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The first vacation they take is to Washington D.C. Sarah is learning a lot about history in school (or so she reports) and she’s about that age when avoiding the ‘Captain America Talk’, as Bucky so astutely named it, is getting hard. She asks questions like, “Why does dad get home so late?” or “Why do I have to stay with Darcy?”
So Steve figures they can take a trip, visit the Smithsonian museums (because Sarah is on a dinosaur kick, and she’s just obsessed) and drop in on the National History Museum, because he knows there’s a corner somewhere there for Captain America, though he’s never been himself. He’s been to D.C. plenty over the years, but never for sight-seeing. Sarah is excited to get out of New York, and see dinosaur bones she hasn’t seen about a thousand times over at ANHM.
They go for the weekend, see the museums, walk along the national mall, and Steve finds out that the little corner the Smithsonian gave to his legacy in the 40’s is more like two rooms. Suddenly the trip is less about telling their daughter just who he is and what he and Bucky do, and more about the pain in his chest when he see’s all the pictures. They’re not just of him, as Cap, they’re of Bucky and the Commandos too. They’re of Peggy and Colonel Phillips, and Howard Stark. He can see the same ache on Bucky’s face, one he can’t quite put a name or source too. It just hurts.
Walking around the room, reading the captions and explanations behind all those grainy black and whites, is surreal to say the least. He doesn’t only see Bucky standing next to him over a Jeep, but he see’s them that night in their tent huddled close, whispered jokes and promises of what they’d do when they got home. He sees all the things the pictures didn’t, and once again he feels the hideous guilt he felt when he hadn’t been able to reach
Just a few more inches, Bucky, no, no I just have to reach-
It hurts even with him right there, close enough that their shoulders touch. He closes his eyes for a moment, steps out of the line of people where Sarah stands clutching Bucky’s hand as she looks at the photographs, and reminds himself just who he is now, what he has.
Family.
That thought is grounding in a way that he needs, and so he returns to stand at Bucky’s side. The expression on his face his blank, though not void of emotion.
“Never saw these...” He murmurs, voice a little raw. Steve sets his hand on the back of Bucky’s neck, squeezing gently.
“I haven’t seen all of ‘em. It’s pretty spectacular.” Steve says, gazing up at one wall of a photograph, a rather blurry one of them rushing in to this battle or that.
“Papa,” Sarah whispers, because she thinks that’s what you do in museums, and tugs at Bucky’s hand, “Papa that looks like you.” She points to one picture, Steve isn’t sure which, but it doesn’t matter, because Bucky is in almost all of them. He looks down at her, unsure what to say at first. But then he smiles, and looks at them, nodding in agreement.
“It does, doesn’t it.” He smiles, gazing at the pictures again wistfully, then turning to Steve.
“Sure does.”
In the next room, they’ve got Steve’s old uniform hanging in a case, still battered and dirty from when he’d taken it off after the ice. Steve has to roll his shoulders to forget the feel of it plastered to them for some 70-odd years, but it’s a hard feeling to shake.
“Cool!” Sarah exclaims, jogging ahead to look at the old uniform. She all but presses up against the glass, walking round and round it to look at everything, stopping to read the little caption card at the bottom right of the glass case that reads.
“After nearly 70 years encased in the icy waters of the Arctic, a team of unwitting explorers stumbled upon the wing of a crashed HYDRA plane. Inside, they found the body of Captain America, whom they later learned had fallen into a suspended animation, due to the effects of the famed ‘super soldier serum’. Today Captain America fights alongside the likes of Ironman and Thor, as leader of the Avengers.”
Sarah frowns.
Next to the case, under very majestic lighting, is a picture of Steve in his current uniform, though what it’s from, he has no idea. It marks the end of the exhibition, and for a few moments, Sarah stands in front of it, staring.
Steve and Bucky stand near the entrance of that room, watching. Then Sarah looks back at them both, frowns again (or still), and looks back at the picture. And looks back again. And looks back at the picture.
“Think she’s got it?” Bucky murmurs, smiling slightly as he and Steve watch. The blond crossed his arms over his chest, nodding.
“I’d say so. She’s a pretty intuitive kid,” He says lowly in return. Finally Sarah wanders back to them, looking up at Steve silently, “Ready to go?” He asks, wondering if she’ll say something.
“Yep!”
Later, when they’re walk to the World War II memorial, Sarah is perched atop Steve’s shoulders her little hands pressing against his temples. She squints against the sun as they stop at a plaque that Bucky reads, and frowns slightly.
“Dad,” She says, addressing Steve now. (Generally, Bucky is papa and Steve is dad.)
“Hm?” He hums, watching as Bucky stares at the wall of gold stars in front of them, wondering if they had been counted among the casualties of the war. If their two had been among those 405,399 dead or missing.
“Are you Captain America?” It sounds as innocent as a child could make such a question, and Steve smiles.
“Uh-oh,” Bucky says, good-naturedly, before Steve can reply. He pats his daughters leg, before reaching up to hall her up and off of his shoulders. Setting her on her feet again, Steve crouches down in front of her, and shades his eyes from the sun.
“What makes you say that?” He asks, and Sarah makes a face.
“I dunno...” She says lowly, twisting back and forth, “You look like him.”
That makes Bucky grin like no tomorrow, and he runs a hand through his hair, wondering just what Steve is going to say.
“Knew you were smart enough to notice,” Steve smiles and bumps Sarah’s chin with his finger, “I am Captain America. But we’ll talk about that when we get home, okay?” She nods in response, and doesn’t say much else for a while.
“...Can I sit on your shoulders again?” That too makes Bucky laugh, and Steve looks up at him. They share that look they’ve more or less developed, that says they’re both realizing just how lucky they are to have a daughter like her. No doubt it’s a common look/thought among parents.
“Sure, sweetheart,” Again, Steve hauls her up till she’s perched on his shoulders, and she places her hands on his head again. Once she’s situated, Bucky leans in to steal a kiss from Steve, and slides his hand into the blond’s.
When they do get home, and sit Sarah down to talk about the whole ‘Dad being Captain America’ thing, it’s not really what they expect. Steve mostly tells it all to her, in as much detail as is appropriate, and Bucky adds things here and there, should his friend forget. She doesn’t like hearing about how they were separated, even though Steve had put it as delicately as he could. He hadn’t really anticipated the whole story affecting her much, if at all, because she was too young yet to really understand the details. Just as long as she knew who he was, he was happy.
Once he had told her what had been, he told her about now. Not about Winter Soldier, that much could wait, but that they’d simply found one another again, and really that was all that mattered anyway. She knew Bucky had nightmares anyway, knew that something haunted him, though she never said as much. There had been a night, very early on in her time with them, when Bucky had woke up screaming from a nightmare, and that had of course upset her greatly. Bucky stayed up with her for hours after that, letting her know he was okay, that they were just dreams.
There wasn’t much more to tell than that, really, besides stressing the fact she couldn’t tell anyone. Steve wasn’t afraid to let her know that it was important to not only him, but them as a family, and though she looked a bit unhappy, she nodded in understanding.
When that talk was done, Sarah left the living room in favor of doing something in her room, drawing, playing with her toys, something like that. Steve, on the other hand, breathed a sigh of relief and slumped into the couch cushions, Bucky doing the same next to him.
“Well at least that’s done,” The blond sighs, shifting slightly till he leans against Bucky’s side, head on his friend’s shoulder.
“She’ll be alright,” Bucky says, moving to drape an arm around Steve’s thick shoulders, “Plus I was thinking, Stark should whip us up a little GPS...thing to stick in her backpack, y’know....in case she gets kidnapped.” He says it as casually as if he’s suggesting spaghetti for dinner. Steve just shakes his head and groans, pressing his face against Bucky’s chest.
“God you’re right.....Now I have to start worrying about that too...” He sighs, shutting his eyes as his cheek drags over the fabric of Bucky’s shirt. The brunette chuckles a little and leans down to press a kiss to Steve’s forehead, “Can’t we just homeschool her?”
“Ha!” Bucky laughs heartily at the thought, shoulders shaking with it, “Yeah right, could you imagine? Darcy would be doing half the work for us.”
“Like she isn’t already?” Steve tries to look up at Bucky, even in this position. That only draws another laugh from his friend. He sighs then, squeezing Steve against him for a moment.
“Steve I think we’re doing plenty. And it’s not really up to us if that includes busting up a few lunatics if they even so much as try. Steve, I sw-”
Steve’s heard this rant before, one that goes over all the grisly thing Bucky would do to the person who dare lay a hand on Sarah.
“Yeah, yeah, feeding them their entrails, I don’t need to hear it again.” Steve sighs, though theres a smile on his face.
“You sure? I think I revised the bits that’d cause the most bleeding, y’know, don’t want em to bleed to death too quick or anything.”
“Bucky,”
“Alright. I know you’d do the same.”
“I might.”