It's cold as ice
But this kind of fire don't keep us warm inside
It's cold as ice
I am unstable, and there's nowhere to hide
Call me a casualty
The cost of catastrophe
The damage, damage, damage is done
Call me, call me another one
- "Casualty" by Hidden Citizens
Steve handed Bucky a dripping plate, surreptitiously glancing at him as he slowly began drying it. Bucky's expression was more withdrawn and absent-minded than usual, but he'd been doing much better this week. Steve did his best not to worry.
Slowly, in the two weeks since Bucky's latest suicide attempt, he'd begun to return to his old self. His smiles were pale shadows of what they had once been, but at least he did smile from time to time. He didn't make much conversation with any of the others, but at least he'd finally emerged from their room. And when Steve said I love you, several times a day, Bucky had started to softly respond in kind, rather than looking away and fighting back tears of shame.
Steve glanced around the kitchen, letting the concern in his chest settle down into something approaching contentment. Sam was manning the stove, fixing up a second batch of bacon and eggs and chatting with Natasha, Clint, and Rhodey, who sat at the island waiting for their breakfast. Wanda and Vision sat on the other side of the room, playing a quiet game of chess.
The only person missing from the group was Tony. The knot of worry tightened in Steve's chest as he returned his attention to the dishes. Tony had locked himself into his lab after Bucky had talked to him. Apparently, Pepper had tried to coax him out again, but she'd ended up storming off in high dudgeon. No one had seen Tony since that day except for Vision, who'd been taking meals down to him. He was the only one Tony had allowed into his lab (though Steve wondered if that was just because Vision could phase through the wall). Everyone had to have noticed that Bucky had been struggling lately, but Steve doubted anyone besides Sam had made the connection.
Steve wondered what would happen when Tony finally emerged. Waiting was half of what had made this time so hard, for him as well as for Bucky. No matter what reaction Tony had once he finally came face-to-face with Bucky again, at least they would finally know where they all stood. In the meantime, they could only wait and speculate on what kinds of consequences they would have to face.
"Tony!" Rhodey cried, as if in response to Steve's thoughts. "Dude, where've you been?"
Bucky froze, tightly gripping two glasses he'd been about to put away in the cupboard. Steve dried his hands, gently nudging Bucky. Bucky hastily set down the glasses before they could shatter.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Natasha said.
Slowly, Steve turned around to face Tony, surreptitiously giving Bucky's hand a reassuring squeeze. Tony stood in the middle of the room, skin pale and eyes bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept the whole time he'd been holed up in his lab. Everyone was looking at him with varying amounts of concern, but Tony ignored all of them, staring intensely at Steve. "I need to talk to you," he said, his voice hoarse from disuse. He flipped a hand in Bucky's direction, not quite looking at him. "And him too, I guess." He shifted impatiently, gesturing towards the stairs. "Like, right now."
Everyone looked between them in surprise and confusion except for Sam, whose brow was knitted with concern. Like Steve, he was probably thinking of the only reason Tony would probably want to talk to the two of them. And Tony was obviously agitated. There was no way this conversation would end well.
"All right," Steve said evenly. "Lead the way."
Tony was already marching for the stairs, so Steve left the rest of the Avengers behind and followed him down to the second floor. Bucky followed close on his heels, with an expression that said he would rather be running in the opposite direction. As Tony led them to the living room on the second floor, Steve wondered why Tony wanted him to be part of this conversation. If Tony was going to chew Bucky out for killing his parents—or even if he'd decided to forgive him—why would he ask for Steve to be there too? Was he afraid of Bucky or something? Or...did Tony somehow include Steve in the blame, simply because he was Bucky's friend? Surely he wouldn't say that Steve should have told him sooner, when Steve had only found out the full truth himself a few weeks ago?
Tony gestured vaguely to the round table in the middle of the room while he closed the sliding doors to give them privacy. They walked over to the table, but didn't sit down. When Tony turned around to face them at last, he rolled his eyes. "Stand down, soldier, I'm not currently after you."
Steve realized he'd automatically stepped in front of Bucky, to protect him as much as he could from whatever Tony was about to dish out. He made himself pull out a chair and sit down, watching Tony cross to the other side of the table.
Tony was fidgeting even more than usual. He fussed with the buttons on his shirt, pulled his phone out as if to check the time, then stuffed it back in his pocket. "So...I was looking through old S.H.I.E.L.D. files..." He suddenly glanced over at Bucky, who stood stiffly, eyeing Tony warily like a wild animal ready to bolt. "Hey, Manchurian Candidate, there's a truce here; you can— Look, trust me, you're gonna want to sit down for this."
Steve pulled out the chair next to him and nodded reassuringly to Bucky, who perched on the edge, knee jiggling nervously.
Tony drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay, so...you know all those S.H.I.E.L.D. files Nat leaked last year? Or...two years ago, whatever. I've been looking through them—the Hydra files, I mean, to find out what they said about...the Winter Soldiers." He half-glanced at Bucky, who was staring at the table as though fascinated by the wood grain.
"And I found...more than I was expecting." Tony ran a hand impatiently through his hair, making it stick up even more wildly than before. "See, I kept coming across references to this thing called 'Project Legacy.' And the deeper I dug...well, here, lemme just show you."
He whipped out his phone again, and with a few taps, turned on the hologram display built into the table. Projected into the air between them were a multitude of documents, most of them written in a Cyrillic script that Steve couldn't read. One of them drew his gaze immediately, though—a file with a little black-and-white picture of Bucky's face in the corner. His hair was long, his eyes flat and emotionless, just as they always were when he was under the influence of the Words that turned him into the Winter Soldier. Steve glanced over at Bucky, who looked up at the picture of his own face and then back down again.
"Hydra was trying to get more Winter Soldiers long before my...before '91." Tony's voice wavered slightly, but he cleared his throat and kept going. "Far as I can tell, that's what this Project Legacy thing is about. They wanted to get a whole army of them going. So the first thing they did..." He swiped his hand through the air, brushing aside the files that had been there and replacing them with five files that each had a picture of a young woman in the corner, crossed out with a large X.
"They captured these girls," Tony said quietly, "and artificially impregnated them. With...Barnes's DNA."
Bucky started violently, his wide eyes reflecting the hologram. "What...?"
With difficulty, Steve stifled the horrified gasp that rose in his throat. Stunned, his gaze slowly drifted from the hologram to Tony, then to Bucky.
Tony was still looking anywhere but at them. "The thing is...you know how you always say your metabolism is twice as fast as normal or whatever?"
"Four times," Steve said dazedly, feeling as though he'd been punched in the stomach. He had to consciously remind himself to breathe.
"Well...turns out it's the same for supersoldier fetuses too. It was...too much for their mothers. None of them made it to term. They just kind of...wasted away."
Bucky slowly sank back in his chair, his face ashen. Steve reached out to put a trembling hand on his shoulder.
But Tony was still talking. "So they shelved Project Legacy for a while. But then...Dad figured out how to make the serum. And...Hydra got their hands on it." There was a tense pause, but when Tony continued, he only replaced the hologram with pictures of four men and one woman. They all looked tough and hardened, their eyes cunning and cruel. "And they made five more Winter Soldiers. They picked one of their female agents to be one of them. I guess they eventually decided they were too dangerous, so they ended up putting all of them into crysosleep."
Bucky grew increasingly tense as he stared up at the pictures. Something in his expression suggested that he recognized them. Steve wondered what kind of memories he might have of these people. Had they worked together? Since they'd all been Hydra agents even before the serum, he doubted any of those memories would be very good.
"The Angel," Bucky whispered as the other four pictures faded away and left the woman's picture behind.
"What?" Steve looked up at the woman's unsmiling face.
"As in...the Angel of Death," Bucky muttered. "We all had code names. I was the Asset. She...was the Angel."
Part of Steve wanted to ask what the other four were called, but a larger part of him didn't want to know. At least they were all put into cryosleep, deemed too dangerous even for Hydra...unless...
"They aren't active again, are they?" he asked, looking at Tony in alarm. "Did you see something in the files...?"
Tony shook his head before Steve could finish. "I think we'd have noticed if they were messing around, right? No, far as I can tell, they all went into cryo about a year after they got the serum. But her," he added, pointing at the woman's picture, "they wanted her for more than assassination. At first I thought it was, you know, equal opportunity or whatever, but...they also wanted her for Project Legacy. They wanted to try artificial insemination with a supersoldier mother."
Steve's gut twisted as he looked up at Tony. "Did they...did it...?"
In reply, Tony just brought up another picture. A black-and-white photo of a young woman with dark hair shorn close to her head. It was hard to judge her age; most of her features seemed young, like a woman in her early twenties. But there were huge, exhausted bags under her eyes and furrows in her brow, suggesting that her life had been very difficult. As Steve stared at her face, he thought he could detect something of the Angel's facial structure...but there was also something very reminiscent of Bucky in her face. Maybe it was her large, round eyes (were they blue too?). Maybe it was the shape of her nose, or her lips.
Slowly, Steve turned to look at Bucky. He sat completely motionless, staring up at...his daughter. His daughter?
With a gesture, Tony moved the picture of this young woman out of the center, sliding it closer to Bucky, who followed it with his eyes as if trying to soak in every tiny detail. "Unfortunately," Tony said slowly, "that's not all."
Steve's stomach lurched. He wasn't sure how much more he could take. His mind was already spinning, trying to sort through all of this new information. It was too much, too fast...
Tony took off his glasses and ran a hand over his face, somehow managing to look even more exhausted than before. "See...I first started noticing something fishy when I looked at your records, Cap."
Steve frowned. "Mine?"
"Yeah. Specifically, when they pulled you from the ice. Of course, they ran a whole bunch of tests on you even before waking you up, to make sure you were alive and healthy, right? Lots of tests. Lots of samples. Blood samples. DNA samples. Semen samples. A suspiciously large number of semen samples."
"No..." Heart thundering against his ribs, Steve stared at Tony. He felt like a freight train was bearing down upon him, and there was nothing he could do to dodge out of the way. "You don't mean..."
With an apologetic grimace, Tony pulled up another file. The picture on this one was of a child. A boy. A very young boy—not much older than two, from the looks of it. Though his cheeks were round with baby fat, this boy wore an expression more solemn than any toddler Steve had ever seen. The boy gazed out of the hologram, his eyes seeming to pierce right through Steve's heart. The file held a clinical list of all the information Hydra had deemed important to keep on this boy—height, weight, blood type... In place of a name, there was just a series of letters and numbers that meant nothing to him. M28122011J01.
"Tony..." Steve wrenched his eyes away from the picture. "Are you saying...I have a son?"
"No," Tony said. "I'm saying Hydra has your son."
Silence fell as Tony watched him, waiting for his statement to sink in. Steve was struggling to breathe, struggling to think, trying to wrap his mind around something that made no sense, something that had never once in his life occurred to him...
Hydra has your son...your son...Hydra. Your son.
"When..." Steve's voice died, and he had to swallow hard before he could find it again. "When did...this happen?"
"Far as I can figure out, they impregnated her as soon as they found you." Tony pointed at the picture of the girl Bucky was still staring at. "She was eighteen. Guess they figured that was a good time to start."
"Start..." There was something ominous about that word.
Tony pulled up two more files alongside the one with the little boy. These ones were just babies—one that might have been a year old, one that looked half that. "These are yours too." He met Steve's eyes from the other side of the hologram. "And remember...we've only got files up until S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. So we don't know what's happened since then, or if there's...more..."
There was a roaring in his ears, like wailing children mingled with the screams of Hydra's victims and Tony's voice speaking words that would probably haunt his dreams for years to come. If there's more...Hydra has your son...with a supersoldier mother...impregnated her as soon as they found you...they captured these girls...just kind of wasted away...Project Legacy...we don't know what's happened since then...
It all churned together in the pit of his stomach, like a writhing monster that needed to get out. Maybe it was a scream of anguish, or hysterical laughter, or... Oh.
Steve bolted to the little bathroom just off the kitchen area. He barely made it to the toilet in time before he lost his breakfast. Tears streamed down his face as he coughed and gagged on the last of it.
Project Legacy was a breeding program. Pure and simple. They were breeding supersoldiers to make an army of agents who would grow up under Hydra's thumb. All of this had been happening while he'd been obliviously going about his life...no, even before that. Project Legacy had begun while he'd been unconscious in the ice. All of this time, innocent women and children had been suffering, dying, and they'd been none the wiser.
After rinsing out his mouth and splashing cold water on his face, Steve stared at his dripping reflection in the mirror. He looked haggard, his face as white as a sheet, his eyes wide with shock. They're breeding them...they're breeding us...like animals. They didn't ask anyone, didn't tell anyone...just went ahead and...did whatever they pleased. He roughly dried his face on the hand towel, forcing the tears back into his eyes. He felt dirty.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Steve ventured back into the other room. Bucky still sat at the table, but Tony stood at the kitchen counter, pouring out three drinks. When he spotted Steve, he handed two of them over, then took a sip of his own. Steve knew the alcohol wouldn't affect him, but he swallowed his glass in one gulp all the same. At least it would get the sour taste of bile out of his mouth.
When he brought the third drink over to the table, Steve noticed Bucky reaching out to the picture of his daughter. His daughter his daughter Bucky has a daughter. His fingers passed through the hologram, and his hand dropped back into his lap. A tear trailed down his cheek.
Steve stood at Bucky's side, placing a hand on his shoulder as much for his own comfort as Bucky's. The pictures of three generations hovered in the air before them, making it so easy to see the family resemblance between them. The Angel, who had been turned into a supersoldier at the cost of Tony's parents. The daughter of the Angel and Bucky. And these three children Hydra had forced her to bear, with his DNA.
Hydra. The shadow forever looming over his shoulder, hounding his steps since the war. It wasn't enough that they'd tortured soldiers, or assassinated good people for their own greedy ends, or had the audacity to try to wipe out millions of people in one fell swoop. No, now they were making children—raising them to be perfect little soldiers more firmly in their grasp than even Bucky had been—innocent babies in the hands of Hydra...
Snarling a curse, Steve threw his glass at the wall with all his might. His hands curled into fists, trembling at his sides, as he glared blindly at the shards of glass littering the floor. He wanted nothing more than to find the monsters, the demons responsible for this and wring their necks and send them screaming back to the pit of hell they came from and then—
Suddenly, a metal hand closed around his arm. Steve jumped slightly, looking down at the arm Hydra had given Bucky, turning him into a weapon. He followed the metal arm up to his friend's face, worn and lined by the hard years Hydra had forced upon him. Instinctively, he reached for Bucky's hand, squeezing it even though he knew Bucky couldn't feel it.
Bucky swallowed so hard it was clearly audible in the silence. "Steve...what...what do we do?"
He sucked in a calming breath that tamed the blazing inferno in his chest to the steady flame of conviction. Still gripping Bucky's hand, Steve squared his shoulders and lifted his head in defiance of every atrocity Hydra had committed. "Whatever it takes."
Sam wanted to scream. Or hit something. Or scream while hitting something. Preferably the ones responsible for this.
"This is low, even for Hydra," Rhodey muttered, passing a hand over his forehead.
"Hella low," Clint growled.
Sam gritted his teeth to keep himself from uttering the stream of profanity running through his mind. He took a long, slow breath, wrenching his gaze away from the images of Hydra's victims projected over the table.
All of the other Avengers wore expressions of the same shock and fury that Sam felt. Even Vision, who normally didn't express very strong emotions, had a storm brewing in his eyes as he gazed at the display. Wanda, who sat at the table staring at her hands, looked like she was fighting back nausea. Clint was pacing back and forth, clenching and unclenching his fists, while Tony and Rhodey stood next to the counter. Natasha slouched in the chair next to Wanda, gazing up at the hologram with a thousand-yard stare that said her mind was miles away.
The knot of anger in Sam's chest tightened painfully as he looked over at Steve and Bucky. Bucky sat hugging himself, hunched over slightly as if in pain. His eyes were haunted as he looked up at the daughter he'd never known. And Steve...he looked like he was barely holding it together. Sam could practically see the anger shimmering off him like heat waves.
It was bad enough, knowing that Hydra had done this to anyone. But if you knew they'd done this to children...children whose lives Hydra had manufactured...from your own DNA...
When Steve had called them all downstairs to tell them something, Sam had expected it to be something about Tony's parents and Bucky. He'd never dreamed he'd learn that Hydra had been breeding his best friends like...livestock. Worse than livestock. The thought of Hydra agents, hidden behind the guise of S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors, obtaining samples while Steve was asleep...then transporting it to who knew where...injecting it into that poor girl who'd been raised for no other reason than to bear children for their twisted purposes...
Ohhh, please tell me the people in charge are still alive so I can kill some of them.
Rhodey was the first one to break the silence as everyone processed this new information. "So...wait. These other Winter Soldiers...they're enhanced? Where'd they come from?"
Sam glanced at Steve. When he'd given them the explanation on Project Legacy, he'd smoothly glossed over that part. Tony hadn't said anything either. Now the two of them shared a look from across the room. Sam watched Tony's jaw clench, but he just shrugged as if to say, Tell them what you want, and turned to pour himself another drink.
Steve drew a breath and said carefully, "Howard Stark managed to create his own version of the supersoldier serum, but Hydra found out about it. They stole it...and killed him and his wife to cover it up."
All eyes were on Tony now. He opened his mouth as if to say something, hesitated, then just turned and stalked over to the window and glared out at the sunny day. Rhodey trailed after him.
After an awkward pause, Clint said, "So...all of that was in the records leak too?"
Sam could feel himself tensing up more with every moment they danced around the dangerous truth. He could see the gears turning as Steve drew a deep breath, obviously trying to figure out how on earth to answer that without betraying one or the other of his friends.
To everyone's surprise, Bucky got to his feet and said, in a quiet but clear voice, "We know about the serum because I'm the one Hydra sent to collect it."
Steve half-raised his arm, as if to stop Bucky, but it was too late. A shocked silence fell on the room as everyone stared at Bucky. Knowing how long Bucky had agonized over telling Tony, Sam was surprised at how calm Bucky seemed now that everyone knew the truth. Maybe it was a relief to finally have it out in the open.
Sam was almost afraid to breathe in the heavy silence that fell over the room. He kept waiting for Tony to say something, to start yelling, to call Bucky a murderer...but he didn't say a word. Maybe he'd already said it all. Maybe there was nothing to say.
Finally, Steve broke the silence. "Now that...you all know...you're under no obligations. If you don't want to be involved in this mission, you can walk out of here right now. I won't hold it against you." He included everyone in the statement, but his eyes were turned in Tony's direction.
"You know I'm in," Sam said.
"Don't worry," Natasha chimed in, looking up at Steve with a sad smile. "Even if it wasn't your kids, Steve...we'd all be on board for this."
"Yeah," Rhodey said, turning back to face them, though still eyeing Tony with concern. "Regardless of...anything in the past...this is totally messed up."
"You can say that again," Clint snorted. "Hydra's even more out of line than usual with this one. Just give me a target already."
Wanda spoke up for the first time. "We have to stop them. I...know something...of what it's like..." Her voice trembled and trailed away.
"Indeed," Vision said, stepping forward as if to draw attention away from Wanda as she hid her shaking hands under the table. "This 'Project Legacy' must be destroyed before its threat to the world escalates any further."
There was a slight pause as everyone turned to wait for Tony's response. He remained silent until Rhodey muttered, "Tony?"
Finally, Tony heaved a sigh and turned around. "Look, I can't say I'm thrilled with the Terminator over there, but don't we have bigger problems right now? We've got kids to save." He nodded curtly at Steve. "So where do we start?"
Steve drew a deep breath, and began to look a little more like himself. Focused. Determined. Ready to lead. Sam found his spine straightening in response to that look.
"Okay," Steve said, stepping up to the table as everyone gathered closer. "First of all, we need to figure out where Project Legacy is being carried out."
"And remember," Natasha cut in, "those records are like two years old now. That makes it even more urgent. We don't know what might have happened since then."
Before anyone could start making suggestions, Bucky said softly, "I think I know where it might be."
Sam looked at him in surprise. There was no way he'd known anything about Project Legacy before this, right? He would certainly have said something...
"How can you be sure?" Steve asked.
Bucky met Steve's eyes with one of those looks that seemed to convey everything without words. Aloud, Bucky said, "Because I know where they're keeping the other Winter Soldiers."
Steve huffed a sigh and rolled onto his other side for the fifth time. He squinted at the clock on the bedside table. They were heading out at 0600, so if he fell asleep right now...
With a groan, Steve threw off the covers and sat up. What was the point? There was no way he was getting any sleep tonight. He wondered if he ever would be able to sleep soundly again.
He pressed his palms against his weary, aching eyes, but the darkness held no comfort. Every time he closed his eyes, he could only see those pictures. Bucky's daughter with her weary, sullen gaze. The three little children, staring coldly ahead as if they'd never known a single moment of joy in their short lives.
My children. Bucky has a daughter...and I have three children.
The words held no meaning for him. It felt like they were referring to someone else. Because how could he have children? How could he be a father? No matter how many times the thought ran through his head, it had yet to solidify into something tangible, something real.
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Every time he'd daydreamed about the faint possibility of having a family of his own, he'd assumed it would happen gradually. Naturally. He would meet a lovely lady, fall in love, get married, and then one day he would be overjoyed to hear that in nine months he would be a father...
It was supposed to be good news. Finding out that he had helped bring a new life into this world was supposed to be a wonderful thing, a joyous responsibility that he would meet with some trepidation but more resolve.
This, however...there was nothing good or joyous about this news. He felt nothing but horror and grief.
Restlessly, Steve pushed himself to his feet and wandered out to the common room. Since he couldn't sleep anyway, he wanted to do something. If he hadn't needed the other Avengers for this mission, he might have already grabbed the Quinjet and flown off to Siberia by now.
His feet led him down the stairs to the living room on the second floor, where they'd been making their plan of attack. The light was still on, and Steve wasn't too surprised to discover Bucky still sitting at the table. Scattered in front of him were the rough floor plans he'd sketched of the Hydra base where they'd held him and the other Winter Soldiers.
Bucky glanced up when Steve drew near, but neither of them said anything as he pulled out a chair and sat down next to him. Steve looked over the sheets of paper littering the tabletop, but he'd already studied them till his head ached. The problem was that they were working on old information, some of it decades old. They had no idea if this base had been the site of anything related to Project Legacy—and even if it had, there was no way to know if it was still there after all this time. It was a good place to start their search, but they wouldn't know anything for sure until they got there.
His finger found its way to the button that brought up the hologram images again, and he stared up at his children. The files listed each child's gender, right underneath a string of random numbers and letters that seemed to be ID numbers. The older two were boys; the third was a girl. I have two sons. I have a daughter.
Hydra made...with Bucky...and then forced her to have my children... Hydra has my children—our children. They're just kids, and all they've ever known...
Eighteen. Bucky's daughter was eighteen when...she became pregnant with...my son. I have two sons. I have a daughter. His thoughts running in circles, he stared at the three files in front of him, as if by staring at them long enough, he could convince himself it was true.
"She's 23," Bucky suddenly murmured.
He followed Bucky's gaze to the girl they'd made from Bucky and the Angel. Among the rest of the information about her, her birth date was listed. September 25, 1992.
"I have a daughter who's older than Wanda," Bucky said slowly.
Steve watched him, but couldn't read his expression. "What...how do you feel about that?"
Bucky shook his head and dropped his gaze to stare blankly at their notes again. "I don't know what to feel."
"Yeah," Steve sighed, scooting his chair closer to Bucky. "Me neither."
Without looking, Bucky leaned closer, and they sat in silence for several minutes, shoulder to shoulder. After a while, Steve realized their hands were clasped, though he couldn't remember reaching out.
"I've been making the calculations," Steve mumbled, his gut squirming again. "They...had her give birth...almost once a year. So...there might be two more that we don't know about yet. I mean, if..." The worst possibility bubbled to the top again—the scenario he tried the hardest to not think about. "If they're not...if they didn't..." His breath caught in his throat, and he covered his face with his free hand. "Oh, Buck, what if they did? What if...it's too late? What if they just...scrapped the project when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, and it's my fault that—"
"Steve." Bucky squeezed his hand tightly, stopping him mid-sentence. "Don't do that. Look...we don't know anything yet. And when we do find out the truth...we'll deal with it."
Steve drew a deep breath and met his best friend's eyes. The twisting anxiety in his chest settled down to something more manageable. "Together," he breathed. "We'll deal with it together."
"Yeah," Bucky said steadily. "Just like everything else, right?"
Steve nodded, squeezing Bucky's hand again as he looked back up at the children they were going to save. "You know what this means?" he said as something occurred to him.
"What?"
"Your daughter," he said, then paused for a moment as the strange words filled his mouth. "Your daughter's the one who had my children, right?"
"Yeah..."
"That means you're a grandfather."
Their eyes met, and they burst into laughter.
Bucky was laughing. Staring up at the young woman who represented the latest burden on his shoulders. A minute ago, he'd been on the verge of tears, but now he was laughing till he could hardly breathe.
How could Steve do that so easily? He looked up at Steve, whose eyes twinkled with merriment beyond the sadness, and he started laughing all over again.
Because in one day—in one moment—he had become a father and a grandfather. Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, was a grandfather. He'd never heard of anything so ridiculous.
"I guess...technically I am old enough to be one," he said between hysterical giggles.
Steve's grin widened. "Did you eat your prunes today?" he said breathlessly. "Should I get you a cane?"
"You're one year younger than me, you punk!" Bucky choked, locking his arm around Steve's neck and mussing up his hair. "If I'm geriatric, so are you."
"Well, you're the best-looking grandpa I've ever seen," Steve said with a wink.
Gasping for breath, Bucky said, "So...does this make you my...son-in-law or something?"
The smile slowly faded away as Steve straightened and wiped his streaming eyes. "There's nothing lawful about this."
"Yeah..." All levity leaked out of him as he looked back up at his daughter. How could he laugh and joke about this when she was probably suffering in some underground lab, surrounded by guards and scientists who only saw her as a machine to be maintained as long as she was useful? There was nothing funny about this situation.
Steve sighed, bending over until his forehead rested on the table. "I'm not ready, Buck," he whispered.
Bucky looked over at the pictures of Steve's children. Just babies, really. Three of them, possibly more. Four? Five? He tried to imagine Steve juggling so many little ones all at once. As good as he was with children, his only experiences had been with other people's children—like Sam's niece and nephews, or Bucky's youngest sisters when they were growing up. It was completely different when they were no one's responsibility but your own.
Yet again, his eyes slid back to the black-and-white photo of his own daughter. "I'm not ready either."
In some ways, Steve would probably have it easier. His children were so young that in a year or two, they probably wouldn't have any memories of their former life. All they would know would be the boundless love and care of the best father anyone could ask for.
But his daughter? That poor girl was 23. That meant she'd endured 23 years at Hydra's mercy. And he knew what that meant. He hadn't even been conscious for that long under Hydra's control, and see how much he still struggled to keep himself together. She would have so many issues to work through. Unlike him, she wouldn't even have those good memories of a happy life that had kept invading his mind, that had kept him reaching for something better.
What must she think of herself, after how she'd been treated her whole life? True, she didn't have the blood of innocents on her hands as he did. She had done nothing but give life, not take it away. But...knowing Hydra...they would see her as an object. Even if they kept her healthy and never raised a hand against her, since it was in their best interest to make sure she gave birth to healthy offspring...they would never have treated her like a human being.
He wanted to show her what that was like. He wanted to warm her heart, the way Steve and Sam had done for him. He wanted that face, so tired and worn, to soften into a blissful smile as she looked up at him, knowing that she was valued...knowing that she was loved.
Because she was. He already loved her.
But could he help her? Just days ago, he'd been on the verge of killing himself. What kind of father would that make him? How could he take care of his daughter when he still needed so much care himself?
The answer was that he couldn't. At least...not by himself.
Swallowing with difficulty, Bucky reached for Steve's hand again. "Know what? This means we're actually family now."
Steve straightened, lacing their fingers together. "We've always been family, Buck."
He looked into his brother's eyes. "Yeah...but not by blood. Until now. And you know what families do?"
Steve smiled past the bleak fear in his eyes. "Stick together."
"No matter what."
Steve drew a shaky breath. "To the end of the line?"
"To the end of the line."
Children are a heritage from the Lord,
offspring a reward from him.
- Psalm 127:3
Author's Note: Here it is, the reason I started writing this whopper in the first place! Credit where credit's due: The seed of this story came from NewMoonFlicker telling me about a fic her sister read that put the Avengers in a similar position, except there's just one boy, and it turns out to be Peter Parker—and it also turned out to be a Stony fic. (Uh, spoiler alert, neither of those are the case in this fic ^^')
The second I heard that, I thought, "No no no, that's not how you do it! See, it would have to be like this..." And before I knew it, Project Legacy had taken form, and I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with just keeping this in the realm of daydreams and headcanons. I needed to follow the thread all the way to its conclusion.
A note for anybody who bothers to do the math and might be a tad confused: The Whole Shards timeline is a bit different from the canon one, partly because I misunderstood the canon timeline when I first started writing MMW, partly because shifting it just works better for a couple things (like the ages of Project Legacy's victims). So in Whole Shards, Steve was found in March 2011, and the Battle of New York was a few weeks later, in April. Also, the events of TWS happened in September of 2014.