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Sam and Bucky had returned to Sarah’s just in time to have dinner with her and the kids. They ate outside at a creaky wooden picnic table near the water. The barbecued burgers were unlike anything Bucky had before. Sure, he’d had burgers- but Sarah surely had some sort of special grill powers to make them that tasty. Sam ate three, and Bucky– though he surely could have handled 10 or 11 –stopped at two to be polite.
Sam’s nephew’s– AJ and Cass –were sweet kids. They clearly idolized Sam, and they loved and respected their mother. The younger boy, Cass, was hesitant of Bucky at first. Bucky wasn’t offended. Bucky figured the boy was right to be weary, considering his history.
AJ, however, was not so shy. “You’re white.” he pointed out.
Bucky looked taken aback for a moment. He noticed the other two adults at the table holding in their laughter and a smile crack on Bucky's face too. “And… you’re black.” he poked, a little nervously.
Sam boomed out a laugh and pointed a finger at AJ. “Man, don’t act like you’ve never seen a white person before!” Sam said, teasing his nephew.
AJ playfully rolled his eyes. “Well yeah, but I don’t know if I ever sat down for dinner with one before!” he quipped back.
Bucky swallowed a bite of his burger. “Well, I’m, uh, glad to be your first.” he shrugged.
Cass poked his brother's arm. “No! Remember when my friend Emily came over after school? She stayed for dinner!” the younger boy reminded him.
“Oh yeah!” AJ recalled.
Cass made eye contact with Bucky now. “My friend Emily is white.” Cass kindly informed their guest.
Without missing a beat, Sam turned to Bucky. “You know Emily?” he asked with a straight face.
Bucky looked at Sam in confusion for a moment, wondering if he should know Emily…
The Wilson’s all laughed and the sound was contagious enough that Bucky did too, even though he wasn’t sure what he was laughing at.
“Because you all know each other!” Sam finally explained, reading Bucky’s confusion. Bucky’s eyes lit up with understanding, then he laughed with much more certainty.
Sam playfully swatted Bucky’s metal arm, and over dramatically winced upon contact- shaking his hand at the wrist. “Ouch, man!” he joked.
Bucky shook his head. “Hm? Oh. I didn’t even feel it. ” he shrugged, joking back and finally giving in to Sam's humour.
“Ha Ha.” Sam said in a monotone voice, before finishing off the last of what was on his plate.
Cass’s attention was now glued to Bucky’s vibranium arm. His face gave away that he was itching to say something.
While Bucky chewed, he noticed the little guy’s gaze on the prosthetic. Bucky wiggled the metal fingers in a little wave. Cass’s eyes widened and he smiled. Cass quickly leaned across the table to Sam, who stretched forward to meet him partway. Cass cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered into his uncle’s ear.
Sam chuckled, and Bucky did too. Cass had no way of knowing about Bucky’s enhanced hearing.
“Ask him yourself!” Sam said with a smirk, as he nodded toward the super soldier sitting beside him.
Cass adjusted himself where he sat. “Did the Black Panther really give you that arm?” he asked, a grin fighting it’s way onto his face.
Bucky just smiled and held up his arm, as if showcasing it. “Actually, it was his sister–”
“Is it heavy?” the boy added before Bucky could answer the first question.
Bucky was about to explain that it was really quite light when Cass flowed immediately into another thought “Oh! They should have made it glow in the dark!”
AJ jumped into the discussion now “No way! The bad people would see him then!”
Cass shrugged. “Yeah I guess so. But you’re like, super strong, right? So it doesn’t even matter!”
AJ piped up again. “Can you run super fast too? Uncle Sam says Captain America could run, like, really fast!”
Bucky’s eyes bounced between the two, trying and failing to keep up with their bombarding questions, all the while he, Sam, and Sarah grinned at the energy the kids projected.
Cass rose up to his knees on the bench. “How did you lose your real arm?” he asked, eagerly.
Bucky felt his heart jump at the question, his smile faltering unintentionally. Everyone at the table quieted then. AJ swatted Cass on the arm. “Dude!”
Cass looked at AJ’s expression, then picked up on the slight tension in the air. He slowly sunk back down to the bench. His excited smile melted into a look of shame.
Sam swallowed, then reached across to put a hand on Cass’s shoulder. “It’s alright bud, just, Bucky probably doesn’t want to talk about that tonight.”
Cass nodded, looking embarrassed.
Bucky cleared his throat a bit and did his best to shake away the discomfort. “No, no. It’s alright.” he said in response to Sam.
Bucky smiled at Cass. “The story starts out pretty awesome.” he admitted. “Me and my team were in the Alps, and we took a zipline down to land on top of a moving train. It was a highline railway so that means it was really high off the ground. Steve and I– Captain America –found a way into the train.” Bucky began, and the boys listened with their eyes wide.
“We ended up fighting with some of the bad people. Steve threw his shield and I picked it up and used it to defend him. Somewhere around there, the whole wall of the train car got blown out, and I went with it. The rest isn’t so awesome. I hung on for a second and Steve tried to catch me, but the piece I grabbed onto broke off and I fell a really long way down. I’m not exactly sure what happened then… either I hurt my arm really badly when I fell, or I got frostbite or something… but either way, they couldn’t save my arm. So I got a metal one.” Bucky simplified the story in a way that hopefully wouldn’t frighten the children, or send himself spiraling.
He also opted to leave out a lot of details; like who exactly they referred to, how he really didn’t know if they amputated his arm to save him or because the metal arm would make him a more effective weapon, or the fact that he had a different metal arm before this one.
Both boys responded with a chorus of “wow!” and “that’s so cool!”
Sarah was now clearing the table. She stepped in between the boys to add their empty plates so the growing stack. “And?” She prompted, looking at each of them with raised eyebrows.
The boys looked at Sarah then back to Bucky.
“I’m sorry that happened.” said AJ
“I’m glad you’re okay now.” said Cass.
Bucky huffed a little laugh. “Thanks guys.” He gave Sarah a nod, too. Her eyes locked with his for a second and she smiled before shyly looking away.
Sam groaned.
Sarah stood up a little straighter. “All right boys. Finish your homework, then you can have 20 minutes of video games if you want, then off to bed!”
The boys jumped up from the table, grabbed a few condiments that needed to be returned to the fridge, and hustled inside.
“AJ, you put away your clean laundry yet?” Sarah called after them.
“Not yet!” AJ called back without looking.
“Well no games until that gets done!” she ordered, the screen door slamming shut behind them.
Sarah shook her head. “You guys all finished?” she asked Sam and Bucky.
Sam leaned back a little and stretched. “Oh yeah. Thanks sis, you never cease to amaze me. Your grill skills came a long way in the five years I was gone.” he teased.
Sarah added her brother’s plate to the stack. “Yeah, yeah.” she said with an eye roll.
“Me too. Thank you so much for dinner, Sarah. It was great. I haven’t had a home cooked meal in... a really long time.” Bucky admitted.
Sarah smiled, her eyes going a little heart shaped again. “My pleasure.” she reached over and picked up his empty plate, adding it to the stack.
“Can I help you with those?” Bucky said, starting to stand up and reaching out to take the stack of dishes off Sarah’s hands.
Sarah dodged his reaching hands. “Nah, nah. You helped out more than enough today. You and that metal arm got more done on our boat today than Sam and I could’ve done in a week.” she assured him.
Sam over exaggerated his offended reaction. “Excuse me? Speak for yourself, sister!”
Sarah just shrugged with a smirk on her face, and Bucky copied her, teasing Sam.
Sarah gathered up any remaining dishes or condiments, speaking as she did so. “Bucky, as soon as the boys clear out of the living room, I’ll set you up on the couch.”
Bucky nodded. “That’s perfect. Thank you so much.”
Sarah nodded in recognition. “Good night fellas. Love you, bro.” She bid, before heading up to the house.
Bucky watched as she walked away.
“HEM HEM” Sam couch aggressively, grabbing Bucky’s attention.
With a mock incredulous expression, Sam said “Were you just doing your stare thing on my sister’s–”
Bucky stopped him. “No! No, man. No. No way. I wouldn’t.” Bucky said, as sincerely as he possibly could.
“Mmmhmm.” Sam hummed, standing up. Bucky followed suit.
Sam approached a cooler that sat next to the barbeque. “Beer?” he said, pulling one out of the ice for himself. Bucky nodded in affirmative.
Sam plucked out another and handed it to him, then pointed past the picnic table to the little floating dock, equipped with two plastic lawn chairs.