CHAPTER FIVE- April 2036
"Hey, punk," Bucky called to Steve, "what are you doing? You're killing me!"
Rogers came running across their makeshift field, casually. "Jerk, wha'd'ya want from me? I'm out of practice. Didn't I tell you I retired?"
"That was fifteen years ago. Sure your memory's not going?" Bucky recovered the football from the treeline behind him.
"Really, twinkle toes?" Sam Wilson called over, panting. "Only three hours worth of running circles around me, and you two are tired? I win then. Think Sharon's got some lemonade?" Falcon jogged weakly to the house.
"He's right," Steve said, catching up to Bucky. "He's getting too old for this. We should go easier on him."
They smiled at each other. "Never," Bucky replied, "but a drink sounds pretty good."
Steve and Sharon had furnished the house simply, in a sort of French farmhouse style, wooden features wherever possible, mismatching dishes and utensils gathered over the years. Wilson was already refilling his marbled-blue glass when the others sat down.
"One damn grey hair," he mumbled, pointing back and forth between Steve and Bucky, "is that too much to ask for? I can hardly watch you two without feeling my knee ache."
"Did you need an aspirin," Sharon offered with a laugh, setting down more glasses. She turned to Steve. "I've got a few more errands before dinner. Need anything?"
"No, doll," Rogers replied, planting a kiss on her cheek. Bucky noticed a few more freckles on Sharon's face than the last time he visited. Everyday almost everyone he knew changed just a little, but not Bucky, not Steve. Sharon grew older every year; Steve, ever the loyal gentleman, grew more in love with her every year. The only changing thing about Bucky was his opinion on whether he wanted the same thing or whether it was a waste of time and effort.
"Have fun, boys. Don't kill Sam," Sharon called from the door, accompanied by the jingle of keys and a shutting door.
"Don't you have enough salt for the three of us?" Bucky scratched at his temple hairline strategically.
"Hardy-har-har, Bucko," Sam mumbled.
"Don't do that."
"So," Steve interrupted, "what's the news at headquarters?"
Sam cocked an eyebrow. "Aren't you CC'd on all that stuff?"
Bucky eyed Steve who shrugged uncomfortably. The former leader of the Avengers sipped lemonade at a simple wooden table, surrounded by knick-knacks, wearing plain clothes, and sweating from a fun workout with friends. "You mss it," Bucky accused.
"Not," Steve started, fumbling a bit, "all the time."
"That civilian life not sittin' so well these days?" Sam chided.
"Sometimes I just miss the…amount going on."
Bucky chuckled. "Great. You can have it back now."
"No, Buck, that's not what I mean." The bulky blond crossed his arms in front of him. "It's fine. I…ya know what would help? It'd be nice to see you two settled a bit."
Sam grunted. "I'm a wild stallion. Why you wanna put me in the stables?"
"No chance that lovely Stacy—"
"Nope."
"I thought you two went to dinner—"
"Nope."
"Danielle?" Bucky asked.
"Don't you get started with me." Sam glared at Bucky. "I'm not the oddly celibate fool."
"You are not celibate, very true."
"Buck," Steve started.
"Steve." He turned back to Sam. "I wasn't judging, only recounting the slew of names we've heard over the years."
"It's not a slew," Sam burst. "It's a quarter of a lifetime for me!"
"And you can do whatever you want with it," Bucky defended, "I never said any different." He put his hands up in defeat. "Not my business." He pointed at Steve. "He asked!"
"Anyone heard how the Bartons are doing?" Steve took another sip of lemonade.
"Chaos," Sam quipped instinctively, then he adjusted, "no, Clint is good, but three kids is rough."
Steve made a face over his glass. "Shouldn't we just call it four now?" There was a dark silence. Steve watched Sam shift his eyes to the window. "Thought you two were close for a bit?" Steve couldn't get Sam to meet his eye.
"Little Sam…" Wilson started, pressing his thumb to the corner of his lips. "She's definitely a Stark."
"What does that mean?" Bucky asked.
Wilson opened his hand in mid-air. "I don't know. She was playful, not athletic, but fun. Then she got to asking me more and more questions, about Tony and Pepper and Avengers. I didn't have answers, and then if I did, I didn't know how I was supposed to answer them. What would Tony think? I don't know how Clint does it. How do you raise another guy's kid in a way her real dad would want? She supposed to believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny or straight to cold, hard truths? I can't make that choice."
"From what I've gathered, Tony doesn't make that choice either," Bucky said quietly.
"Who told you that?" Steve looked concerned.
"Nat," Bucky replied.
"Anything going on there," Steve asked.
"She and Bruce try to keep tabs on the girl. I don't know a lot about it."
"That's not what I was asking," Steve added.
Bucky didn't flinch. "But that's the answer you're gonna get."
"Wait," Sam exclaimed, "you and Natasha?"
"No," Bucky said shortly.
"I always thought you two might," Sam continued, relaxing into his chair with a smug look. "Can't say I'm surprised."
"Nothing happened…within the last decade. She made her choice; she's with Banner."
"Sure you didn't make the choice for her," Steve punctuated, unable to help himself.
"Mutual decisions were made," Bucky asserted. "Look, I don't know why we got on this subject, but I veto it now."
Steve sighed. "I just think," he finished, looking out the window at the browning field in the overcast light, "that we've all been through enough to deserve a little happiness."
"She's not a Russian spy or an assassin, so stop trying to teach her things that make her a target!" Tony was pissed. Cornered in a lab with a time-sensitive project, he couldn't escape Natasha's demands for approval of activities to offer his daughter.
"I don't think playing cards ever killed anyone, Stark," Nat flatly stated.
"Yeah, but she learns cards, goes to casinos, attracts some guy with an ironic tattoo and a blue shirt with white collar and cuffs," he shivered, "and it's all over. Obie used to wear those awful things. Should have known then..."
"Well," Natasha started, not sure how to take that, "there's a lot going on there, but Samantha still needs some variety of stuff to learn. Social skills wouldn't hurt."
"Let her be anti-social. It's safer. Keeps her out of the news and not a target." Tony's chest swelled with justification and righteousness, his logic infallible.
"You know you're the one who makes her a target," she screamed, much angrier than intended. Nat took a breath and watched Tony's belligerent look relax.
His eyes remained locked with hers. "She's not a target if she's not here and isn't known by my name. Who's gonna know?"
"Stark," Nat tried to begin again.
"You want her to socialize? Fine. She can go to boarding school. Socialize with kids her own age away from Barton. Is that it? He just wants a break?"
"That's not what Pepper would want—"
Tony slammed down the wrench he held, the ringing of the table lingered. "Don't you dare."
She composed herself again. "Stark, I just meant the your daughter shouldn't be farther from you now, and she shouldn't be left with no defense. The wolves could be circling, and we don't see it."
"And we fed them," Tony exploded. He stalked towards Natasha. "This ragtag team of misfits put a giant target on our foreheads and screamed for attention across the universe! The wolves won't give a rat's ass about her if we keep their attention or keep them running." He looked at her, face-to-face, his eyes so dark they looked black. His build would have to wait till he calmed down. He tossed the wrench across the room, smoothly, if loudly, sinking it into the classic foldout, hotrod red toolbox open in the corner. "Kid goes to boarding school. Problem solved. Smoothie?"
Thirteen weeks. The mystery of the hard drive kept Samantha going for thirteen weeks. It had made a terrible school with terrible, small-minded children bearable, but only just. Those weeks were spent looking for a compatible power supply, then connecting cables, then a computer old enough to read the programming. She had to convince Laura to let her spend hours locked in her room or hours longer spent at school in the library. She convinced Clint to help her carry the bulky, ancient technology upstairs to her room. She pushed through.
When the day finally came to access the data, Sam was so pleased to find something worthwhile: Howard Stark's AI. It's name was Mistress, and even at over 60 years old, Mistress was able to help Sam transfer her program to a modern terminal compatible with her tablet. Missy, as Sam called her, was a fellow fast-learning friend, but that made Sam all the more afraid to tell anyone about it. No one much noticed the difference between loner-Sam and recluse-Sam, except with Missy, Sam was happier, more energetic. Laura noticed Sam made jokes, she started using cultural references instead of scientific, and she actively asked how the family's day was at the dinner table. It was such an improvement, why would anyone upset the balance? They all let her develop into a nerd because that was better than the sad, hermit alternative.
Missy helped connect Sam's homework with real-world purpose, searching for applications of equations, and how and why these idea were discovered. It was so much more comprehensive then following along in a text. Missy could take Sam down a rabbit hole of any subject, and they'd both come out the other end smarter. Particularly interesting to Sam was Missy's consistent evaluation of Tony Stark's body language from video footage. Particularly interesting to Missy was Sam's recounting of Tony himself and all Sam had ever heard about Missy's maker, Howard, after he shut her down.
One evening, nearly two years after booting up her best friend, Sam snuck down for a snack before continuing a fascinating and blunt conversation with Missy about the experience of hormonal fluctuations during puberty, when she stopped short of the landing, hearing voices.
"If we thought this school was tough for her, she'll be eaten alive at that preening castle of teenage monsters," Clint angrily whispered.
"Honey, it's his call. We don't have the right to choose for her instead." Laura ended her thought unsure, as if hoping for it to be an open question.
"She…she's been here so long, I can't stand to hear about the names, the graffiti, the…" Clint's voice trailed off. Sam could hear his exact movement to wipe his hand across his face and land his chin in his palm. It was his signature dad-move. "Lila wasn't teased like this, was she?"
Sam could not distinguish the silent gesture Laura answered with, but Clint's response made it clear.
"Any of them? Why is this so different then? I can't believe I'm actually annoyed that my kids weren't tormented at school…What do we do? You don't think that hoity toity academy is a good fit, do you?"
"Did anyone ask Tony if Sam could just come home—go home? It's been ten years, honey. We can't keep this up."
"Sometimes he seems to have a plan and others…I don't think he ever considered making decisions for a child. Deciding for someone's life, shaping their future. He's terrified. Hell, I'm terrified and my kids are grown up, basically. Tony doesn't like people to see him, ya know, have a soul anymore—"
"Honey, I don't have have an answer," Laura blurted with exasperation. She calmed quickly. "You should get some sleep. We hardly get to see you, and they'll want to shoot in the morning and bike after. You'll be dead to me by dinner if you don't go up now. I'll be up after I…"
Sam heard Clint scoot out his chair and rushed back upstairs, her appetite gone.
Author's Note: Reviews greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading so far. Much more to come, but may be about a week until the next couple of chapters.
Mistress- real AI of Howard Stark's in the comics that was abandoned.