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No secrets. It’s better that way. Makes it easier to show your love.
He showed it with nicknames. In Spanish as well, nonetheless.
“Princessa de las muñecas,” he picked up his little girl in his arms. “Como fue tu dia, nene?”
“It was borrinnnngggg!” the six-year-old drawled, leaning backwards in his arms. “OH! Bendicion!”
He chuckled at the last-minute formality, “Dios te bendiga, princessa.”
“Hey, Pa,” his eldest got up to greet him as soon as he dropped the little one.
“Hey, Dani,” a kiss on the cheek and a bendicion was sufficient for the seventeen-year-old. As she walked away and into her room, Bucky watched after her as well.
“Hey, Buck,” you kiss him on the lips, making the first grader, still on the side, squeal.
“Eeeewwwww!” she scrunched up her nose.
Bucky laughed, “I know, right, Mari Vi? Mami stinks!”
She laughs hysterically as Bucky picks her up, asking about her day. In the back of his mind, still not forgetting about Daniela.
--
Later, in your shared bed, Bucky asks, “Is something up with Daniela?”
“Yeah, I noticed it too. She’s seventeen, she has a lot on her plate. All we can do is be there for her and be patient with her. Let her come to us,” you reply, playing with his hair.
He sighs, and nods. Bucky was fairly new to the whole parenting thing, unlike you. You raised Daniela, your great-niece, since she was six years old. Her mother died in a car crash, and you took over her role in the house, trying to help Gabriel and Daniela out as much as possible. Daniela’s father died of a broken heart a year later. When Daniela was twelve, SHIELD went down. At 14, she never left your side during the Avenger’s break-up. Yes, she was a normal human being, but she had asked for you to train her in martial arts, and you did. You tried to keep her out of that world, but abandonment issues are abandonment issues, and unfortunately, you were each other’s saviors. That’s where she met Bucky, sat next to him in the Volkswagen Buggy.
-
“Why are you so quiet?” she had asked him suddenly.
“I dunno,” he answered, glancing at her uncomfortably.
“Why do you keep looking at my mom?” she got straight to the point, calling him out. You snorted as Sam chortled at Bucky’s face.
“Uhm, well, uh, your mo- Y/n is uh- I think we were- I think I remember us being together when we were… much, much younger,” he answered uncomfortably.
“When?” Sam asked, genuinely curious.
“Since 1940,” you answered for Bucky, seeing as he probably didn’t know.
“What happened? Was the breakup bad?” Daniela continues on.
“What happened? Well, Bucky died,” you said truthfully.
“Damn, that sucks,” Dani answers.
-
Bucky promised himself he’d never forget his first conversation with the fourteen-year-old. He also vowed to always protect her. In Wakanda, before Thanos came, Bucky made sure, with Y/n, that Daniela was as safe as she could be.
-
“Pero quiero ayudarte!” she cried out, sixteen now.
“Absolutamente no! No vas ayudar, Daniela,” Y/n answered in the doorway of the room Shuri was in.
“Pero, Ma! I can help! I know I can, Pa- Bucky! Why else did you train me, Mami?” she fought back.
“Daniela, you’re smart. You know me. You know Y/n. Figure it out. If you can help Shuri, help her,” Bucky answered, making the decision final.
Nothing could really keep her safe, because by the time you got to the castle to see if she was safe, she and Shuri were reduced to piles of ashes. You knelt by the Queen, hugging each other, your babies gone. Gone from this plane of reality. Your wails travelling through the palace, heard by other mourners.
Bucky and Daniela were gone. Nothing could fix that, but you were also pregnant. This, arguably, made the situation better, because you still had a piece of one of them with you.
-
Driving Daniela to Midtown High the next morning, Bucky took a deep breath, and spoke.
“Dani, I just want you to know that I’m always here for you. You know that, right?”
Dani stared at him, confused, “Yeah? What’s this about?”
“I dunno. Just wanted you to know. Wanted to say it out loud. I’m here for you,” he said again.
“I can take care of myself, Papi,” she smiled. Over the course of a couple months, she’d gotten used to calling Bucky her father.
“All I’m saying is you don’t have to take care alone. I’ve been there, you know that,” he points out.
“I know, it’s just friend problems, y’know?” she bites her cheek, sinking into her seat.
“Dani, my best friend was Steve Rogers. I know a lot about friend problems,” he smiles as Dani laughs.
“I guess. It’s just, you know when you have a group of friends and two of them start dating and it kinda throws off the dynamic, but then you pull together again, and then they just… ghost you?”
“MJ and Peter?” Bucky grumbles, moving his hands around the steering wheel swiftly.
“Yeah, except Ned just jumps in on them all the time, and I don’t wanna be, like, rude because they’re a couple, they need their time. I just… maybe I should just find new friends or something,” Dani huffs, obviously annoyed.
“Hang out with Ned more often, maybe? Ned’s fun,” Bucky offers.
“Ned needs someone who talks a lot. I… don’t,” Dani grimaces.
Bucky laughs, “Must be from you hangin’ out with me so much.”
“Are you saying you don’t like me?” Dani quirks her eyebrow before laughing.
“Just talk to MJ and Peter about it. They’ll understand. MJ was your best friend before you two became friends with Peter and Ned, anyways,” Bucky says.
“You.. you remember when I told you that?”
“Yeah. Right before we all went to Wakanda, when we were hunting Zemo. On the quinjet. You would not stop talkin’ to me about MJ. MJ this, MJ that. She still likes drawing, right?”
“Y-yeah. Yeah, but it’s more architectural. She wants to go into architecture in MIT. They all want to go to MIT,” Dani says.
“They? What about you?” Bucky asks.
“I want to go to MIT, too,” Dani panics a little, laughing. “We have a plan!”
Bucky furrows his eyebrows as he pulls into the school pick-up lane, “That’s fun. When should I pick you up?”
“Uh, can MJ, Ned, and Peter come over?”
“Yeah, sure. Your mom’s workin’ pretty late today, though, so make sure not to bother her,” he informs the teenager, and pulling up after spending ten minutes in school driveway traffic.
“Okay. Te amo, Pa. Bendicion. 2:10, we have an off period as our last period,” she shoves her bookbag onto her back, pushing the car door open.
“Te quiero. Dios te bendiga, mija,” he says behind her, and she shuts the door.
--
“I think I figured out why Dani’s been actin’ weird,” Bucky says in the doorway to your home office.
“Since you are ever the detective,” you reply sarcastically.
“Ha, ha. Seriously,” he turns your chair to look at him.
“Okay, what is it?”
“The plan? Y’know, the one she told us about?” he sits on the smaller desk chair, used for when Mari Vi needed homework help.
“Yeah, that she and the kids applied to the same colleges so they could stay together. I mean, after what happened ever since the Blip, I get it. They want to stay with each other,” you put together.
“Dani doesn’t want to go to MIT, and that’s the last school they applied to,” Bucky spits out.
“She hasn’t talked to them?” you worry, furrowing your eyebrows.
“No, I think she’s scared to,” he said.
“Why hasn’t she talked to us?” you grip the arm of your seat, digging your nails into the cheap pleather.
--
It was on the day May Parker died that Daniela opened up. She couldn’t handle it, and came home, sobs passing through her body, her heart pumping against her lungs and rib cage, and caked with soot and rubble.
“Papá,” she cried weakly as Bucky picked her up in his arms, letting his warmth seep into her.
Her tears and snot and drool soaked through his sleep shirt, and her nails clawed at the skin of his middle back, searching for comfort.
“Perdon, perdon, perdon,” she choked and sobbed on her words, Bucky consoling her.
“No need to apologize, mi perla,” you said, having watched the building collapse on the news only half an hour prior.
“Think of it as a rite of passage. We all get buildings dropped on us at some point,” Bucky says, trying to be funny, and Dani lets out a sobbing laugh.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I didn’t want to go to MIT. Or Stanford, or like, any college they wanted to go to,” she sniffles out as soon as the shock leaves her shaking but able to talk.
“Ay, Dani Baby, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to. I’m glad you decided to tell us, though,” you hold her hand as she lets go of Bucky.
“Thanks, Ma. I really want to go to NYU Tisch. Or any art institute,” she adds.
“Let’s go apply, how about that?” Bucky offers his hand, and she holds it, letting him lead her to a computer. “Come on, Perlita. You got this.”