Chapter 51: The Party
When Josiah told him the dress code for the event was semi-formal—and only two days before the party—Bucky momentarily panicked. He hadn't dressed up for anything in years. In fact, the last time he recalled putting on a suit was for Steve's funeral. Since then, the most formal he got was a button down and slacks. That's what he'd worn to Walker's wedding. The only outfit he owned that fit the bill, besides his wedding tux and his funeral suit, was the suit he'd worn to the Espy awards. Bucky double-checked that it still fit and heaved a sigh of relief when it did.
However, he questioned whether he needed to wear a tie with it. He wasn't entirely sure of the border between formal and semi-formal. And frankly, it looked a bit weird without the tie. Reluctantly, Bucky dug one out of his closet and walked into the bathroom to put it on. Only once he was standing in front of the mirror like an idiot did he realize he'd never put on his own tie. It was one of the few skills he'd never mastered one-handed because he'd never needed to. Steve always did it for him. And for the funeral, his dad did it. Bucky remembered vividly pulling him into another room to ask him that favor because he didn't want anyone else to overhear his shame. He'd kept his eyes tightly shut as Dad gently knotted it for him, both to avoid making eye contact and in a futile attempt to hold the tears at bay. And he'd never put one on since.
"Goddammit," he muttered, staring at his reflection with the tie draped across his shoulders like a dead snake. He'd have to look up a YouTube tutorial like a teenager. Either that, or ask Josiah to do it for him on the way. Bucky didn't want to do that. He was a thirty-two-year-old man, he should be able to tie his own damn tie. Reminding himself to clear his search history later, he looked up a tutorial on YouTube and attempted to follow along.
Foolishly, he forgot to specify that he needed one-handed tutorials, and the plethora of clips that came up showing men tying ties with both hands only made him angry. "Fuck!" he slammed the laptop closed and took a few laps around the house to cool off. He didn't want to go to this stupid party in the first place, but he'd already told Josiah he'd come and he couldn't leave his best friend to do this alone. Bucky prided himself on his loyalty, and he wasn't going to let some stupid suit and tie ruin that for him.
God, sometimes he hated how volatile he'd become since Steve died. Even all these years later. He used to be the level-headed one, reigning Steve in from his bouts of righteous fury. Now, all it took was forgetting to include his disability in his internet searches to make him want to punch through a wall. And once he found the right tutorial and got the stupid knot right, he'd probably start crying because it reminded him of all the times Steve did it for him and how he'd have to do it by himself every time for the rest of his fucking life. After that, right about the time he actually attended the party with Josiah, he'd probably just feel numb. Maybe by Monday he'd be back to a semblance of normal, whatever that looked like these days.
Finished with his internal rant, Bucky went back to the computer and searched for one-handed tie tutorials. He found a YouTube channel called "Left Shoulder Closed" like the road sign, which immediately made him laugh. The man had barely more residual limb than Bucky, so he knew he'd actually be able to follow this technique. An annoying number of one-handed tutorials were made by amputees that still had most of their upper arm or even the elbow joint and forearm too, and they used that stump to help them accomplish whatever-it-was. That didn't exactly help Bucky, and it was really hard to filter those kinds of videos out. The fact that he found this on the first try lifted his black mood just a little bit.
The tutorial was actually really easy to follow, and he got a satisfactory knot on the second try. Not wanting to dwell in this ridiculousness any longer, Bucky stripped out of the suit and put on sweatpants and one of Steve's tees. He gathered Alpine up in his arm and snuggled with him on the couch while watching Life. Nature documentaries were the only things that he could bear to watch when he felt like shit—whether that was due to chemo side effects or grief. Anything with human characters at best annoyed him, and at worst drove him deeper into his own misery. Alpine particularly enjoyed any scene that focused on birds, so Bucky picked an episode he knew had several of them. He hoped the actual day of the party would be better than this one.
~0~
Josiah wolf-whistled when Bucky answered the door. "You clean up nice," he remarked.
"Don't you start. It took me three tries just to get this stupid thing to sit properly." He gestured to the knot on his tie.
"Well, third time's the charm. You look great, man."
"Thanks. You too." Bucky tried not to let too much sarcasm seep into his tone. Josiah's taste in suits was…very different from his, to say the least. He preferred vibrant patterns that Bucky thought might make him nauseous if he stared at them too long.
"Thank you again for agreeing to come with me. Having you there is going to make it so much more bearable."
"Glad I can help." Bucky said nothing about the intense emotional distress attending this party had already caused him. Josiah didn't need to hear about that crap. Besides, he was feeling much better today. He liked Josiah's dad. In many ways, he reminded Bucky of Steve. A much older, crankier, Steve.
The party was at some fancy hotel Bucky had never been to. He had no idea if this degree of grandness was typical of retirement parties, but he supposed it depended on the job and the person. Not until they arrived did he realize he hadn't even bothered to ask Josiah the name of the party's guest of honor. Bucky had to do a double take when he read the banner as they walked in. It read, "Happy Retirement Dr. Wilson," but the Dr. was crossed out.
"Wait, I know this guy," Bucky whispered to Josiah.
"You do?"
"He works—well, worked—at Gravesen. Hell, he's given both me and Steve therapy."
"What? No way."
"I'm serious."
"I believe you, I just can't believe it. I wonder if he'll remember you."
"I dunno." Bucky had no doubt that Dr. Wilson would remember Steve, if he were still here. They spent more time together than Bucky ever had, plus his photo was now up in the pediatric residential ward for all to see.
"Only one way to find out." Josiah grabbed his hand and pulled him into the crowd. Dr. Wilson was easy to find because he had the largest group of people surrounding him. He was in the middle of telling some lively story about—wait a minute. As soon as they got close enough for Bucky to make out the words, he recognized this story. Dr. Wilson was talking about the time Dr. Lee's lunch was inadvertently stolen by Carol when she threw that football. Bucky was there for that; he was part of this story that all these strangers were laughing at right now. Parker was going to hear all about this next time they talked.
Josiah continued to drag him through the crowd until they landed in an empty space a few feet in front of Dr. Wilson. His eyes scanned over the entire group as he talked, but paused when they landed on Bucky. An even bigger smile broke out on his face, but he continued the story. "The craziest part? One of my patients—he'd been exclusively tube fed for weeks due to psychological trauma that stopped him from eating—took a bite from that sandwich after she caught it. This girl accomplished, with a Nerf football, what me and Dr. van Dyne had failed to do with years of experience and pretty much every approved therapeutic mechanism under the sun."
"Friendship is a powerful thing," one of the women remarked.
"I'll say. Sometimes, I felt like my job was obsolete. These kids had each other, what did they need me for?"
"Is that why you retired?" Josiah cut in.
Dr. Wilson looked him in the eyes, dead serious, before dissolving into laughter. "Josiah! I'm so glad you could make it." He turned to Bucky. "And you brought a friend." Now that the story was over, the rest of the crowd dispersed throughout the vast room, leaving just the three of them.
"Hi Dr. Wilson," Bucky said shyly.
"Bucky Barnes. Fancy meeting you here," he remarked with a gap-toothed grin.
"Josiah asked me to come with him," he explained. "Though at the time I didn't know the party was for you."
"Yet you came anyway. Friendship is a powerful thing indeed."
Bucky chuckled. "Yeah I guess so. So…you're retiring?"
"Yeah. My daughter's been trying to get me to quit for years, but I was always involved with a patient that I wanted to see get better. And then the next year, that patient was doing great, but I had another that needed my help."
"How'd you break the cycle?"
"I found a successor."
"Who is it?"
"A Dr. Joaquin Torres."
"That's nice."
"Yeah, it's great. The patients love him." The brightness in his eyes dulled a bit and he asked Bucky, "How are you doing?"
He should've expected this question from a psychologist, especially one who'd known him and Steve since they were teenagers, but he still hated answering. The last time he saw Dr. Wilson had been at the unveiling of the plaque dedicating the pediatric residential ward to Steve, and a lot had happened in the years since then. Bucky decided to lead with, "I'm still in therapy," since he figured that would make him proud. "It definitely helps a lot."
"That's fantastic." He kept that piercing gaze fixed on Bucky, obviously expecting more of an answer. Bucky hadn't expected to be grilled about his mental health at Josiah's dad's friend's retirement party, so he was just as ill-prepared as ever to answer that question.
"I, uh…I guess I'm doing as well as can be expected, you know?"
"Yes. I may be retired, but if you ever need anything, Josiah knows how to get in touch with me."
Bucky knew that talking to Dr. Wilson, a person so irrevocably tied to his shared life with Steve, would not help in the least, but he appreciated the offer. "Thank you. That's very kind." God, he sounded like a fucking robot. Fortunately, Dr. Wilson moved on to talk to a couple who'd just arrived. Recognizing his discomfort, Josiah dragged him over to the drinks table. Bucky did not feel like getting drunk, so he chose a soda. He reached for the Coke at the exact same time as the woman standing next to him, and their hands bumped.
She withdrew her hand. "Oops, sorry."
"No, I'm sorry," Bucky countered. They looked up at each other, both sheepishly smiling at their mutual blunder. Bucky's eyes flitted from her smile, to her beautiful burnt orange dress, to her intricately braided hair, and finally to her deep brown eyes. Her gaze, naturally, went first to his stump, then to his hand, then his eyes. They stared at each other awkwardly for a few moments before she gestured to the Coke bottle and said, "You can go first."
Bucky knew better than to start a back-and-forth that would go on uselessly for minutes, so he poured his drink and handed her the bottle. She added a shot of whiskey to hers. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Sarah."
His brain immediately jumped to Steve's mom. "I'm Bucky," He introduced. He added a "Nice to meet you," just to be polite.
"Nice to meet you too." She took a sip of her drink. "So, how do you know my dad?"
Bucky nearly did a spit take. This was Dr. Wilson's daughter? Now that he knew that, he did realize they looked somewhat alike. He stammered, "Uh…my friend, Josiah, his dad and Dr. Wilson are good friends."
"Oh you're Josiah's friend. That makes sense."
"You know him?"
"Not really. Our dads have been friends a long time, but we haven't really seen each other since we were kids." She glanced around the room until she found Josiah; he was animatedly chatting with his dad. "Oh my God, did he really wear that? To a retirement party?" Sarah scoffed.
"That's what I said! I feel like if he were to spin around, I'd get motion sick."
"You and me both."
Bucky took another sip of his Coke, once his laughter died down enough for him to no longer fear choking on it. The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass himself in front of this girl. And holy shit, what a feeling that was. Bucky hadn't felt like that around another person since…well, since his first date with Leah. He couldn't tell if the fluttering in his stomach was fear or excitement. What he did know, however, was that he didn't want this conversation to end. However, he had absolutely no idea how to continue it and no idea if Sarah planned to. She answered his question for him.
"So…Bucky," she began. "Is that a nickname for something?"
He smiled nervously. "Yeah. It's short for Buchanan. James Buchanan."
"Like the president?"
"Yep."
She started laughing.
"What's so funny?"
"The only thing I know about James Buchanan is that a lot of people think he was actually our first gay president."
Bucky cracked up. Steve had pointed that out to him probably dozens of times after they got together.
"Can I say something horrible?" Sarah asked through her laughter.
"Sure, go ahead."
"As soon as I finished saying that, the next thought to pop into my mind was, 'I sure hope that's not true for this James Buchanan.'"
Bucky's brain took way too long to decipher that comment. On the surface it seemed homophobic, but she didn't seem opposed to the idea of homosexuality itself…just him being homosexual. Which almost certainly meant she was interested. Holy shit.
"Not quite," he said warmly. "This James Buchanan is a member of both political parties, if you know what I mean."
She stared at him, eyes wide, and for a moment he kicked himself because that was about the most awkward way to come out as bi to a woman he just met like ten minutes ago, and what if it ruined this whole thing, but then she burst out laughing, more joyfully than any of the previous times.
"It took me a second, but wow, that's pretty clever," she said.
Bucky smiled. "What about you?"
"Just blue."
He took that to mean she was only into men and hoped he was right. "Fair enough." Bucky stalled for a moment, wondering where to take this next, before he settled on, "Where are you from?"
"Louisiana, originally."
"Oh, I have some friends from there," he said, thinking of Monica and Maria. "What part?"
"Delacroix. It's in the southeast, on the water. What about you?"
"Brooklyn," he said proudly.
"Oh, so you're a city boy," she said coyly.
He finished off the last of his Coke. "Born and raised. How long have you been here? Or did you come in just for the party?"
She paused and a blank look descended over her features for the briefest instant before she said vaguely, "I've lived here a few years."
Bucky changed the subject. "Dr. Wilson told me you've been trying to get him to retire for a while."
Sarah smiled and shook her head. "That man, I swear. He'd be seeing patients from his deathbed if it was up to him. Luckily, this Dr. Torres came around and impressed him enough to convince him that everything won't go to shit when he retires."
Bucky listened intently as she talked about her father and his dedication to his work. He intentionally omitted the fact that he'd been a patient at some point, unwilling to disclose such a personal part of his history so soon. They spent the rest of the night bouncing between the usual small talk topics. Work, pets, family. The conversation lost some of its light when they got to family. Sarah talked about her parents and her collection of aunts, uncles, and cousins back in Delacroix. Bucky mentioned only his parents and his extended family in Wisconsin. He didn't talk about any of the Avengers or his niece and nephews, because that would require a vast explanation that he was not yet ready to give. However, Sarah did manage to get two actual drinks in him, and by the time Josiah's dad gave a toast to Dr. Wilson and cut the cake, they'd exchanged phone numbers.
"Look at you," Josiah said haughtily. "Making love with a girl at her father's retirement party."
"We were not making love, Jesus! You can be a real asshole, you know that?"
"It's my one true passion in life."
"Yeah, okay. Sarah's really cool," he admitted.
"I saw you guys making puppy eyes at each other the whole time."
"We talked a lot. I don't know how much puppy eyes there were, but it was good conversation."
"Did you get her number?"
Bucky felt his face flush red. "Yeah."
"Sweet. When are you gonna call her?"
"I was thinking of texting her a picture of Alpine first. We talked about him."
"Interesting first move. But respect. I'm really glad you guys got on so well."
"Thank you."
"I can only imagine how hard this kinda of thing must be for you, especially after Leah…and I just wanted to say I'm proud of you."
Bucky tried his best not to groan at the gross sentimentality. He was genuinely grateful for Josiah's support. "Thanks, man. I appreciate it."
"Let me know how your first date goes?"
Bucky punched him in the arm. "Sure thing, Jos."
As the Falcon and the Winter Soldier was coming out, I was publishing After Gravesen. Even way back then, I knew I wanted to bring Sarah Wilson into this universe somehow. I've changed some characters from parent-child to siblings (Scott and Cassie Lang, Maria and Monica Rambeau) so I thought it was about time I did it the other way around.