Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

epilogues

Steve is a few months shy of twenty-eight when he gets married. When Bucky marries him, like he promised over a decade ago. He is three months and two weeks shy of twenty-eight, and James is three days short of three.

They get married at St. Michael’s. Steve’s mother and Bucky’s mother cry on one another. It’s simple, it’s sweet, Steve walks down the aisle with the fulfilled promise on his right hand so that after Bucky slips a gold band onto his left ring finger, he can place it over the wedding band and wear them side by side. James wears a little suit and he’s adorable.

“Do you know Steve named him after you?” Rebecca asks Bucky at the reception. “The full James Buchanan Barnes?”

“Ste–eee–ve!” Bucky whines in response. Steve laughs at him. James throws a bit of cake and Steve hastens to take it away from him.

James is content to be left with his mother while Bucky takes Steve away for a week, or at least, he is until it’s time for them to go. As he is two days short of three years old, he cries and clings to Steve.

“I’ll be back before you know it, baby,” Steve promises him. “You’re going to have so much fun with Gramma, you’re gonna have ice cream every night ‘cause I won’t be here to stop you!”

“No!” James wails anyway.

“Daddy and I will call every day,” Bucky tells him. James clings to Steve, even when Bucky reaches out to pet his hair. James has had his pop in his life for less than a year and he still hasn’t mastered object permanence, so he clings to Steve. “Nana and Pop-Pop will be coming by, and Aunt Becca, and you’ll have Miss Wanda to keep you company. We’ll be back soon.”

“I wanna go!” James cries.

“It’s going to be very boring,” Steve tells him, “Papa’s just going to spend the whole time snoring.” Bucky rolls his eyes. “It’s just a cabin in the middle of nowhere, there’s no TV or Internet or coloring books or anything!”

“I bring book!” James says, but he’s suddenly sniffing, so Steve must have found the right track.

“You’ll miss Sesame Street,” Steve reminds him.

“No Big Bird?” James mumbles, his lower lip quivering.

“No Big Bird, no Elmo, no Count,” Steve says. “And you know how much Papa snores.”

“I don’t snore,” Bucky hisses.

“Shh!” Steve hisses back.

“Gramma will have TV,” Steve’s ma throws in. She prods James in the shoulder gently, catching his attention. “We’ll have dinner at Rita’s every night, too!”

James sniffed, rubbing his nose on his sleeve. “You love Rita’s,” Steve says.

“Okay,” James finally gives in. He lets go of Steve, then flings himself at Bucky. Bucky catches him but is knocked off balance where he was kneeling and lands on his rump, laughing. “No snore!” James says, and then jumps away to crawl onto the sofa.

Bucky gives Steve a look. “I don’t snore!” he repeats out of the corner of his mouth.

Steve drops onto the floor next to him, laughing. Bucky bumps him with his left shoulder, since Steve isn’t on his right and he can’t wrap his arm around him.

“You snore,” Steve manages to get out.

“I won’t spend the whole time snoring!” Bucky says, starting to laugh, too.

James waves at them from the sofa. “Bye!” he says, once again perfectly content.

Steve gave Bucky a look. Bucky shrugged.

“This is your child,” Steve reminds him.

“True,” Bucky agrees happily, gets up and moves around Steve so he can put his arm around him. He plants a kiss onto Steve’s temple. “True.”

“Can we get a goodbye hug?” Steve calls to James.

“Okay,” James sighs, then crawls back off the sofa and runs back over. Steve scoops him up, kissing his hair, then James squirms away to get to Bucky, who plants a kiss on his temple, too. “Bye!” he repeats, then runs back to crawl onto the sofa. “Gramma, we eat Rita’s now?”

“Of course, darling,” Steve’s ma promises.

“You’re not actually going to feed him Rita’s for every meal?” Steve hisses to his mother.

She gives him a high and mighty look, and says nothing.

“Ma!”

“Just make sure you brush his teeth,” Bucky says, then locks his arm around Steve’s waist and lifts. Steve hardly protests any longer; he does this frequently.

“And he drinks his Pediasure!” Steve adds.

“Ew!” James shouts. “No!”

“Yes!” Steve reminds him.

James sticks his tongue out. Steve sticks his tongue out in return, and James breaks off to giggle. Bucky sets Steve back on his feet, then goes to grab their suitcase.

“We love you, kiddo,” Bucky calls.

Steve blows James a kiss. James catches it and chomps on it. Steve grins, waving, as he and Bucky slip out the door.

Bucky leans over and plants a loud, smacking kiss on Steve’s cheek. Steve starts, then rolls his eyes.

“We’re on our honeymoon, baby!” Bucky says gleefully. “And I sure as hell won’t be snoring even half the time!”

Steve snorts. He tucks his arm around Bucky’s waist, and they take the stairs down to the building exit and Steve’s car. Outside, Steve looks back up towards his apartment and sees his mother in her window, holding James and waving. He waves back, blows another kiss, and James blows a clumsy kiss down to him. Steve makes as if to catch it, then holds it securely to his chest. The rings on his left hand, white gold and polished pewter, catch the light.

Bucky touches his waist, and Steve turns to face him. His eyebrows are raised, a question in his eyes. “I’m fine,” Steve tells him. “It’s just… I haven’t spent so long away from him before, either.”

“We’ll call,” Bucky reminds him gently.

Steve nods, looking back up at the window. His ma waves, and James waves absently, too.

Bucky squeezes his waist, pressing a kiss to his temple. “I’ll try to keep you distracted, too,” he adds. Steve snorts again.

“Let’s go,” he says, turning to the car.

Bucky gets in the passenger seat, and Steve drives. It’s still his car. They’re on 95 within minutes, and the rings on Steve’s left hand catches the light.

The ring on a chain around Bucky’s neck catches the light.

*

Steve is two months and three weeks short of twenty-eight, and he is staring at two pink lines on a thin test strip for the fourth time in his life.

He can hear the TV through the bathroom door, playing quietly while Bucky snores. Steve is terrified again, but this time, rational thought is beating the fear away. This time is different. Bucky is not in Iraq, he’s already had one kid, and there is a gold band next to the pewter one on his left hand. He had even been expecting this ever since Bucky returned home; Steve hasn’t taken birth control since he got pregnant with James and never once have he and Bucky used a condom. Steve doesn’t like them; they make him think of private rooms and sticky cash, which are things he never wants to associate with Bucky. It’s fitting, though, that it’s the wedding night or the honeymoon that planted a new seed in his womb.

He still doesn’t know how to tell Bucky.

He steps out of the bathroom, into the living room where Bucky’s in his recliner, and James is fast asleep on his chest. His hand rests on James’s back, curled protectively over him. Steve’s heart swells at the sight, and it beats down the fear a little more. His fingers shake, still, but he prods Bucky in the foot until he snorts, opening his eyes, and looks up at him.

“Wha’time’sit?” he mumbles.

“An hour,” Steve replies. Bucky looks around the room, then lifts his hand to rub his eyes. He hasn’t noticed the test strip in Steve’s hands. “Do you remember the last time we spoke?” Steve blurts out.

Bucky drops his hand, brows drawing together.

“Before you were captured,” Steve adds.

“Yeah,” Bucky mumbles. “You’d had the… the flu.”

His hand comes back to rest on James’s back. He’s staring at nothing, frowning, like he knows now. He knows when James’s birthday is.

Steve is watching his fingers, crumpling James’s shirt as they curl into a ball, like Bucky is trying to clutch James to him. “You heard something in the other room,” Steve says. “I said it was the TV. It wasn’t.”

“Sounded like a baby,” Bucky mumbles, like he didn’t even mean to speak aloud. His fingers curl tighter onto James’s shirt.

“‘Cause it was,” Steve confesses.

“He was there?” Bucky murmurs. His voice is higher pitched, distressed. His arm, his whole arm, curls around James’s back. “I heard him?”

Steve nods. The test strip is shaking, the two pink lines blurring together, and Bucky has yet to notice it.

“Are you mad?” Steve asks him quietly.

Bucky doesn’t speak for a second. The test strip shakes more violently. He hasn’t noticed it. He’s looking at James.

“No,” Bucky whispers. He looks up at Steve. “No, no, ‘course I’m not mad, sweetheart. I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel secure enough to tell me, but I’m not mad.”

Steve’s whole body is shaking. Bucky lifts his arm and holds it out to him, shifting in the chair to make space on his right side, and Steve moves to lie down beside him. He holds the test strip in his fist, and Bucky’s arm curls around him.

“You didn’t have the flu,” Bucky says, like he’s finally realizing it. Or he already knew.

Steve shakes his head. “We got home that morning, coupl’a hours before you called. I didn’t pick up the phone ‘cause I was in labor.”

Bucky, lips pressing to his hair, murmurs another apology. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“‘S not your fault,” Steve says. He sucks in a deep breath, then holds up the test strip; the sunlight through the window flares on its white surface, the two pink lines. “You can be there this time.”

Bucky lifts his hand to take it from his shaking fingers, and Steve drops his hand to James’s back. His son sniffs in his sleep, shifting to turn his head toward him. Steve leans over and kisses the top of his head, his baby-soft hair, reaching up to shift his bangs away from his eyes. Bucky touches his shoulder, the test strip tucked in his palm, then when he looks up, kisses him firmly. When he pulls back, Bucky is grinning.

“Really?” he says, like he can’t believe it.

“Yeah,” Steve says, then laughs, like he can’t believe it either.

Bucky drops the test strip onto the table next to the chair, cups the back of his neck and hauls him in for another kiss. When they part, Bucky lets out a whoop and James wakes, startled, only for Bucky to kiss his cheek and startle him further.

“You’re gonna be a big brother, kiddo,” Bucky says, then whoops again. He kisses Steve’s cheek, twice, three times, his arm curled around him and James both and cheers.

Steve laughs, tucking his face into Bucky’s neck, and laughs. He is relieved. Of course Bucky whoops for joy. Of course. What else would he do?

Someone in the next-door apartment bangs on the wall. Bucky yells: “Shuddup, we’re pregnant!” and the banging stops. Bucky keeps kissing Steve, who can’t stop laughing. James looks very confused. He sits up on Bucky’s chest, his feet landing on Steve’s shoulders.

“What’s pre–pregnet?” he asks

“Pregnant,” Bucky corrects him happily. “Steve’s gonna have another baby, kiddo. Little brother or sister.”

“What’s a baby?” James asks then.

Steve settles into Bucky’s neck. “Your kid,” he mumbles. “You explain.”

Bucky, still grinning, starts explaining babies. When he’s done, he’s given James the gist of infancy and pregnancy, but James is still frowning. He rolls over and prods Steve in the stomach.

“Do you eat baby?” he asks. “How it in your tummy?”

“No, the baby grows in his tummy,” Bucky tells him. “You came from Daddy’s tummy, too.”

“How it get in his tummy?” James asks.

Steve starts laughing again. Bucky opens his mouth and closes it several times. “Steve,” he says pleadingly, and Steve only laughs. “Steve, c’mon, help me out!”

“You did this,” Steve hiccups. He reaches out and pulls James in to kiss his cheek, then sits up. “I’m gonna go tell Ma. You two have fun.”

Bucky grabs his arm before he can get up and tugs him back in to plant a kiss on his mouth. James makes a grossed out sound. Steve grins, kisses Bucky a second time, then slips back, getting up from the chair.

“Gross!” James decides. He only learned the word the week before, surprising them with it when they came home from their honeymoon and kissed in front of him. “Gross!”

“Just wait ‘til you grow up, kiddo,” Bucky tells him, ruffling his hair.

“Never!” James vows, then starts bouncing on Bucky’s stomach, making him wince, and shouting: “Never!”

Steve rolls his eyes and heads for the apartment on the other side of the banging. They’d moved out earlier in the year, but not far. Their new bedroom still connects to the same fire escape that he and Bucky had met on twenty years ago.

He still has a key to his ma’s apartment. She’s laying on the couch when he walks in, her arm covering her eyes. She lifts it, squinting at the light, when he steps inside.

“I’m pregnant again,” he announces.

She nods slowly. She sits up, exhales and shakes her head. “Good?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “‘Course.”

His ma exhales a second time, and now she nods. “I forget. Sorry. I’m glad for you. Did you tell Bucky?”

“Yeah.”

She looks at him, then raises her eyebrows. “Have you told him about the other times?”

Steve drops his gaze, then shakes his head. He sees her shrug, then lean back on her sofa again.

“Whatever you decide, I support you,” she murmurs, like she’s already falling asleep again.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, stepping back into the hallway. He shuts the door, and his hand falls to rest on his flat stomach. He walks back into his and Bucky’s apartment, and when he sees James sprawled in Bucky’s lap and laughing his head off while Bucky blows raspberries on his stomach, he smiles. James sees him, then squirms out of his pop’s grip to run up and launch himself at Steve, who catches him and swings him up into the air, settling him on his hip. Bucky grins at them. He reaches out for Steve, and he’s reminded of James, a year younger, making demanding noises and grabby hands.

Steve goes to him, and Bucky presses his hand to the back of his neck to pull him down for a kiss.

“Gross!” James yells in his ear.

“Shhh!” Bucky tells him. “Daddy likes it when I kiss him!”

“Gross!” James yells again anyway, squirms until Steve puts him down, and runs for his room, screaming: “Gross!”

Steve raises his eyebrows at Bucky. “I blame you,” he says.

“I’ll accept it,” Bucky says. He pulls Steve down for another kiss. “I love getting blamed for our kids.”

Steve grins, too, against his kiss and moves in to straddle his lap. Bucky flicks his eyebrows up, leaning back, and Steve leans after him to keep kissing him. Bucky’s arm wraps around his waist, and Steve slants their mouths together, curling his fingers into Bucky’s hair.

“GROOOOOOSSSSS!” James yells, and a foam sword slashes across Steve’s feet and Bucky’s knees. Steve drops his forehead onto Bucky’s shoulder, sighing. “GROSS!”

“I’m getting Ma,” Steve decides.

“Good idea,” Bucky mutters. His eyes are unfocused as Steve lifts off his lap. Steve smirks, and Bucky shakes himself, then crosses his legs. Steve snorts, then lifts James and his foam sword off the floor.

“You know better than to hit people with this,” he says, plucking it from his grip. “What do you say?”

“Sorry,” James mutters, like he doesn’t mean it. Steve raises his eyebrows. James pouts. Steve sighs again, then tosses the sword to Bucky and walks over to next door. He opens the door, left unlocked, and his ma lifts her arm off her eyes.

“Please?” he begs simply.

“Gramma!” James whines. “Papa gross!”

“What was he doing?” Steve’s ma asks, laughing and sitting up. Steve sets James down and he runs over to his grandmother, letting her scoop him up into her lap.

James leans in and whispers in her ear, probably describing all the ways his pop is gross. Steve’s ma snorts. “Darling, that’s what Alphas  do .”

“Thank you,” Steve calls to his ma, who waves, and shuts the door again. He goes back next door, pulls their door shut, and smiles at Bucky.

Bucky grins. Steve walks back over, then settles on his lap once more. Bucky curls his fingers into the back of his shirt.

“I love you,” Steve says.

Bucky grins wider. “Love you, too.”

*

Steve is not yet twenty-eight years old, he and Bucky are at Planned Parenthood for prenatal care, and the nurse attending them knows him.

“Is this the first pregnancy you’re planning to continue?” she asks him kindly, and tactlessly. Because she knows it isn’t his first pregnancy, but this time she’s attending him for an ultrasound, not an abortion.

Steve doesn’t answer right away. He looks at Bucky, who is looking at the nurse, who is looking at Steve and realizing her mistake.

“Oh,” she mutters. “Oh, no.”

Bucky looks at him, and Steve bites his lip. “I… I kept meaning to say…”

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” Bucky tells him. He moves closer and curls his arm around Steve’s waist, squeezing him reassuringly. “It’s fine. We can talk about it later, alright?”

Steve nods, biting his lip.

“I’m so sorry,” the nurse says. “I shouldn’t have said…”

“It’s fine,” Bucky says again. “We have one child already, so, no.”

The nurse still looks horrified. Steve shakes his head at her, trying to convey that it really is alright, but it isn’t. She should have known better.

At home, before they go to get James from Wanda, Bucky grips Steve by the waist and kisses him gently. “It’s okay,” he says.

“I was gonna say,” Steve mutters. “I just didn’t know how.”

“It’s okay,” Bucky repeats. “Your body, your life, it was your choice. You don’t have to explain to me.”

“I had two,” Steve confesses. “Before… Before us, before James. I had two.”

“I get it, it’s okay,” Bucky promises.

Steve’s holding a printout of the ultrasound. He tugs on Bucky’s arm, then leads him back to their room and pulls a shoebox out from the closet. He digs around through the photos, then finds James’s ultrasounds, pulls out the one where his face was visible for the first time, and holds it out to Bucky. He takes it, with reverent fingers, slack jawed and awed eyes, and his left shoulder jerks; like he’s about to press his hand to his mouth, only he’s forgotten that he can’t. Steve goes back into the box, then pulls out two more grainy ultrasound printouts. There is barely anything visible in them. He puts them on the bed, then hugs his stomach and waits for Bucky to notice them.

Bucky sets down James’s ultrasound, then touches the other two. Steve taps one.

“I was twenty-one,” he says. Then the second. “Twenty-three.”

Bucky looks… pained. Steve draws back into himself, hugging his stomach.

“Don’t know who,” he whispers finally. “Either of them. I don’t know…”

He trails off, and Bucky reaches out for him, grips his shoulder and looks up. “I’m sorry,” he says. Like he means it. Steve thinks he’s apologizing for asking a year ago if he knew who James’s father was. It sounds like he is.

But he shrugs. “Not your fault.” It was a perfectly understandable question.

“I’m still sorry. Was it… Wasn’t ever…?”

Steve frowns. “Wasn’t what?”

Bucky licks his lips, then swallows. His hand curls into a fist on his shoulder. “Assault?”

Steve shakes his head and Bucky relaxes. “No. Pills failed, is all. They’re not designed for male Omegas.”

Bucky squeezes his shoulder, then pulls him until he’s tucked under his arm. He kisses Steve’s forehead comfortingly. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

Steve looks down at the grainy photos. He picks up where the fetus is in both instantly, from seeking them out so many times. They say nothing else. Steve has words behind his tongue, but they don’t come out. Bucky picks up today’s ultrasound again, then pulls his arm from Steve’s shoulders. He stiffens, until Bucky turns him out slightly and kneels down in front of him.

He lifts his shirt and presses a kiss to his navel. Steve uncrosses his arms, settling them on the back of Bucky’s neck, because he doesn’t know what else to do with them.

“James’s first word was papa,” he says.

Bucky looks up, then blinks rapidly. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Steve whispers. “He didn’t mean me. I used to – to point at your picture. Tell him you loved him –”

He breaks off to breathe, because when James was that young, Bucky couldn’t have loved him. He didn’t know James existed. Bucky loops his arm around Steve’s middle and kisses his stomach again. “Hey, kiddo,” he whispers against his skin. “It’s Papa.”

Steve plays with the hairs on the back of his neck, while Bucky begins whispering to his womb. He feels half choked, because he could have had this  years  ago. He feels half angry, because he did not lose this when he was three days short of fifteen, and it wasn’t the army that took this away from him. He feels half regretful, because suddenly he misses the two before James that he never even gave a chance to grow past grains of rice. Maybe Bucky would have whispered to them, even though they weren’t his.

“Papa loves you,” Bucky whispers. “Daddy loves you. We all can’t wait to meet you.”

Steve doesn’t cry. Bucky does, but Steve doesn’t. Or he pretends not to.

*

Steve is twenty-eight years old precisely. His birthday party is just a dinner with his family and friends. Natasha brings Clint as her date; he congratulates them. Bucky’s sister brings her boyfriend, Arthur, who Bucky jokingly threatens. It’s made less effective by James smearing icing on his cheek. Wanda and Pietro bring party poppers and get confetti all over his furniture. Steve doesn’t mind, he’ll just make Bucky vacuum it up. Bucky dotes on him, more so than before; he’d even carry Steve everywhere if Steve let him. Steve remembers the last few months pregnant with James, and assumes that by that time, he will be perfectly happy to let Bucky carry him anywhere farther than the bathroom.

But the party is over, and Steve has to tell Mr. and Mrs. Barnes.

“Call us Ma and Pop,” Mrs. Barnes reminds him.

Steve shrugs. “I have something to tell you.”

They nod encouragingly. It’s already obvious that Steve is pregnant again, so it’s not that. Bucky knows what it is, and he curls his arm over Steve’s waist from behind him.

“About James,” he says. He’s stalling.

“What?” Mrs. Barnes asks patiently.

He bites his lip, looks at the ground between their feet. Bucky kisses the back of his head, his palm resting protectively, possessively, over the gentle curve of his stomach.

“I didn’t tell Bucky,” Steve says carefully.

“Tell him what?” Mr. Barnes asks.

“About James,” Steve admits. “I didn’t tell him I was pregnant.”

Mrs. Barnes blinks, her smile fading. Mr. Barnes furrows his brows.

“You – But you said he spoke to him?” Mrs. Barnes says. “To James? Before he was –”

Steve shakes his head. He rubs at his eyes, and Bucky kisses his temple. “I lied. I didn’t tell him I was pregnant, I didn’t tell him about James at all. He didn’t know until he came home.”

“Why?” Mrs. Barnes breathes.

“I was afraid,” Steve says quietly, to the ground, shameful and still afraid. “And it took a while for me to figure out what I was going to do. And then – then he was gone, and I couldn’t –”

Steve tightens his jaw, looking down. Bucky’s thumb sweeps over his navel, which sticks out a little.

“I made assumptions when I got back,” Bucky then says. “It took me a while to figure out that James was mine.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say?” Mrs. Barnes says, strained, like her questions can change the past.

Steve shrugs. “I was afraid,” he repeats quietly.

“Of what?” Mr. Barnes asks.

Steve holds Bucky’s dog tags in his palm tightly. “Lots of things, I guess. Mostly that… That we wouldn’t work out. That’s actually why – why I called him James Buchanan, ‘cause I was afraid that he’d be all I had left of Bucky.”

Bucky holds him tighter, too. Steve hadn’t told him that before, either.

“Why did you lie?” Mrs. Barnes whispers.

“Spare your feelings,” Steve mumbles. “Figured… You didn’t need that on your mind.”

Mr. Barnes nods, like he understands, then Mrs. Barnes reaches out and grips his arm.

“Thank you for telling us now,” she says quietly. “You didn’t have to. But thank you.”

Steve nods, too, and she lets go.

“Da–aaa–ad!” James screams, running in, and collides with his legs. “Pete-ro’s being mean!”

“What’s he doing, baby?” Steve asks. The tense moment, the unhappy truth and fear behind his lie, is over, and he lifts James up.

“He say Wanda’s baby gonna be better’n yours,” James says, pouting.

Pietro darts in, face flushed, then blanches. “I didn’t say that,” he swears. “I mean – I didn’t –”

Wanda sticks her head in, looking cross. “That’s certainly the way I wanted to tell people,” she says dryly.

“Congratulations!” Steve calls out to her. He hands James to Bucky and ducks around Pietro to hug her. “That’s wonderful!”

Wanda smiles weakly. Steve grips her shoulders, then nods encouragingly. “You’ll be wonderful,” he promises. He knows the weakness in her smile. She won’t be alone, though, she won’t know what that feels like.

“Is now a good time to mention that I’m pregnant, too?” Rebecca announces.

“Rebecca!” Mrs. Barnes gasps.

She shrugs. “Surprise?”

Simultaneously, Bucky and Mr. Barnes look over at Arthur with the exact same expression; furrowed brow, lips draw into a small  O , eyes sharp and mildly murderous. He pales.

Steve rolls his eyes, then looks at Wanda with raised eyebrows. “At least you know you’ll have friends in your Lamaze class,” he tells her.

Steve’s mother walks in then, pauses at the abrupt tension in the room, and looks between Arthur’s scared face and the looks of murder on the Barnes men. “Am I missing something?” she asks cautiously.

“No,” Steve lies easily. He’s holding back laughter. He could kiss Rebecca for making his revelation seem so insignificant. “Normal Tuesday night.”

His mother raises her eyebrows. “Right. You’ve got mail.”

She hands the card to Steve, who opens it, glances at the heading, and tosses it into the garbage. It’s from the Red Room. Bucky looks around, and Steve shakes his head. It’s insignificant.

“Will you two cut it out?” Rebecca sighs, throwing her hands into the air. “I’m twenty-six years old, not like I’m hardly old enough to drink.”

Bucky looks displeased at her comment. Steve thinks she has a point.

“Her Alpha’s not dead, either,” Steve adds unthinkingly. Bucky gives him a look. “Sorry,” he mutters, and Bucky sighs, rolling his eyes, before redirecting his attention completely to walk over and wrap his arm around him.

“I hope you’re planning on getting married,” Mr. Barnes declares.

“No,” Rebecca scoffs at the same time as Arthur says: “Yes.”

Rebecca gapes at him. He shrugs. “Surprise?”

Steve could kiss them both for making his revelation so insignificant.

*

Steve is twenty-eight and a half years old, it’s January 10th, and labor is no less painful for having given birth once before three years ago.

“You’re doing great, Stevie, you got this,” Bucky says for the thousandth time.

“Oh, shut up already!” Steve hisses. Contractions are no less painful for Bucky standing next to him, at least.

“You got this, honey, you got it,” Bucky says coaxingly instead of just shutting up already!

“You’re never touching me again!” Steve swears. “Fuck!”

Bucky looks around, distressed, and Steve’s mother pats him on the arm. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t mean it.”

“I fucking mean it!”

His ma shakes her head, and Bucky looks incredibly confused. Steve snarls in pain again, clenching his fingers on Bucky’s hand, and he fucking means it! No way in hell he’s doing this ever again!

“I think you’re ready to push,” Dr. Cho says from between his knees.

Steve’s nails leave marks on Bucky’s only hand, and then the pain is over. The afterbirth is less painful than it was with James, and like with James, he forgets it all when Dr. Cho lays the baby in his arms.

“It’s a girl,” she says with a warm smile. “Congratulations.”

“Hi, baby,” Steve breathes.

Bucky is crying. He reaches, and their daughter wraps a hand around the tip of his finger. Steve puts his arm around him and cries, too. He can’t help but remember holding James just after he was born and feeling alone. Bucky’s weight next to his is grounding, even the tears that splash onto his hospital gown comfort him. Steve looks up at his ma, and she nods without him even speaking. She ducks out of the room, and a minute later, she returns with James in hand.

Steve waves him closer and he crawls onto the bed. He looks down at his sister, then glances between Steve and Bucky.

“Baby’s purple,” he says. “Why’s it purple?”

“You were purple once, too,” Steve reminds him, tapping his nose. “This is your little sister, Sarah.”

By the door, Steve’s mother covers her mouth her hands, like when Bucky appeared back from the dead, but now with both, ‘cause one of them isn’t occupied by a baby.

“Hi, Sarah,” James says. Sarah yawns, then opens her eyes.

Steve nudges Bucky, ‘cause they’re his eyes again.

“Hi,” James repeats. He pokes her carefully, and she fusses until he withdraws his hand. “How come she don’t talk back?”

“She doesn’t know how to talk yet,” Steve tells him.

James looks up at Bucky, then holds out a hand to him. Bucky reaches over and hugs him from the side, kissing his head, then touches Sarah again. Her whole head fits in the palm of his hand.

“Are you okay, papa?” James asks.

“Yeah,” Bucky says thickly, through intense emotion and tears. “I’m great, kiddo.”

Steve leans on his waist, tucking Sarah more securely against his chest. She’ll want feeding soon, but for now, he watches Bucky. He leans against the bed, looking at their baby, slack jawed and awed eyed.

“I guess she’s okay,” James says then. “She can stay.”

“Oh,” Steve says, laughing. “Thank you, baby. I’m glad you like her.”

James shrugs. “But I pick cartoons.”

“Sure,” Steve tells him. Newborns don’t care for cartoons, anyway, from what he remembers three years ago.

He looks back up at Bucky, then reaches up and brushes the tears from his cheek. Bucky catches his hand, kisses it, then carefully wedges his body onto the bed next to him. He waves James closer, and once he is settled between them, he drapes his only arm over both their children, taking Steve’s left hand and lacing their fingers together.

His thumb polishes the rings, the fulfilled promises. Steve kisses his cheek, and he lays his head down on his shoulder.

Steve’s mother catches his eye. She smiles, teary, then ducks out of the room. Maybe it’s the rush of emotion, the new birth, having Bucky there with him this time, but his heart hurts for her. She was there when James was born, so he wasn’t really alone, but there was no one to hold her hand when  he  was born. There was no fear of rejection, because she’d already had it in concrete terms. She really had been alone.

“I love you,” Bucky whispers. He kisses James, then Sarah, then Steve. “I love all three of you.”

Steve sniffs, and Bucky kisses him again.

“Gross,” James whispers. Steve breaks into a smile, then catches sight of James looking at Sarah. “They super gross, all the time. You get used to it.”

Steve tuts, overwhelmed, and James tenderly kisses Sarah’s forehead. She blinks and makes a soft noise, a little squeal, then reaches up with both fists. James pats her hands with his palms, then Bucky tickles her stomach with a finger and she squeals again, kicking her fists and feet. He grins, blinking hard again, and Sarah beams toothlessly at him.

Steve wishes bitterly he had given Bucky James’s first smile.

“I’m hungry,” James announces.

“Me, too,” Steve says. He’s holding back emotions. “Can you go ask Gramma if she can bring some food?”

James scrambles off the bed and darts out the door. Bucky catches Steve by the jaw and kisses him deeply. Steve tangles a hand in his hair, eyes and nose stinging. He should have told Bucky the first time. He should have told him.

“I love you so fucking much,” Bucky whispers against his lips. “Steve, god, you’re perfect, our daughter’s perfect, our son’s perfect. I love you.”

Steve chokes up. Bucky keeps kissing him, his mouth moving over his whole face, his only hand cupping his cheek. Steve fists a hand in his hair; he’s sobbing now, and Bucky is still kissing him.

“I should have told you,” he hisses. “I should have told you.”

Bucky doesn’t answer. He kisses Steve’s lips again, swallowing his next words.

“I should’ve let you be here,” Steve spits out. “I should’ve said  something , anything –”

“Steve, Stevie, honey, it’s not gonna change it,” Bucky interrupts. “I love you, I forgive you, it’s okay –”

“It’s not okay, you deserved to know –”

“It is okay, I’m here now –”

“You missed everything –”

“I’m not gonna miss it this time,” Bucky swears. He keeps kissing Steve. “I would’ve missed it anyway, Stevie.”

Steve shakes his head, but Bucky nods. “I would have missed it anyway,” he says brokenly, and Steve doesn’t want to believe it. “I still would’ve gotten hit, still would’ve been hauled off and held underground, baby, I still would’ve missed it all. But I’m here now, okay?”

He brushes at Steve’s hair, nodding until Steve nods. Steve drags in a breath, his lungs shuddering, then nods again. He kisses Steve’s forehead, then his tear-streaked cheeks, and then his lips.

“It’s okay,” Bucky whispers.

Steve nods a third time. Bucky pushes his fingers through his hair again.

Sarah fusses. Steve sits up further, then swipes at his face before unlacing the neck of his gown and pulling her up. He guides her to his breast, she attaches and sets her fists on either side of his nipple, kneading gently. He doesn’t have much; his breasts are small, barely there, and he can only produce so much milk at once, but it’s rich and full of nutrients and it will be enough.

Bucky puts his head down on Steve’s shoulder, watching her eat with a slack jaw and awed eyes.

Then James runs back in, leaping onto the bed and startling Sarah into letting go. She makes a distressed sound, milk and spittle dripping off her chin, and James starts, then covers his eyes.

“DA–AAA–AD!” he whines.

“She’s eating!” Steve protests, drawing her in again. She whimpers, he kisses her head and rubs her back. “Be careful, James!”

“PAPA,” James says then, “DAD’S NAKED!”

“Dad’s not naked, he’s feeding your sister,” Bucky says absently.

James peaks from between his fingers. Steve gets Sarah to attach again, and she begins to drink, slowly, then hungrily. James drops his hands, leaning forward curiously.

“Why’s she doing that?” he asks.

“She’s eating,” Steve explains. “My body makes food for her.”

“That’s weird,” James declares.

“Yes, yes, it is,” Steve agrees, since that’s easier.

“You drank milk from Daddy, too,” Bucky tells James.

James squints at him suspiciously. “How do you know?” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

James is aware that Bucky wasn’t around when he was a baby, but at this point, Steve lets it go. James doesn’t know that it’s a bad thing, and so he doesn’t hold it against either of them. Bucky lets it go.

“Because all babies drink from their mothers,” he says evenly.

James looks confused. Steve raises his eyebrows at Bucky. “Mother,” he repeats dryly. He looks down at Sarah with raised eyebrows. He doesn’t feel like much of a  mother .

“Daddy’s my mother?” James says questioningly.

Bucky shrugs. “Technically?”

“But Daddy’s a boy,” James protests.

“Daddy’s an Omega,” Steve says. “Omegas can be girls or boys, or neither. Gender doesn’t equal designation. People always call Omegas mothers, even if they’re boys. It’s complicated.”

“Am I gonna be an Omega?” James asks.

“Maybe,” Steve says. “Who knows? Probably not.”

Steve’s mother, then, ducks her head into the room. She smiles, holding a tray of food, and Steve reaches for her with a satisfied sound. Bucky’s parents walk in behind her, carrying cups, and his ma murmurs a quiet  aww  at the sight of Sarah suckling.

“Someone said they wanted food,” Steve’s ma says, setting the tray down.

“Please,” Steve sighs. “Labor is hard.”

“Thank your lucky stars it was so quick,” Bucky’s ma tells him, handing him a cup. Steve looks into it, then is disappointed that it’s only water. He wants coffee, but given that he’s breastfeeding, he can’t have it anyway. He never quite moved past needing espresso after espresso to get up at four in the evening and sleep at dawn. Caffeine is addictive apparently.

“Bucky took twenty-nine hours to come out,” Mrs. Barnes adds.

“Ma!” Bucky splutters.

“I am thanking them,” Steve says, ignoring Bucky. “James took two whole days!”

James is still confused. He frowns at the adults, then looks at Sarah longingly. “Learn to talk soon, baby.”

“Two days,” Steve’s mother repeats, pointing at him. “I think he broke my hand after the first twenty-four hours.”

Bucky raised his hand. “I think he broke mine. Which is very unfair, I’ve only got one.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You’ll be fine.”

Bucky kisses his cheek again, then his mother hands him a sandwich and Steve is distracted from his Alpha by food. He eats with one hand, the other securing his daughter, then there are others filling the room. Rebecca comes by with Arthur, well into the second trimester herself, and the ring on her left hand catches the light. Natasha brings Sarah a bunny and Steve a bag from Victoria’s Secret, and the glazed look in Bucky’s eyes at the sight of it makes both of them laugh. Mrs. Peggy’s niece brings her in a wheelchair, and she coos happily at Steve’s daughter.

Later, Pietro and Wanda come by, and Wanda sits next to Steve with her forehead leaned on the bed frame.

“Does it hurt as much as they say?” she asks quietly.

“Worse,” Steve admits, then reaches out and catches her hand. “But they’re not bullshitting when they say it’s worth it.”

She nods absently. Her thumb swipes over her stomach. Steve has never asked about the father, and she’s never said. Her parents, at this point, are dead and she and Pietro live alone. But she isn’t alone. Steve squeezes her hand.

“It’s worth it,” he tells her.

*

A day later, they get home, and Steve sleeps for sixteen hours. When he wakes up, it’s not yet three in the afternoon, and he finds Bucky sprawled in his chair again.

James is curled on his left side, and Sarah lies on his chest, his arm tucked securely over her small body. Steve smiles at the sight. He still wishes he could go back in time and speak to his younger self, 16 and doubtful, to tell him not to stop answering Bucky’s messages, or talk to himself at 24 and tell him to say something to Bucky, or comfort himself at 21 when he felt alone, but he wouldn’t change this for the world.

other moments

[one]

Chester Phillips reaches apartment 5E, raises his hand to knock, then stops to breathe. He inhales, exhales, and then raps his knuckles on the door. He rocks back and forth on his toes as he waits for an answer, looking around the hallway. It took too long for them to find Rogers; he wasn’t in Barnes’s file and it took his phone records to see that he even had someone in his life, but he’s standing there now, and Rogers will know.

It opens a minute later. Chester’s gut clenches.

He’s here to deliver bad news, and Sergeant Barnes’s Omega knows it. What hurts even him, after all the times he’s given bad news, is the baby.

“Steve Rogers?” he asks gravely.

“Y–Yes,” Steve Rogers says from behind his hand.

He holds a newborn on his hip. From the look, two or three weeks old. What hurts is that Sergeant Barnes has been MIA for two weeks, and there’s a chance he died without ever speaking to his son.

“My name is Colonel Chester Phillips,” he says, bolstering his courage.

Rogers exhales a quiet  no . The newborn in his arms begins to whine. He looks at the infant, who will never know his father.

“I’m sorry,” he says gently.

“No,” Rogers repeats, and Chester hasn’t even given him the bad news yet. “No,” he says, like he already knows it. “No, no –”

“Sergeant Barnes is missing in action,” Chester tells him. There is no way to ease the horror of his words, no delivery that could make the news gentle, no words that could spare a new mother and newborn the pain of losing an Alpha and a father. Rogers shakes his head, lips forming the word  no . “He is presumed dead.”

Rogers and Sergeant Barnes’s son begin to cry. There is nothing he can say to comfort them.

“I’m sorry,” Chester says again anyway.

Rogers shuts the door. Chester nods, understanding, and turns to go. He feels much older than fifty, and the drive home feels like it takes hours longer than it does.

His Omega gets up when he walks in. He blows out his breath, sets his hat on the kitchen table, and nods to her.

“How’d it go?” Julie asks carefully.

“Boy knew what I was going to say before I opened my mouth,” he admits. Julie tuts sadly. He raises a hand, curled into a fist, then whispers: “He had a child. He had a  newborn . Two weeks old, maybe.”

Julie tuts again softly.

“Sergeant Barnes went missing only  two weeks  ago,” he says emphatically. His Omega reaches out, touching his arm. “He probably never spoke to his son.”

Julie sets her head on his shoulder, patting his chest. She never has the words to say.

“I think I’m going to retire,” he says.

“Okay,” she whispers. “That’s okay, darling.”

“I don’t want to give bad news to new mothers anymore,” he sighs. “I didn’t join up for this.”

“I know,” Julie says. “I know.”

He shakes his head once more. He doesn’t want to see any more fatherless newborns. He doesn’t want to know any more men who died before seeing their children. He’s retiring.

two years later

Chester looks up at the knocking. He looks at the kitchen clock, then gets up, wondering who’s knocking at seven on a Saturday. When he opens the door, it’s to a man in a military uniform.

However, it is his former aide, and by the grin on his face, he is there to deliver good news.

“Atkins, it’s good to see you,” Chester says, then steps back to wave him in. “What can I do for you?”

“You won’t believe this,” Atkins says, ignoring his offer. “We found the Howling Commandos.”

Chester stops halfway in turning around. Slowly, he shifts back to face Atkins. Atkins grins continually and nods.

“We found them,” he says again.

“They’re alive?” Chester asks hoarsely. “All of them?”

Atkins nods.

“Sergeant Barnes?” Chester whispers. “Alive?”

“Alive,” Atkins swears.

“Hallelujah!” Chester whoops. “Julie! Julie! The Howling Commandos, they’re all alive! Sergeant Barnes is alive!”

His Omega steps into the hallway, and Chester sweeps her off her feet, whooping for joy, shouting: “Sergeant Barnes is alive!”

He sets her down; she’s grinning but confused.

“The Omega,” he says to remind her, “Rogers, the Omega with the newborn; the baby who was born right at the same time the Howling Commandos went MIA, he’s gonna know his father. Sergeant Barnes is gonna know his son. Hallelujah!”

*

[two]

A mother should never have to bury her children. Winifred shakes, thinking; a mother should never have to bury her children, but a mother should never have to bury an  empty  coffin because her child’s body hasn’t been found.

Looking at the flag covering the empty coffin to represent her son, Winifred thinks that she hates it. She had tolerated it when she never lived in the same house longer than ten years, she had tolerated it when it pinched her husband’s pay, she had tolerated it when her son had joined up because they were too poor to afford his choice university.

But she  hates  it now.

The empty coffin is lowered into the ground, her son’s name cold in marble;  James Buchanan Barnes, March 10th 1987 - June 2013, Beloved Son , between his grandparents and some poor boy who was buried in 1941 without a surname or a birthday at all, only a year, a death date, and the first stanza of Psalm 23 to mark his grave under his name cold in marble. She hates this graveyard. She hates this church.

Winifred holds herself stiffer as the flag is folded. She hates it, but she is prepared to receive it.

The second of the officers folding the flag bows, the one holding it bows back. She holds herself stiff. The officer turns, steps, then –

Steve gingerly takes the flag. Winifred feels all the air leave her lungs. Steve, James’s childhood best friend, takes the flag, not her. He holds it in one arm and an infant in the other.

Her gaze is fixed on the flag. She does not understand. Now, she even hates  him ; why would  he  get the flag, it was  her  son that was killed, that was murdered overseas by child soldiers and was given this pittance of a funeral by his country, why does  Steve  take James’s flag?

They move inside, and Rebecca touches her elbow.

“I’ll talk to him,” she says.

Winifred nods stiffly. She doesn’t expect she could be civil at this point.

She watches Rebecca walk over to him. He sits stiffly, the flag at his side and next to his mother’s handbag, and the infant in his lap. Rebecca speaks briefly to him, then her jaw drops. Winifred frowns, sitting up straighter, wondering what Steve’s said to her. Rebecca is looking at the baby. She’s nodding, slowly, swiping at her cheeks with a quick hand. Winifred watches them a moment longer, then Steve stands up abruptly and walks out of the room. Rebecca is still a moment, then she turns slowly and looks at her.

Her face is shocked. Winifred does not understand.

Rebecca walks closer. “Ma,” she says softly.

“Why?” Winifred demands.

“They met up,” Rebecca murmurs.

“Why did  he  get the flag?”

“Because –”

Winifred stands up, and Rebecca shakes her head, motioning her to calm, but Winifred will not  calm , her  son  is dead and his estranged best friend received  his  flag and not  her . “He was my son!” she hisses. “My son!”

“Because that was  Bucky’s  son,” Rebecca snaps, pointing in the direction Steve left. “James. Bucky’s son, James.”

Winifred feels all the air leave her lungs, again. She drops into her chair. Rebecca touches her shoulder.

“Steve had his son,” Rebecca whispers. “That’s why.”

“His son?” Winifred whispers. Beside her, George is slack jawed. “James had – James has a son?”

Rebecca nods.

“I think he went to the bathroom,” she says softly. Promptingly. “Maybe you should talk to him.”

Winifred rises, nodding. She walks in a daze towards the Omega bathroom. She hadn’t even known that Steve had ended up an Omega after all.

Steve is sitting on the ground, leaning by the wall, and nursing his son. James’s son. Winifred steps closer, her eyes fixed on the baby, and Steve looks up. She lowers herself to her knees in front of him, still looking at the baby.

“He’s gorgeous,” she breathes.

Steve says nothing. He looks… absent. Distraught. Like how she feels, but with a blank face.

“Like his papa,” Winifred whispers. She blinks away tears.

Steve nods slowly.

Winifred sucks in a breath, disbelieving that five minutes ago she had been so blind, because even from here, she sees her son in this infant. She sees her husband in this infant.

“If you ever need anything,” she tries to offer, but can’t finish and hastens to blow her leaking nose. Steve looks so absent, so empty; no new mother should have to go through this. No Omega should have to take their child to their Alpha’s empty graveside. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I didn’t – I didn’t expect to – to lose a son and gain a – a grandson.”

She looks at Steve, and thinks she’s gained a new son, as well. James never said, and she sees no ring on his hand, but Steve is now her son, too, regardless.

The baby lifts off Steve’s breast, and he shifts him in his lap. Something silver catches the light, and Winifred presses her hand to her mouth when she sees the dog tags hanging in the neck of his shirt. She knows who they belong to. Her eyes sting again when she sees the burnished pewter ring hanging with them. There’s the ring. James gave that to him when he wasn’t even fifteen yet.

Thinking, Winifred realizes that Steve is not yet twenty-five. She had chosen July 1st as the date for the funeral since it was the best time for their family. She had forgotten that Steve’s birthday is the fourth. She hadn’t thought of him at all.

She opens her mouth to apologize, but then he shifts the baby again. He holds him out to her, and Winifred takes her grandson, tears pricking her eyes all over again.

“Hi, little one,” she whispers, trying to smile. He has James’s eyes. “I’m Nana.”

The baby looks up at her, with not a clue who she is. She smiles, regretful, and waves gently. He looks over at his mother, at Steve, and makes an upset noise, reaching away from her. Steve leans forward and Winifred settles the baby back into his arms, nodding when he settles and is calm.

“He’s shy,” Steve murmurs. His voice is hoarse.

“I understand,” Winifred answers quietly. She starts to say  James was the same , except, this is James. Steve named the baby for his father. “Bucky was the same,” she whispers.

Steve looks so lost, so alone. He holds James’s son to his chest, like he’s dying.

“How old is he?” Winifred asks, a sudden fear striking her.

“Two months,” Steve whispers.

Winifred covers her mouth again. Colonel Phillips had called her barely two months ago.

“Did he – Did he get to speak to him?” she asks him. Her voice is hoarse. “At all?”

For a moment, Steve is silent, and her heart grows heavier. Then he nods faintly.

“Yes,” he says, and she sighs, relieved. No parent should die without ever hearing their child’s voice.

three years later

In the car on the way home from Steve’s birthday dinner, Winifred holds her hands in her lap. She feels as though all the air had been knocked from her lungs by Steve’s admission.

“I don’t understand,” George says. “How could he have said nothing?”

Winifred is quiet.

“How could he have kept it secret from Bucky the whole time?”

“He was afraid,” Winifred says softly.

“Of what?” George snaps.

“Well, clearly, he was afraid Bucky would turn his back on him,” Winifred says sharply. George glances at her, aghast, and even she is horrified at her own suggestion. “We know that Bucky would never do that, we know Bucky has always loved Steve, but clearly he was afraid that wasn’t true.”

“He doubted, you mean,” George mutters.

“No,” Winifred muses. “No. He didn’t doubt, he was terrified. He had to have been terrified.”

“How could he have been terrified?” George splutters. “Bucky gave him a promise ring when they were kids! He had to have known Bucky was gone on him  years  ago.”

“Don’t you remember, though,” Winifred says, “how Sarah reacted?”

George huffs. “How could I forget. She was spitting mad.”

“Do you know  why  she reacted that way?” Winifred prompts.

He shakes his head.

“Steve’s father left when Sarah told him she was pregnant.”

For a moment, George says nothing. She looks over at him, and his brows are drawn tightly together.

“Walked right out,” she says. “Up and left the moment the words were out of her mouth; she told me that he  ran .”

“So, why was Steve terrified Bucky would do the same?” George snaps.

“I imagine telling him once was enough,” Winifred murmurs. “Don’t you remember the look on his face when Sarah told Bucky he could never take it back? He didn’t believe even then that Bucky would keep the promise.”

George thins his lips, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel. She looks out the window.

“I expect that Bucky assumed James was Brock’s son,” she says softly. “And by accident, confirmed all of Steve’s fears.”

George says nothing, but he exhales very deeply. Winifred reaches over and touches his knee.

“It’s not a difficult fear to develop,” she tells him.

George glances at her hastily. “You never –”

“No,” Winifred lies easily. “Of course not.”

George resettles. Winifred taps his leg and looks back out the window. It is a very easy fear to develop.

*

[three]

Sarah sinks to the floor of the shower and hugs her legs to her body. Five minutes, she can take just  five  minutes to herself. Outside, her son is crying, and inside, she is crying.

Steven cries. He cries, he wails, he sobs, and he never,  never  stops crying. She can never get him to calm, nothing she does can soothe him, he  cries  and  cries  and  never  stops. She knows he is fine, there’s nothing wrong with him, she’s taken him to doctors and midwives and herbalists and there is nothing wrong with him.

She has taken him to a weird woman even, who held him for a minute and gave him back and said that he was still grieving from his past life. It was complete nonsense, but she had been desperate to know why he always, always cried and never stopped.

She would ask her mother, but both her parents were dead. She would ask Joseph’s parents, but that would mean having to reconnect with Joseph, and she hadn’t spoken to him in over a year.

So she hugs herself in the shower and she cries. She watches blood run down the drain as it streams out from between her legs. She listens to Steven crying, and never ceasing.

She takes five minutes, until the blood stops, and rises. She dries herself, her whole body tensed by the constant crying of her son, puts a pad in fresh underwear and dresses. She goes to Steven, lifts him from his crib and holds him to her breast, but he doesn’t stop crying. Nothing she ever does makes him stop crying.

twenty-five years later

Her key enters the door and she knows something is wrong. James is crying, but not only James.  Steven  is crying.

She rushes inside, dropping to her knees, and Steve is hugging James to his chest and sobbing, clutching him with white knuckles, his exhales sound like the word  no .

“Steve, what happened?”

He shakes and cries. James wails. Sarah frets, torn between the baby and  her  baby.

“Did Bucky call –” she starts, because he hadn’t the past two weeks, but Steve only shakes harder.

“No!” he gasps. “No!”

Sarah thinks she knows what’s wrong now, she’s about to whisper,  oh, darling , and plot Bucky Barnes’ murder, but the two children from next door step into the doorway.

“There was a colonel here earlier,” Wanda says worriedly.

Sarah stops planning Bucky Barnes’ murder. He has not rejected her son. She turns back to Steve, who shakes worse.

“Oh, darling,” she whispers.

Bucky must be dead.

*

[four]

“Yo, Sarge, are you alright?” Gabe asks him.

“Yeah, you look like you seen a ghost,” Dum Dum adds.

Bucky does not hear them. He does not hear the music. He is staring.

“Sarge?”

A hand waves in front of his face. Bucky starts, his gaze broken.

“You alright?” Gabe asks.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. His gaze drifts back. He feels like throwing up.

Dum Dum follows his gaze, then raises an eyebrow at him. “I mean, boy looks good, but you don’t look like you want a lap dance.”

Gabe elbows him, smirking. “I might not mind one.”

“No!” Bucky snaps, breaks; he grabs Gabe’s arm, who startles and looks back at him with shock. “Don’t touch him!” he snarls.

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Gabe says, pulling away. “What’s the matter with you?”

Bucky looks back. He feels sick.

He is watching Steve Rogers swinging off of a pole. He is one of many eyes watching Steve dance. He is one of many eyes looking at Steve, half-naked and unsmiling, and he feels sick.

“Do you know him?” Dum Dum says then.

“Yes,” Bucky says darkly.

“Oh, boy,” Gabe exhales. “You  know  him, don’t you?”

Bucky is watching Steve’s right hand. It is unembellished. There should be a burnished pewter band on his hand, but there should be hell of a lot more on Steve’s body than scant lace, stockings and garter and bralette and  thong , not only his old promise.

“Should we leave?” Dum Dum asks.

Bucky shakes his head. He has to talk to Steve. He cannot not.

“Well, at the very least,” Gabe sighs, getting up, “we’ve got to get you a drink.”

“Thanks,” Bucky mutters. He sounds bitter. Dum Dum glances once more towards the stage, then away, perhaps out of respect.

Gabe comes back with Scotch. Bucky downs the glass he’s given, and Gabe raises his eyebrows before going back for the bottle. Bucky watches Steve. He is just one of many watching Steve. He watches, his blood boils, and Steve never sees him. His eyes drift listlessly over the patrons, like he’s drugged, but his movements are short and determined, like he is angry.

Twice, Steve looks in his direction. Twice, Bucky holds his breath, and Steve’s gaze drifts on.

Gabe and Dum Dum stay with him, longer than the rest of their unit, out of sympathy, perhaps. They stay until closing, when bouncers heft them out, and though he’s drunk a whole bottle of Scotch and then some, he feels sober leaving.

“What’re you gonna do?” Dum Dum asks him.

Bucky looks around, then spots Miss Rogers’ car. “I’m gonna wait for him,” he decides.

Gabe and Dum Dum exchange glances. “Is that a good thing?”

“I’m gonna wait for him,” Bucky repeats, and heads for the car. “Been fucking waiting for him for eight years, I’ll wait a little longer.”

“Uh, don’t murder him?” Dum Dum yells after him.

Bucky shoots a look over his shoulder, but approaches the car. Steve isn’t there yet, so he leans against the door, pulls a cigarette from his pocket and lights it.

He smokes it down to the filter. Then another. He’s on the third before the back door of the club opens, and a stream of figures pours out. Bucky waits. He waits until he hears Steve’s footsteps, then throws down his cigarette.

Steve is staring at him. His face is blank. He wears jeans, a jacket, and a knit hat pulled over his hair, though his bangs shine in the light of the street lamp. A gym bag hangs off his arm, he wears fingerless gloves that expose his bare knuckles and the black polish on his nails. Perhaps he is bitter, because Bucky likes him better fully clothed.

He says nothing. There are sirens in the distance, engines running, the interstate not far off. The symphony of the city to keep comfort to the drunks and drug addicts, the loveless and the homeless, the lonely and the bitter. Bucky is six for six; addicted to the memory of Steve and always drunk off it, lonely and bitter in his loveless heart, and drifting through time and space without a real home. But Steve says nothing.

“We hated the army,” Bucky says after the silence. Not  hello . No  how are you . He spreads his arms, grins darkly, like a madman, and his dog tags catch the light. “Look at us now.”

“What are you doing here?”

Steve does not sound glad to see him.

Bucky nods, faintly, exhales, and his breath is visible in the early November air. He points towards the club, and Steve’s face drains of blood.

“Was in there. Boys wanted fun before we shipped out, I got drug along.”

Steve bites his lower lip. Bucky nods again.

“Saw you,” he says.  Saw every part of you.

“Are you drunk?” Steve asks sharply.

Bucky shakes his head. “Someone in there, saw me watching you,” he adds, because this is the best part. “Said an hour was six hundred.”

The man had leered as he said it, looking at Steve like he wasn’t a person. Like he was offering Bucky a car, or a lawnmower, and offering to let him take it for a test drive. Bucky had felt like punching his lights out.

Steve is quiet again. Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets, steps closer and looks at the ground. He had never, never, considered that when he returned to New York, he’d find Steve in a place like that. On sale like that. He had thought they had something precious, something priceless, but apparently, it only cost six hundred dollars.

“Do you like working there?” Bucky says. He sounds less bitter than he feels.

Steve shrugs. He doesn’t look like it. He looks tired. There are dark circles under his eyes, his face is pale and gaunt.

“Why do you do it?” he asks. He can’t understand.

Steve looks down, then reaches into the side pocket of his bag. He withdraws a handful of wrinkled bills. Bucky swallows bile.

“Pays rent,” he says carefully.

Bucky swallows again, swipes his tongue over his teeth and swallows, trying to swallow the lump in his throat that feels like his heart. He looks at Steve’s right hand, and it is unembellished.

“You don’t wear it,” he forces out.

He isn’t wearing the promise ring. Like Bucky had feared seven or eight years ago, he isn’t wearing it.

But then Steve reaches up, and pulls a chain out from under his shirt. Bucky suddenly can’t breathe, because a burnished pewter band hangs on it.

“It got too small,” he says, without emotion.

Bucky knows that face. He knows that voice. He starts, his arms moving to take Steve and draw him closer, then he stops himself and swallows words. Steve looks at the ground; his shoulders are boneless, his gaze is listless, like he’s drugged. Now, his movements are loose and thoughtless. Like he’s weary. Bucky knows that face, that voice, he knows that Steve feels bitter, too.

He is less angry now. Steve certainly doesn’t look happy, and Bucky can’t be mad at him if he’s weary.

“I’m on a plane to Iraq,” he says. “Tomorrow.”

This is his last night in the states, probably for a very long time. His heart feels clenched, like his chest is too tight to contain it, or it is embedded in a promise ring that got too small.

The bag slips off Steve’s shoulder. He runs, and Bucky catches him in his arms. His fingers dig into Steve’s back, he lifts him off his feet and swings him around, then sets him down to press his hands over Steve’s face and kiss him; all the loneliness and desperation of the past ten years fuels that kiss, all the bitterness and the love he still feels, and he clutches him, holds him close because he never wants to let go. Steve’s nails bite into the back of his neck, as he clutches to Bucky in return.

It’s not his fault that they drifted apart, but it’s not really Steve’s fault, either. Bucky wants them to just start again; start over from the beginning, let this be the first of many firsts. He presses Steve against the car, kisses along his neck, and prays they can start again. He prays for this to last longer than his last night in New York.

“Are you at a base or a hotel?” Steve whispers.

“Hotel,” he answers.

Steve tugs on his sleeve and he pulls back. The dark circles under his eyes, in the harsh, white light of the streetlamps, look like bruises, but the glazed-over aura of his eyes is gone.

“Let’s go,” he says.

Bucky is not sixteen any longer. He does not ask if Steve is sure. He asks himself.

Slowly, he nods. He wants this, too, and maybe it will last longer than his last night in New York.

He gives Steve directions to his hotel, which is not far. He leads him up the steps, unlocks his door, and lets Steve in first. He walks in, then turns around and Bucky grabs him in to kiss him again before he even bothers shutting the door.

Steve is no longer not yet fifteen, and Bucky is no longer sixteen. When Steve lifts his weight and locks his legs around Bucky’s hips, Bucky does not hasten to get his clothes off with shaking fingers. He takes his time. He wants to savor every inch of Steve’s skin, he wants it to be precious and intimate, and he wants Steve to think that  this  is priceless as much as he does.

This time, they are in a bed, not against the wall of a bathroom. This time, Bucky doesn’t have to use lotion to ease his fingers into Steve.

This time, though, he still doesn’t have a condom.

“Shit,” he hisses when he realizes. He stops, dropping his forehead onto Steve’s clavicle. “I don’t have any.”

Shit , he thinks again. He wants this to be real just as much as the first time.

“What kinda guy goes to a strip club with no condoms?” Steve snaps.

“Kinda guy who doesn’t do casual sex,” Bucky says bitterly. Steve lifts himself onto his elbows, and Bucky looks him in the eye. Then his gaze drops to the chain around his neck, where the burnished pewter ring hangs still. He reaches up and lifts it, sweeps the pad of his thumb over it. Steve is out of breath, flushed in the chest, the neck, his face and ears, and he is beautiful. It strikes him then that while many men have seen him like this, it doesn’t matter. It was always for the sake of money, but this is, hopefully, for the sake of love. Bucky was the first, and, hopefully, he will be the last.

Does Steve know that this is real to him?

“Don’t use one, then,” Steve says.

Bucky swallows, hard.

“I’m clean,” Steve adds, and Bucky hadn’t even thought of that. “Tested last yesterday. Didn’t do anything tonight.”

There is a desperate, hopeful glint to his eye. Like he knows this is real.

“You on a pill?” Bucky asks, because he doesn’t want to risk getting him pregnant on his last night in New York.

Steve nods, and Bucky hesitates no more. This is real to him, and the words  I love you  are on his lips when he comes.

Steve lets him hold him, lets him wrap his arms around him and envelop him, and Bucky is grateful for that as they fall asleep. He hasn’t prayed in a long time, but while Steve’s breathing deepens and slows, Bucky prays.

“Let it be real,” he begs God. “Let it work this time.”

He can’t know if God heard him, if he plans to answer, or even if he is listening, but he prays anyway. He falls asleep, holding onto Steve like he’s drowning.

When the morning breaks and his alarm jolts him from sleep, Bucky rouses Steve gently. He shifts and sighs gently before he wakes, and he looks peaceful and beautiful in a way Bucky hasn’t seen him look since before he told him he was moving to Indiana.

Then his lashes flutter and he opens his eyes, he yawns and stretches, and presses closer to Bucky. He doesn’t want to, but he slides out of him and cuts the connection. He feels cold for it and kisses Steve, wanting to revel in his warmth a little longer.

Steve’s hands clench on his hair, but it is cut short to his scalp and he can’t tangle and knot his fingers into it the way he used to when they were kids. Bucky wants this to be real, and he reaches up to pull his dog tags off his neck.

He presses them into Steve’s palm. “Take ‘em.”

Steve turns them over in his fingers, his face weary again. Bucky feels like he’s about to burst; he wants this real and he wants Steve to want it to. He feels like begging.

“Don’t you need ‘em?” Steve whispers.

“I can get another set,” he says. He would beg. “‘Sides, they say it’s good luck for your someone to wear your tags. Means you can’t die.”

He wants Steve to be his someone again. He will beg if he has to.

Steve, at the words  can’t die , drapes the chain over his neck. The tags rest next to the burnished pewter promise ring, bright and sterile next to it. Bucky lets all the air out of his lungs in relief, then leans in to kiss Steve again.

“Means I’ll come back,” he whispers.

“You already promised that,” Steve mutters.

“Means I still intend to keep it,” he says, and Steve rests back on the mattress, looking at him with guarded eyes. 

He reaches over and lifts it between his thumb and index finger, caresses it gently under his thumb, rubbing a little of the shine back into it. He bought it at a pawn shop, a day after his parents told him they were moving. He’d seen it on his way home from school, on a day when Steve was home sick, and walked in and bought it without even thinking about what he was doing.

“That’s a promise ring, you know,”  the shop owner had told him, like he was asking if Bucky knew what he was doing.

“I know ,” he’d answered.

It had taken him all summer to give it to Steve. He’d been nervous, afraid Steve might give it back, but the second Steve put it on his finger, he’d felt the weight of the world lift off his shoulders for a moment.

“I always meant to keep it,” he says then. “I enlisted to get the GI bill to go to MIT, but they actually decided to send me out. I thought, go to MIT, get a degree, get a job, get married.”

“To me?” Steve asks, like he doesn’t believe him.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, like it should be obvious. Steve looks at his hands, his brows knit together in the center to crease his forehead and his lips turned down into a frown. There are lines in his face, the repetition of the frown aging him. He looks older than 23. Almost 24. Only three days short of 24, and he looks older than that, too.

“I never thought it’d be true,” he whispers.

Bucky feels older than 25. “I always meant it, wasn’t even fear of your ma.” He meant it when he bought the ring and when he gave it to Steve and when he called him from a hotel in Pittsburg. He meant it when he asked every night for two years if he could call, and he still meant it the night he didn’t. He meant it even when Steve pulled away from him, like he didn’t want it anymore.

Looking at him, Steve’s drawn his brows together, his nose scrunched up, like he’s trying not to cry. Bucky doesn’t need to ask, Steve’s already said. He had always wanted Bucky to mean it, and really did never believe it.

Bucky can’t let it happen again. He looks around, then asks if he has a cellphone, meaning if he has a new number, as he digs in the side drawer for a pen and paper. He writes his number down, then presses it into Steve’s palm. “That’s my number, we get an hour free in the evening for personal time.”

“You wouldn’t rather use it to jerk off?” Steve grumbles, like a knee-jerk reaction to deflect from his emotions.

Bucky smiles, then reaches up to trace his jaw, from his ear down to his chin, then sweeps his thumb over Steve’s lower lip. He inhales, his lashes falling to brush his cheeks, then looks back up at Bucky.

“If you’re in the mood for it,” he says, deflecting from their emotions like Steve wants. He leans in and presses their lips together, palm cupping his cheek, and Steve’s hands return to his hair. He hears paper crumple and kisses harder, pulling Steve in by the waist and prays again.

Let it be real.

Then someone bangs on the door and Steve jerks away from him, but Bucky locks his arms around his waist, refusing to let go, refusing to let him pull away again.

“Come on, Barnes, time to pack up!” Captain Phillips calls through the door before moving on to the next room.

Steve has turned his head toward the door, so Bucky kisses the corner of his mouth. “I’ll text you when I can, alright?” he promises. He knows that he sounds desperate. Steve still looks at the door, not at him.

“You don’t even have my number,” he says quietly.

“Text me, then, and I’ll reply as soon as I can.”

He still doesn’t believe. Bucky can’t believe it, but he’s not letting go this time, he’ll make him believe. Finally, Steve nods, and turns his head back to face him, though he still won’t look him in the eye. Bucky cups his jaw, kisses him one more time, then reluctantly pulls away to get up.

He puts on his uniform, and Steve dresses in the same clothes he left the club in. Even dressed, Bucky can smell himself on Steve. It sends a thrill of possessive pride through him, and the fact that Steve seems comfortable with Bucky’s scent permeating his skin reassures him.

But the lights, they make the circles under his eyes look like bruises. As they dress and the inches between them widen, Steve’s shoulders go lax, his movements become loose and mindless, and a heavy weariness settles over him. Bucky reaches out for his hand, and it takes him a very long time to notice.

He looks at Bucky’s hand, like he’s startled, for a very long time. Bucky takes a step closer. He prays.

Steve takes his hand. Bucky, relieved, pulls him close and wraps his arm around his waist. He pulls open the door, letting stand open behind them, and they step outside.

Steve starts to pull away, as though by habit, and Bucky does not let him. Dum Dum and Gabe, standing in the parking lot, elbow each other, grinning. Gabe whistles and Dum Dum cups his hands over his mouth to shout: “Get it, Sarge!”

Steve draws his nose back and his body stiffens. He starts to pull away, but Bucky does not let him. Bucky glares at them and yells at them to shut up. Dum Dum shrugs and Gabe quits applauding.

Bucky glances at Steve, but he’s looking at the ground, weary once more. Bucky walks him down to his car, lingers while he unlocks it and gets in, then leans on the door until Steve lowers the window, looking up at him with a confused expression.

“I love you,” he says simply. He says it like it ought to be obvious, and he means it.

Steve’s lips part and his gaze slips away from him. Bucky leans in to kiss his cheek, then brushes Steve’s cheek with a knuckle, straightens up and turns away. He doesn’t want to. He wishes he could desert and run away with Steve, but he knows that their future depends on this. As much as he doesn’t want to, he walks away.

Dum Dum grabs him by the shoulders and cackles as he nears the vans. “Got some wild in you after all, don’tcha, Sarge? Ha, ha!”

“Fuck off,” Bucky snaps, throwing Dum Dum’s grip. “Ain’t wild nothing. I’m marrying him when I get back.”

Dum Dum blinks. Gabe raises his eyebrows.

“I’m serious,” Bucky says, a firm scowl on his face, like he’s daring them to question it. Like he’s daring them not to believe him either.

Junior looks between them, face screwed up in confusion, while Happy Sam adopts an expression of mild constipation. Morita scratches his head and Gabe and Dum Dum exchange worried looks.

“Did we miss something?” Morita asks.

“Since when are you getting married?” Happy Sam says.

But Junior peers over their shoulders. “Innit that the guy from the Red Room?” he says. “What’s his name, Candy or something?” He elbows Morita then. “Didn’t you get a lap dance from him last night?”

Morita leans to the left and Bucky reigns in the urge to punch him. “Uh,” Morita says, now looking at Bucky.

“I promised we’d get married when we were kids,” Bucky snaps. “Ain’t new news.”

“In that case, I definitely didn’t get a lap dance from nobody last night,” Morita says.

Happy Sam nods firmly, looking sheepish. Bucky pushes past them, throwing his duffle into the back of a van, and climbs in, dropping into a seat. Gabe crawls in next to him.

“You  really  know ‘im,” he says, bumping their shoulders.

Bucky nods, but says nothing. He’s still resisting the urge to beat Morita’s face in, just to have someone to blame.

“That’s some serious knowin’,” Dum Dum says. He leans on the door of the van. “Serious, man.”

“I gave him a promise ring,” Bucky murmurs. “Sixteen. Coupl’a days before his fifteenth birthday.”

“Shit,” Gabe says meaningfully.

“Serious,” Dum Dum mutters.

Bucky nods jerkily, then looks out the window towards Steve’s car. He’s still there. He’s sitting in his car, hands on the wheel, his jaw slack.

“He doesn’t believe me,” Bucky says. “But he will.”

“Serious,” Dum Dum echoes softly.

“Dead serious,” Bucky says. He watches Steve drive away, and feels like he’s taken another part of his heart with him. “Dead serious.”

nine months later

Bucky presses the phone to his ear as it begins to ring. He lays in his bunk, facing the wall, almost hugging himself as he listens to it ring. The past two days, it’s rung all the way to voicemail, and Bucky can’t stop worrying that Steve’s been quiet lately.

Like when they were kids, right before he stopped answering.

It rings. Bucky holds his breath.

The line clicks. Bucky sits up rapidly.

“Hey,”  Steve says softly.

“Steve!” Bucky half shouts in his relief. “Oh, thank God. Are you okay? What happened? Where have you  been ?”

“I had the flu,”  Steve says.

“Flu?” Bucky repeats. Steve had a flu shot already this season. He’s already worried, but now Steve’s lying to him. “But –” He shoves himself backward, leaning against the wall, and in the background on Steve’s end of the line, he hears something like a baby crying. “What’s that noise?”

“Nothing,”  Steve says. He sounds like he’s been crying.  “It’s the TV.”

“Steve, are you okay, what’s been going on, you been scaring me.”

He knows he sounds desperate.

“I’m fine. Just, tired. Nothing’s happened, don’t worry.”

He wonders if Steve knows that he sounds like he’s been crying.

But he won’t tell him, and Bucky knows better than to press. He lets it go, tries to have a meaningful conversation with him, even though he keeps hearing whatever Steve’s ma’s watching on TV. He wonders why Steve hasn’t told her to turn it down, and what the hell she’s even watching. He swears, he’s hearing a baby cry.

sixteen hours later. before dawn in iraq, still night in new york.

There was a landmine in the road. Buried too far down for the dogs to sniff out, but not so far that it didn’t send the first truck flying. Flying, until it soared over their heads and landed at the very end of the caravan; a clear mile away.

It was over before it really even started. Insurgents swarmed the trucks, shot half of them, the ones not dead from the other bombs. Bucky wished he could have said he was brave. That he fought back. But a kid who looked maybe sixteen shoved the muzzle of a semi-automatic in his face and he stuck his hands up. He wasn’t shooting a fucking teenager.

Teenager had no reservations, though. He shot him in the foot, then hauled him out of the back of the truck. They lined them up, the Americans, and a big guy who looked like the boss came around and looked at them all. There were twelve of them at that point. Then the boss pulled a pistol and shot the guy standing next to Bucky in the face, and then there were eleven. They shoved them all into a truck, and as they drove off, everything left exploded.

Bucky had bits of brain matter on his face. He kept thinking that Steve had lied to him last they talked.

a week later

Bucky wished they’d just kill them already.

a month

They strapped him to a table and shot him full of drugs. A fat man with round glasses laughed, and Bucky wished they’d just kill him already.

six months

At this point, every time Bucky thought he’d finally die of starvation, someone shoved a feeding tube down his throat and pumped him full of a brown sludge that tasted like shit. It wouldn’t have surprised him if it really was. Of the eleven that had been taken, seven lived still. His men were all still alive, and if he were honest, Bucky was sorry that they were. It would be better if they were dead. It would be better if he were dead. He kept thinking; Steve had lied to him last they spoke.

a year

He was strapped to a table, hooked up to an IV. He may have been there a day, or a month, but he wasn’t dead yet and that was all he knew.

He hadn’t been much of a praying man before. He’d prayed God would give Steve back to him, and before that, the only time he’d prayed was when his gramps was dying and he asked for him to die painlessly.

Now, Bucky just prayed that the devil would come for him already, because he’d been dying painfully for way too fucking long.

He saw things. He heard things. He saw his home and his ma and his little sister when she was four and lost five teeth at once and had pigtails that she’d dyed red one day ‘cause she got into their ma’s bathroom and messed around with her hair dye. He saw his gramps, who leaned on his elbows next to Bucky and told him that all his prayers did shit ‘cause he died in fucking agony while all his organs failed at once and one at a time. He saw that kid who shot him in the foot, only now Bucky was the one shooting, and he was shooting to kill – He saw the twelfth man, and watched his brain leak out the hole in his head – He saw Steve, but glowing like he was descended from Heaven to bring him peace – He saw Steve, tired and worn out and unhappy but trusting him anyway – He saw Steve, not yet fifteen years old, squinting in the sunlight at a burnished pewter ring. Saw him tossing it back and shaking his head.

Saw him believing someone else when they said they loved him. And sure, seeing his grandpa with bloodshot eyes and smelling his breath like his insides were decomposing early and his yellowed skin from his failing kidney was bad, and watching that guy’s brains leak out into a puddle, that was bad, and everything else, and the fact that  he  wasn’t dead yet, that was terrible.

Seeing Steve fall in love with somebody else was the worst.

nearly two years

“Sergeant,” he mumbles repeatedly. “32557. Barnes, James Buchanan. 03/10/1987. Sergeant. 3255…”

He sees things. He squints, thinking this is another hallucination, ‘cause Steve ain’t that tall.

“Sarge, come on, get up,” Steve says, but it ain’t Steve’s voice.

“Dum Dum?” Bucky mutters.

“Jesus, what they got you on? Yeah, it’s me, moron.”

Bucky lifts his head, but the leather strap on his forehead stops him. Steve appears in his vision again, but when he blinks, he sees a mustache and scraggly beard. He blinks again, and it’s Dum Dum.

“Hey,” Bucky says stupidly. “Whassup?”

Dum Dum’s eyebrows shoot up. “We bustin’ out, that’s whassup, Sarge!” He starts undoing the straps on his head, neck, shoulders, arms, legs, feet. Bucky lifts his head, looking down his body.

“‘S a lotta straps,” he slurs.

“What the fuck is in that IV?” snaps Gabe. Bucky turns his head, seeing Gabe standing by the door with two rifles in hand.

“Gabe!” he cries out. “You’re okay! Swear, they cut your hands off.”

Gabe looks at his hands. “No,” he says. “They cut yours off.”

Bucky looks down. Then he leans over the side of the table and vomits.

“Hey, hey, watch the feet!” Dum Dum protests, jumping away. Bucky throws up all the shit in his stomach, and then hacks up a lung or four.

His left arm is a jagged stump just above the elbow. It’s oozing yellow pus, and the skin is gray and necrotic. Maybe it’s his insides that are decomposing early.

“Get him up, Dum Dum, c’mon, we gotta get outta here!”

“I’m trying! Jesus! Jesus, what they got you on?”

“I seen angels,” Bucky mumbles. He grabs Dum Dum’s shirt, which is soaked through with sweat – with blood, actually. “Dead people. Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Dum Dum echoes. “Fuck!”

“Get ‘im up!”

“Steve!” Bucky gasps. Dum Dum hauls him off the table. “Steve! He lied, he don’t have the flu, he fucking lied to me, Dum Dum –”

“Let’s go, Sarge,” Gabe interrupts. He grabs his arm from Dum Dum; his only arm, drags it over his shoulders and half lifts him off his feet. “Your Omega ain’t lied, he waiting at home for you, you drove him half mad with worry, let’s not worry him no more, c’mon –”

Bucky sags, his head lolling, and Gabe hauls him out. He stares down his chest at his left arm. Pus drips from the end, leaving a trail. There’s vomit on his shirt. And blood. A lotta blood; can’t all be his. Or maybe it is all his, it’s his from the past day that turned into a month; he kept making new blood and they kept letting him bleed it all out and now it’s soaking his clothes and his stump of an arm.

Gabe drags him until Bucky figures out how to move his feet again. Then they’re stumbling upstairs, pushing through a gate, and Bucky hisses in pain at the bright light outside. Floodlights? Searchlights? He blinks, and the light becomes sunshine.

He blinks, and he sees sand. Dum Dum, Mortia, Junior, they’re running for a truck. Sam’s on Bucky’s other side, getting pus from his arm all over him, but he and Gabe are carrying him out, and there’s sunshine on his face.

“Fuck,” he whispers to the sunshine. “You ain’t shit.”

Sunshine can’t outstrip Steve smiling at him. He’s gonna see Steve smile again. Bucky grins brightly, like a madman, and Gabe and Sam throw him into the back of the truck.

“You ain’t shit!” he screams to the base they’re leaving behind. “Hear me? Y’all ain’t shit!”

“Ain’t shit!” Gabe cheers.

“Whoo!” Dum Dum screams. Morita fires into the air, and Bucky collapses onto the truck bed, looking up at the canvas roofing with hazy eyes. Gabe starts singing Sweet Home Alabama and Sam and Morita and Junior and Dum Dum all join in, ain’t none of ‘em live in Alabama or even the Deep South, but they sing along anyway, and Bucky lets his body go boneless on the floor of the truck bed. They sound like angels, even Dum Dum’s off-key tremors and Junior who’s crying while he’s singing, and Bucky would sing along but he ain’t going to Sweet Home Alabama.

“Ain’t shit, Iraq,” he mutters. “Comin’ home, Stevie. Comin’ home.”

another three months

Took way too fucking long, but Bucky’s walking up to Miss Rogers’ apartment; lopsided still, he isn’t used to not having a left arm, but he’s there. He knocks with his only hand, waits, rocking back and forth on his toes.

Miss Rogers opens the door and he grins automatically. Sight for sore eyes, she is. He waves briefly at the kid she’s holding, grins at her shocked face.

“You babysitting?” he asks, but he doesn’t really care. “Is Steve in?”

She’s covering her mouth with her free hand. The toddler on her hip waves at him, grinning.

“He’s at work,” she whispers. Bucky waves at the kid again, ‘cause he keeps waving, and she steps back, lowering her hand to gesture him in. “Come in.”

He steps inside, looking around. Miss Rogers puts the kid in a playpen, stepping around a pile of toys to her rocker and gesturing to the sofa to Bucky. He sits, but he’s looking at the toys.

It’s weird that there’s so many if she’s babysitting.

He glances at Miss Rogers, and she’s openly gawking at him. He looks at the toddler, feeling awkward, and the kid waves again. Bucky waves back. Kids are weird.

“We went to your funeral,” she says abruptly.

Bucky looks back at her, nods slowly. His ma told him about it. Empty coffin, she’d said. She hadn’t said much.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I know.”

He wonders if he should apologize, but then she’s asking him what happened.

He looks away, then at the kid who’s still smiling at him. He doesn’t get into details, talk about the necrotic skin at his elbow and how it had to get amputated at the shoulder when he got back to US soil; sand, really. He just says that he got captured, only escaped a few months back.

“They discharged me,” he says, then adds: “Honorably,” like he’s worried she might judge him. She’s Steve’s ma, he’s been worried that she’s judging him since he gave Steve the ring. “Gave me a ticket home.”

“You didn’t go to your parents?” she asks. He shrugs.

“I spoke to ‘em, for a minute. Ma’s thrilled, they’re coming out to see me.”

Miss Rogers looks at the toddler. He looks, too, but the kid’s fine. She looks back at him, her face impassive but for shock.

“Steve will be home in a little while,” she says.

The kid claps and Bucky glances at him briefly before nodding to Miss Rogers. She says nothing else, so neither does he. A few minutes pass and the kid catches Bucky’s attention by waving again.

“He’s cute,” he says conversationally.

“Yes,” Miss Rogers says faintly. Bucky wonders if she’s okay. She sounds like she might pass out.

Bucky counts the seconds until the front door opens again. Once, his hands might itch for a cigarette, but he detoxed somewhere buried under the deserts of Iraq and hasn’t picked up a smoke since. He counts the seconds until the front door opens, and then jumps up when it does.

Steve tosses his keys onto a table, rolling his shoulders like he’s tired, then he turns around and catches sight of Bucky. He grins and Steve claps his hands over his mouth. Bucky hardly even sees the fella that followed Steve in.

He grins, grins, and grins. Steve’s eyes are wide and shocked, but he’s damn beautiful, more beautiful than Bucky remembered. He looks just as weary and worn out, the circles under his eyes are still dark like bruises, but,  fuck , is he beautiful.

Slowly, he lowers his hands to his chin, clasping them together like he’s about to pray. He breathes out Bucky’s name like a prayer.

“Hey,” Bucky says. He knows how relieved he sounds.

Steve takes a step closer. Bucky hears the kid making upset noises and Miss Rogers breaks his sightline to duck between them and scoop the kid up, and Steve steps closer. The kid is crying now, and Bucky glances at him, confused, and sees him straining for Steve.

Something doesn’t add up, but Bucky’s focused on Steve. He’s about to close the gap and kiss him when Steve lowers his hands.

Bucky sees him raise his arm, but it’s not until his hand flashes into the corner of his eye does he realize that Steve is slapping him. Then his palm makes contact and Bucky half spins from the blow, letting out a knee-jerk cuss as he touches his cheek, and Steve just fucking  slapped  him.

“What was that for?” he spits out, looking up.

Steve is holding the toddler, who is whimpering and clinging to him. Bucky feels the air leave his lungs. Something didn’t add up before, but it’s clicking now.

Steve is yelling, crying, too, but Bucky can’t hear him. He’s gawking at the toddler that Steve is holding to his neck like it’s  his  toddler. He’s staring at the toddler who has Steve’s mouth and dark hair and pale eyes, until Steve turns to the man that walked in with him and Bucky’s attention is jerked from the child who looks like Steve to the man who also looks like the child.

“Can you take him?” he hears Steve say. “Go in our room.”

The man takes the now screaming toddler and hurries out. Bucky watches them, mouth hanging open and a hand still touching his cheek absently.

“Who is that?” he demands hoarsely.

“Brock,” he hears Steve mutter. He’s not looking at Steve.

“That’s your kid, then?” Bucky says. He glances at Steve long enough to see him nod at the ground, then jerks his gaze back to the shut door. That’s Steve’s bedroom, he knows. Steve told whoever the fuck  Brock  is to go into  their  room.

He blows out his breath sharply and drops his hand to clench it into a fist. “Looks like his pop,” he says darkly.

He never thought he could hate a toddler.

“Have you spoken to your parents?” Steve’s angry voice cuts into his thoughts. Bucky jerks his gaze to him, glares at  him  instead, tries to order his thoughts into something other than rage and heartbreak.

“Yeah,” he snaps. “But I said I needed to see  you  first. I made a promise.”

Steve won’t look at him; his face is guilty aimed at the ground. Bucky wants to scream.

“But, you’ve moved on,” he says bitterly. “I see that. I wouldn’t hold it against you, since you went to my funeral and all –” he spits the next words out – “‘cept I think you should have told me you’d moved on before that!”

Steve won’t look at him. Bucky cannot  believe  this. That kid’s no younger than two, Steve didn’t just lie to him the last time they spoke, he’d been lying to him the entire time he was in Iraq.

“I kept calling you like a fool!” he screams. “What was I to you, if you were sleeping with him the whole time?!”

“Get out!” Miss Rogers barks, but for once, Bucky doesn’t give a  shit  what Steve’s mother thinks.

“You should’ve told me!” he yells. He saw this in Iraq. He saw this, thinking Steve thought him dead and  then  moved on. He didn’t fucking see this  before  he got captured and tortured endlessly and prayed they’d just fucking kill him already. He thought what they did hurt, but right now, he’d rather be back on that table.

“Get out!” Miss Rogers shouts again, and the sound of a child wailing cuts through her words. Steve glances one more time at him, then runs for fucking Brock and Brock’s son.

Miss Rogers grabs his shoulder, but Bucky throws her off. He kicks aside a toy and slams the door shut behind him. He yells, an incoherent sound, kicks a wall and when someone shouts for silence, he just screams for them to fuck off. He can hear yelling inside the apartment, but it’s drowned out by the shrill wailing of Steve’s kid by somebody else.

He slams more doors on his way down the stairs. He gets to the car he rented to get here from the airport, jerks open the door and gets in before slamming it, too.

For a moment, he grips the steering wheel. His face is scrunched up with anger, and his cheeks feel cold from the breeze. Bucky drops his forehead onto it and a wretched sob tears from his throat.

Why didn’t he die on that table? Why did he have to make it home? He’d rather be dead than know this. Why didn’t he die?

He drives back to the same hotel he took Steve to his last night in New York. He has to extend his stay. The receptionist gives him a weird look, but puts a few more nights on his room, and he goes up to it, collapses onto the bed. He’d thought he would only need the one night when he checked in at two in the morning. He’d thought he’d stay with Steve.

It’s not the same room, but it’s a motel. All the rooms look the same. Bucky lies flat on the bed, his left shoulder barely a bump underneath him, and alternates between raging and sobbing. He does it quieter, so nobody bangs on the walls to tell him to shut up. New Yorkers ain’t shit. People are nicer in Shelbyville, in Fayetteville, in Huntsville. New Yorkers are all angry and bitter and loveless. He hates New York now, too, and he’s a New Yorker. He guesses that means he hates himself. It's a strange realization. He hates himself. It's stranger that it doesn't upset him.

But he can’t hate Steve. His feet carry him back anyway, maybe because he’s a sucker for pain or he has to know why Steve cheated on him, or if Steve cheated on this other guy with  him . Maybe both.

When he knocks, a teenage girl answers. He sees the kid behind her, sitting on the floor. Kid waves at him. Bucky ignores him.

“You’re Bucky,” the teenager says.

“Uh,” he answers, then checks that he has the right apartment. He does. “Yeah?”

“You’re a moron,” she says, and shuts the door.

Bucky kicks it. All it accomplishes is that his foot hurts now. He drops his weight against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. Girl must be the actual babysitter, he figures. He’ll wait for Steve. He’s been waiting for Steve to keep breaking his heart near on a decade now, might as well wait a little longer.

When Steve exits the stairwell, he lifts off the wall, but Steve doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t look at him when he calls his name, doesn’t look when Brock shoves Bucky off-balance, doesn’t look before he shuts the door in Bucky’s face.

Bucky pounds on it, yelling, and no one answers. He bangs again, yells some more, and no one answers. A minute later, Steve yanks it open again, in different clothes, and still doesn’t look at him. Bucky gapes after him.

“Don’t you have anything to say to me?” he yells.

“No,” Steve sighs, like he’s tired. He pushes open the door to the stairs, then pauses. “Yes,” he adds, and Bucky’s heart skips a beat. “You’re an idiot.”

Bucky’s jaw drops open again;  who does he think he is , he thinks. Steve still doesn’t look at him.

“I was held underground for twenty months!” Bucky shouts. Steve pauses in the stairwell, and Bucky strides up to him while he turns around. He looks tired. “I didn’t see sunlight that whole time. They cut my arm off,” he adds, “just ‘cause they could.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Steve says emotionlessly.

“Say something,” Bucky demands. “Anything!”

“You’re blind,” Steve says and turns back to the stairs.

“I loved you!” Bucky yells after him. Steve half runs down the stairs, but Bucky chases him. He’s always chased him.

“I know!” Steve shouts over his shoulder. He slams doors on his way down.

“I still love you!” Bucky yells. He tears down the stairwell after him, distraught, desperate, loveless and bitter, but he’s always chased Steve. “How could you do that to me?”

How could he  betray  him like this?

They burst out the doors of the stairs to the first floor, and he yells: “I wanted to marry you!” like it changes anything to remind Steve.

“I know!” Steve screams back. He turns around abruptly, shoves Bucky hard in the chest so that he stumbles back a few feet and screams: “I knew that! You died!”

Bucky swells, to point out that he was still fucking alive and around whenever Steve got pregnant, but he isn’t done.

“You died and I never told you –” he breaks off, red in the face and about to start crying.  Good , Bucky thinks bitterly. He should cry.

“I wasn’t dead when you had that kid!” he shouts.

Steve shakes his head, waves his hands, then points at him and blinks away tears. “You are blind! Blind, blind motherfucker, you don’t know shit –”

Someone yells for quiet. Steve shake his head again and bursts out of the building, and Bucky chases him.

“You lead me on!” he yells, like it can change anything. He’s a New Yorker. He’s angry and loveless and bitter and to cope, he yells.

“I hate you!” Steve screams. Bucky stops, frozen in his steps, and he can’t breathe. “You want to think that, fine, I  hate  you.”

Steve slams his car door and it jerks out of the parking space into traffic. Bucky can’t breathe. He stands there, the summer breeze cooling his hot tears, and he can’t breathe.

He stumbles backward until his heels hit something and he drops onto the steps of the building. He can’t breathe.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, but Miss Rogers appears in his view and startles him. She looks down at him, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun, and purses her lips.

“Has he said?” she asks.

“Said what?” Bucky mutters. “That he hates me? He hates me now. Dunno what I did. Only loved him. Wanted to spend the rest of my miserable life with him. He fucking…”

He looks at the ground, clenching his jaw. Miss Rogers makes an angry noise.

“He doesn’t hate you,” she says sharply. Bucky looks up, eyes half shut from the sunlight. He once thought the sunshine had nothing on Steve’s smiling, but now he thinks that’s not true. The sunshine has nothing on Steve’s hate.

“Sounds like he does,” he says.

“He’s scared,” she snaps. “It’s probably my fault. But it’s not too late. He’s unhappy. He never smiles, not at anyone. Hardly ever, even at –”

She breaks off. Bucky glares at the ground. Sunshine still got nothing on Steve’s smile, even if his hatred burns hotter.

“At his son,” she finishes. She sounds bitter, too, though Bucky doesn’t know what for.

“Fix it,” she says.

Bucky looks up again, then scoffs and looks away, down the road, at what he doesn’t know. “What am I gonna do? How am I gonna fix it? Why should I fix it?” he finishes with a snarl; why should he fix Steve’s life, when Steve was the one to ruin it in the first place, when Steve was the one to ruin his in the first place?

“Because you’re his Alpha,” she says simply.

“Don’t feel like it,” Bucky mutters. He’s never felt less like Steve’s Alpha in his life, not even when Steve started giving him flimsy excuses not to talk and was quiet on the phone in Iraq. “Feels more like that fella he’s with is his Alpha, on account of their kid and everything.”

“You made a promise, didn’t you?” Miss Rogers snaps.

“I didn’t break it!” Bucky snaps back. She glares at him.

“Moron,” she huffs, and goes up the steps. Bucky turns to gawk at her, then looks at the street with his jaw hanging open. He cannot  believe  this.

“Fuck you, New York,” he decides. “Fuck you and your shitty citizens.”

Someone gives him a weird look walking by, another person flips him off. Bucky flips them off in return, then slumps against the steps. Fix it, he thinks angrily. Steve doesn’t want  him  to fix it.

He watches traffic and pedestrians. Watches people jaywalk and taxi drivers yell out their windows. New York feels timeless; eternal, like Bucky’s been sitting on that stoop for decades now and he just hasn’t aged. New York feels cruel; heartless, like the whole damn city lined up outside the Red Room and laughed in his face and Steve’s weariness and that damn kid, the son of a hooker, who wouldn’t stop waving. New York feels just the same as it did when he moved in at six years old; huge and unfeeling and indifferent to a kid looking for a home. He sits there, waiting for God knows what, until Steve’s car pulls back up. He watches him get out, slam his door and lock the car. There’s a baby seat in the back. Bucky hates it.

Steve stops in front of him. “Go home,” he says shortly.

Bucky points up at the building with an angry finger. “Can’t,” he says shortly. “People’s living there.”

As much as he hates New York now, he lived there longer than anywhere else. Close enough to home he ever had. Plus, Steve lives in New York. And Steve’s not his anymore, so what’s home to him? His bunk in Iraq? The house in Shelbyville? The shack of a place on Fort Bragg, Fort Benning, the places he’s lived in for four months or five years or only a few weeks, the hotel rooms that replaced childhood bedrooms and the listless feeling of never belonging? He doesn’t have a home, not anymore. Steve was his only home.

“Go to Indiana,” Steve snaps. Bucky shakes his head; he only lived in Indiana for two years. “Go to your parents.”

He hears Steve inhale deeply and looks up again. He looks like he’s gonna cry, and Bucky looks away. The bitter part of him revels in Steve’s pain, in knowing he hurts for hurting Bucky, but it’s not big enough to eclipse the part of him that fell in love when he was six.

“Don’t wanna,” he mutters.

“What  do  you want?” Steve says angrily, like he did when he was fifteen.

Bucky looks up again, and answers like he did when he was sixteen.

“I want to kiss you.”

Steve looks away, then, up at the building towards his apartment, and Bucky watches him suck in a breath. He wants to sweep Steve into his arms and kiss him, ‘cause he’s missed him so fucking much the past three years; and it’s been three years since Bucky saw him drive off from the hotel, after he said  I love you  for the first time and surprised Steve with it. He’s missed him like he was addicted, only he never detoxed from Steve.

But he won’t kiss him, he doesn’t get to, because of Steve’s son by somebody else.

“Your ma says you never smile,” he says suddenly.

Steve inhales, then exhales: “No.”

He says it too easily. Bucky scowls at the ground.

“Never smile at your boyfriend.”

“He doesn’t care,” Steve says.

“That’s  not  a good thing,” Bucky spits out. Brock, or whatever the hell his name is, he ought to be striving to make Steve smile every second of the day, he ought to know he has something precious and he ought to be treasuring him like he’s priceless, ‘cause he is. He ought to be laughing in Bucky’s face ‘cause he’s got what Bucky tried so fucking hard to have for more than a decade, and he got it in only a few months. Man ought to be feeling like he’s king of the world for having Steve’s love. Definitely shouldn’t be so indifferent to Steve never smiling.

“I don’t care,” Steve says then.

Bucky jerks to his feet. “That’s even  worse ,” he says, spitting mad, because  he  still fucking cares. He would have slaved away to make Steve smile if it hadn’t even been a  day  since he smiled last. He still would. “You don’t ever smile, she says. Not even for his kid.”

For his own kid.

“Brock is not his dad!” Steve bursts out.

“Well, whose kid is he?” Bucky yells. He’s bitter. He says something he shouldn’t, because he remembers a leering man offering Bucky Steve’s body for six hundred dollars and he lashes out in his hurt.

“Do you even know?” he shouts.

Steve is crying and Bucky shouldn’t have said that. He reaches up, grabs something from under the neck of his shirt, and yanks hard on it. He pulls a chain from under his collar, then shoves it into Bucky’s face.

“Whose kid is he, Bucky Barnes?” he snarls. He shoves the chain and the dog tags and the ring hanging from it into his chest, and Bucky catches them by reflex. “Whose kid is he!”

Steve turns on his heel and marches up the steps. Bucky can’t breathe.

He holds up his dog tags and promise ring, so that they glint in the sunlight. He can’t breathe.

“Shit,” he whispers. He goes to cover his mouth, except he doesn’t have a left hand. “Shit!”

He looks up at the building, and all the somethings that didn’t add up,  you’re a moron  and  you are blind , Steve’s ma telling him to fix things and Steve’s hurt anger, they line up and he can’t breathe. He gapes up at the window of Steve’s apartment, he can’t move, he can’t think, he can’t breathe.

“Shit!”

His . The kid is his. He can’t breathe.

Abruptly, Brock, or whatever his name is, throws the doors of the building open and storms out. He stops when he sees Bucky, then looks at the dog tags and the ring.

“Oh,  now  he takes them off,” he grumbles.

Bucky looks at him.  Shit .

Brock waves a hand towards the building. “All yours now,” he says bitterly, loveless like New York. “Cold-hearted bitch, anyway, wasn’t worth the trouble.”

Bucky swings before he can think. Brock stumbles backwards, clutching at his nose, which is now bleeding. Bucky’s gotten blood on his dog tags and the ring. He goes to wipe them off on his shirt, only he can’t hold them and wipe them clean at the same time. His hand shakes. He’s seeing brain matter with the blood; until he blinks and it’s only mucus.

“Fuck you!” Brock spits. Bucky looks up. “Fuck you, pal. I spent the past year and a half under your shadow, never  once  did I get anything for my trouble, fuck you and your bitch and your fucking whiny ass kid –”

Bucky punches again. Brock tries to block, but Bucky cuts under his arm and knocks the wind from his lungs. He jerks his knee up, hard, and Brock bends double.

“Stay away from Steve,” he snarls. “Stay away from my son.”

My son . He still can’t quite believe it.

Brock spits in his face. “Not worth it,” he says bitterly. Bucky had that same tone not even half an hour ago. “Not fucking worth my time,” he mutters, turning away. Bucky doesn’t know if he means a fight or Steve. Either way, he’s not worth Bucky’s time.

Bucky looks up at the building, then at his tags and ring. He shoves them into his pocket, tugs out his phone and starts a frantic Google search.  Jewelers new york. Ring resizing new york. Ring resizing brooklyn.

The ring fit Steve at not yet fifteen and no longer fit at 23. Bucky can get it fixed. He can fix this.

It takes two days and costs him, metaphorically, an arm and a leg. But the ring is big enough to fit on on the first knuckle of his pinky now, which is the closest guess he can make to Steve’s ring finger, and he’s replaced the chain Steve snapped for his dog tags, and he can fix this.

He knocks on Steve’s apartment, waits, and no one answers. Bucky looks around, pulls at his hair with his hand, then steps next door and knocks.

It’s opened by the teenage girl who babysat two days ago.

“Please don’t shut the door,” he begs when her hand flies back to the hem of the door. “Is Steve home? He didn’t answer my knock.”

“He’s home,” she says coldly. She crosses her arms and glares at him; she reminds him of Becca. “What do you want now?”

“I need to see him,” Bucky says. He knows he sounds desperate. “I need to see – My son. I need to see my son.”

She uncrosses her arms. She looks at him, like she’s considering it, then shuts the door. Bucky sinks against it, folding his hand into a fist.

“Shit,” he whispers.

Then the door opens again. Bucky falls, catches himself, and looks up with hopeful eyes.

“He’s on the fire escape,” she says. “You used to live here, right? You know how to get there?”

Bucky nods. She steps aside and waves him in.

“Don’t fuck it up,” she says.

Bucky nods vaguely. He hurries through the apartment, not even stopping to take the disassociating feel of the different furniture and decorations, into his old bedroom and the window to the fire escape. It’s still a teenage boy’s, though it looks radically different, Bucky doesn’t care. He pulls open the window and climbs out, tugging his tags out while he does.

Steve sits on his end, and his son sits in his lap. Bucky’s gut does a flip as he looks at the boy; at his son, at  their  son.

His son waves at him. He’s been waving this whole time. Bucky’s gut does another flip.

Steve’s pressing a hand to his heart, like his entrance had startled him, and Bucky sinks down onto the grate next to him. He can’t help staring at his son.

Steve, and his neighbor, and his mother; they were all right, he is blind. His son has his eyes.

“Neighbors are nice,” he murmurs. He was never good at  hellos . “They let me out here.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, but he draws their son closer to him. Bucky’s gut clenches.

He moves in closer and holds out his hand. Towards their son.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out. His son has his eyes, his nose, his chin. “I shouldn’t’ve assumed.”

Steve ducks his head and hides his face in their son’s hair. It looks soft, it looks like Bucky’s hair. Now that he’s there, he hurts even worse, because he’s had a son the past two years and he didn’t know. He spent hours on that table thinking about Steve, worrying about Steve, and the whole time he had a son. He thought about the teenager that shot him in the foot and he should have been dreaming about his son.

His son looks at his hand, then reaches out and wraps his hand around one of his fingers. Bucky exhales all the air in his lungs. He hurts to hold him, to hold Steve, to hold them both and never let go.

He walked away three years ago, and already he was leaving more than just Steve behind. He was looking for their future, but their future was growing inside him.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. He doesn’t even know who he’s apologizing to, his son or his Omega. “I – I jumped to conclusions. I never thought –… I thought you were on the pill?” he says this to Steve, lifting his eyes because he still can’t quite believe it, his son is in front of his eyes but he’s never seen something so amazing before.

“I was,” Steve mutters. His cheek rests on their son’s head, turned towards Bucky but his eyes are on the grate. “It failed.”

Bucky looks back at their son, and doesn’t think that it failed. As fucked up as it is, for him having never known and Steve having to be alone, this is an answered prayer. He had prayed for that night to lead to something real, and their child is as real as it gets.

“I should’ve told you,” Steve says regretfully.

“I get why you didn’t,” Bucky says quickly, because he doesn’t want Steve to think he’s mad about not knowing. He understands. He remembers that Joseph ran out on Sarah, literally ran, and remembers that Steve never believed his promise to begin with. He understands. He isn’t angry, he’s sad.

His son holds his finger, his hand just big enough to close around it. Bucky longs to hold him.

“I’ll love him,” he says to Steve, moving closer again. “I swear, I’ll love him, too. I love you.”

He’s always loved him. He loved their son when he was just a daydream, back when he was still a kid himself and thinking about a future. Two or three kids, he’d thought. They’d live in Brooklyn and their kids would go to the same school he and Steve went to and they’d never have to move around every few months or years.

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispers. Bucky wants to tell him not to be. “I should’ve told you.”

Bucky can’t speak anymore. He shifts even closer, so that their thighs press together, and pulls his finger from his son to put his hand on Steve’s shoulder. It’s the first time he’s touched him since leaving for Iraq and it hurts. When Steve doesn’t move, he slides it around to circle his neck, to hug him from the side and kiss the top of his head.

“What’s his name?” he asks, looking at their son.

Steve lifts his head, so that his hair brushes Bucky’s chin.

“James.”

Bucky feels all the air flee his lungs, but lifts his arm to touch James’s cheek, brushing his finger against his soft skin.

“Hey, kiddo,” he murmurs.

Steve leans his head onto his shoulder. Bucky kisses his head, then kisses his son, and reaches up to cup Steve’s jaw and kiss his lips. He feels complete in a way he hasn’t since he looked down and saw that all was left of his arm was a necrotic and oozing stump. He feels like he’s got a home now, and it’s sitting in Steve’s lap with his eyes and nose and chin.

He releases Steve’s jaw and lifts the dog tags. Steve takes them, then pauses. He’s looking at the chain, and Bucky reaches back into his pocket for the ring.

“I got it resized,” he says. He holds it out, and hopes. It shines now, bright and reflecting the light white. “So you can wear it on your hand.”

Steve drapes the dog tags around his neck and Bucky breathes a little. Then he takes the ring in his left hand and goes to put on his right, and Bucky touches his wrist. He looks up, and Bucky squeezes his hand gently.

“Other hand,” he whispers.

Steve’s lips part and he blinks a few times. “It’s a promise ring,” he mutters questioningly.

Bucky gives him a hopeful smile. “Not anymore,” he says. He realizes that his eyes are watering and there are tears on his lashes and under his eyes. He squeezes again lightly. “Said I’d marry you, didn’t I?”

Steve sucks in a breath, then he swaps hands. He slides the ring onto his left hand, and Bucky breathes in the rest of the way. He puts his arm around Steve, until his hand rests on James’s shoulder, kisses Steve’s temple and breathes.

“I hate the army,” Steve says quietly.

“I hate it, too,” Bucky says, kissing his hair.

“You died,” Steve whispers, voice shaking, “and I never said I loved you back.”

“I knew you did,” Bucky says, though it’s a lie. “I knew.”

Steve’s breaths are shaking, shuddering and bordering hyperventilating. His hand grabs into the front of his shirt, his fingers curling into a fist until his knuckles are white. “I never said – I never said I loved you, I never said about James, I never said any of the things that mattered.”

Bucky holds on tighter. “‘M here now,” he murmurs, “I got you.”

James, his son James, looks up at him. Bucky smiles, sucks back a breath and blinks away tears, then James reaches up. Steve lifts a hand, but James reaches past him.

“Papa,” he says, reaching for Bucky.

Bucky can’t breathe. His son is reaching for him, calling for him, and knows who he is. His son has been waving at him ‘cause he knows who he is this whole time. He never thought it was possible for something so beautiful to hurt so bad. He lifts his arm and tucks it under James’s arms, Steve guiding him, then lifts him up and sets his feet on his knees. His son grins, and he’s got Steve’s smile. “Papa!”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, choking with emotion. “That’s me, kiddo.”

five years later

“Papa!” James yells.

“Pa–aaa–a!” Sarah screams next to him.

Bucky drops his head onto the handle of the shopping cart. Why did he take the kids with him? Why didn’t he leave them with Steve? Whose bright idea was it to take their kids to Target?

“She’s poking me!” James calls.

He’s sitting in the basket, Sarah’s in the child seat. She starts playing with his hair, since he’s dropped his forehead onto the handle in front of her.

“She’s not poking you, James,” he says tiredly. “Sarah, whatever he’s doing, he’s going to stop.”

Sarah is not yet old enough to understand that. She’s three. Three-year-olds understand naptime, food, and whatever their favorite toy is. Sarah’s favorite toy is, currently, his hair, and when he stands up, she whines loudly in protest.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, I have to get stuff,” he apologizes. She screws up her face and reaches, until he sighs and picks her up out of the cart, tucking her on his hip. She happily begins playing with his hair.

Bucky looks at the cart, now realizing his conundrum.

“Shit,” he mutters.

“Papa, Imma tell Daddy you said a bad word!” James yells.

“I didn’t say that!” Bucky immediately defends himself. Then he looks back at the cart. “Crap.”

James opens his mouth.

“Shh!” Bucky says. James shuts his mouth and crosses his arms over his chest. Sarah tugs on his hair and he winces.

Holding his daughter means she can play with his hair and won’t wail. However, that also means he can’t push the cart. He still only has one arm.

He gives it an experimental shove with his midriff. It rolls forward a few inches and bumps into a bin of discount movies.

“Shit,” he sighs again. James squeals and starts digging through the movies. “James, no, no, we’re not buying any movies!”

James scowls and puts  How To Train Your Dragon  back. Bucky looks at Sarah, sighs, then puts her back in the cart.

“No–ooo–o!”

“I have to push the cart, sweetie!”

“No–ooo–o!”

Bucky should have left the kids with Steve’s ma, for fuck’s sake.

“You can play with my hair later,” he promises, but three-year-olds don’t understand  later . “We just need eggs and pistachio ice cream, kids, then we can go home, okay?”

“I don’t like piss-tash-o ice cream,” James pouts.

“Good thing it’s not for you,” Bucky sighs.

“I want chocolate!” James yells.

“You can have some at home  if  you promise to be quiet for Pa, okay?”

Sarah shoves her hands in his face, wailing for his attention. Bucky catches both hands and drops a kiss onto her forehead, hoping to placate her, then starts pushing the cart towards the dairy section.

The pistachio ice cream was a last minute addition, anyway. Steve’s been craving it lately.

“Can I watch Power Rangers when we get home?” James asks loudly.

“If you’re quiet,” Bucky says distractedly. He’s looking for eggs.

“Hey!” James yells. Bucky jumps, grabbing the cart and ready to throw his body between Sarah and James and whatever James is yelling at, but they are in Target, not Iraq. “Hey!” James yells again, now standing up in the basket and waving his arms.

“James, cut that out!” Bucky snaps.

James drops his arms and sticks out his lower lip. “I was just saying hi,” he mumbles.

“To who?” Bucky demands.

“Rock,” James says, then points.

Bucky tries not to give his son a  the fuck is wrong with you child  look and turns around to point out that the Rock is  not  shopping in a random Target in Brooklyn, but James is not pointing at Dwayne Johnson.

Brock looks around, like he’s looking for whoever James is pointing at, too. Bucky raises his eyebrows, then turns around slowly to look at his son.

“How do you even remember him?” he says, then starts pushing the cart. “Sit down.” He’ll get ice cream and get out of there and hopefully Brock won’t approach.

“Pa–aaa–a!” James whines. He stands up again, leaning on the edge of the cart and Bucky stops it quickly before he can fall out. “I wanna say hi!”

“No!” Bucky snaps. “Sit down!”

James sits. He’s pouting again.

Sarah waves at someone behind Bucky. He turns around, and Brock waves back.

“Shit,” Bucky mutters.

“Hi,” Brock says. He looks at Sarah, then at James. “Wow.”

“No,” Bucky says flatly, then turns and starts pushing the cart.

“Hey, c’mon, I’m just saying hi!”

“No!” Bucky yells over his shoulder. “Stay away from my kids!”

“Hey, I raised that boy until you showed up!”

Bucky sticks his middle finger up behind him. People are staring now, but Bucky doesn’t care. He’s getting Steve his pistachio ice cream and he’ll get eggs later and he’s taking the kids home. They’re not shopping at this Target again.

“I wanna talk to Rock!” James whines.

“I said no!” Bucky snaps at him again. “Do not talk to him, ever, do you understand?”

“Pa–”

“No!” Bucky insists. He’s never said  no  this many times in a row before. James’s lower lip quivers and a pang of guilt hits him. “Look, I’m sorry, but you can’t talk to him, alright, kiddo?”

James hugs himself and scowls. Bucky sighs, because Steve’s going to throw a fit and so is James, and tantrums are his  least  favorite part of fatherhood. That and changing diapers.

He grabs the first kind of pistachio ice cream he sees and power walks to the checkout. James and Sarah are both pouting, but at least Sarah makes a happy noise when he drops his head back on the handlebar at the checkout. She immediately begins tugging on his hair.

He would get it cut, but Steve won’t let him. Apparently, letting Sarah play with his hair can cut off a bad mood faster than anything Steve could ever do for James, and that makes it a miracle. So his hair is down to his shoulders and Sarah gets to yank on it. Well, yank for a three-year-old. She’s surprisingly strong for a three-year-old, too.

“Papa, can I talk to Rock now?” James whines from the cart.

Bucky jerks his head up and Sarah says  Noooo!  again, and Brock is standing in the next check out lane.

“No,” he says to James.

Brock glares at him. “Not like I’d try to move in on your deal again, Barnes,” he snaps.

“No,” Bucky repeats vehemently. Steve has since told him what the final straw was to him kicking Brock out, and he’s not interested. He looks for another open checkout lane, but he’s already in the shortest line. He could abandon the cart full of groceries, but Steve would probably be just as mad at him for that as he will be for starting a fight with Brock in the middle of Target.

His eyes land on the pistachio ice cream. He could just get that and leave. He’s pretty sure he knows why Steve wants it so bad.

“Hi,” Sarah says, waving to Brock. Brock waves back.

Bucky scoops her out of the cart. “James, come on, we’re leaving.”

“But –”

“I said we’re leaving,” Bucky repeats sharply, and James clambers out of the basket. He’d help him out, only he can’t while holding Sarah. James grabs onto his shirt hem, though, like they’ve taught him to–  Hold daddy’s hand and hold Pa’s shirt if his hand is full – , and Bucky leaves the cart there in the middle of the checkout, like an asshole, but he’s not standing around next to Brock and letting him make small talk with his kids.

“Yeah, well, fuck you, too!” Brock shouts.

“Watch your language!” Bucky snaps as an automatic reaction. Then bites back a  fuck you  in response and maneuvers James and Sarah out of the check out aisle towards the doors. He’ll go home, drop the kids off before going back out to get the groceries. He fucking hates grocery shopping.

He has James get in the car, then buckles Sarah into her carseat before buckling James in. James is pouting still.

“Why can’t I talk to Rock?” he asks.

“Because I said so,” Bucky says, then stops to plant a kiss on his forehead before shutting the door. He gets into the drivers’ seat, puts his phone in a stand and dials Steve before he starts the engine. He puts it on speaker, turns around to check behind him, then starts backing out carefully.

“Hey,”  Steve answers.

“Hey, baby,” he calls. “One second.”

“Did you call me while driving?”  Steve asks him dryly.  “Bucky, you’re not supposed to do that.”

“Shh!” Bucky says. James and Sarah giggle. He shushes them, then puts the car in drive and pulls into the lane. “Okay, we’re good.”

“What’s up?”

“Detour. I’m bringing the kids back, then I’ll go get groceries by myself.”

“Why do you have to bring them home? Weren’t you almost done?”

Bucky doesn’t want to get into it over the phone. “Something came up,” he says. “Be home in a minute.”

“Fine,”  Steve sighs.  “Miss you, anyway.”

Bucky swells a bit. He smiles, feeling better already, then glances in the rearview mirror to make sure James and Sarah are fine. Sarah’s happily kicking her feet and James is pouting.

“Miss you too, honey,” he says to Steve. He wishes he could reach around and tickle James’s feet, like Steve does when he’s driving, but he can’t. “Kids, say hi to dad.”

“Hi, Dad,” James yells morosely. Sarah squeals and waves.

“What’s up with James?”  Steve asks immediately.

“Something came up,” Bucky repeats. “He’s fine.”

Steve is quiet on the other end of the line. Bucky checks his mirrors, sweeps his eyes across the road, unconsciously looking for mines.

“Are you okay?”  Steve asks.

“Fine,” Bucky tells him. He’s fine. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,”  Steve says. Bucky waits for him to hang up. He can’t take his hand off the wheel to do it himself.

Ten minutes pass, then Bucky’s parking behind their building and cutting the engine. He looks around the car, unconsciously checking for explosives, then gets out and walks around to Sarah’s side of the car to unbuckle her. She reaches for him and tangles her hands in his hair once he has her on his hip, then whines when he puts her down to let James out.

He crawls out and grasps Bucky’s shirt hem. He’s still pouting. Bucky shuts the doors and locks them, then lifts Sarah again, before bringing them inside.

They take the stairs, and when Bucky puts Sarah down to unlock the front door, it opens first. Steve raises his eyebrows and Sarah hugs his legs before running past him.

“I saw Rock,” James announces. Bucky winces. “Papa said I couldn’t talk to him.”

“Okay?” Steve says, like he assumes James is talking about Dwane Johnson, too, but he can’t connect that with the dark look on Bucky’s face. He ruffles James’s hair, then bends down so James can kiss his cheek before sending him off to go play. Bucky steps inside and shuts the door, then pushes his arm around Steve’s waist and drops his head into his neck. Steve runs his hands through his hair and Bucky exhales. “What happened?”

“Brock,” Bucky says. Steve stiffens. “Yeah.”

“Oh,” Steve mumbles.

Bucky exhales again. He drinks in Steve’s scent, then kisses the bondmark on his neck and then his cheek. Steve pulls him back down and kisses his lips, his hands still caught in his hair.

“Would now be a good time to tell you I’m pregnant?” Steve murmurs against his lips.

Bucky wraps his arm more securely around Steve’s waist, bends his knees, and lifts. Steve starts, then laughs and wraps his arms around his neck as Bucky presses his back into the wall and kisses him.

“GROSS!” Sarah and James yell together.

Steve laughs. Bucky drops his head against his clavicle and sighs, but he’s smiling.

“Fucking love you,” he mutters. “Can your ma babysit for a bit?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, smirking like he expected this. “She’ll be over in fifteen minutes. I was expecting to have to put away groceries.”

“I’ll get ‘em tomorrow,” Bucky promises, then pecks him on the mouth. He doesn’t put Steve down, but holds him against his chest while he walks over to his chair before dropping down and pulling Steve with him. Sarah runs up and shoves her hands out.

“Up!” she says. “Cuddle!”

“Sweetie, I’m trying to cuddle Daddy,” Bucky says.

Sarah scrambles up his knee anyway. Bucky rolls his eyes but kisses her head and Steve pulls her into his lap.

“Gonna have three of these little monsters,” Steve reminds him.

“I’m good with that,” Bucky says. “Always thought we’d have three.”

Steve tucks his forehead into the nape of Bucky’s neck. He kisses his forehead and reaches around him to pet Sarah’s hair. James finds the TV remote and turns on Power Rangers. Bucky wouldn’t change this for the world. Well, maybe with the exception of Brock. Maybe he’d drop a building on Brock if he had the chance. Probably. Almost definitely. But the rest of this? This is the real he was looking for.

*

[five]

1941, three generations ago

Miss Johnson waves him in at the doors of St. Michael’s. “Back here,” she says softly. She’s holding a newborn in her arms, asleep and peaceful looking. “I called as soon as there was light,” she says. “But it happened very late last night.”

He nods, grateful that she didn’t wake anyone up for this. She leads him through the church’s chapel to the back room, then up a flight of stairs to the upper levels. He looks around, but she’s leading him straight back into a bedroom, plain and tidy; a room for wards of the church. As they walk, the whole church holds its breath. Nothing moves, nothing breathes.

She points, but he doesn’t need her to. He sweeps off his hat and sighs, bowing his head respectfully.

The newborn’s mother, a male Omega perhaps eighteen or twenty, lies stiff and cold in the bed. He does not move, he does not breathe. The sheets are white next to his bloodless skin. The sheets are white next to his bloodless skin, because all his blood has bloomed on the sheets, seeped through the threads to create an affectation of roses, from giving birth. The sheets are white, and the blood is brown. He has never seen a child so pale before.

“He arrived about ten,” Miss Johnson whispers. Like the Omega is sleeping and not dead. “Already in labor. Child was born around four, he breathed his last not long after.”

He shakes his head sadly. He has attended more than one ward of the church who passed in childbirth. He has seen many newborns whose mothers used their last breaths to see the child alive. Miss Johnson has called him for this before, other churches have called him for this before, orphanages have called him for this before. Omegas who stumbled in out of the cold to give birth to their orphans. He has seen twenty-seven this year alone. It's only January.

“He said to name the boy for his father,” she adds, “but he wouldn’t give his name. It was his last words,  name him for his pa .”

“I imagine he didn’t want the child to ever know,” he says. Miss Johnson looks at him, brows drawn tightly together on her lined, brown face. “I’ve arrested him a few times for solicitation.”

Miss Johnson presses her hand to her mouth, then hugs the newborn to her tighter. “You know his name, then?”

He nods. He looks to her, then at the newborn, then holds out his arms. “I’ll take him. Orphanage in this neighborhood’s full up. My Omega and I been trying to have kids anyway.”

Miss Johnson lays the newborn in his arms, and the boy stirs faintly. He bounces him lightly, until he settles, then looks back to the mother in the bed. He has seen twenty-eight dead new mothers now, and that is twenty-eight too many.

“Will you bury him?” he asks.

“The rector always buries those who die on our grounds,” Miss Johnson whispers. “Will you give us his name, for his headstone?”

He looks at the mother, then blows out his breath and looks at the newborn. The child has dark hair and a faint cleft to his chin, even at less than a day old.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Boy’s name is Stephen. Never gave a last name. Give him a nice Bible quote, if you can spare the engraving. Something about peace. He hated prostituting.”

She nods understandingly. “We get them a lot,” she says. She means Stephen's profession, not dead new mothers. “Omegas with nowhere else to turn. Most of ‘em… They leave the babies and go.”

He looks back to Stephen in the bed, looking peaceful at last, then at the newborn. “I imagine if he could’ve, he would’ve raised his son himself. I’ve picked him up at abortionist’s clinics before, and if he cared enough about the father to spend his last breaths naming him after him, then he would’ve kept him if he could.”

Miss Johnson pulls a handkerchief from her coat and presses it to her eyes. “I hate it when they die,” she whispers tearfully. “My daughter. She passed in childbirth. I hate it when this happens.”

He looks at Stephen sadly, then nods. He'd been wondering where the boy had gone the past few months. He's usually arresting him every other week in the winter. He's homeless, and New York is cruel with snow on her back. But he looks at peace at last. “I hate it too, Miss Johnson.”

She touches his shoulder. “You take good care of this boy. You raise him right, or I’ll come for you and whip you myself.”

He salutes and she smiles weakly. “Yes’m,” he promises, and tucks the newborn more securely in his arms. “What did he say the father’s name was?”

“Didn’t say a surname,” Miss Johnson sighs. “But, he said, first name James, middle name Buchanan.”

He nods. He knows plenty of Jameses, but not many James Buchanans. He delivered the news to his family over two months ago that he was dead. Somewhere in Switzerland, hands of the Nazis, first casualties of the war. At least he knows the father won’t come looking for the child. It’s sad, he thinks. There was no Stephen in his list of contacts. Stephen might not have known; almost definitely didn’t know. He knows now, at least.

“I’ll come to the funeral,” he promises. “Let me know when it is?”

She nods. They leave the room, taking the live child away from his dead mother, and return to the chapel.

“Bring him back in eight days to be christened,” Miss Johnson reminds him. “I imagine you’ll give him your surname?”

He nods, looking at the newborn again. “I’ll respect his mother’s wishes, though.”

“And your Omega will understand?”

He nods again. She’d miscarried the last three, she’d understand.

Miss Johnson presses a kiss to the child’s brow, and he yawns before curling closer in his arms. “Thank you,” she says to him. “You’re doing your mama proud.”

He nods a third time and turns to go. Miss Johnson kneels at the altar and begins to pray. For Stephen’s soul, he assumes.

The walk home is long and cold, but the blanket the newborn is wrapped in is warm. His Omega gets up when he walks into the kitchen, then presses her hands to her mouth at the sight of the newborn.

“Mother died after the birth,” he says. She holds out her arms and he lays the infant against her breast. “Last words were to name him James Buchanan, so I figure that’s what we’ll do.”

“We’re keeping him?” she asks in a hushed voice.

“If you like,” he says.

She looks up, smiles weakly, then looks back down. “Hello, James,” she coos. “I’m your new mama. I know I’m not much like your real mama, but I’ll love you and cherish you and take good care of you.”

He comes to stand at her side, gripping her shoulder and looking down at James.

“You’re a good man, George Barnes,” his wife murmurs.

“I hope so,” he says quietly.

*

James Buchanan grew up a Barnes, and though it was obvious that he was adopted – his parents had skin the color of chocolate and his was the color of caramel cream – he grew up confident in his adoptive parents love. He named his son after his adoptive father, and then his son named his grandson for him. But he always wondered about his birth parents. Who were they? What happened to them? How did they meet, how did they fall in love, how did they die? Where are their graves, and where was he born? When he went looking for a place to lay his wife to rest, he chose two plots in the cemetery behind St. Michael's, only one away from a boy who died with no name, without knowing. Without knowing that his own final resting place was the same as his birthplace, without knowing that it was was mere blocks from the place of his conception, without knowing that he would lie in the earth next to his mother. He knew eventually.

Sarah Rogers brought her son, who would never stop crying, to an old witch who lived on the harbor, who said that he was still grieving a dark alley and a love turned bitter. Something that once was precious and priceless, that ultimately cost six dollars. History, as they say, may not repeat, but it will always rhyme. And perhaps it will rhyme from the tragic turns to the very souls, perhaps the rhyme begins somewhere above, perhaps it really is a soul given a second chance. Perhaps not. Perhaps it merely rhymes. Who can know for sure? Not witches, not church wardens, not world-weary single mothers who deserve to be called fathers, not soldiers who are praying to die already. 

Sometimes there is a happy ending. Sometimes the rhymes turn brighter, and grief from a past life or simply a life that rhymes may be extinguished. Sometimes a prayer uttered in desperation or pity, a plea for a second chance, is answered already, in ways no one could anticipate. Sometimes those prayers rhyme. Sometimes the rhyme ends, and what was once a loveless and bitter transaction becomes something priceless again. The contrast lies there, in that incomplete rhyme, and perhaps it is that that makes the story beautiful. Sometimes rhymes simply tell the same story, but in different ways.