Chapter Text
“D’you think he’s, like, a spy or something?”
“What? Why would a spy be undercover as a high school teacher in New York State?”
“Well- I dunno!”
Bucky smirks a little bit as he catches the tail end of his students’ conversation, having heard his name moments before. He will admit, he is a bit of an enigma in the high school he works at. He only has one arm, his hair is longer than any of the other male teachers’, he wears his dog tags and curses in class and is honest about bad mental health and pain days and while he doesn’t take anyone’s shit he also doesn’t give homework if he can help it. He’s proud to say that he’s quickly become one of the favorite history teachers in the building. He especially enjoys the way he’s been labeled as what one 5th period student, Peter, calls “the Emotional Support Father Figure History Teacher, especially for The LGBTQ Plusses”. And yeah, anything about his personal life is never spoken about, thus leading to his other label, “Mr. Brick Wall”, but whatever. He’s pretty okay with being a topic of mystery and gossip in the halls. He also can’t resist startling the group of girls.
“Hi girls,” he says loudly as he walks by. As they clearly did not see him coming, one girl squeaks and another chokes on a poorly timed sip of her drink. He throws a smirk over his shoulder and listens to their panicked squabbling and then laughter as he continues back to his room.
When he arrives, he unlocks the door and turns on the lights. Before he enters, he tacks the card that says “Inside, come on in!” on the corkboard on the door titled “Where is Mr. B?”. His room is decorated lightly, with some posters and plenty of books, but mostly he likes to keep it clean and simple. Once he deposits his stuff at his desk, he works the windows open as best he can with his one arm, waters his various plants, and transfers his coffee from its current disposable cup to his mug that reads “My pronouns are: He/Him :)”. It had been a gift from Steve, after one student had had a pin on her backpack proudly stating: she/her. They had both thought it was clever and lo and behold, the mug showed up the next week.
The first few kids trickle in, all waving or otherwise verbally greeting him. He salutes each one with his coffee mug, then sets it down so he can write the date and fill in the weekly calendar for the day, humming some old 40s song.
It’s safe to say that Bucky Barnes loves his job.
When the bell rings he switches the card on his door to say “Teaching, please wait to come in!” and then shuts the door. The kids quiet down as he snaps his fingers (he can’t exactly clap) to get their attention.
“Alright kiddos, today we have a quiz, but as always, you can draw me a neat picture on the back and get up to half of the points free! Betty, wanna pass these out?”
When the short blonde girl in one of the front desks nods, he drops the stack of papers unceremoniously on her desk, earning a few laughs.
“While she’s coming around, a quick recap of the rules. One, please don’t cheat, I shouldn’t see any laptops open or phones out. But, number two, as always, you can look at your handwritten notes. Three, you have as much time as you want. Four, when you finish, I don’t really give a shit what you do as long as it’s something quiet so you don’t bother everyone else. Capiche?”
Seeing the nods, he smiles and moves behind his desk, hearing the shifting of papers and scritches of pencils. He keeps one eye on the class and one on his computer screen where he’s finishing up the PowerPoint for tomorrow’s lesson.
Then, his phone vibrates. It’s a FaceTime from Steve, which is unusual. Steve never calls when Bucky’s in class unless it’s really important. Not to mention, Steve should be in class too, in his art classroom downstairs. So, Bucky props the phone up against his laptop screen and swipes to answer it.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he signs when his partner’s face pops up, motions low and close to his chest so he hopefully won’t distract his students.
“Nothing yet,” Steve signs back, also using only one hand, though Bucky can see that it’s only because he’s walking and holding the phone with the other. “Sorry to call during class, just, my back is killing me,” he signs ‘killing’ with such emphasis that Bucky winces, “and the curve is like, making my right side a little numb. And, you know, it’s fucking up my lung again.”
“Shit, sweetheart, that’s not good.”
“Yeah, no shit, Barnes. I got a sub set up for my morning classes and I’m going to see Sam, see what he has to say. I just wanted to let you know what’s going on.”
“Okay. Text me or call me after.”
“You know I will, Buck.”
He waves to Steve with his hand in the “I love you” handshape*, and Steve does the same. He smiles sadly as Steve ends the call. When he looks up, his entire class is staring at him.
“What?”
Silence.
Finally, one kid speaks up. “Was that sign language?”
“Sure.”
“How do you know sign language?”
Bucky stares back at them, letting a little of what Steve calls his Murder Stare seep through his expression. “I thought you guys were supposed to be taking a quiz. And since when do y’all snoop on people’s phone conversations? Oh right, you’re all teenagers, I should have known.”
“But-”
Bucky shrugs his shoulders and gestures to his laptop with his hand. “Hey, I can always add a paper to the syllabus if you guys don’t want to finish this-”
He’s met with a chorus of “No!!”s and frantic scrambling to get back to the quiz. Bucky smirks, though the amusement is a little tainted with his worry for Steve. His health has always been shitty, but now that he’s in his late 20s, the weak heart and lungs that have barely hung on for this long are starting to struggle even more.
When the last person deposits their quiz on his desk 15 minutes later, Bucky stands and taps the board for attention.
“Okay, so as usual I don’t have anything planned for after the quiz. What do you guys want to do?”
“Options?” One student, MJ, speaks up, crossing their arms across their chest.
“We can start on tomorrow’s lesson early, get it outta the way, study hall for the next 17-” he glances at the clock to gauge how much time is left in the period, “-no, 16 minutes, or we could just chat or play a game or something.”
Bucky perches on his stool, hooking his feet behind the foot rest for extra stability.
MJ shifts forward in their seat. “I have an idea for a game,” they state, tilting their chin up.
Bucky waves his arm toward her in invitation. “Be my guest.”
“So your nickname around the school is Mr. Brick Wall, as I’m sure you’re aware,” they begin, earning snickers and murmurs of affirmation from around the room.
Bucky snorts. “That’s right.”
“So I was thinking we could play 20 Questions, get to know you a little better. Feed that connection between student and teacher.”
Bucky arches an eyebrow.
“Nothing too invasive, we promise,” a boy named Abe jumps in.
Bucky sighs, glances back at the clock, and then relents. “Alright, but I get to decide what’s invasive and what’s not. Two questions that are too personal and it’s over, ‘kay? And no asking for elaboration, you get what you get,” he says, making sure to put a good-natured tone on his voice and a twinkle in his eyes to make sure everyone knows he isn’t and won’t be angry.
Everyone sits up eagerly, waiting for the okay. Bucky nods, and calls on MJ first as their hand raises.
“Why do you know ASL?”
“Wow, straight to the point,” he laughs. “I learned it for someone in my life who’s Hard of Hearing and another who's Deaf.” He calls on Betty next.
“How do you put your hair up and braid it and such?” she asks, and Bucky laughs again.
“I can put it in a ponytail and a bun by myself, it just took a lot of practice. I need someone else to braid it, though. You gotta have two hands for that.”
“What was your military rank, if that’s not too much to ask?” One of the girls in the back of the class asks quietly when he calls on her.
Bucky, for a second, freezes, before remembering that he wears his dogs tags, so of course people are going to know he’s ex-military. “I was a staff sergeant.”
The girl nods. “My dad is a sergeant too.”
“Hey, that’s pretty cool,” he smiles. He selects another student, and the game continues for a while, most of the questions receiving one word answers that make his students groan and Bucky smirk evilly.
When he calls on a kid named Flash, he shuts down the first invasive question.
“How did you lose your arm?”
Bucky inhales sharply. He tries to be honest with his students, but he really doesn’t want them to know these kinds of things about him. They don’t need that crap in their lives.
“Okay, it’s alright that you asked, but that’s the first too personal question, one more and it’s study hall, alright?”
MJ punches Flash in the arm, and while Bucky is contractually obligated to give them a sharp look of warning, he does feel a little vindicated. The next question he shuts down asks him about his love life, if he’s dating anyone. And yes, he in fact is, he’s married, actually, but he’d like to keep that part of his life just to himself, thank you very much.
He closes the questioning good-naturedly and leaves everyone to chat amongst themselves for the last few minutes of class. When the bell rings, he calls out to MJ as they’re heading for the door.
“Hey MJ! Am I still Mr. Brick Wall?”
“Of course,” they respond, smirking at him as they slip out of the door and into the throngs of students migrating to their next class. Bucky smiles and moves to the door, seeing everyone out and welcoming the next set of students in.