A/N: This is for the Stucky Big Bang 2019. I actually started this story a year ago but joined in the big bang to kind of push me to finish it, and I did. Now, I'm not gonna lie. There are some deep themes here. Past child abuse, past self-harm, past domestic violence, past alcoholism. I will warn for every one of them when they pop up.
Life just wasn't fair.
Bucky knew that better than anyone. He knew the world didn't care about what was fair and what was not; he even knew that evil won sometimes. To be frank, if he was being honest with himself, it actually happened more often than not.
He knew that he was all kinds of fucked up. He knew things didn't make sense to him the way it did other people. He was the odd man out, the outsider. The only thing that was any kind of good in his world was his baby sister.
He'd been taking care of her since he was twenty-four - almost five years after being released from foster care. He managed to get a job and procure a place to live so he could take care of Becca.
He still had a hard time coping sometimes; foster care was the system that was put in place and designed to take care of kids like them. But it was the very thing that failed not only him, but his sister as well.
He wasn't sure if he felt secure in himself; he wasn't sure if he would ever feel secure in who he was. But there was just a time in Bucky's life when he realized he had to step up and do what needed to be done.
That's how he was able to become Becca's guardian. He had a rather tough adolescence; bouncing in and out of different foster homes from the age of fourteen until he was released out of the state's custody when he was eighteen.
Somewhere along the line the state had gotten ahold of him and forced him to enter a court-ordered karate class, because, as they stated, you have way too much anger bottled up and are like a ticking time-bomb.
It had been a two-part class; one part with the actual training, and the other part, a bunch of meditation and talking about triggers and how to avoid them. The only good thing that had come out of that class was that he discovered how much he loved fighting and tournaments. It was a good outlet for all the anger he carried around.
He'd practiced karate for few years and then drifted over into mixed martial arts. That's when he met Natasha and Clint, his two best friends, his support system, and they knew him better than anybody, and that was a tough thing to say. The relationship he formed with them was one of the best and most important relationships of his life.
Bucky was a boxer for a while after he'd been released from foster care. It was something he'd both loved and lived for; the feel and smell of the gym, a way to keep his anger in check, and when he was in the ring with someone, nothing else mattered. Fighting was a coping mechanism he liked to use; he'd been using it for years. Whenever Bucky was in the ring with someone, he didn't have to think about anything except for whatever was happening in that moment. That's actually how he met Dugan.
Timothy Dugan had been the son of Bucky's trainer when he was seventeen and just starting out. His father was an amazing trainer and he had his own gym where Bucky liked to go, because it was only about four blocks away from the foster home he'd resided at, and it felt, for lack of a better word, homey. It was a small place, right on the corner in-between a convenience store and a 24-hour diner. It was a place where everyone knew everyone else. From the very moment that Bucky walked into that gym, he had felt a sense of belonging and camaraderie that he'd never encountered before or since.
After the accident that stole Bucky's ability to fight, Dugan contacted him. He'd had moved on to different trainers at that point, but Dugan had tracked him down anyway. His father had died, and he had inherited the gym and needed a partner. Dum Dum had palled around with Bucky many times over the years, and while he'd always known how well Bucky could fight, he also had a sense that he'd be able to train as well. He invited him on for a probationary period, just to see Bucky work hands-on with someone, and then Bucky ended up putting in capital, so he co-owned the gym.
Bucky adored his job at the gym, training fighters, and now, at twenty-six, he loved the fact that he didn't have to answer to anyone else. Becca was sixteen now, old enough to take care of herself when she needed to, but she was more than welcome down at the gym. And not only was Dum Dum a good friend of Bucky's, Becca looked at him like another brother.
Because Bucky had been a fighter in his youth, he had a prideful feeling knowing his sister had also taken up fighting, even if it had started as a way for her to blow off steam. She did it when she was upset about something, mostly, but Bucky was the one who trained her, and she spent most of her time fighting with either Dugan, Natasha, or Clint.
Even though his circle pretty much revolved around Dugan, Natasha, Clint, and a handful of friends, mostly his employees, there was one person Bucky missed. It didn't matter how good his life was or how many friends he had; he would always regret losing contact with Steve.
Bucky had met Steve Rogers back when he was a sophomore in high school, when Steve was just a scrawny little thing who had something against the world and felt like he had something to prove. And then, when he hit eighteen, he had a growth spurt to end all others. He was probably Bucky's best friend in the entire world - except for Clint and Natasha - and, after getting his growth spurt, he would come down to the gym and he and Bucky would train together.
But Steve had a really bad habit - he hated bullies. And sure, hating bullies wasn't exactly a bad thing, but even when he was just skin and bones, he had an Irish temper and the courage of a lion, but not the body to match. Bucky had spent the next few years getting Steve out of trouble when he inevitably got himself into it.
Steve and Bucky were split up once Steve turned eighteen, because he had decided he wanted to enlist in the Army. Steve felt a duty to fight for the United States, just as his father before him. He was shipped to an Army base on the other side of the world, and while they kept in touch with each other the first year or so, life ended up getting in the way and they lost contact with one another.
Bucky had spent the years after regretting he had let go so easily, but he didn't know how to fix it.
Out of the friends he had now, Bucky's friendship with Natasha was the one he valued the most. He loved her so much, but in a familial way. They had tried dating many years ago, but found they were much better friends than lovers - that had been just plain weird. Now, Natasha was pretty much like another sister, and wasn't afraid of telling him when she thought he was being a jackass.
Bucky fondly referred to her as the sister he never wanted.
And most of the time, he understood what Natasha was telling him and why she was saying it. While Natasha had gone through her own trials and tribulations, she didn't have a background in all the horrors that Bucky went through foster care, but she knew a lot of people. It also helped that she worked at a teen depression hotline in college and was damn good at it. Even now, she had a newly procured PhD in psychology and wanted to do something in that field because she wanted to help people. That's what was important to her - even if she did try to shrink Bucky more times than he'd like.