Work Text:
"Why are we going out on a double date again?"
Sam just rolled his eyes.
"It's not a double date. We're meeting Sharon and one of the newer recruits as an introduction, since Sharon thinks it's possible we'll be on missions with her in the future." Sam explained for the third time as he zipped up his jacket.
It was the first week of November, finally deep into Autumn, which Bucky was incredibly grateful for. It was harder to conceal the metal arm without wearing long-sleeves and gloves, but luckily that was acceptable in the current season.
"So we're meeting our new coworker at an eighties themed diner. Got it." Bucky said in disbelief as he finished sliding the black leather gloves onto his hands, both flesh and vibranium.
"It's not eighties themed. They just haven't changed anything but the kitchen equipment since the eighties." Sam shrugged as he went to open the front door to leave.
"Honestly, it's all the same to me." He commented as he followed Sam into the hallway of their apartment complex.
"One day I need to take you to an actual eighties themed diner. Have you ever seen a jukebox before?" Sam asked jokingly as they walked down the hall, on Bucky's right side.
"I'm old, not prehistoric." Bucky rolled his eyes. "You're the one that dragged me out to a restaurant and made the chefs write '106' on a cake on my last birthday."
Sam gave a quiet laugh at that. "They thought I was joking about you being that old. It was hilarious."
They continued their usual banter the entire way to the diner. Sam drove, since Bucky's motorcycle was, as usual, in the shop after he'd destroyed it last mission. But Bucky didn't mind the old truck Sam liked to drive. It felt homely, with the pine tree air freshener on the vents and assorted coins laying in the dish of the console.
When they arrived, Sharon was already waiting for them by a booth with a woman by her side.
The woman was short, with long straight black hair tied into a high ponytail. She was wearing a royal purple cocktail dress, looking too formal next to Bucky and Sam's khaki and jacket combos and Sharon's light blue button-up.
"Boys, this is Agent Lana Valle." Sharon introduced the woman. "Agent Valle, meet Captain Wilson and Agent Barnes."
Bucky was careful, as always, to put his right hand out to shake Agent Valle's hand. Even covered with a glove, it's not difficult to feel the grooves of the metal in his fingers through it, and he'd rather not have the new agent give him that haunted look everybody gets when they see or feel his prosthetic for the first time. It was a bit awkward since the agent reached out with her left, and was obviously expecting Bucky to shake with his left hand as well. Surprised expressions, no matter how well they're concealed, are never a good thing for a first impression.
Once introductions were complete and they began to sit down, Bucky made sure he went in the booth first, on the side where his left side would be facing the wall, hiding.
Sam got into the booth next to him. Sharon was across.
He nervously stirred his straw in his glass of water as Sam spoke with Lana. He was never one for small-talk, after all.
They talked about where she grew up. What skills and experience she had. Languages she spoke, none of which overlapped with the ones Bucky knew.
The food was fine. He ordered a burger, which was slightly undercooked but tasted fine enough. He skipped on getting desert even when Sharon ordered a coffee while Sam and Agent Valle continued to talk.
It was the standard introduction procedure, and Bucky loathed it.
This wasn't the first time they'd done something like this. Sharon had dragged a bunch of new recruiters to meet him and Sam (though, mostly Sam, considering he's the one that does most of the talking), like she wanted to get the Captain's stamp of approval.
The reason Bucky hated it so much was that it was both a waste of time and more often than not the new agents gave him weird looks throughout the meeting. He wasn't sure if it was the arm, or a problem with his face, or if they were just...scared of him.
And yeah. Bucky understands being scared of The Winter Soldier.
But that's not who he is. Two days ago he accidentally mixed up heavy cream and milk and ate half a bowl of cereal with heavy cream before noticing.
He's really not a menace, or something to be feared. Usually, he's just an idiot. He'll only hurt somebody if they deserve it.
Of course, nobody really sees it that way. He's scary. He's got a metal arm, he used to hurt people, although he hurt them unwillingly. He can't really blame anybody for their fear.
"Buck?"
"да?" He replied on instinct to Sam calling his name, snapping him out of his trance, and the russian was out of his mouth before he could stop it.
"Извините-" He went to apologise, only for his brain to continue on with russian. He switched back to english then. "-sorry, what?"
"Do you have anything you want to ask Agent Valle?" Sam asked, and Bucky could tell that Sam was trying to work out the reason behind the automatic response in russian.
He figured he might as well say something to the new agent, so he went with his usual one.
"Any medical training?"
Agent Valle smiled proudly. "I have an EMT certification. Never practiced, but I am certified if I ever needed to perform a procedure."
Bucky nodded as he took a sip of his water.
He's pretty sure that counts as sufficient enough interaction.
~~~~~~~~~
After the bill had been paid and they all parted ways, him and Sam drove back to their apartment in silence.
On top of paying attention to the road, Sam was obviously still trying to figure out why Bucky had been so deep in his own mind that he had spoken russian. The only times he's spoken russian in front of Sam is after being snapped out of a dissociation episode or directly after a bad Winter Soldier flashback nightmare. Bucky can see him trying to work through every theory, pulling on every thread he could think of.
And then, as they turned on the block their apartment complex was on, it clicked in Sam's mind.
"She reached to shake your left hand." He said, as if that explained everything. "You'd been so in your mind thinking about it, you dissociated-"
"I don't think I dissociated." Bucky shrugged. "Minor dissociation, maybe, but not by much."
"Just enough that you were so deep in your mind you thought about him again." Sam spoke quietly as he pulled the truck into the usual parking space outside of their apartment.
Sam didn't need to specify who he was talking about by saying "him". Bucky knew he meant The Soldier.
"Well, I mean, yeah. I wouldn't have the arm if I was never him." Bucky stared out the window of the car into the deep blue of the night sky, not wanting to look Sam in the eye at the moment. "I wouldn't be feared if I was never him."
Sam seemed to be at a loss for words, then.
When two minutes of silence had stretched between them, Bucky undid his seatbelt, opened the car door, and left.
Sam didn't follow him into their apartment complex. Sam didn't follow him up the stairs.
Sam didn't come back to their apartment until two hours later, when it was approaching midnight and Bucky was debating calling Sharon out of fear something had happened to Sam, with a million possible awful scenarios playing in his head.
"Where the hell have you been?" Bucky's voice was on the verge of screaming. It wasn't in anger, but in fear. He knew Sam could hold up fine on his own, but being Captain America put an obvious target on his back.
"Manhattan's Children Hospital." Sam stated like nothing at all was wrong. He was carrying a folder with papers looking ready to spill out of it.
"Look, I know you make appearances as Captain America there all the time, but you're not in your suit and I'd hope all the kids are asleep by now so what the fu-"
Sam dropped the folder on the counter in front of him with a loud thud and a small piece of yellowed computer paper with a crayon drawing on it fell out.
Bucky stared at the illustration. It was made by a child, maybe around six or seven, and it clearly was meant to be a drawing of him. The left arm on the dark haired figure was colored in with black and gold lines.
"What…" He began, but his words caught in his throat as he continued looking at the drawing.
"I went to the orthotist wing. The kids draw to pass the time in between treatments or fittings- A lot of the things they draw get hung up on the wall." Sam opened the folder and more drawings were visible, from a few in vibrant colored pencil to extremely detailed ones in pen.
The one constant between all of them was that the drawings were unmistakably of him.
The arm was black and gold. His hair was shorter.
They weren't drawings of The Winter Soldier.
They were drawings of Bucky Barnes.
"You're these kids' idol." Sam said quietly as Bucky examined each and every picture. "You're a beacon of hope for them. You're the only person who they can watch on the news who has a prosthetic like them. You're that hero for them, the one that reminds them to chase their dreams, that they can do anything."
"Maybe the court of public opinion thinks you're awful. Maybe some people hate you. But these kids are the future, and they love you. I've been down there a few times when a kid has asked where you were."
"Maybe..." Bucky stopped to pick up the original crayon drawing he'd first seen. "...I'll come with you next time."
Sam smiled and gave a gentle nod. "They'd like that."
~~~~~~~~~
Bucky kept the drawings in the drawer of his nightstand for safekeeping. He pulled them out whenever he needed to be reminded that he's not evil, that he's not who his mind screams at him he is.
The first time he let somebody shake his metal hand was at the children's hospital, with a seven year old girl who shook his hand with her own prosthetic one.
The younger kids down there love to wrap ribbons around the gleaming metal, stick magnets to it, and some have even drawn on it in marker. Of course, since it was made by the smartest person in the world, it can hold up to being the kids' drawing pad or craft paper. The marker washes off with warm water and the ribbons and magnets come off in an instant.
Hanging out with the kids had made him so much less insecure about showing his metal arm. He didn't try and hide it under sleeves or gloves, and even tried to shake strangers' hands with it.
His old metal arm only had blood staining it.
This one had residue of markers and alphabet magnets.
The past still sucked. He still got so sucked into his mind sometimes that The Soldier came out to prey on his self-doubt. He still hated that anybody still saw him as a villain.
But it was okay, because everytime he felt like that, he just opened his drawer and found the drawings, and reminded himself that even if the whole world despised him, he'd still have these kids looking up to him.
And most importantly, he'd still have the man that showed him he could be loved again, even with his past.
He'd still have Sam. Forever and always.