Steve followed Bucky and the head woman back into the facility, trailing just a few feet behind Bucky. The girl had ended up snuggling into Bucky's arms, tucking her head on his shoulder. It would have been cute and had it been a different situation, Steve would have been smiling softly.
They had both heard the whimper coming from the young girl called Brianna but Bucky had beat him to catching her. Steve winced when he heard another quiet whimper coming from Brianna, even when Bucky was probably carrying her very gently. He wondered what had caused her leg to be permanently damaged; she was wearing loose sweat pants so they couldn't see what it was.
"Is there something that she takes for the pain?" Bucky asked quietly, a little anxiously.
Olivia glanced worriedly at them as she led them back to her office. "Yes, just a minute. I'll go get it. You can make yourselves comfortable in here. Try to keep her relaxed if you don't mind; if she gets more stressed, her leg gets worse."
Steve watched as Bucky went to sit down in one of the more comfortable looking chairs and went to sit in the one next to him. Brianna slumped but stayed in his lap, left leg out at an awkward angle. Steve could also see that she was holding onto Bucky's metal arm, like it was a lifeline or something. Her other hand was still holding onto the bear.
"It hurts."
Steve saw Bucky wince and they exchanged glances. Steve looked at Bria, studying.
"Brianna, do you know what caused your injury?"
Brianna stiffened then shook her head, voice a little muffled, "No. I think I was born with it."
"We could get Banner to look at it," Bucky murmured. Steve glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. Is she the one?
Bucky returned the look, nodding his head slightly. She's the one. The girl had shown no hesitation or fear whatsoever toward either Bucky or Steve. And more importantly, toward Bucky's metal arm. The other kids had a little fear in their eyes when they had looked Steve and then Bucky over but Brianna hadn't.
"Banner?" Brianna turned to look up at both of them, wincing a little. "Who's that?"
"He's-"
Steve glanced up at the door, watching Olivia walk in and quietly close the door.
"This is the only thing that helps," Olivia said, walking over to them and holding out a bottle of something.
Bucky reached out to take it from her with his flesh arm and glanced down at it. "This is the sort of lotion that people with scars have."
"Yes. She has a rather peculiar scar on her leg," Olivia replied. "And it's the only thing that can numb the pain. It does make her sleepy though."
"Brianna, do you mind if I put the stuff on for you?" Bucky asked then looked up at Olivia. "Assuming you don't mind."
Brianna turned to look up at Bucky then glanced at Cap then nodded, yawning a little. "Yeah..."
She pulled her arm away from Bucky's metal arm and reached down to pull up her pant leg up on her left foot. Brianna heard twin gasps come from the man whose lap she was sitting on and his partner.
"What kind of thing would leave that kind of mark or injury?" Cap asked.
"We don't know. She wouldn't tell us when we asked."
The minute that she felt the lotion being rubbed into her skin, she sighed in relief and relaxed entirely. Brianna knew what had caused the injury; it had been a combination of a cruciatus curse and some other curse that she hadn't heard the incantation. The scar it had left was unlike any scar anyone had ever seen: black and red raised skin forming a jagged line down her calf. She hadn't ever told anyone that she might be more than just a plain human girl so the people didn't know.
"Brianna, may I ask you a question?" Cap said.
"Already asked one," Brianna replied drowsily, blinking her eyes to keep them open. She was barely keeping from just swaying further into Bucky's lap and falling asleep.
Bucky snorted above her, massaging some more lotion into her leg before capping the lid onto the tube. Olivia chuckled a little.
"What Steve here means to ask is, would you like for us to be your parents?" Bucky asked quietly.
Brianna was just closing her eyes when she sat bolt upright, glancing between Bucky and Steve. "Really?"
"It wouldn't be easy," Steve said, staring at her with a small smile on his face. "I'm an Avenger."
"I know," Brianna said. "You think I wouldn't have picked out the- 'S fine."
She saw them both narrow their eyes at her cut off sentence. "I've had worse parents."
"Worse?" Steve asked, a hint of steel coming through. "Did they do this?"
Brianna watched as he gestured toward her leg and reached down to pull her pant leg back over it.
She glanced at Bucky who had tensed beneath her. "These parents have names and addresses?"
"Bucky! Not in front of the child!" Steve exclaimed, a little horrified. "Do they?"
Brianna giggled.
Both Steve and Bucky looked at her and smiled.
"I would like that," Brianna replied, grinning a little hesitantly then yawning as her day crept up onto her and the lotion did its' work.
"Good," Bucky remarked, glancing at her then at Olivia who was smiling at them. "Why don't I take care of the paperwork then?"
"Brianna, you want to move laps?" Steve asked shyly, opening his arms up. "Let Bucky up?"
Brianna nodded sleepily, rubbing her eyes with a small fist and moving across Bucky's lap into Steve's arms. She curled up against his chest and closed her eyes, promptly falling asleep.
"Olivia, how did Brianna come into your care?" Bucky asked, occasionally glancing at Steve and their new little girl. Steve was tentatively running a hand through her moderately short black hair, smiling softly at her.
Olivia sighed. "We honestly don't know where she came from. She just appeared on the front porch one day and she didn't have any parents or adults taking care of her. We tried to look up any information on her online but there was nothing."
"Did she have the scar on her forehead when she arrived?" Steve asked quietly, standing up with little Brianna in his arms and walking over to stand alongside Bucky.
"You noticed that too?" Bucky asked, glancing at Steve and narrowing his eyes a little.
Steve nodded and leaned back a little to move some of Bria's hair from her face. "Yes, it looks like a..."
"Lighting bolt?" Olivia interrupted, inclining her head at the both of them.
"Yeah," Bucky agreed, signing on the required lines. Stark had attempted to join them and would have probably insisted that he have Pepper do the paperwork but they had both wanted this to be something private that they did together. Though, all of the paperwork would get emailed to them and be filed in Jarvis' databanks to be looked over by Pepper and Tony's lawyers. Little Bria would have to get used to having four aunts and five uncles. "Has she ever said anything about that?"
"No, she hasn't," Olivia replied. "She hasn't said anything except..."
"Except what?" Steve asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I've figured out that her home before this probably wasn't that good," Olivia finished with a grimace.
"Nothing else?" Bucky asked, bringing his metal arm up to hover over Brianna's leg.
"No. Other than the three scars on her body, there was nothing else," Olivia remarked, typing in something on her computer.
"Three?" Steve repeated, glancing at Olivia with a confused frown. "We only saw two."
"She has one on her right arm," Olivia replied. "One that doesn't require any treatment though. As far as I know, it doesn't hurt her."
Bucky moved to gently unroll little Bria's sleeve on her right arm and stopped when the red shirt was at her shoulder. The third scar was faint but there, a jagged line of faded, raised pink.
"This has the look of a knife wound," Bucky commented, glancing up at Steve. "Or dagger."
"Knife wound?" Olivia repeated, raising her eyebrows. "Are you sure?"
Bucky nodded. "I know what knife wounds look like."
Olivia shuddered but otherwise didn't comment.
"You don't know anything about her previous home?" Steve asked quietly.
"No. However, she did have a mild British accent when she first came here," Olivia replied, taking the finished paperwork from Bucky.
"British, huh?"
Bucky exchanged a look with Steve then they both looked down at Brianna, who had fallen asleep in Steve's arms.