March, 1954

In which James has questions about his history.


"Daddy?" James asked, dropping his toothbrush into the cup by the sink.

"Yeah, buddy?" Steve replied, folding up James's damp towel and hanging it on the bar by the tub.

"How comes my middle name is Buchanan?" James asked, hopping down off of his stool.

"What?" Steve asked. That was an odd question to be asking at bedtime.

"Buchanan," James repeated. "Timmy Garrett says it's a weird name."

"Oh, he does, does he?" Steve asked.

"Uh huh," James confirmed. He held up his arms for Steve to pick him up, and Steve obliged. "And I've never met anyone else what has that name," he pointed out.

"It is kind of an unusual name," Steve agreed, moving down the hall toward James' room. He looked down at his son curiously. "Have I never told you why we named you that?"

"Uh uh," James replied.

"Oh. Well," he started, pausing as they reached the bed to heft James up into the air and let him drop back to the mattress with a bounce. James giggled and rolled around and wriggled his way under the covers. "I guess that's story time for tonight, then," he said.

"Okay," James agreed. He spent a couple of minutes adjusting his blanket, pillow, and stuffed goat, then looked up at Steve expectantly. "Ready."

Steve smiled and sat down on the side of the bed, looping an arm around the three-year-old and tucking him snugly up against his side. "Okay. You, James Buchanan Carter," he started, reaching down and tapping his nose. "Are named after your Uncle Bucky. His name was James Buchanan Barnes. We would call him Bucky for short."

James considered this. "Is that why you sometimes call me Little Buck?" he asked. "Cause our names is the same but I'm more little than him?"

Steve chuckled. "Yes. That is why."

"How comes I've never met him?" James wondered.

"Well," Steve said, sighing a little. "You've never met him because he's not around anymore." He sighed again. Steve loved his life here, and he felt happy and at peace and at home for the first time in a long time, but he missed his friend. He would see him again one day, he knew, but the seventy years between now and then were an awfully long time.

"Your Uncle Bucky," Steve said. "Was Daddy's best friend. Ever since we were really little. And you know, when I was little, the other kids used to pick on me."

"That's not very nice," James declared.

Steve smiled. "No, it wasn't. They used to pick on me a lot, and I would get sick a lot too, but Uncle Bucky would take care of me. He was always looking out for me, even after I got big enough to look out for myself. We used to do everything together, me and him. We played together and went on adventures." Sure, those adventures were sometimes things like trying to run fast enough to get away from Tommy Dooley and his gang, or riding back from the fair in the back of a freezer truck, but they were still pretty exciting.

"We went to school together, and after my mom died, Uncle Bucky and his family, they took care of me," he continued. "But then the war started. And we had to go different places to fight. And while we were in different places, he got caught by the Nazis."

James's little eyes widened in alarm. "Did he get hurt?" he asked worriedly.

"He did," Steve nodded. "They hurt him pretty bad. But that was the same time I met your mom. She was in the Army too, you know, doing secret special agent stuff."

"Like she is tonight?" A case had been keeping Peggy late at the office the past few nights, leaving Steve and James to bath time and bedtime on their own.

Steve smiled. "Like she is tonight," he agreed. "And so, me and her, we got together and made a plan."

"Was the plan to rescue Uncle Bucky?"

Steve laughed. "You're getting ahead of the story there, kiddo. But, yes, the plan was to rescue Uncle Bucky. So me and her and our friend Howard, we did it, and we saved him."

James grinned and clapped happily, and Steve chuckled at his enthusiasm.

"After he got better, we decided me and him should stay where we could keep an eye on each other," he continued.

"That's a good idea," James agreed.

"Thank you," Steve said. "So we made a special team, me and Uncle Bucky and your mom and some other guys, and we went out and fought the Nazis together. I was the Captain, and Uncle Bucky was the Sergeant. You know what that means?"

James shook his head.

"The Captain is the one in charge," Steve explained. "He makes the plans and makes sure everyone does what they're supposed to. The Sergeant takes care of everybody on the team and makes sure they're okay."

"I bet Uncle Bucky was really good at that," James said.

Steve smiled. "He sure was. He took good care of our team, and he took good care of me. We fought the Nazis and we helped a lot of people." He hugged James a little tighter. "There's lots of people out there who are okay right now because of something your Uncle Bucky did."

Steve sighed. "But then, right before the end of the war, we had one more mission. And it didn't go so good."

"Something happened to Uncle Bucky, huh?" James guessed.

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "We were on a train, way up high on a mountain, and he fell off."

James gasped in dismay.

"I lost him," Steve said sadly. And even though he knew that wasn't the end of the story, even though he knew that Bucky would be found and saved and whole again, it didn't make it hurt any less.

James stretched up and wrapped his little arms around Steve's neck. "I'm sorry, Daddy," he said softly.

Steve wrapped his arms around his son and hugged him tightly. "But you know what he did before he fell?" he asked.

James shook his head.

"He saved my life one more time," Steve said. "He had my back, just like he always did, and he saved me. And if he hadn't done that, I wouldn't be here now." He kissed the side of James's face. "I wouldn't be here with you."

James kissed him back, then Steve settled him back down into his covers again. "And so," Steve said. "Your middle name is Buchanan because that was Uncle Bucky's middle name, and you are named after the best man I ever knew. He was someone very important to me." He smiled down at James. "Just like you are. And if Timmy Garrett tells you it's a weird name, you tell him you were named after Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes," he said, tapping the end of James's nose. "Someone who was good and brave and kind. Someone who was a hero."

James smiled. "Okay," he agreed. "It's not so bad to have a kind of different name if it's a name from somebody like that."

Steve smiled, feeling warm tears prickling in his eyes. "No, it's not," he agreed.

"Can you tell me some other stories about Uncle Bucky?" James wondered.

"I sure can," Steve said. "I got a lot of good ones. But I'm not gonna tell them right now," he added. "Because it's time for this Little Buck…" He grinned and gave James a playful push that sent him flopping down onto his pillow, then pulled the blanket up, tucking it around his shoulders. "To go to sleep."

"Okay," James agreed with a smile. He made sure his little stuffed goat was tucked securely into the crook of his elbow, patting it gently on the head, then looked back up. "Hey, Daddy?" he asked.

"Mm-hmm?"

"Do you think…I mean, 'cause you gave me the same name as him and all—do you think that Uncle Bucky woulda liked me?"

"Oh, buddy," Steve said, smiling warmly and kissing him soundly on the cheek. "He would've loved you." James grinned and Steve smiled back, reaching down to brush his hair off his forehead. "And you know who else loves you?"

"You?" James guessed.

"Me," Steve agreed. "I love you forever and for always, James."

"I love you too, Daddy."