thanksgiving. I know Mom is looking down on us with a smug smile, probably wanting to say she told us so." She cleared her throat. "I just wish she'd gotten to see this while she was alive."
Bucky stared down at his plate, fighting the sting of tears and the ache in his chest. "I do, too."
Part of him was glad his mother never found out about his seventy years of captivity and brainwashing, but another part of him ached that she held out hope until she passed away, never knowing if he was dead or alive.
Steve's warm hand wrapped around the back of his neck, and Bucky flashed him a reassuring smile.
Jimmy rose from the table. "Anybody interested in the pumpkin pecan cheesecake yet?"
"God, no," Gwen said. "I ate too much. Give it an hour or so."
Bucky took a sip of his wine.
"So," his great-niece Lorelei began, "is there anyone special in your life, Bucky? Or, are you two….?" She gestured at him and Steve.
The wine caught in Bucky's throat, and he coughed it down. Steve picked up his glass and took a sip in a pathetic attempt to hide his smile.
Bucky shook his head. "We're not… Steve and I are friends… partners… coworkers. I mean, we've known each other our entire lives. We're brothers." He glanced at Steve. "Right?"
With a nod, Steve said, "Absolutely. Brothers."
"I'm related to Captain America?" Amelia squealed from the small table nearby. "I'm telling everyone at school."
Bucky chuckled at the flush in Steve's cheeks, and laughter filled the room.
"So, then, anyone special?" Lorelei asked.
"I don't know. Maybe." Bucky shrugged.
"I knew it." Steve slapped a palm on the table.
"What do you know?" Bucky slid him a suspicious look.
"I saw how you two were in the kitchen when you were prepping dinner, during Becca's visit."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I know how you flirt, Buck. I've seen it more times than I can count, and I've seen her flirt—both fake and real. I have eyes, man."
"Who is the lucky lady?" Becca asked.
Bucky shifted in his seat. He wasn't sure how Natasha would feel about the information getting out. He didn't think she'd told anyone.
"It's, uh, new," Bucky said. "I'm not sure that she wants everyone to know." He shot Steve a beseeching look.
"Ah, I understand. You celebrities are so hush-hush," Becca said.
Celebrity? Bucky finished his wine. Steve was a celebrity. Bucky was infamous. There was a significant difference between those two versions of fame. Bucky would rather be anonymous—an ordinary, run-of-the-mill nobody who could go anywhere in public without turning a single head.
Gwen and Jimmy stood and began clearing the table.
Bucky pushed to his feet. "Let me do that."
Jimmy raised a hand. "You're the guest. Sit down."
"I insist. Please."
"Absolutely not," Jimmy protested.
"Look, let me wash the dishes. It's my favorite thing in the world."
Becca laughed. "You're such a liar. You hated washing dishes."
He gave her a fake glare. "When I was a kid, yeah, but it's grown on me. I find it…therapeutic."
They argued for a couple minutes more, and Bucky won the round, clearing the rest of the plates and getting to work at the sink.
"You know we have a dishwasher," Jimmy told him.
"I'll do the pre-washing and the big things and let the dishwasher do the rest," Bucky assured him, working up a lather with a Brillo pad on the old gravy pot.
He spent longer in the kitchen than he anticipated, finding the activity meditative. Washing dishes allowed his brain to focus on a simple task with a direct goal, and the result was always concrete and satisfying—much like a mission, but without the violence, and at the end of it, the things he touched were restored instead of destroyed.
When he finally made his way into the living room, the conversation had died, a football game was on the television, and Jimmy announced it was time for the cheesecake… which turned out to be one of the best things he'd ever tasted.
Bucky worked at being sociable until, finally, it was late enough that he could make a credible claim of being tired and wanting to crawl into bed. He hurried up the stairs and into the room, closed the door behind him, and fell backward on the mattress.
He'd longed for this in the early days of his captivity, when he still remembered who he was—holidays had come and gone. Most of the time he hadn't realized it, not having any idea what day or even month it was. Sometimes, however, they'd tell him.
"Merry Christmas, Soldier. Do you think anyone still remembers you?"
"It's Thanksgiving in America today, a reminder of the brutality of your country against its indigenous people. We have a special meal." Then, they ate warm, fresh meat and potatoes in front of him while his stomach churned hungry with bile.
But now that he had a family to spend the holidays with, it was harder than he imagined. The images and footage that had come out during the senate hearings had been broadcast for the public to see. Everyone downstairs had seen them, except for the children… he hoped.
What did they see when they looked at him? The Winter Soldier? The guy strapped to a chair, screaming as his brains were fried? Or the "sexual assault" victim fleeing the senate chambers and careening through a throng of reporters in panic.
A soft knock on the door made his stomach sink until he heard the voice. "Buck? Got a minute?"
"Come in." He sat up.
The door opened, and Steve walked in. "How're you doing?"
He shrugged. "Okay. It's a lot. I just need some downtime. It's hard to be on for that long."
With an understanding nod, Steve sat on the bed next to him. "Becca was raving about the job you did washing her old gravy pot. She said it looks almost new again."
"I'm glad it made her happy."
"Therapy, huh?" Steve prompted. "Never heard dishes described that way before."
"I enjoy working with my hands, taking something dirty and making it clean again. Doing something simple and good, without complications… or bloodshed." He managed a sly grin. "And I haven't broken a single dish yet."
"Quite an accomplishment, since that metal arm must get slippery." Steve nudged him with his shoulder. "I miss this… Thanksgiving around a table with a family. Thank you for inviting me."
Bucky turned to face him. "No invitation needed. I meant what I said. You're my family, man…and now we're both orphans. All we really have is each other. I'm grateful for that." He dropped his gaze to the floor, imaging if things had been different. "Without you, I'd have died as the Winter Soldier."
"Hey." Steve gripped Bucky's arm. "Don't sell yourself short. You were still in there. You walked away on your own."
"You were the catalyst." His chest felt heavy. "Even if something had triggered my memories, I wouldn't…." he shook his head, the words catching in the back of his throat for a moment. "I wouldn't have had any reason to keep going. Honestly man, you have no idea how close I came a couple times to putting a bullet through my brain, and the only thing that stopped me was you. I wasn't even sure what you meant to me, but I didn't want you to find out I gave up like that."
"I'm glad you didn't." Steve pulled him into a firm hug. "For me, for you, and for Becca."
The door creaked, and Bucky stiffened, until he saw Pooch waggle inside. The dog put its big head on his lap and stared up at him with woeful brown eyes.
"You have a fan," Steve said.
"So do you, but yours doesn't slobber." He patted Pooch on the head, and the dog leapt up toward his face. He was suddenly on his back with seventy pounds of muscle on top of him slobbering every inch of his face. He made the mistake of opening his mouth to tell the dog to get off.
"I got tongued! Ugh!" He pushed Pooch away while Steve laughed, then sat up and tried to save his dignity. "Well, it's nice to be around something that enjoys my company and doesn't know or care about the Winter Soldier."
Pooch rested his head on Bucky's lap again, tail thumping slowly against the floor.
"So, how long has this thing with you and Natasha been going on?" Steve asked.
Bucky bit the inside of his bottom lip as he considered his answer. "I'm not even sure what's going on, but she understands. She's been through…well…something similar…at least closer than anyone else I know, and it's nice to have someone who understands without me having to say a thing."
"I'm glad. I'm also glad there's a bathroom between our two rooms."
A surprised chuckle escaped Bucky. "So am I, Pal." He slapped Steve on the arm. "Now, we just gotta find you the right woman."
Steve's eyes rolled upward. "Natasha's been on that for a while." His face grew serious. "Truth is, I already found mine, and lightning doesn't strike twice."
"Bullshit. There are roughly three-and-a-half billion women on this planet, and four million of them in New York. You need to modernize your approach."
That earned him a skeptical look. "Modernize."
"Dating apps," Bucky grinned. "I've been unemployed. There's a lot of Internet and television involved. You learn things."
"Captain America can't exactly create a dating profile. Do you have any idea the kind of responses I'd get?" Steve grimaced. "No thanks."
"Okay, fair point, but," he tapped Steve on the chest, "mark my words. I'll find you someone and tell her only the nice things."
"You've been trying that since I was a teenager, Buck."
"Yeah, but my job's going to be a helluva a lot easier now, or haven't you looked in a mirror since 1943?"
-0- -0- -0-
The next morning, Bucky woke up just as the sun began to peek over the horizon. Soft thuds and the low hum of voices from outside banished the remnants of sleep from his brain. He got out of bed and looked out the window.
"How the hell…?" He rubbed at his eyes and shook his head. Now what? Goddamnit.
Two news vans were parked across the street.
"It's seven-thirty in the morning," he muttered. Don't these people have any decency?
He threw on some clothes and went to Steve's room, knocking lightly on the door to avoid waking anyone else. Soft noises from downstairs told him someone was up. He wondered whether they were aware of the news vans yet.
"Yeah?" The door opened, and Steve stood there, damp, a towel around his waist.
"Reporters, outside."
"Unbelievable. I came back from a run ten minutes ago and saw a couple of news vans down the road. Didn't think much of it. How did they find out we were here?"
Of course, Steve was up early jogging. The man couldn't even take a break on vacation.
"Hell if I know," Bucky answered.
Steve looked hopeful. "Maybe they're here for something else?"
"Unless someone in this family is on the FBI's most wanted list, I think it's a safe bet they're here for one or both of us."
"Yeah," Steve sighed. "I know."
"Although, we didn't background check everyone before we came, so…"
"Funny. I'll get dressed."
He hadn't intended it as a joke.
Bucky waited inside the room while Steve finished toweling off, then put on jeans and a blue shirt. He eyed the shield, hesitated a moment, then grabbed it.
"Nice touch," Bucky told him.
"And you wondered why I brought this on vacation. You just never know."
"That, and Amelia. I know the real reason is you didn't want to let her down."
Steve smiled and shook his head. "Let's go see what the fuss is about, if there is any yet."
They trotted down the stairs to see Becca already awake and sitting on her stool by the stove, making pancakes, soft music playing from a compact Bluetooth speaker on the counter. It took him a moment to identify the song— I'm Stepping Out with a Memory Tonight by Jimmy Dorsey & His Orchestra. He smiled despite the anxious start to the morning.
He listened to the music for a few seconds, letting it take him back home as he watched Becca, her back to him, flip a pancake. Steve leaned the shield against the cabinet and eyed the front door.
Bucky walked up to her and asked. "Becca, do you know there are news vans outside?"
"I saw. I peeked out the curtains when I heard a car door." She flipped a pancake.
"Best guess," Steve said, "is they know Bucky and I are here."
"They couldn't. How would they?" Becca asked.
"I don't know," Bucky replied, but the reporters were outside, and for the moment, he had his sister and Steve to himself. "Jimmy Dorsey, huh?"
She grinned up at him. "You remember?"
"Of course."
She sighed and slipped a spatula under the pancake, transferring it to a plate that already had a small pile. "I miss dancing the most, I think."
"Why don't you dance, anymore?"
She adjusted the flame on the stove. "Oh, at my age, all I can do is shuffle and wave my arms."
"I don't know about that. You willing to give you big brother a dance?"
"What?" She smiled up at him, her cheeks suddenly red.
"Come on." He held his hand out. "Steve can man the stove for a minute."
"Absolutely," Steve said, sliding into position as Bucky helped Becca off the stool.
He guided her into the dining room where they had a bit more room. "Put your feet on top of mine."
She giggled and stepped on his feet. "Just like I used to do with Dad. Is that okay?"
"You're light as a feather, Sis." Then he wrapped his vibranium arm around her waist and took her other hand in his.
They danced, swaying to the music. He spun gently at one part, keeping a careful grip on her, and she squealed.
The doorbell rang.
"Well, damn." Bucky stopped dancing and looked at Steve. "We don't have to answer it."
Thunderous barking caused Becca to jump, and Bucky guided her off his feet. Suddenly the dog appeared, skidding on the hard wood floor as he ran to the door.
"That dog can raise the dead! I'll go see who that is."
"Becca," he put a gentle hand on her shoulder, "it's the reporters. Maybe it's best if we don't answer it."
"What reporters?" she looked up at him.
Her memory lapses worried Bucky, reminding him that their time was growing short, and he gave Steve a fleeting look. "There are a couple of news vans outside. I think they want to talk to us."
"They can't know for sure we're here," Steve said, turning off the burner.
The doorbell rang again, and once again, Pooch started barking. Lorelei hurried down the stairs. "Grandma, who's at the door?"
Becca shuffled back to the stove, tapping Steve appreciatively on the arm. "Bucky says there are reporters outside."
"Reporters?" Lorelei headed toward the door.
"We'd like it if they didn't know we were here," Steve said. "We don't want to disrupt your family."
She glanced back at him. "I won't say a thing, but you two better get out of the line of sight."
"Thanks," Bucky said, and they both moved further into the kitchen.
He listened as Lorelei opened the door and said, "Pooch, get back."
Then, an unfamiliar male voice said, "Hello, I'm Tom Moreno from WRTV."
A strange female voice followed, "And I'm from Fox59. Is James Barnes having Thanksgiving with your family?"
"Why on Earth do you think that?" Lorelei asked.
"We received information that Rebecca Barnes was expecting her brother for Thanksgiving. Is he here?" the man asked.
"It's not even eight in the morning yet, and you're waking everyone up, and, no, that doesn't include James Barnes. Have a good day, and please get off our property."
"Was that Steve Rogers we saw jogging earlier this morning?" the man asked.
Bucky heard the door close and waited until Lorelei appeared in the kitchen. Noises upstairs told him others were awake.
"I don't know how long they'll stay out there," she told them.
Moments later, Jimmy was downstairs with Amelia.
"Where are the others?" Bucky asked.
"They went home last night, except Rich and Gwen," Jimmy said. "They're upstairs."
"Unfortunately, reporters are outside," Bucky told him.
"What?" Gwen asked as she made her way down the stairs. "Reporters from where?"
"WRTV and Fox59," Lorelei answered.
Gwen crossed her arms and leaned against dining table. "Great." Her gaze swept quickly over Bucky, her mouth pressed in a hard line.
"I don't know how they found out," he told her.
"Doesn't matter how they found out," she shot back. "They did. We just got a break from reporters, and now you're here, and it starts all over again."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disrupt—"
"If you were sorry, you'd do the right thing. You've brought nothing but problems to this family."
"Gwen, that's not true," Jimmy said.
"Oh, yeah?" Her chin jutted up at him. "You disappeared, no one could get hold of you, then you show up with bruises on your wrists and a vague story about an emergency and needing to see Steve. Mom didn't buy it either, and then she disappears, and we find out she's in New York and her brother is alive. Her bother. An assassin, wanted by a lot of people, right? I'm not stupid, Jimmy."
Gwen looked Bucky directly in the eyes. "What happened to my brother? You want to lie to me and tell me nothing? That his disappearance and those bruises weren't connected to you?"
He hesitated, meeting Jimmy's apologetic gaze. Finally, Bucky's shoulder sagged, and he shook his head. "It was. I'm sorry. I didn't even know I had nephews or a niece at the time. I never wanted to put anyone in danger."
"Well, you did."
"You can't blame him for that, Gwen," Jimmy insisted. "Be realistic."
Gwen's cheeks flushed red. "I'm the only one being realistic. The rest of you are in la la land." She flung a hand toward the door. "That's realistic. Those reporters out there. The nonstop media harassment with the senate hearings. Hell, Jimmy, you almost died. Am I right? Someone kidnapped you to get to him?" she practically spat the last word. "Jesus, Jimmy, don't you care about the kids? What if someone goes after them to get to the famous Winter Soldier? Or what if one of the families of his victims comes looking for revenge and one of us ends up in the crossfire?"
Gwen turned to Bucky. "If you really cared about this family, you'd leave."
"I don't want him to leave!" Becca's sudden outburst from the kitchen startled everyone. She carefully slid off the stool, and Lorelei helped her, putting a steadying hand on the old woman's shoulder.
"Imagine if you thought Jimmy was dead—that he died trying to help people—and then years later, when you don't have much time left in the world, you find out he's alive, and people kept him prisoner, did horrible things to him... Wouldn't you want to spend whatever time you could with him?"
Gwen's eyes teared up, and she turned her head away.
"Becca, it's okay." Bucky walked up to his sister and placed a hand on her arm. "Gwen's right. I'm not good to have around. She just wants to protect the family, and I can't blame her for that. You shouldn't, either. What she's saying…it's valid."
Becca shook her head. "I don't have much time left, Jimm … Bucky. You know that. My mind isn't what it used to be, and it's only going to get worse. I want to spend time with you while I remember…"
Bucky swallowed hard and squeezed his eyelids shut. He understood that. What it felt like not to remember. To know there were people you cared about—to get glimpses—but not really know who they were, until even those glimpses vanished.
He pulled her against him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, Mom…everyone…and I don't want to cause you more pain. I want to spend time with you, too." He looked down at her. "You're the only sister I have left. They took everything from me, but you managed to stick around, and you found me, even though I didn't want you to. I didn't want to put you in danger, and I wanted you to remember me as I was. I never wanted you to find out what I became."
"I'll always remember you like you were… it's how I see you. What they did to you, that's not what I see." She patted his chest. "I don't care about reporters. Just tell me you'll be in my life, for as long as that is."
He couldn't deny her request. He'd never be able to live with himself if he hurt her during her last few years on the planet. "I promise…but maybe not holidays. What if I just came more frequently throughout the year? When reporters won't expect it?"
"I can't understand how they found out," Becca said, looking at her family.
"It doesn't matter," Bucky said.
"I didn't say anything about this to anyone," Jimmy said.
"I sure as hell didn't," Gwen added.
Lorelei shrugged. "Me, either."
"I didn't. The only person I've even spoken to was Cathy from the bakery when she dropped off the cookies." Becca's eyes went wide. "Oh no." She dropped her head against Bucky's chest. "I'm so sorry. I remember now. I'm so sorry. I told her I was ordering extra cookies because I expected two extra special guests for a few days. I wasn't thinking…"
He rubbed her back. "It's okay, Becca. This is on me. I'm the one bringing all this chaos, wherever I go, it just… follows."
She looked up at him again. "You're not going to leave early, are you?"
"That's enough." Steve straightened his shoulders and headed toward the door.
Crap. Bucky ran after him. "Steve, what are you doing?"
"They saw me this morning, not you. I don't like bullies, and right now, they're the bullies."
"You can't punch them, Steve."
Steve stopped and turned to him. "I'm not going to punch anyone."
"And you can't break their cameras."
"I'm probably not going to do that, either."
Probably?
"I can't let you go out there hot-headed on live television."
"Give me a break, Bucky." Steve had that irritating, determined look in his eyes. "I'm not hot-headed. I'm going to give them what they want and urge them to go away."
"You're going to make a speech, aren't you?"
Steve raised his eyebrows. "I've been told I'm pretty good at them."