Work Text:
When Bucky finally turns up at Avengers Tower, it’s with a small child in tow. She’s five, and he calls her Elya, sometimes Elyushka. Her face is recognizably Bucky’s. Her hair is sunshine gold. She’s shy around the Avengers initially, but her eyes are bright with intelligence.
The first night, after she falls asleep on Bucky’s shoulder, Bucky deflates visibly, slouching into the living room couch. He doesn’t look at Steve when he speaks.
“I would’ve returned sooner, but—” Bucky gestures at her dozing form with his free hand before sinking his fingers into her hair, stroking gently.
“I understand,” Steve says, quiet, not asking how Bucky achieved a mentality that allows him to take care of a child. Between the two of them, Bucky has always been the strong one, even though he’d deny it if asked. “You should stay, though.”
Bucky meets Steve’s eyes after a moment, then nods. “I’m going to get her to bed.”
Steve leads them to the bedroom next to his, watching as Bucky lays Elya down before tucking himself in beside her. After bidding them goodnight, he heads down to Tony’s lab to ask him to make a new prosthetic for Bucky. The old one is showing signs of wear.
“Yeah, yeah.” Tony waves his hand in Steve’s direction without glancing up from his current project. “You know, it isn’t fair.”
Steve raises an eyebrow. “What isn’t fair?”
“That your ex-assassin best friend can pull off terrifying and endearing at the same time.”
“Bucky isn’t terrifying.”
Tony finally deigns to look up. His expression is incredulous as he scoffs. “Sure, one of the most dangerous men in the world, not terrifying.”
Steve refrains from mentioning that they have a fair share of danger stowed away in the Tower. He shakes his head and returns to his floor. He stops at Bucky’s room first, pulled by an inexplicable urge, and finds himself gazing on the father-daughter pair curled around each other like parentheses. Bucky’s eyes open when he senses Steve’s presence, and they stare at each other in silence. Finally Steve nods and turns away, closing the door behind him.
In the morning, Bucky and Elya are at the kitchen counter when Steve arrives home from his run. They’re sharing a plate of pancakes piled high with berries. Steve has been trained well enough by Natasha to understand the conversation they’re having in Russian.
“Dr. Banner needs to look at you. Make sure you’re healthy.”
“I don’t like doctors, Papochka,” Elya whispers. “They always take you away from me.”
At this, Bucky looks stricken but then recovers to loop an arm around her. “He isn’t like the others, Elyushka. He won’t hurt you or me.”
Elya bites her bottom lip and then gives a terse nod. He calls her solnyshko, little sun, and tells her she is so brave. Steve’s chest feels tight and he wonders if he should announce his presence or leave. Bucky, of course, has already noticed him, and beckons him over to sit on Elya’s other side.
“You want some?” Bucky asks in English, pointing at the pancakes with his fork. “There’s more in the covered dish on the stove.”
Steve smiles gratefully at him, and retrieves the dish along with a plate and a fork. The first bite is like coming home: it tastes exactly like the pancakes Bucky’s ma used to make.
“Good?” asks Bucky.
“Don’t fish for compliments,” Steve answers. They share a small grin over Elya’s head.
“You wanna come see Banner with us?”
“’Course. Got nothing better to do.”
It doesn’t look like Bucky believes this response, but he doesn’t say anything. They finish eating and Bucky makes Elya wash her face before they take the elevator to Banner’s floor. Bruce is expecting them, and while he gives Elya a checkup, Bucky softly explains more of their past to Steve.
“She was conceived as an experiment, to see if my offspring would also have super-soldier traits.” He sounds bitter. “They put her in cryo and forgot about her after the USSR fell.”
And that answered the question of whether she was enhanced. At least it meant she would be hardier than other children.
“Do you know who the mom is?”
Bucky shakes his head. “I’m the only family she has.”
“Not anymore,” says Steve.
“Oh?” Bucky’s eyebrows rise in challenge. “You gonna be the relative that spoils her?”
“Nah, I’m sure Tony will have that covered.”
Bucky snorts but doesn’t argue.
Bruce announces that Elya is hale and hearty, and that he’s updated her immunization records. He will have the results to her blood test soon. He gives Elya a high five and a page of stickers, and at Steve and Bucky’s twin expressions of surprise, he says, “Tony. Don’t ask.”
Meanwhile, Elya has peeled off one of the giant gold stars, plastering it to Bucky’s metal bicep and giggling to herself.
“I see what you’re doing,” Bucky says through pursed lips, and in retaliation, steals one of the stars and sticks it to her forehead. “We match now.”
Elya’s answering grin is toothy, and the next stickers go on Steve and Bruce’s shirts respectively. Later, when they’re all having lunch in the communal kitchen, Natasha compliments them on the look.
Tony regards them all through narrowed eyes and expresses his displeasure: “You’ll wear them for her but not for me, huh?”
Bruce shrugs, unrepentant. “I like her better than you.”
Tony clutches at his chest, pretending to be aghast, but before he can say anything, a girlish peal of laughter interrupts him. They glance toward Elya, who ducks her head at the attention.
“Are you laughing at me, Rapunzel?”
“Yes,” she admits, her voice soft. She doesn’t seem to have noticed the nickname.
Tony pauses, before saying, “You’re honest. That’s good. Keep it up, Barnes.”
The last comment could be directed at father or daughter. A flash of wonder enters Bucky’s eyes, as if he’s grown unused to the name, and then it’s replaced by amusement. It’s a quiet expression, nothing like the unbridled joy that Steve remembers from their childhood, but it’s still Bucky. They finish the meal, and then Steve and Bucky take up dish duty while Elya follows Natasha into the adjacent living room. Natasha has mentioned something about female bonding, about girl power, and Elya is less wary today than she was the night before.
“What are you gonna do now?” asks Steve as he hands over a plate for Bucky to dry. The inquiry is vague, but he knows Bucky understands.
Bucky makes a face. “What are you gonna do now? Hydra’s gone. The world doesn’t need saving every day…”
Steve is entirely unsurprised that Bucky has kept up-to-date on Steve’s systematic dismantling of the last Hydra bases. And Bucky’s right—Steve has been a bit lost lately, but the feeling had vanished as soon as he’d set eyes on Bucky and Elya.
“Are you still drawing?”
Steve nods.
“Have you thought about going back to art school, maybe?” Bucky follows up.
Yes, he had. But SHIELD had needed him. “I haven’t had the time.”
“Well,” says Bucky after a beat. “Think about it. I need to see Pepper now. Can you stay with Elya till I get back? Make sure Natasha doesn’t corrupt her.”
Steve is surprised but nods his assent. “Why d’you need to see Pepper?”
Bucky gazes off into the distance as he replies: “The school year starts in a few weeks. I don’t want Elya to get behind.”
When Bucky returns from his meeting, though, he’s carrying flyers not only for vetted schools nearby but also for art programs in New York City. He dumps the latter unceremoniously into Steve’s lap before pulling Elya into his side on the couch. She’s been watching a Disney movie, something older, but not as old as Steve or Bucky, and when it’s done, she asks to go out. Bucky says okay, they can go to Central Park, and tells her to change out of her pajamas, which she’s been kicking around in all day.
“You coming?” he directs at Steve.
“Of course.”
Steve swaps his ratty sweatpants for a nicer pair of jeans and then pulls a baseball hat onto his head. When he meets Bucky at the elevator, they’re matching, both of them clad in jeans, a nondescript t-shirt and a cap. Elya’s wearing a pale green dress. She’s beautiful.
Out in the street, she takes Bucky’s hand in her left and Steve’s in her right, and pulls them along excitedly, wide-eyed at the city bustling around them. She’s growing steadily more animated, and it’s gratifying to see.
Elya chatters at Bucky in Russian, at Steve in English, and once they’re on the subway, they attract more than a few curious glances. It makes Steve nervous, but so far, no one has recognized him. A woman draws Bucky into a conversation about bilingual parenting. She’s impressed by their display of facile code-switching, and before she steps off at her stop, she tells them they make for a lovely family. This leaves Steve blushing, a little blindsided, and Bucky smirks at him.
“Do I have to remind you of your earlier comment about family?”
Bucky doesn’t.
It’s a gorgeous day outside, and the park is busy with families and tourists. Here, Steve does get recognized, and he takes pictures with several kids and their parents before escaping back to Bucky and Elya. He wishes he could shield them from the onlookers. He herds them away quickly, and Elya asks, “Steve, are you famous?”
“Elyushka,” says Bucky in Russian, “Steve is a hero.”
Elya’s eyes widen, darting from Bucky’s face to Steve’s, and then back again. “Papa, are you one too?”
Something painful flickers across Bucky’s face, and he says no at the same time that Steve says yes.
Steve ignores Bucky’s glare. “Your Papa is the reason I’m here today. He saved me more times than I can count.”
Elya accepts this easily and asks to be pushed on the swings. They’ve reached a playground by this point, and after taking turns sending her flying into the sky, they chase her around the play-set until she’s absorbed into a group of kids her own age. Steve and Bucky take a break at the nearby picnic bench.
“You shouldn’t have told her that,” Bucky says abruptly, not meeting Steve’s eyes.
“What? The truth?”
Bucky’s right hand clenches and unclenches, and he whispers, “I’m not a hero. I—”
Steve covers Bucky’s flesh hand with his own, and it stills in Steve’s grasp. “If you aren’t one, then neither am I.”
Bucky does look at Steve, then, and his gaze is desolate. “I’m not you, Steve. I’m not good like you. So many people have died because of me—”
“No,” Steve cuts him off, “not because of you. You were just another victim. They used you.”
After a long moment, Bucky sighs. “Knowing and believing are two different things.”
Before Steve can answer, Elya appears in their line of vision, barreling back towards them. “Papa! Steve! Can we get ice cream?”
Bucky nods, masking his previous expression with an easy grin. Steve’s heart sinks as he wonders how many times Bucky has donned a façade for Steve when he was actually feeling broken inside.
Instead of a roadside vendor, Bucky leads them to a real ice cream parlor, one that looks like it could’ve existed during Bucky and Steve’s childhood. Bucky’s preference for ice cream hasn’t changed: he gets a swirl of chocolate and vanilla. Elya tries something blasphemous, and Steve orders a mint chocolate chip. The girl at the counter blushes when she realizes who Steve is, and her gaze jumps curiously between Steve and Bucky and Elya. Thankfully, she doesn’t say anything, but they still take their ice creams to go.
The sun is setting by the time they return to the Tower. Tony is waiting in his lab with a prototype for Bucky’s new arm. It’s still metal, but Tony has designed a flesh-like sleeve for Bucky to use when he wants to blend in.
“Papa, why do you need that?” Elya has followed Steve and Bucky into the lab, and it seems this is the first time she has thought to wonder about Bucky’s arm.
“I lost my real one, Elyushka.”
“How?”
Bucky’s mouth opens but no words come out.
Steve says, “He lost it while protecting me. He was very brave, Elya.”
At this, Bucky’s eyes shine with something unreadable. Tony claps his hand, diffusing the moment, and says, “Okay, ladies and germs, as touching as this has been, it’s time to leave the genius to his work. Out, out!”
Steve has trouble sleeping that night, and he finds himself rifling through the brochures Bucky gave him. By four AM, he has prepared a portfolio of his art and filled out three separate art school forms. He decides to go to the kitchen for a glass of water before bed, but stops short when he sees a figure on the balcony.
Bucky is outside, hunched over the railing. It takes Steve a moment to notice that Bucky’s shoulders are shaking minutely, but when he does, he crosses immediately to Bucky’s side. Bucky’s eyes are glittering with unshed tears when he turns to face Steve.
“I can’t fail her, Stevie. I can’t,” he whispers.
Steve’s voice is equally hushed. “You won’t.”
He pulls Bucky into his arms, resting his chin on top of Bucky’s lowered head. “You won’t,” he says again, summoning into those words all the times Bucky took care of him when they were kids. Then, “C’mon, let’s go back inside.”
Bucky lets Steve guide him into the kitchen, where Steve makes Bucky a mug of herbal tea and pours himself a glass of water.
After Bucky drains the drink, he says, “Thank you.”
Steve knows he doesn’t mean just for the tea. He hugs Bucky again. Finally they go to sleep.
Eventually Steve is accepted to all three of the programs he applied for, likely thanks in part to his name, and he starts attending classes at NYU around the time Elya starts kindergarten. Steve, Bucky, and weirdly enough, Clint and Jane, are all there to see her off on her first day of school. Bucky seems more anxious than Elya is, and he triple-checks that everything she needs is in her backpack before making sure she knows where her lunch is.
Elya grins. “I’ll be okay, Papochka.”
And she is.
That night, Bucky informs them all that he’s gotten a job at the library. It’s a shock to everyone but Pepper, who Steve suspects was the one to help Bucky bypass any background checks.
Steve elbows Tony in the side when they’re passing around dessert. “Not so terrifying anymore, right?”
Tony shoots him a skeptical look. “Nope, still terrifying. But he’s ours, so...”
A few seats down, Thor is braiding Elya’s hair. After Bucky and Steve, Thor might be her favorite, but none of the other Avengers are willing to concede this. Steve is really going to pity the first date she brings home to meet the family. Bucky, meanwhile, is grinning at a joke Natasha has just told. The grin turns into something softer when he senses Steve’s gaze, and his eyes are warm when they meet Steve’s across the table.
So, indeed, thinks Steve, and maybe they were both lost for a while, but now they’re found, and they’re where they’re supposed to be.