Chapter 12: Out of the Blue

If he had any plans of staying in bed past sunrise, Alpine disabuses him of them immediately. He opens bleary eyes to the sight of her staring down at him, her paws pressing uncomfortably on his throat.

"Are you threatening me?" he croaks.

She meows.

Thus he's awake and feeding her—he'd thankfully picked the right food—before seven in the morning. Crouched next to her food bowl while she crunches away, he goes over the plan he set last night. Sure, he hadn't planned on this early of a start, but starting early won't hurt.

Leaving Alpine to her work, he brushes his teeth, showers, and then spends a while cleaning his arm. It's been a while since he properly polished it and the metal is starting to dull. By the time that's done, his stomach is growling and Alpine has curled up on his drum stool where a stray beam of sunlight filters perfectly through the rest of the kit.

Breakfast is quick and filling; he's not going to let hunger distract him on his next errand. From his closet he pulls out clothes he cleaned and—in the case of the things that were already clean and just wrinkled—ironed yesterday: a full suit and tie. It wasn't often Hydra's members had to dress up out of costume, but when they did, they did it right. Impressions matter.

Suited up, he goes over to Alpine. "Wanna come with?"

She mrrps when he scratches under her chin but seems content to stay where she is. At least, she pretends to be until he's grabbing his keys and going for the door, at which point she hustles over to him and starts bonking her body against his shins.

"Okay, okay, got it."

He gets the harness and leash he purchased yesterday. He'd spent some time letting Alpine investigate them and left them out all night, and he's hoping she'll be as relaxed with them as she's been with everything else.

Fortunately, she is, and after some initial complaining and flopping over with the harness, she figures out that she can still walk in it. Bucky deposits her on his shoulder, winds the excess leash loosely around his wrist, and heads out.

It's a nice day, nicer than the day before. Just barely warm enough that Bucky isn't cold in his formal clothes and partly cloudy so there's intermittent relief from the glaring sun. He sets off at an easy pace once the subway's gotten him close enough to make the walk reasonable, and within a block on the sidewalk he's realizing that he's attracting a lot of attention.

For a second, fear clenches his stomach. But only for a second. People aren't looking at him, they're looking at Alpine, who's still sunning herself on his shoulder, slowly depositing a layer of long white hairs on his jacket.

"Aw," says a group of teenage girls passing by.

"That is adorable," says an old woman.

"I like your style," says a guy a little younger than Bucky.

He gets a lot more comments, and twice, people ask if they can pet her. Alpine seems to be okay with it so long as Bucky is, so he lets that happen. All of that serves to slow him down so that he reaches his destination about when he'd planned to before Alpine's early alarm moved up his morning.

"Still feeling okay?" he asks Alpine. She doesn't answer, but when he turns his head he gets a wet and cold nose to his chin. "Oof, okay, you're cold."

It takes some doing, but he manages to get her situated inside his suit jacket. The cat hairs will be hell to get out later, but he'll burn that bridge when he gets to it. Situated, he walks into the cemetery and starts his search.

After ten minutes, Alpine is apparently warm enough and bored enough that she wants out, so she trots along next to him on the gravel path while he searches for the right headstone. He's pretty sure he remembers where the headstone was, but the years since he visited have done a number on his memory.

Finally, he finds it, tucked in the middle of a row: Joseph Rogers. And next to him, paying off his hunch, is Sarah Rogers.

Steve's parents.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Doubt, kept at bay by the clarity of having this plan, claws its way to the forefront of his mind now that he's reached his destination. What can he say? Does he even deserve to say anything? How can he stand in front of either of them and ask forgiveness when he—

Alpine darts forward to tackle a scarlet leaf caught in the breeze. She proceeds to tear it to shreds and then target another, and another, and before he knows it, Bucky's got a small smile on his face watching her play by those headstones. The doubt's receded.

He unwinds more of the leash from his wrist to give Alpine more room to menace the autumn leaves. Then he draws in one more breath to steel himself.

"Hi," he tells the headstones, the people resting under them, and particularly Sarah because neither he nor Steve ever knew Joseph. "It's been a while." He glances at Joseph. "I used to come here with Steve when we were kids. I don't know if you remember." He licks his lips and then crouches down, ignoring the way his knees audibly crack. "Mrs. Rogers, you remember that music program? Well, some things happened while I was doing it, and I did something really stupid. Really cruel. When you passed, I wasn't there for your son, and I should've been. I'm sorry."

A young couple passes by a few rows ahead, stopping at a grave of their own almost at the end of that row. The breeze carries their voices but not their words; Bucky lowers his own just in case there's anyone behind him who doesn't want to hear his rambling when they came for their own loved ones.

And rambling it is: his plan only went as far as getting here and apologizing. He has no list of things he wants to say. He describes the music program's early days and his accident in vague terms, then goes a little more into learning how to use his arm and thinking, thinking that—

"I wasn't whole, anymore," he admits, eyes prickling with tears. Alpine, cold once more, is nestled in his jacket is purring in a way that seems to bounce around his chest and shake loose all the grief that built up over the years like so much dust. "I wasn't the guy Steve knew. I couldn't be everything he thought I was anymore, I—I couldn't face that. I couldn't face him. I was afraid."

Alpine turns over in his coat and he spares a second to scratch under her chin. She rewards him by kneading his stomach, meaning he gets ten dull claws pressing against his skin. He's very thankful the vet offered to cut them yesterday.

"I'm still afraid," he admits. "I'm terrified. I don't even know if Steve's gonna give me another chance. He's got every right not to. But I…I gotta try, right? That's what you'd want? I know you never wanted him to be alone."

Another breeze rustles the graveyard and Bucky shivers when it pierces right through his jacket.

"Yeah, he shouldn't be alone. I mean, he's got friends. He's probably told you about them. They're nice. They stick up for him. He's a lucky guy. It's not like," Bucky gets a lump in his throat that takes a second to swallow down, "it's not like he needs me. But I—I'd really like to have him back in my life, if I can. I missed him. I missed him more than anything."

His voice breaks under the weight of a realization that refused to crystallize until just now. He missed Steve. He's still missing Steve.

He pulls himself together and manages a slightly less rambling goodbye, then makes his exit with a sleeping Alpine bundled in his arms. He's not stopped as many times on the way home with her so obviously conked out, but there are still plenty of people stealing glances and, in several cases, cooing. Bucky supposes it's a decent thing to pay attention to on a subway: a man dressed to the nines with a cat slowly covering his black suit in white.

As good as it feels to get that conversation with Sarah and Joseph off his chest, though, there's still a lot of work left to do. He exchanges his formal wear for more comfortable sweats once he's home, gives Alpine a treat for her help, and then settles on his couch. Instagram, Snapchat, even Facebook—he dropped them all when he joined the music program. He didn't want to see the life he'd left behind, and after the accident, he didn't want reminders of all the things he'd never be able to participate in again.

Now, he redownloads them all, plus several of the messaging apps he'd been using while international. There's no point trying to remember his passwords; they're long gone. He still has access to the email he used to create them, though, so a few rounds of account recovery later and he's back in his old accounts.

The next few hours pass in a blur of catching up on social media, messages, and anything else he can find. Anything from before his accident was lost with his old phone, but he can dig up just about everything else. The longer he spends trawling the past, the more obvious it becomes just how deeply he screwed up. Steve would've been well within his rights to sock Bucky on the jaw during their first meeting.

Alongside the guilt comes the burning need to make it right. A new plan takes shape, one that begins with three long overdue phone calls. It takes some digging to find the numbers, but find them he does.

He selects the first contact, puts his phone to his hear, and waits.

When Louisa picks up on the second ring, Bucky experiences the heady rush of simultaneous relief and spiking anxiety. He's starting with the youngest of the Barnes clan, the last to arrive of the four siblings. When he last saw Louisa, she was seven years old and crying on the sidewalk as his taxi pull away. Now she's nineteen.

He's barely started sounding out the word hey when she starts talking.

"Look, I gave you my number last night because you asked in front of all your friends, but I'm not interested. Maybe lose the number, okay?"

"Louisa, wait, wait! It's Bucky, your brother. It's Bucky, okay? Don't hang up." Please, he adds silently, please don't hang up.

God, if she thinks he's some loser who pressured her into giving up her phone number at a party, she'll block him and this will get way harder. The universe has to be fucking with him, to have that scenario overlap like this.

She's…not hanging up. Or speaking.

"Louisa?" he tries.

"Bucky?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me."

"Prove it."

"Uh…You used to demand that I carry you up the stairs when it was bedtime because 'princesses don't climb stairs.'"

A surprised laugh carries across the line. "Oh my god, it really is you. What are—why are—why?"

"I'm back in the States and I figured I was overdue for some family time."

"Overdue. You were gone for, for—I was seven when you left, you asshole! And now you just call out of the blue on some random day? Jesus, I'm not—you can't just drop that on someone. Fuck!"

He can't help his laughter. "Yeah, I don't remember you talking like that before."

"Seven. Se-ven." She drags in a breath he can hear through the phone. "So you're back. Really back?"

"Really back. I'm in New York—Brooklyn."

"Are you living with Mom and Dad?"

"Nah, got my own place. What about you?"

"I'm living in the dorms at Tufts."

"Tufts?"

"University, by Boston."

He perks up, recalling the name from some of her posts. "How do you like it there?"

"It's alright, took some adjusting to get used to. It's kinda nice to have people around again. The house was getting empty."

He lets the pointed comment pass without remark and instead focuses on more questions about her school and life in general. Social media is all well and good, but it's only by talking to her that he feels like he's truly reconnecting with his sister and not some adult stranger with her name. The way she talks—minus the cussing—is the same, especially her dramatic sighs whenever he pretends to be oblivious to whatever point she's trying to make.

They can't talk forever, though, and soon enough he can sense she's looking to end the conversation.

"I gotta go," he says before she feels pressured to come up with some lame excuse, "but I hope you don't mind if I keep texting and calling."

"I don't."

"Glad to hear it. Are you planning to come up for Thanksgiving?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't miss Mom's cooking for the world."

"I'll see you in November, then."

"You'd better have some serious gifts to make up for a decade of missed birthdays."

He chuckles. "We'll see. And Louisa? Thanks for not hanging up."

"You're welcome. Bye, Bucky."

"Bye."

The silence in his apartment is deafening. Setting his phone aside, he brings his hands to his face and just breathes for a minute until his heart stops racing. On the other side he finds not calm but giddiness, a surge of fist-pumping glee in the wake of all that fear being unfounded. She answered, she talked to him, she wants to see him again.

But he can't get ahead of himself. She's not the only one he let down.

So, with a straightening of his shoulders, he makes his next call.

"Who's this?"

Charlie's voice is so deep. That's the first thought that strikes Bucky. Of course it's deep compared to Bucky's memories; he's remembering an eight-year-old boy yelling after him to send him a cool Russian souvenir in the mail, after all, and not a twenty-year-old man answering a call from an unknown number.

"Charlie, right?"

"Who's asking?"

"Bucky."

"Is this a joke? Did Louisa put you up to this?"

A pang goes through Bucky's chest. "No, not a joke. Ask me whatever you want. Just—don't ask for a souvenir, I…I forgot."

"Souve—right, I wanted one. 'Cause you were going to Russia. And I was eight. Why are you calling, again?"

Even though he expected the hostility and it's entirely deserved, it still hurts. "I'm back in Brooklyn now and wanted to catch up."

"Cool, you wanna get caught up on the last twelve years of my life? I'm touched. Really. You always knew how to make a guy feel special. Go fuck yourself."

He hangs up, leaving Bucky reeling. Bucky almost taps his contact again but stops himself. Why would he expect another call to go differently? Instead, he spends several minutes typing out a text explaining where he is, that he's sorry for disappearing and it won't happen again, and he's hoping they can reconnect.

The text goes through. Charlie's typing bubble appears and then disappears several times over the next couple of minutes before it goes away and doesn't return. Bucky breathes out and bows his head.

"I can't blame him," he tells Alpine, who's come to investigate his distress by going up on her hind legs, putting her paws on his knee, and tickling her whiskers and cold nose against his face. Smiling, he scratches under her chin for a moment. She takes that as reason enough to hop up onto the couch and onto his lap. After a couple dangerous paw placements near his groin, she curls up into a ball and starts to purr.

"Got tired of playing with my drumsticks?" he asks. She's made a game of hiding his drumsticks under the couch, meaning he's constantly fishing them out. He can't bring himself to be mad at her for it.

Once he's got his third and final call ringing, he transfers his phone to his left hand so he can pet her with his right.

The dial tone stops. "Hello?"

"Hey, is this Becca?"

"Who is this?"

"It's Bucky."

"Look, I get that Louisa gets off on messing with me and Charlie, but that doesn't mean you get a free pass for going along with this."

When did Louisa become a troublemaker? Bucky makes a mental note to get more details from Louisa on exactly how she's been 'messing with' her siblings using Bucky's name and then shelves that task for later. "No, it's—it's really me, Becca, promise. Ask me anything."

There's a long pause that has him so anxious he stops petting Alpine, a mistake for which she rewards him with a clawed paw to the back of the hand as she tries to drag his hand back to her head.

"Why'd you disappear?"

Oh. Like Alpine, she went straight for the throat. "I was scared."

"Shit, it's really you, isn't it? God. Bucky."

"Yeah."

He can hear her shaky breaths through the phone. "Give me a second, I'm—no, I'm fine, just an unexpected call. Can you finish preparing the pot roast? Yeah, it's all on the counter, I left the recipe by the fridge. I don't know how long this'll take, but just toss it in the oven if I'm not back. Yeah, that'll be fine. You're the best." She must be talking to her roommate. Sophia, if Bucky remembers the last Instagram post she was tagged in correctly. There's another brief interlude as Becca relocates to somewhere more private than a kitchen, at which point she asks, "Why now?"

"I don't have a good reason."

She laughs. "You think I'm expecting a good reason? You ghosted your entire family. There are no good reasons. Just the truth. And you'd better give me the truth or I'm hanging up."

"I was the Winter Soldier."

Deafening silence greets that confession, which he takes as indicating she knows what that means.

"Before that," he continues, his voice refusing to steady, "when I was sixteen, I was in a car accident that took my arm and nearly took my life. I was so scared, Becca. So goddamn scared."

"Mom and Dad would've come. I would've—"

"I know. You would've found a shell of me. We both know we didn't have the money for that kind of travel, either. I couldn't—I couldn't ask them to do that. By the time I had money, it…I felt like it was too late."

"So you ghosted us for a decade to become a rockstar."

"I'm sorry."

Alpine meows plaintively; he's stopped petting her again. He swaps his phone to his right hand and lets her play with his left since she finds the metal limb oddly fascinating. He chalks it up to her being able to see her warped reflection in its panels and the way he can move it like a toy without fear of getting clawed. Watching her, he can almost forget how long it's been since Becca spoke.

"Was it worth it?"

"No," he whispers. "God no." He learned a lot, made stupid amounts of money, but he was never happy. His best days with Hydra pale in comparison to the handful of good days with Steve he had after coming back to Brooklyn.

It's paltry reassurance that Becca's voice is shaking as much as his. "None of that explains why now."

"You saw the news. I quit the band."

"Yeah, I saw. That was months ago. So why now? Why come back to Brooklyn? Why reach out at all?"

"I had some things to sort out."

"Wow. Things."

"I was still scared, okay? God, Becca, I'm terrified right now. I ran into Steve and I—I said something really stupid." She waits and he realizes she's gonna make him say it. He watches Alpine's claws slip off his left index finger while she tries to get a grip with her paws. "I never read any of the texts or letters. I wasn't on social media." He bites his lip. Say it, asshole. "I asked about his mom."

Rebecca sucks in a breath.

"Yeah. It didn't go well. Hearing she passed—I realized how stupid I'd been. I couldn't keep running away. Before you, I called Louisa, and I called Charlie, and now I'm calling you."

"How'd that go?"

"Louisa probably won't slap me at Thanksgiving. Charlie wants nothing to do with me."

"What did he say?"

"He told me to fuck off and hung up."

"That sounds like him. He…He went through a lot in middle school, more in high school. He's doing better now, especially now that he's out at BU. I'm pretty sure Mom was relieved he and Louisa wouldn't be completely alone in Massachusetts. Can you believe she tried to convince me to move there instead of California?"

"Absolutely. Good job holding firm."

"You know me: stubborn to the bone."

"Steve's a bad influence."

"Like you were any better." She sighs. "I can't make any promises. Think about it: he's spent most of his life getting compared to his big brother who did everything right. Then you went and left, so you weren't a person anymore, you were just a, just a grade he could never measure up to."

"I never wanted that to happen."

"And Mom and Dad and everyone else didn't either. Doesn't change that you left and it did. But I'll still talk to him."

"I really appreciate that. I'll understand if he says doesn't want to hear anything from me."

"Believe me, he might say exactly that. Are you gonna visit Mom and Dad? Before Thanksgiving, I mean."

"Yeah, that's next on my list. Listen, can you—can you not tell them I'm coming?"

"You're doing it today?"

"Yeah."

"Then I guess I can hold off. But if you don't go see them today, I'll never let you live it down, understand? I'll make sure Louisa and Charlie and I make your Thanksgiving absolute hell."

He can practically see her aiming the finger gun at him, eyes narrowed in promise. "I'm gonna see them, I promise. No threats required."

"Good." She hesitates a moment, probably biting her lip in that way she always does when she's thinking something over. "I really missed you, Bucky. Don't ever disappear on us like that again."

"I won't. I'll call every week."

"You better. Tell Mom and Dad I said hi."

"I will. One more thing—the Winter Soldier stuff."

"Keep it secret?"

"Please."

"Like you never said a word."

God, he loves her. "Bye, Becca."

"Bye, Bucky."

He hangs up and lowers his phone into his lap, heart simultaneously racing and so full it feels like it might burst. His hand is shaking. Alpine promptly attacks his phone for daring to brush against her stomach.

Since she's riled up after so long resting and getting petted, Bucky works off his anxiety by playing with her until she's exhausted. At that point, he changes into nicer clothes, stops in the bathroom to clean up, and heads one more time for the door.

He's got a promise to keep.

There's an old saying that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Bucky's not sure if he's managed to be an exception yet because he's gotten through almost all of his plan without a major hitch. Charlie's a setback, for sure, and the day's not over yet. Still, he can't help hoping for the best. Praying for it, really.

"No, if he's not in, I'll call back later. Thanks for checking. Yeah. Have a good one. Bye."

He hangs up and breathes out. That call to his dad's office confirmed that he's working from home this afternoon. Judging by his mom's Facebook post about crocheting a scarf from about twenty minutes ago, she's also at home.

And Bucky? Well, Bucky's right outside their door. What was once his door, a long time ago. It looks the same, though they got the doorbell button replaced at some point since he left. And maybe the trees in the tiny bit of grass between the building and sidewalk are bigger than he remembers. Otherwise, it looks the same.

It looks the same.

He's built up a sweat from the walk over so he unzips his jacket before raising his hand to the doorbell. He hesitates one last time. A thousand ghosts of his younger self, oblivious to his hesitation, hop up the stairs. Some are calling out to Rebecca, or Charlie, or Louisa, or Steve. Several smack into the door because they're not looking. Not a single one of them gives second thought to shoving the door open or—if that fails—fumbling the key from their pockets. Echoes of his own voice fill his ears:

"I'm home!"

Some days Mom answered, some days Dad, some days no one. But every single time he crossed that threshold, he was able to relax, because he was home.

Bucky breaks from the ghosts and pushes the button for the doorbell. A muffled ding-dong sounds from inside.

He shifts his weight and stifles the urge to glance around like he's going to get caught doing something wrong. His left arm is helpfully shifting its plates around as though to remind him of the nerves he's trying desperately to ignore lest they send him fleeing down the street from this thing he has to do. If Alpine were here, he could use her as a distraction. But she's back in his apartment, tucked safely away because, really, he shouldn't hide behind her for this. Besides, there's always the chance she reacts badly to strangers no matter how well she's handled it so far.

When he hears footsteps approaching the door, his mouth goes dry. The latch clicks, the old handle protests, and then the hinges groan at being forced to swing.

And there on the other side stands his mom, looking at him in polite confusion.

She doesn't recognize me, he thinks with a touch of hysteria. Makes sense; he's got his hair down and he's got twelve years on the kid she remembers. It still hurts a little.

"Hi, mom," he says to jog her memory. That polite confusion melts into shock and then something far more vulnerable.

"Oh, my god. Bucky?"

She gives him no time to respond; all but throwing herself at him, she wraps her arms around him and squeezes so hard he has to gasp for air. Her head barely reaches his shoulders now, he realizes distantly. Old reflexes have him returning the hug. A dull pain radiates from his back where her fingers are digging in, and oh, she's crying.

"Hey, it's okay," he says, a little helplessly. "I'm here. I'm right here, Ma."

She's shaking in his arms and he's losing the fight against the waterworks threatening to escape his eyes. His platitudes come out shaky with the effort of speaking around the lump in his throat.

She's so much smaller than he remembers. There's so much more gray in her hair. It's—

"Bucky?"

He lifts his eyes over his mom to see his dad stopped dead in the front hall. He must've been coming to see what was keeping her at the door; he's still got a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He hadn't needed those when Bucky left.

"Dad."

He crosses the distance between them in just a few swift strides and folds both Bucky and his mom in a crushing hug.

"I knew it," his mom says through sniffles. "I told you. I told you he'd come."

"You were right. You were right."

Bucky's losing fight becomes a lost one. Tears streak down his cheeks and he ducks his head against his dad's chest, knowing they can both feel him shaking and not able to do anything about it. He's twenty-six and crying and sorry; he's fourteen and scared and craning his neck to catch one last glimpse of his family through the taxi's back window; he's twelve and getting lectured on not starting fights while holding a towel to Steve's bleeding nose; he's nine and tapping on their door and confessing to a nightmare; he's six and looking in wonder at the presents piled under the tree behind them.

"I'm sorry," he manages. "I'm so, so sorry. I never should've gone. Never should've left. I'm so sorry."

"No, no," murmurs his dad.

"You're back," his mom adds. "That's all that matters. You're back. You're home."

After a truly embarrassing amount of crying, sniffling, and general incoherent babbling, his dad has enough presence of mind to suggest they take their emotional reunion inside to stop giving the neighbors a show. Bucky ends up on the old L-couch in the living room with a glass of water his mom all but forces into his hands.

"I have snacks," she says, hovering. "Do you want anything? Crackers?"

"I'm okay. The water's fine. Sit down, Ma, you're giving me a crick in my neck."

His dad nods from his spot on his—and, in Bucky's mind, it's always just been his—armchair. "Listen to the man, Win, you're fretting."

"I am—I'm not fretting." But she sits down next to Bucky…on the edge of the cushion, perched and ready to get up at the slightest provocation.

Naturally, his dad is the one to break the awkward silence. "Never should've left, huh?" he asks, keeping his tone gentle like Bucky might break if he says the wrong thing, which only makes Bucky feel worse. "Was the program that bad?"

Bucky focuses on the water swirling in his glass. Was it? "I mean," he tries, "I did learn to play the drums."

Obviously, that's not enough. He sighs, sets his water on the coffee table, and tugs off his glove. His mom sucks in a breath and his dad sits forward in his chair.

"There might've been…other things, too."

He explains it all as best he can: the anxiety and excitement of his first days, the overwhelming stress that bore down on him not long after when the program kicked into gear, the two-odd years of decently enjoyable time spent learning Russian, learning the drums, making friends, and—above all—missing home.

"Every time I called you guys, or I texted Steve, it was just another reminder of everything I was missing," he confesses. "It felt like you were moving on without me. Like I was holding everyone back and didn't have anything to show for it besides a little skill on the drums."

"Oh, honey—"

"Let him finish, Win."

Bucky nods at his dad in appreciation. If he stops, he's not sure he'll be able to start again. "I know better now, but back then…back then, I didn't. And then I lost my arm." He shrugs off his coat and both his parents' eyes go wide when they realize it's more than just his hand, that the shining silver goes all the way up through his shoulder. His mom brings her hands to her mouth and his dad does the same with just one, the other flexing in sympathy.

"What happened?"

"It was a car accident. A drunk driver on a back road." He closes his eyes, which is a mistake: flashes of the accident sear the backs of his eyelids and he snaps them open, heart racing and a cold sweat breaking out on his skin. He licks his lips and talks through it. "It was messy and the ambulance took a while to reach me. By the time I got to the hospital, they had to amputate."

Something brushes against his right hand and he glances down to see his mom offering to hold it. He lets her, she squeezes, and he tries to draw comfort from that to keep talking.

"I was in a bad place. My phone got destroyed in the crash and my memory was screwed up for a while, but even when I could remember phone numbers, I didn't want anyone seeing me like that, least of all you or Steve."

His mom is squeezing his fingers hard enough to hurt.

"For what it's worth," his dad says, voice hoarse, "we wouldn't have judged you, son. Not for a moment. We're your parents."

"I know, I—I even knew it then, I just…I couldn't believe it." He releases a shaky breath. "After a while, the man who ran the program, Alexander Pierce," his parents nod in recognition of the name, "pulled some strings and got me this." He flexes his left arm. "In return, I had to relearn the drums, graduate the program, and become a founding member of Hydra. Because Pierce wanted anonymity for the band members for marketing, I couldn't talk to the friends I'd made while there. He also warned me about telling anyone else. Including you. It was another excuse for me to stay away, and I used it."

"You…toured here," his dad realizes. "Multiple times."

Bucky can't say anything to that. His shame wears itself openly on his face.

"But you're here now," tries his mom. "You came back."

"What changed?"

"I don't know," Bucky confesses. "I don't. I…I was playing at a concert, and I just—I realized I wasn't having fun. That I hadn't been having fun…maybe ever. And it wasn't gonna change if I stayed. I don't know why I chose Brooklyn. Maybe I wasn't ready for another new city. Maybe I wanted to see a familiar face. I don't know, I really don't."

"No matter what brought you to Brooklyn," his mom says, "we're very glad you're here."

He tries to smile at her but it comes out thin and fraying at the edges. "I ran into Steve pretty quick, but even after he told me to visit you guys, I…I couldn't make myself do it. Until I heard Mrs. Rogers passed away."

"Oh. You didn't…?"

"I cut myself off. I didn't know. I should've and I didn't." He takes a deep breath. "So here I am, trying to make amends."

His parents spend a minute processing that, which is convenient because Bucky's throat is in desperate need of some water.

Finally, his dad speaks. "That Mr. Pierce, encouraging you to isolate yourself from your friends, from us. I'd have words with him."

"Mr. Fury already did," Bucky assures him. "My lawyer, I mean."

"Are you still in contact with him?"

"Fury or Pierce?"

"Either."

"Fury, a little. There are still some things he's working through with the legal agreements I had to sign and the workarounds he found to get me out of them. I haven't spoken to Pierce. Even if Fury hadn't warned me not to, I wouldn't."

"You didn't like him?"

"He's…I don't know how to explain it. The way he talks, once you pick up on what he's doing, it gets under your skin."

"What about the rest of the band? You weren't close?"

Bucky thinks of Brock, the only one of the group who texted after Bucky quit. After demanding an explanation, the bassist had thrown Bucky's reasoning back in his face and hit him with a message reading: don't come crying to me when you fall apart without us.

Bucky'd blocked him for that and then the rest of the band for good measure. He didn't need that shit in his life anymore. The band could burn for all he cared.

"No. No, we weren't. I'm not expecting to hear anything else from them or Pierce. Fury made sure I got out clean. I could even reveal the identity of the Winter Soldier if I wanted." Though, he tacks on mentally, that's only because Fury successfully argued how difficult to hide his identity would be given the giant silver flag on his person. "Not that I want to."

"Had enough of fame?"

He snorts. "It's overrated."

"There really wasn't anything you enjoyed?" His mom sounds almost sad about that. Bucky realizes how much it probably hurts her to hear the program she and his dad spent so much on and even encouraged Bucky to try brought nothing but misery.

"I guess it wasn't all bad. I did get good at the drums, really good. And traveling all over the world was cool even if I didn't like the people I was doing it with. I would've preferred keeping both arms, but having a metal arm can be pretty handy sometimes, especially for cooking." He splays his fingers and manages an actual grin this time. "No oven mitt required."

He gets a laugh from his mom for that and a chuckle from his dad. One last bit of ice in his chest thaws and he finally lets himself believe that things could be okay again.

He spends three hours talking to his parents after his dad calls into his workplace to say he's going to be out of office for the afternoon. His mom wants him to stay for dinner, but Bucky gently declines; his day isn't over yet. But he promises to visit regularly and gives them his current address, phone number, and even email so they can get in touch if they want.

By the time he leaves, he feels mentally exhausted and his jacket is probably creased from how much his mom was hugging him. His dad was putting on a brave face by comparison, but Bucky wasn't fooled. He's willing to bet they're going to have a long conversation of their own now that he's gone.

On the sidewalk outside, he pulls out his phone and fires off a text to Claire asking to talk. Before he's made it ten steps, she hits him with a text back that she's at a coffee shop with friends for an evening hangout.

She follows that up with a message that has a bit of guilt stirring in his stomach: I think I can guess what this is about.

I'm not the kind of guy who can do it over text, he responds.

Fair, she answers. See you in a bit.

"A bit" translates to about twenty minutes; he'd taken his bike to his parents' place and the coffee shop Claire's at is too far to reasonably walk and not by any subway stops. The place she's in isn't a chain and Bucky doesn't recognize the name, but that's not saying much. At fourteen, he didn't really have a reason to be in this part of Brooklyn.

Walking inside the cozy, rather hipster place, he scans the tables and couches for Claire. She's at one of the middle circular tables, her and her friends taking up all six of the pastel green chairs that look like they're straight from Ikea. One of those friends, catching sight of Bucky, nudges Claire. She turns, sees him, and stands.

"I'll be right back," she tells her friends, then gestures for Bucky to join her at a corner booth that offers a little bit of privacy. "So," she says when he sits across from her, "did I guess right?"

"Yeah. I was using you to run from something and that's not fair to either of us, fling or not."

She taps her perfectly manicured nails—she must've gotten that done since their last hookup, because he remembers them being blue and not purple—on the table. "I said nothing serious, no strings attached. I meant it." She exhales. "Yeah. This was always how this was going to end. Thanks for being up front about it."

"I'm sorry."

"Nothing to apologize for. One of us was going to end it eventually, you just got there before I did." She pulls her hair over one shoulder to stop it falling in front of her face.

"For what it's worth, you were great. Your ex is an idiot."

She grins wryly at that. "You weren't so bad yourself. I'll see you around, Bucky. And hey, if I ever end up wanting to visit Russia, I know who I'll reach out to for travel advice."

"Take care of yourself, Claire."

"You too."

He's certainly going to try. He's got four full days until Tony's deadline. He's gonna use them.

Leaning against his bike outside, he dials in one last phone call to end the day.

"Hey. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but…I need your help."