Hoppegarten, Germany

"Remind me again why we're doing this?" Lucy asked anxiously as they trudged through the Brandenburg streets. Steam billowed up from one of the manholes in the brisk February air, and cars bustled past each other down the narrow street.

"Because you deserve to get a bit of closure after all these years." Bucky replied for the fourth time, pulling his collar up a few inches. "Besides, you never know, what if you've been secretly super rich all these years?" He added jokingly which produced a smile from Lucy.

"Don't get your hopes up." She replied back from under her scarf, one eyebrow raised. "There's probably nothing left but cigarette butts and old newspapers."

"6105 Weiss Bergen Straẞe." Bucky read the rusty plaque on the wall of the dingy apartment building made of stone.

"That's an Eszett, you fickwit. It's Strasse as in double 'S' not a 'B'. It means street." Lucy corrected, rolling her eyes and punching him playfully in the arm.

Bucky snickered, "Well I like strabe better. It sounds like strawberry." Taking a dramatic pose with one foot up on the stairs he declared loudly in a terrible accent, "Gibt mir ein Strabe! Ja, I want a Strabe now!"

Lucy's face turned a deep shade of red and she whipped her head around quickly and saw that people were indeed tossing them questioning glances. "Shut up!" She said trying to hide her face in her coat. "For god's sake, I can't take you anywhere!"

Bucky just laughed. A woman walking near them picked up her small yipping lap dog as she passed by and glared at the two of them, her mouth pinched into a thin, judging, crease. "Do you have a Strabe, ma'am?" He asked, "You look like you could use a Strabe."

Lucy smacked him and the woman muttered to herself as she picked up her pace away from them. "You're terrible!" She breathed, her face still red with embarrassment.

"I'm sorry, I'll be good I promise." He answered back, still chuckling. "Just as soon as you give me a Strabe." He added quickly. Lucy simply shook her head at him. Both knew it wouldn't be the last time he tried to embarrass her in public.

Their footsteps echoed off the walls covered in faded wallpaper as they climbed the wooden staircase and proceeded to the creaking landing at the top. Bucky slid his finder across the banister, a clump forming in the layer of dust. "Doesn't appear anyone's been taking care of the place." He commented.

Lucy, however, was trying to ignore the lump of anxiety now re-forming in her throat. Her hand hovered in front of the door, hesitating to knock. Bucky slid his hand into her other hand and said reassuringly, "I'll be right by your side the whole time."

She took a deep breath and told herself to be confident. Three knocks echoed through the wooden door, and a few moments later it was opened by a smiling blonde haired man who looked to be in his late thirties. He adjusted his glasses quickly before eagerly welcoming them in. "Oh good, you made it, please do come in." He said motioning for them to enter the apartment. "Ah—um, ich heisse Peter." He said slowly in rough pronunciation. "Sorry, my German isn't very good yet, I don't know if I said that right or not." He apologized, slipping back into his normal American accent.

"Nein, das ist toll! Your Deutsch is just fine." Lucy said with a reassuring smile. She let her native accent flow heavier than normal, remembering the cover she had given him the day before. "This is Herman, and I'm Alisse, we spoke on the phone earlier." She added.

Peter nodded and clasped his hands together. "I have to say I was a bit surprised that anyone actually responded to the notice I put out, I wasn't expecting to get any calls. To say I was elated when you contacted me would be an understatement."

"I guess fate was looking out for us." She replied politely. Bucky glanced around the room as the pair conversed, taking in the surroundings. A lone armchair sat facing the window that overlooked the cityscape outside, and beside it an old record player. A bookshelf lined one of the walls, and a weathered desk the other. Everything seemed to have a place, as though the owner had taken great pride in keeping the place neat and tidy, however, the layer of dust enveloping everything implied the place had been left untouched for quite some time.

"So, I didn't get a chance to ask, how exactly did you know Mr. Vonnegut?" Peter asked curiously.

Lucy felt her heart jump at the mention of her father, but she kept her expression the same. "Fredrick was my, uh—"

"Great grand-father." Bucky interjected quickly, helping her out. She smiled at him gratefully.

"What about yourself?" She asked, turning back to Peter. "How did you come by owning his place?"

Peter led them towards the kitchen counter where a worn photo album was laid out. "It's a bit of an odd story actually, I still have a lot of unanswered questions myself, really. You see, my great aunt was Lillian Faris, who married your great grandfather, Fredrick." Peter paused a moment then added thoughtfully, "I suppose that makes us what, second cousins or something like that?"

Lucy smiled, briefly processing what he was saying. She was more preoccupied, however, by the faded photo staring back at her. Her mother's kind eyes gleamed while her father's smile beamed in happiness. A five year old Lucy was perched gleefully on his shoulders, clutching a stuffed rabbit in her arms. Her hair was pulled back, tied with the ribbon her mother had always insisted be present. Seeing her mother's face which had for so long been faded from her memory stirred up emotions Lucy hadn't felt in quite some time. Lucy vaguely remembered the day the picture had been taken, at a citywide parade not but a few blocks from where they were now all standing. A year before her mother had died, and one of the last times she had seen her father smile from genuine happiness.

"I never could figure out what happened to his daughter Lucy, the one in the photograph, your grandmother, I presume?" Peter said pointing to the place Lucy was already looking.

"She was a very private person." Lucy offered weakly, shrugging her shoulders.

Peter nodded, "I do find it curious, however, that when he died he didn't leave this place to any of his direct descendants, but whatever the reason, he left it to my grandfather, Joe. We didn't even know he had it for many years, as he never brought it up. When my parents finally confronted him about it he got quite angry and was adamant that we were never to go inside it or do anything with it.

"We asked him why he didn't just sell it and use the money, but he refused every time. Us all being in Detroit, it didn't bother us too much, none of us were going to be traveling to Germany frequently anytime soon, so we let the matter drop. He passed away last month, so the deed was passed onto my parents. Grandpop Joe never could give us a straight answer why were weren't allowed to come here, but we have a theory that it was because he was bitter about his sister's death, I think he still believed it was Fredrick's fault, even up to his passing."

Lucy thumbed through the album as he talked, amazed by all the distant relatives she was now realizing she had. "That's my mom and dad there." Peter said, pointing to a photo of a couple in their late sixties, the woman's head resting lovingly on the man's shoulder. "Fredrick had always kept to himself, and my dad had never even met the man when he was still alive, so it wasn't too difficult for them to make the decision to sell the place when Joe passed."

Across the room they heard a cellphone emitting its tune. "Oh, that must be our lawyer now. He's helping us with the selling process, he was supposed to call me to discuss pricing; I should really take it. You're more than welcome to look around as long as you like, it's as much your place as it is mine."

Lucy thanked him and Peter quickly answered his phone before stepping out into the hall. "Herman? Really?" Bucky asked as soon as the door clicked shut.

Lucy smiled and said with a laugh, "That's what you get when you can't decide on a name and I have to pick for you."

He shook his head, his arms folded across his chest. "Man, if I'd known you'd pick Herman I would've come up with something. Gunther or Lorenzo or Chimichanga or something!" His words made her chuckle as she tucked her hair behind her ear.

Lucy glanced over the room and let out a long sigh. "You alright?" Bucky asked, wrapping his arm around her waist.

"Yeah," she said unconvincingly, "it's just a lot to take in at once." She slid her hand into his and proceeded down the narrow hallway.

"This place looks like it hasn't been touched in years." Bucky commented, glancing around. Lucy opened a door up ahead and slowly entered in. "And I don't just mean the dust, I mean this place looks like it's straight out of 1945, it's incredible. It's like a museum."

"Like it hasn't been changed at all." Lucy said, forcing the words out. She felt as though all the air had been violently ripped from her lungs and she squeezed Bucky's hands a little tighter. Stepping into the room behind her, Bucky realized why. Sunlight filtered in through the crème curtains, illuminating the crumpled quilt tossed on the small bed in haste. Patchwork dolls lay strewn on the floor in one corner of the room and a child's artwork pages were hung around sporadically on the wallpapered walls.

While the rest of the house had been left in perfect order, this room had seemed to be forgotten. Its contents were hanging about as though the child who occupied it had been called away during playtime and would be bounding joyously back any minute, reading to finish their adventure.

"It's exactly the same." Lucy stated, a glossiness pooling up in her eyes. "He never even touched it." Bucky bent down to retrieve one of the dolls and brushed its twine hair from its face. He smiled at its crudely drawn face, its mouth in a wide grin. This was her life, this was Lucy's past, her childhood. His smile soon faded, however, easily being able to imagine how difficult this had to be for her. He thought back to when he and Steve had paid a visit to their old neighborhood in Brooklyn. He hadn't been able to get the surreal-ness of it out of his head for a week.

Feeling unsteady from the bombardment of memories and nostalgia, Lucy took a seat on the bed, Bucky sliding up next to her. He didn't know what to say, so he opted to simply put his arm around her and let the room rest in silence.

"How could he do it Buck?" She asked, choking through the tears clogging her throat. "I was just a kid, I trusted him." She paused a moment. "Do you know what he said, when he handed me over to HYDRA?" Bucky met her gaze, his heart constricting in his chest. "He told me that he was sorry. Sorry that he wasn't a better man. What kind of a cop-out is that? You don't get to dump your only daughter with a group of old Nazi freaks and then say 'sorry' and expect everything to be fine." Lucy held her head in her hand, trying not to lose it right there in her childhood bedroom.

"Look at me." Bucky said, tilting her chin up so she would face him. "He was an idiot, and I'll never forgive him for what he did to you. But you can't always let your past ruin your future. Your father is gone, HYDRA is dwindling, and with any luck will soon be gone altogether. The only one giving them power over your life is you. I'm not saying you should be thanking them for what they did, I'm not saying that in the slightest."

Lucy felt a hot tear spill over onto her cheek, but she didn't bother trying to hide it, not with Bucky. "What I am saying, is that you should focus less on how they did you wrong and revel in what went right, forget the rest. Hell, if you'd never been stuck with HYDRA, it's likely neither of us would even be here right now." He reached out his hand to gently brush away the tear from her cheek, his fingers lingering a moment on her skin. "I wouldn't trade that for anything."

"You've had to endure a lot of crap that a person was never meant to face. But you made it through and you came out on top." He said with a smile. "You're a hero and you can't even see it."

Lucy dropped her chin, her hair falling around her face. "I don't want to be a hero, Buck." She said softly. "I never wanted this. I just want the chance to have a normal life, to walk around with everyone else and feel like I belong. I'm not special Bucky, I'm nothing spectacular. People think because of what I can do and because of what I've made it through that I'm not afraid of anything." She paused, feeling her voice begin to quaver. "But I am, Buck. I'm afraid of a lot of things. Afraid that I'm not good enough, that I will let down the people I care about most. That I will lose them and be able to do nothing about it. Afraid that I can't be the person everyone expects and wants. Afraid that we won't be able to stop HYDRA. I never had the chance to grow into this body, this mind, this life. I'm still that anxiety filled eight year old who is both equally enamored with and terrified by the world, never knowing who or what to trust."

Bucky silently picked up Lucy's legs and pulled them over his knees before pulling her into his embrace. She didn't fight him and the fact that she didn't made his body relax. "You'll never have to figure it out alone. Not as long as I've got a say in the matter." He whispered softly into her hair that smelled faintly of apple. Someday, he hoped, she would see just how safe she was with him. "If you don't want to be a hero, then fine. We'll be damnedest, normal, non-heroic nobodies in the whole wide world. We'll eat kale and get a dog that we spoil way too much, and we'll spend our time doing whatever the hell it is people do for fun these days." He waited until a small smile slowly peeked its way out through the tears. "It's going to be alright, we're going to make it. Do you believe that?"

"Not really." She said with a sly grin. "But I believe that you do, and I'm sure you're going to convince me of it one day." She said, reiterating the very same words he had said to her the night he had broken the vase in his room.