Chapter 2: Orphans

Bucky kept his vibranium hand in his pocket as he navigated the crowd of people on the sidewalk. The warm weather made a glove uncomfortable on his right hand, and he couldn't very well walk around with one glove like a weird pop star. The good thing about living in New York was that people were used to seeing all sorts of oddities. He found that, so long as he wore long sleeves, most people barely noticed his vibranium hand unless it was right in front of them.

Peter kept stride alongside, a spring in his step, chattering almost non-stop. Bucky couldn't help but compare the kid to Steve at that age. There were noticeable differences, of course. Steve had been smaller, reserved, and serious. Peter was almost the exact opposite, though even with his lively chatter, Bucky noticed the frequent hitches in his speech, the occasional shimmer in his eyes, and the way the young man glanced uncertainly at him with a hint of desperation on his face.

Still, there were similarities. Peter, like Steve, was an orphan and alone at far too young an age. He had a sense of stubborn determination that was evident, and, like Steve, he was obviously too dumb to run from a fight…and too eager to jump into the fray. Berlin was a great example.

He interrupted the kid's nervous monologue. "What kind of pizza do you like, Peter?"

"Oh, any kind," Peter said. "Pepperoni is good, but really anything."

"Pepperoni it is then." Bucky gestured to the patio outside of the unassuming pizzeria. "Grab us a table, and take these, will you?" He handed the young man the beer and plums. "No sampling. I don't need to get busted for giving alcohol to someone underage."

Peter nodded eagerly and took the items. "Oh, no, I wouldn't." He hopped easily over the railing of the patio and sat at a table.

Inside, Bucky ordered an extra large pepperoni pizza, wings, and a pitcher of water, then went outside and dropped into the seat across from Peter.

"So, tell me more about this multi-verse thing."

He listened as Peter went through the long, confusing, and at times unbelievable explanation. The kid put up a brave face, but Bucky could see the scared boy beneath the façade. Peter had been through a lot in a short period of time—having his identity outed, getting arrested, watching his aunt die, losing his friends, and being forced to figure out how to survive on his own with no safety net.

Bucky couldn't help but feel sorry for the young man. He remembered how hard it had been for him to survive on his own with no legal identity after the helicarriers, and he had a lot more experience and training than the teenager in front him.

"What about photos?" Bucky asked.

Peter shrugged. "Gone. Can't find any."

"You were just about to graduate. Doesn't the school have records?"

Peter shook his head. "No, it's all wiped, and I can't find any news online that mentions my name."

Bucky whipped out his cell phone and dialed Sam. When Wilson picked up, Bucky got straight to the point. "Hey, Sam, Bucky here…."

"Uh, yeah. Your number's in my phone. You know how Caller ID works, right?"

Bucky opted not to rise to the bait. "Yes, of course. Look, do you remember Peter Parker?"

"Who?"

"Parker. Peter Parker. Is the name familiar to you?"

"No. Should it be?"

"I don't know. Hold on." Bucky hit the mute button, then looked up at Peter. "Do you want me to rope him into this?" He lowered his voice. "You know, reveal the whole arachnid thing?"

Peter shrugged. "Well, I don't know. I mean, he knew before. Do you think he can help?"

Bucky trusted Sam, but Spiderman wasn't his secret to tell. The patio was mostly empty, except for a young couple on the opposite end, so they didn't have to worry much about casual eavesdroppers.

He unmuted the call. "Probably not. Being back in New York is interesting." He hoped that was a decent transition into the next topic he wanted to broach.

"Yeah? How so?"

"You know, the news. The stuff that happened."

"With the octopus guy? Yeah."

"That Spiderman is something else, huh?"

"You can say that again."

Now to see if Sam remembered Spiderman in the battle of Thanos. "What do you know about him?"

"Why?"

"Just…what do you know?"

"Well, other than he was a pain in our asses in Berlin, not much."

"That's what I figured. Thanks." Sam didn't remember Peter at the final battle against Thanos.

"What's this about?"

"Nothing…at least not right now. Can I call you later?"

"Sure. Take care of yourself, Bucky, and thanks again for your help. Stay in touch, man. I mean it. Answer your damn texts from now on, got it?"

Bucky smiled, picturing the consternation on Sam's face. "I will, and you're welcome." He looked at Peter as he flipped the phone closed and slipped it into his pocket. "Could you hear that?"

"Yeah. People remember Spiderman."

"Has Doctor Strange been any help?"

Peter's brow furrowed. "Um, what do you mean? He doesn't remember who I am. The spell worked on him, too."

Bucky gave Peter an incredulous look. Surely the kid wasn't that clueless. "You haven't spoken to him since the spell?"

Peter shook his head. "No, he has no idea who I am. He'd think I was crazy."

"He knows he can cast those kinds of spells. If you talk to him and explain what happened, give him details you shouldn't know—like what happened at the battle, details about him, or about the layout of the Sanctorum, or whatever it's called—he'd have to consider the possibility that you're telling the truth."

"He can't reverse it without risking everyone from the other universes who knows me coming through into our universe."

Bucky sighed. He'd heard Peter Parker was a genius, but no matter how smart he might be in some ways, he was obviously still a kid who had a lot to learn.

"I'm not talking about reversing it, but there may be things he can do to help. At the very least, it might be nice to have someone else with resources know who you are and what happened."

"Oh."

The waiter came out with their food, and Bucky waited for the man to leave before continuing the conversation.

"How far is his place from here?" Bucky asked.

Peter piled three pieces of pizza on his plate and grabbed a wing, immediately biting into the chicken. "Well, not far for me," he muttered around a mouthful as he held a hand in the air and pretended to shoot a web, then swallowed. "Maybe half an hour by car, depending on traffic." He poured himself a glass of water. "Thanks for the pizza and wings, man. Really. You didn't have to."

Based on how voraciously Peter was devouring his food, Bucky thought it was a good thing he had. He grabbed a couple of slices for himself and bit into one.

"So, what have you been up to since the pardon?" Peter asked.

Bucky didn't feel like going into the amends list, therapy appointments, and Flag Smashers, so he simply shrugged. "Helping Sam here and there." He decided to steer the conversation elsewhere. "So, our deal was, I buy the food, you explain cryptocurrency to me."

"Right. Yeah." Peter took another couple of quick bites, swallowed, and rambled into a long conversation that left Bucky's head spinning.

Peter finally took a breath, shrugged, and said, "So that's it. Pretty basic."

Bucky studied him for a few moments to decide whether the kid was being glib, realized he wasn't, and said, "I still don't get it."

Peter sighed. "It's just digital currency. That's all."

"What's behind it?"

"It's valuable because of its scarcity."

Bucky shook his head. "It's not gold or silver. It's just…data in a computer, right?"

"Yes," Peter replied, nodding, "with a Blockchain ledger."

"Okay," Bucky gave a deep sigh. "Look, you can't use it everywhere, right? So, I don't see how it's all that valuable? For example, I can go into the local ice cream shop and slap down cash. I can't go into any ice cream shop and use coin or whatever to buy a scoop."

"Baskin-Robbins accepts coin," Peter said as he took another bite.

"So how do you get it?"

"Well you can mine it or buy it."

Mine it? He envisioned dirt-faced workers in mine shafts. "How do you mine it?"

"With a computer, using gobs of electricity. It's environmentally reckless."

Bucky decided he'd had enough tech talk to make his head spin for a week. "Whatever you say, kid." He watched as Peter devoured another slice of pizza and remembered the cart he'd seen the boy pushing in the store. "You never got your groceries."

"Oh, right." Peter shrugged. "I'll do it on my way home."

"You live around here?"

"Yeah, just two blocks down, an easy walk." He gave a self-conscious smile and glanced around, then lowered his voice. "Can't exactly carry grocery bags and do the web thing. I could get a large backpack, but I'm broke."

The visual of the kid swinging around Queens with a backpack full of groceries was almost laughable. "How old are you?"

Peter smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'll be eighteen in August."

Eighteen—a milestone year for any kid. Jesus, and you've got no one to spend it with, kid.

Bucky remembered his own 18th birthday. The drinking age in New York had been 18 at the time, and he'd tried to sneak beers the week before his birthday. His mother had been on to him every time.

Steve was the same age as Peter when he'd lost his mother. He turned eighteen on July 4, 1936. That had been a hard birthday, but at least Steve had Bucky and the rest of the Barnes family to ease the pain of his first birthday as an orphan. Peter had no one. He grieved his aunt alone and would turn 18 without a soul in the world to wish him a happy one.

That wasn't right. Bucky intended to have words with Dr. Strange, but first…

Bucky slapped a hand on the table. "In that case, dessert is on me. Consider it an early birthday present. You pick."

Surprise flickered over Peter's face. "It's okay. You don't have to—"

"Don't argue with your elders…your much, much elders."

Peter hesitated a moment, then nodded and grinned. "Thanks, sir…"

Bucky cocked his head and threw a glare at the kid.

"Uh, Bucky," Peter corrected quickly. "Thank you, Bucky."

"You're welcome."

Ten minutes later, the waiter brought out two skillet cookies with heaping scoops of ice cream.

When they finished, Bucky paid the check, left a generous tip, and grabbed his beer and plums. "Okay, so we better get moving."

Peter stood hastily, his face a mask of confusion. "Moving to where?"

"The grocery store, your place, then Doctor Strange."

"Oh." Peter shifted on his feet. "Uh, you don't have to go with me. I've taken too much of your time today. I can do this on my own."

The words rang familiar in his brain. 'Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own.'

Bucky dropped a hand on Peter's shoulder. "Time is something I've had my fill of, and it's obvious you can get by on your own, but you don't have to. You've got nothin' to prove there, so when someone offers to help, take it, kid. Trust me. It makes life a helluva lot easier."

Peter looked stun. The edges of his eyes turned pink, and he swallowed hard. "You want to help me after everything I did… I mean, Berlin? Your friends going to the Raft?"

"You helped save the universe. The rest is water under the bridge. Besides, Stark cared a lot about you. He'd want you to be okay, and, well, let's just say I feel like I owe it to him to make sure that you are."

"Howard…"

Maria Stark's voice still invaded his dreams sometimes, as did the look on her son's face when he watched the Winter Soldier murder his parents.

And then there was Steve's face, in the background—the shocked devastation. The horror of realization. Blue eyes locked on a screen that showed the monster Bucky had become.

"Hey, Sir…I mean, Bucky…Are you okay?"

Peter's voice pulled him out of the memory, and he managed a quick, hollow smile. "Yeah. Let's get going. We haven't got all day."

-0- -0- -0-

"This is me." Peter pushed open the door, then grabbed the bags he'd set down in favor of his keys and headed inside.

Bucky followed, four heavy plastic bags swinging from each hand, and set his load on the small kitchen counter as he looked around at the sparse apartment. Two modest boxes of belongings sat unpacked on the floor against the wall.

"How long have you been here?" Bucky asked.

"Just moved in yesterday."

"That's all your stuff?"

"Yeah. We moved into Happy's place after the media storm, and I brought some things with me there, but then the whole building became a crime scene."

"What about your aunt's apartment?"

Peter held back the sting of tears. After Dr. Strange's spell, he'd gone home to find the apartment already cleared out. The landlord wasted no time in getting it ready for new tenants after Aunt May's death.

"Rented. No one remembered I lived there."

"Where did you go?"

Peter didn't want to lie, but he didn't want to diminish the faith Bucky had in him. The man had paid for pizza and enough groceries to last at least two weeks. The last thing Peter wanted was to come off as a charity case.

So what if he'd slept on a few rooftops and a homeless shelter or two until he'd worked up enough money for one month's rent and a security deposit? He'd managed. The only reason he'd even been able to afford a place was because rents were cheap thanks to all the alien and multidimensional destruction that afflicted the city. People were moving to safer places.

"I had a few hangouts I'm used to," Peter told his new friend as he began putting the groceries away.

"Hangouts, right…" Bucky eyed him skeptically. "When I was on the run, I slept in interesting places."

"You had your memories wiped, right" Peter asked, the irony of that sinking in. Bucky hadn't remembered who he was when everyone else did. Whereas Peter knew who he was, but the rest of the world forgot.

Bucky nodded. "Yeah."

"What was it like?"

"Not remembering?"

"Being on your own, no help, no memories."

"My memories came back in flashes, mostly without context." Bucky explained, sitting on the end of the bed. "I was trained by Hydra, so I knew how to evade them." He looked out the window, his eyes distant. "Our situations are opposite. People forgetting about me would be a blessing."

The soft words stopped Peter, a box of macaroni in his hand as he turned to face the man. Nothing about having people forget your very existence was a blessing. Barnes didn't understand what it really meant to have everyone you ever cared about forget you. Peter was about to open his mouth with an angry retort, but the haunted look in the older man's blue eyes made Peter realize the crucial difference between their situations.

Peter had lost Aunt May and his parents, but MJ, Ned, and everyone else he cared about were still alive…and doing well. He could see them anytime, even if they didn't remember him. Bucky had already lost everyone—family, friends. The only thing he had left to lose if the world forgot about him was the Winter Soldier.

His anger faded at that realization.

"There have to be some people you wouldn't want to forget?" Peter prodded.

A hollow smile flashed across Bucky's lips. "Sam and the Wakandans, maybe. But a few months ago…" he shook his head. "Look, kid, this isn't about me." He stood up and started putting the remaining groceries away. "I know what it's like to lose everyone you ever cared about, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Let's get moving. We're burning daylight."

Peter put the milk in the fridge. "Yes, sir."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Just text me the address to the sorcerer's place. I'll meet you there. Wait for me since you'll no doubt get there first."

Peter could help with that. Swinging high above New York streets probably wouldn't even phase Bucky. "I could—"

"No."

"I've had passengers before…."

"No."

"Okay, I'll see you there."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This is a story I'm experimenting with a bit, so you might find it a little different than my usual stuff. That being said, like all my stories, it has its fair share of angst. Also, I've only watched Spiderman: NWH once, and of course, I have no ability to stream it to refresh my memory on things, so if you notice anything I've gotten wrong about the movie, feel free to let me know. I do tend to go back as time allows to make corrections.

As always, comments fuel my motivation and creative juices, so don't be shy. Let me know your thoughts and reactions. I have a thick skin and promise not to bite.