All previous disclaimers apply.
Author's Note: Have to admit, I'm kind of stuck on this one. So, here's 1500 words of a random scene. Thanks for your patience if you've been following along.
"Ah, Steven, please come in."
"Hey, Professor," Steve felt the smile spread across his face just to see the older man as he opened the door to Charles' office. Charles Xavier reminded him of Abraham Erskine in all of the best ways. The way everything they both seemed to do was for the greater good, the way they both smiled all the way up to their eyes when speaking of or to someone they held in fondness or esteem. Neither of them was particularly physically demonstrative. A handshake, a pat on the back. Anything more, unless it was from a young child, seemed to make them uncomfortable. It amused Steve to no end that Charles could welcome his and James' little girls into his arms with wide smiles and laughter, but had to clear his throat and had a look of panic in his eyes when Jubilee threw her arms around him. It was the same with Kurt and, when Steve had tried for a hug out of curiosity, Charles had skillfully turned the hug into a handshake without Steve even thinking about it until afterward. He was sure there was some kind of story behind it, but he didn't feel like he knew Charles quite well enough yet to ask. They had spent a good deal of time together in the evenings. Good, strong cups of English team, a board game of some kind, usually chess, and conversation. Charles was probably the best conversationalist he'd ever met in his life.
"Buck?" He was surprised to see his best friend in Charles' office, tense and agitated, pacing like Steve hadn't seen him do for months. He didn't have his weapons on him, probably because they made Charles so uncomfortable, but his hands were twitching to where they were normally located again and again and he wouldn't look at Steve, his eyes focused on another man standing at the fireplace hearth.
When the man turned Steve felt himself stiffen into a now unfamiliar fighting stance, and reach for the shield he no longer carried.
"Charles, what is this?" He asked, his voice tight.
"A chance to thank you," Erik Lehnsherr's voice was just as smooth, and charming as it had always been and it made Steve's skin crawl.
"Thank us?" Bucky growled, "Thank us for what?"
"Please, if everyone could just calm down?" Charles said calmly, "Steven, James…Erik is truly here under a white flag. He is not wearing his helmet, I can stop him with a thought at any time. This has nothing to do with our…differences…but more to do with a personal debt Erik feels he must discharge. I felt, with the guilt I've often read from you both, that it may do you some good."
"The fuck are you talking about?" Bucky sounded almost as feral as he'd been when he'd first come back to them.
"The camp your team liberated," Erik spoke again and telegraphed his movements as he made his way to a chair by the fire, "Just before you, good Sergeant Barnes, were lost on the train. Do you remember a young boy in the medical building?"
"I…" the question seemed to shock Bucky out of his rage and he stilled, "I…"
"So much of that time is still lost to him," Steve said quietly, moving over to Bucky and nudging him into a chair.
"I could help you remember if you'd like." Charles offered gently.
"No, I…" Bucky spoke as if he was tearing the words straight from his heart, "I cleared the building. There was almost no one in there. No one alive anyway. There were guards, suicides. There were poor, miserable bastards those sons of bitches had been experimenting on. And there was a boy in an office. Holding his mother's body. She'd been dead for a while, but he wouldn't let her go. It took a bit. But, I didn't want him to…I waited until he was ready, until he cried himself out and I…"
"You took that boy in your arms and held him," Erik finished, "You whispered to him in the language you both understood of the grace and love of God, despite all of the horrors that he'd seen. And you carried him out of the camp to the trucks you had waiting to take them all to the American camp where he would be fed well for the first time in months and, eventually, where he would be taken in by an Austrian boarding school. Where he would spend the next six years of his life. And even though he would grow to have a fundamental difference of opinion from yourself where it comes to the place of powered individuals in society he never forgot the kindness a young sergeant with a cocky smile showed him. He mourned that sergeant when he researched and eventually found in the history books that he'd died on a mission. He rejoiced when that same sergeant came miraculously back to life. Of course, he may have thought that he perhaps could have used the Winter Soldier for his own means."
The old man's eyes sparkled with dark humor and Steve was surprised to see Bucky's lips curl up in a small smile. When they'd realized, so many years ago, what Hitler had ordered against the Jewish people it had been hardest on Bucky. Of course, anti-Semitism was something that the Barnes family had dealt with in their own country, it was rampant at the time, but the attempted systematic destruction of their people…there had been many nights when Bucky had gotten himself blazingly drunk to try to make sense of it all. But, he couldn't. There was no way to make sense of something so evil. And maybe humor, even black humor was healing in a way that Steve just couldn't understand.
"Oh, I remember you too, Captain," Erik turned his merry eyes to Steve, "When Sergeant Barnes carried me out of the death camp you were waiting at the trucks, helping others on with The Wolverine. "
"He…" Steve sat up straighter.
"He may remember now," Charles said, putting a hand on Steve's arm, "Or he may not. He and Erik…there is so much bad blood between them that his mind may still be blocking the memory. His anger may not let him see Erik as a once innocent, traumatized boy."
Erik didn't try to correct him. Instead he just continued, "You put a blanket around my shoulders and a candy bars in my hands." Erik's gaze was steady and Steve could do nothing but look back, "I slept between the both of you on the ride to the base. You made me warm and you made me safe for the first time in months. I have never forgotten it."
He looked down at the numbers tattooed on his arm, faded with age.
"I…even when I didn't know what they meant I never forgot you either," Bucky said quietly. He pulled up his shirt and Steve's eyes went wide to see the same numbers on Erik's arms scarred into Bucky's, "Thinking about the numbers always made me feel something…like I was something more than just a lapdog for Hydra. They could never take them away from me. And when they ordered me to stop saying them I made sure they were scarred onto my skin."
Steve turned over the leather bracelet that he'd begun to wear since he came to the mansion, where he'd written the same numbers in black permanent ink.
"I never want to forget," He said quietly, "So that it never happens again. To anyone."
They spent another hour together, the four of them, sharing tea. Bucky and Erik spoke quietly, more about their faith and the struggles they'd both had with it as they tried to reconcile what happened to them in their lives with the G-d they knew through the words and the lessons. Steve happily let himself get trounced by Charles in a game of chess, but he'd lasted a lot longer than he had before so he was satisfied with his progress. When he walked Bucky out he'd held his friend for a long time and neither of them mentioned the tears that fell from both their eyes. To know that the young boy who had affected them both so much was still alive. Even if he'd become someone that neither of them was entirely certain about, it gave them hope that maybe, just maybe, the sacrifices they'd made were worth it. Who knew what some of the others they'd saved had done? Or their children? Or their grandchildren?
"Maybe we need to look up…" He started.
"Yeah," Bucky agreed, then pushed him away, wiping away his tears. He gave Steve the same shit-eating grin he'd given him all of their lives, "So…was thinking…you and James…you bring my nieces to me at the tower next weekend? They can hang out and you guys can have some private time? They've been there with you enough that it won't be a shock to them. And they love their Uncle Bucky."
"Yeah, they do." He agreed.
When he went back upstairs he looked in on his girls, who had just recently moved into a room of their own. Eowyn was curled up on her side, her arms wrapped around the Ironman plushie that Tony had sent that had, of course, become her favorite thing. Arwen was on the floor next to her bed. They'd been having a hard time getting her to sleep on it, but they didn't want to force it. At least this time she'd brought a pillow with her. He grabbed the blanket that Wanda had knit for her and laid it over her thin little shoulders before running his hand through her hear. He loved them both so much.
Surprisingly, James was already asleep when he slipped into their bed. So, he got himself ready and slid into bed, wrapping himself around his husband with a contented sigh. James moved back into his embrace. Despite how contented he felt, it took him a long time to fall asleep.