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He was torn when he first saw her name with only the year she was born beside it. The rest of his family’s lives had come to an end and yet there she was, still hanging on. He liked to imagine she was holding on for him but that was where his mixed feelings came in—he hoped she had lived a long, happy life but he hated that she was suffering now at the end of it.
He had researched the hospital where she was living out the rest of her days, her heart slowly giving out and the idea of that broke Bucky’s own. To think that his baby sister was still alive but only barely, that each breath was a struggle and something as simple as opening her eyes was tiring.
As of a few months ago, he could finally remember her again. He could remember what she had looked like and how she sounded. He could remember her bossing him around and wanting to follow him and Steve everywhere they went.
He could remember her big hazel eyes that she got from their father and her mousy brown hair. He remembered that when she and Bucky laughed, both of their noses scrunched and eyes turned into half-moons.
He remembered everything about his little sister, Becca, and now here she was—in her nineties with her white hair—smiling up at him while he looked the same despite being as different inside as she looked outside.
She slowly reached up to take his hand and he met her three-quarters of the way, letting her rest her frail hand in his.
It had been hard, those few months after getting away from Hydra. He had had no memory and no idea where was safe. All he had was survival instincts and thankfully that had been enough to get him to where he was now. He wasn’t one hundred percent but compared to the man he was the last time he’d seen Steve, it was a large improvement.
Between the gradually fading amnesia, being wanted by every law enforcement agency on earth, and pursued by Steve, staying hidden had been no easy task either but he wasn’t ready to be forced into anything again. Not any time soon, maybe not ever. He didn’t want to go to prison or become anyone else’s puppet under the guise of ‘doing what’s right’ but he also wasn’t sure all of his past needed to be revisited.
Just because it had looked and sounded like Steve didn’t mean it was Steve. Bucky sure as hell wasn’t the same person he’d been in 1944 anymore, so why shouldn’t Steve have changed?
“You need to talk to him, Bucky,” Becca said, pulling him out of his thoughts and back to the present.
He was sitting at her bedside as he had been doing ever since he’d found her a month ago. She was shocked but not as much as Bucky had expected. She told him she’d always known he had survived. She said that in her heart, she just knew.
Not to mention the fact that Steve had come by a few times and one of the last times, he’d told her about Bucky in as much detail as he could provide. That had tilted the scales of trust in Steve’s direction when she told Bucky that. If he was coming to check up on Becca, maybe he really was still the old Steve. Or at least some of him.
“Yeah? And you need to eat your applesauce. C’mon, Becks, open wide,” Bucky said, holding out the spoonful.
She’d left her dinner untouched all evening and Bucky wasn’t sure if she really had no appetite or if she just missed being doted on by her big brother. He knew she wouldn’t answer him if he asked, so he chose to think it was the latter because, truth be told, he had missed his baby sister fiercely.
“Nice that some things never change,” she managed, her breathing labored so Bucky let go of her hand to support her head while she ate.
After finding out that Becca thankfully had married and started a family of her own—the idea of her being alone was something Bucky hadn’t wanted to think about—he decided to only visit at night. For one, he still wasn’t ready to reenter society and fill out any kind of form with information no one would believe but also he didn’t know how her kids would react to finding out their uncle was still alive, didn’t look a day over twenty-eight, and was wanted for the most high-profile assassinations of the last seventy years.
He could understand that being a shock and an unwelcome one at that. Bucky knew he was innocent on good days and on bad days… Well, he could only imagine how someone might react to finding out who he was.
And besides, he had missed so much of her life. He wanted to spend as much time with her as she had left. So he’d found a good spot on a nearby roof and watched for a few days to see when she was alone, sneaking in one night through the window.
He hadn’t intended to make himself known or to talk to her at all. He knew she would recognize him but after noting that once everyone left Becca would just sit up with her thoughts until late into the night anyway, he couldn’t stop himself and had been coming every night since to sit and talk with her, staying until the nurses came in the morning to do their rounds.
He didn’t want her sitting there all alone thinking about dying.
“Have you contacted him?” she persisted after a few bites, turning her head away slightly to signal that she needed an eating break. He picked up the cup of water instead and held it to her lips while he thought about his answer.
“Not yet.”
“Bucky.”
“Becca.”
“Bucky,” she stressed with what little power she could put into her weak voice these days.
They had had a brief discussion about her health issues and the reality of the situation and then didn’t talk about it again. When Bucky tried to broach the subject one day again, she began asking him about people they grew up with and reminiscing. He didn’t need to be told twice that she didn’t want to think about any of it any more than she had to.
Instead they talked about her family—the kids, grandkids, and even great-grandkids. She showed him pictures and helped him learn everyone’s names. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he would never meet them but at the same time, he enjoyed getting to know them all anyway. It was nice to know he still had family.
When they weren’t talking about them, they talked about Steve. Steve who was also still alive and young, so “it must be fate to have a miracle like that,” Becca had said. Steve who was still a hero, an Avenger now, and who was searching for Bucky. Steve who had left his number with Becca in hopes that Bucky might visit and contact him.
“It’s Steve. When has he ever done you wrong? He deserves to have you listen to what he has to say.”
“Why can’t you just tell me? I know you two talk.”
She didn’t respond, she only hit him with slow-moving fingers and then offered the best she could of a glare. When she looked at him like that, all the years faded from her face and he saw a stubborn, irritated teenage Becca waiting for Bucky to ‘stop being a bonehead.’
He smiled and leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead.
“You’re just like mom, you know that?” Becca asked when he pulled away. “You always were.”
“What? Because I’m a softie?”
“No,” she said, her smile small and worried, “because you keep everything in and you smile through it. You’d rather see fifty people you don’t know be happy than experience it for yourself. You give and give and never let yourself get and, Bucky, you’ve been through enough. You’ve had enough taken, you’ve given enough.”
Bucky swallowed dryly and looked away. Seventy years later and Becca was still reading him like a fourth grade English book.
“I know what you and Steve were to each other. I’m not stupid now and I wasn’t then either. He talks about you constantly and I update him when I can.”
Bucky’s heart skipped a beat but he still couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Bu—” She went into a coughing fit and Bucky was on his feet in an instant to pour her more water and then sit carefully beside her as he helped her drink it. He wiped the little that had trickled down the side of her mouth and then just stayed there with Becca’s head resting against him.
She felt small and fragile. She’d always been small in the sense of short and petite but fragile? Never. She was as tough as they came in every sense of the word.
It made him hug her slightly tighter.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” Bucky told her quietly, dropping his head on top of hers and closing his eyes. “I’m sorry I missed so much.”
He felt a hand rest on top of his own and give it a gentle squeeze, her thumb moving in a comforting semi-circle across the back of his metal hand. He’d been surprised by how unfazed she had been by it and then laughed when she compared it to her hip replacement.
“You’re here now, Buck, and you don’t have to miss anything else.”
Bucky stayed as he was, listening to her even though he didn’t want to accept what she was saying. It was so much easier to keep himself hidden, to keep pretending to be dead. That way he didn’t have to face anyone or anything with any kind of expectations for him.
He didn’t have to see Steve who probably imagined he was still the loud, outspoken, and carefree man he remembered. The man who grinned and laughed and looked after him. The man who had actually died and left behind the one he was now.
Nor did he have to see his relatives. He didn’t have to fill any role or fit any preconceived ideas or expectations. He could simply exist how and when and where he wanted. Something he had been deprived of since 1944.
“Promise me,” Becca said, her voice even softer than usual. “Promise me, Bucky.”
“Promise you what?”
“Promise me that when I’m gone you won’t go back to being alone.” She paused before continuing. “Promise you’ll meet them. And that you’ll speak to Steve. Please.”
“Becca, I…” He let the thought remain unfinished as he contemplated what he really wanted to say to her. “They won’t believe me.”
Except for Steve. He knew Steve knew what he saw. Steve had called out to him, had been convinced enough to let Bucky almost kill him. Bucky’s only worry with Steve was not being worthy of that kind of devotion anymore. The man he was now didn’t deserve the kind of unfaltering love Steve had always shown towards him. He wasn’t the man Steve had fallen in love with anymore.
“Then we will make them believe.”
“How?”
She yawned and Bucky helped her get comfortable again, pulling the blanket up to her neck to keep her warm and tucking it in on the sides like he did when they were kids.
“I’ll think about it, alright? We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Her eyes were closed already and he knew all the talking and arguing had exhausted her. He had been trying to keep things calm and easy but old habits died harder than he thought after all.
He pressed another kiss to her forehead.
“Goodnight. Sleep tight, kiddo.”
“Night, Buck,” she muttered, drifting off not long after.
Bucky made himself comfortable in his usual chair, taking out the phone he had bought a few days ago and staring at Steve’s number. Becca had made sure Bucky put it into his own phone. She was determined to make the two of them meet up again.
He opened a message to Steve but his thumbs hovered indecisively over the keys until he closed it and put it away in favor of watching Becca.
There was a fresh bouquet of yellow roses on her bedside table that her son, Henry, brought her every few days. Her daughter, Marla, had knitted the blanket that rested on top of the hospital sheets now to keep her mother warm. Their spouses also joined them each time they visited and the grandkids did too. Becca’s grandson, Jack, Henry’s son, also often brought his daughter Alisa.
He felt as though he knew them all by now and was happy to see features of Becca as well as of their parents in her new family as she swiped through pictures. He’d even managed to catch a few real-life glimpses since he didn’t wander far from the hospital during the day.
She also showed Bucky her late husband, Billy, who had died of cancer roughly fifteen years ago. Bucky had spent a while staring at his picture with a frown until Becca finally chuckled and gave him the answers he was looking for.
“Yes,” she had said, “it’s William Proctor from the grocery store around the block.”
In a way, it was comforting that he had known the man she married and built a life with. It made the ache of missing her life a little less sharp.
Bucky checked his watch and then decided to close his eyes for a bit, first setting a two hour alarm so he could get out of there before the nurses came in. He reached out a hand and rested it on Becca’s arm before slowly drifting off.
+
“Do you remember Mr Carson?” Becca asked.
It was two nights later that they were reminiscing about their old neighbors because Becca’s new nurse reminded her of the girl Bucky had asked to prom across the street.
Bucky had only asked her because he couldn’t ask Steve so he picked the first girl he saw and made sure she had a friend for Steve to take. Steve had grumpily accepted this deal and the four of them had had a great night, all things considered.
Now they were nine people deep into memory lane and Becca had just brought up one of Bucky’s least favorite people.
“Damn homophobe,” he swore in Russian, eating the carrots she’d left on her tray. She hated them when she was younger and that apparently hadn’t changed with old age. “He knew. I know he knew and every time he saw me, he’d spit at my feet. That’s why I threw that rock through his window.”
“That was you?” she asked, eyebrows raising and eyes going wide.
“You never knew? Dad knew. He gave me all of your chores that month,” Bucky told her with a laugh.
Silence fell between them again with nothing to disturb it other than the soft crunch of Bucky eating the carrots.
“Did mom and dad ever know?”
Bucky shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it would’ve sent mom off the edge if she did. She was so proper, you know?”
“I do. She nearly had a fit when I told her who I was seeing,” Becca agreed, thinking back with a fond smile. “Then he came to dinner and wowed them both. My Billy.”
Bucky glanced over at her, his own smile widening when he saw the happy look on her tired face. She met his eyes and he immediately tensed, knowing that expression.
“Speaking of, have you contacted Steve yet?”
Bucky broke their eye contact to look away again with a heavy sigh. She just wasn’t going to let this go.
“So that’s a pretty clear ‘no,’” she said with a heavy sigh and chiding look cast Bucky’s way.
“I’m not ready.”
“Lying. You can lie to anyone you want but you can’t lie to me,” she told him with a slow tap to her temple. “You may think you’ve changed but you haven’t. You’re just quieter now.”
Bucky was still staring down at the floor but now there was a faint smile on his lips at her words. Maybe she had a point. Maybe she really did still know him because he really needed to hear that. Even if it wasn’t true, even if she was just saying things to make him feel better—which had never been part of their relationship so he wasn’t sure why she would start now—he still needed to hear it.
“Steve’ll see that too. Scruffy, quiet, and nervous now but deep down you’re still Bucky Barnes and that’s all that matters,” she told him, waving a hand to make him meet her eyes.
When he did, her eyes were as steady and clear as ever. The set of her lips and determination in the way her brows knitted together made his heart ache for times long past. It made him wish so badly that he had made it home, that he could have come back and seen his little sister grow up.
With each and every passing day he instead watched her fade. He had managed to hack his way into the hospital’s records to see the extent of what she was dealing with since she wouldn’t tell him. He knew the basics and what she deemed necessary to share but he didn’t know she’d already lived a week longer than they expected her to.
He hadn’t told her that he read the files but he had the feeling that she knew. She allowed herself more breaks now and longer silences during which she caught her breath or rested her eyes. The first few weeks of visiting her, she had pointlessly kept up a facade to try and convince him that her health was better than it was but if there was anything Bucky knew well by now it was death.
He knew he didn’t have long with her. He knew any day, any moment, could be her last.
He took her hand, gently holding the fingers in his as she said, “I promise you it is.”
He swallowed dryly, that ache in his chest threatening to tear him in half and right then he would have done anything she asked of him.
“Okay. I’ll reach out to him.”
+
“Not gonna work,” Bucky said with a snort, today eating her package of crackers because she said her mouth was too dry for something like that.
“Yes. Solid proof. Not just anyone can manipulate videos, you know,” she said and Bucky bit back a laugh because oh yes they could. It was odd seeing the old woman in his sister jump out like this.
“So you want to record a video message? On your phone.”
“Yes. I have one of those touch things. The new ones.”
“Right.”
“James Barnes, don’t you take that tone with me.”
Bucky laughed. “Now who sounds like mom?”
“Well, good. She was always right, now wasn’t she?” Becca countered and Bucky laughed and raised his hands in defeat.
“Alright, you got me. So tell me your idea, sis.”
Becca told Bucky about her plan to record a video message of herself and then of the two of them. It was something she’d been planning to do anyway and had originally thought to ask one of the nurses for a few minutes of their time. Now she had Bucky.
She wanted to leave something for them to watch when they missed her. They had a million and one memories already but surely they wouldn’t be opposed to one more.
Then she wanted to tell them about Bucky again, to mention him and remind them of him before getting him on camera with her. He wanted there to be no question in their minds that this was in fact James Buchanan Barnes, their uncle, granduncle, and great-granduncle.
By the time she finished explaining her master plan, she’d managed to tire herself out and could barely keep her eyes open let alone her head up to actually record the videos.
“Tomorrow,” she told him, managing one last look and he nodded.
“Tomorrow it is. I’ll wear my best shirt.”
“Only got four,” she teased, her voice barely more than a whisper and eyes closed. Bucky knew he only had a few seconds before she was out cold.
“Five. Stole one this morning.”
He watched her mouth pull up in a quick smile before dropping slowly as her breathing evened out to its unusually slow pace that he had had to accept as normal for her.
He sighed quietly, placing the empty carrots bowl back onto her tray and placing it by the door. He knew someone must have suspected someone was in there with her—moving things around, adjusting pillows, emptying bedpans—but so far no one said anything. Maybe at this stage in life, so long as the patient seemed happy, they didn’t care about anything else.
He hoped she was happy.
He leaned up and brushed a few strands of hair away from her forehead so he could press a kiss there, lingering a moment because she felt so cold he couldn’t stand it. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed and his other hand holding hers.
“Love you, Becca. Sleep tight. See you to—”
Bucky froze, immediately blinking back tears as his eyes burned and throat constricted. His eyes were still closed and forehead pressed to hers but her hand…
Her hand had slipped out of Bucky’s and her breathing had stopped. He lifted his head to look down at her only to see what should have been his baby sister sleeping peacefully but she wasn’t moving at all.
The monitors were beeping loudly behind him but he was all focused on her that they easily faded into the background as he immediately began CPR. He knew from her file that she had an DNR, if it was time to go, she wanted to go.
But he wasn’t ready. He’d only just come back. He’s only just gotten her back. How fucking dare Hydra be gone and yet still find a way to ruin his life. Seventy years. Seventy-fucking -years he lost. If even he’d only lost sixty-nine he still could have had a year with her.
A night nurse burst into the room but by that time Bucky had scrambled out of the window and out of sight using nothing more than the expertly honed survival skills of all those wasted years. His mind was in chaos, his emotions even worse.
After decades of abuse and torture and being forced to commit the worst atrocities every minute that he was awake, he didn’t think he still had the ability to cry. If none of that could pull it out of him, what could?
Becca could.
Bucky dropped down to the alley below and fell forward onto his knees, kept from view of those passing by on the street by a dumpster he crouched beside. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed silently until no more tears came.
+
Bucky returned to the hostel where he’d been staying, locked the door, closed the blinds and didn’t leave for two days.
By the time he finally went out again, he was just so goddamn empty and not from the lack of food. She was gone and unlike him and Steve, she wouldn’t miraculously come back. There were no maybes, only absolutes. Becca was gone.
And Bucky had made promises.
With shaky, sleep-deprived and emotionally overwrought hands he unlocked his phone and stared at Steve’s contact once again.
He tapped it and opened a new message, thumbs hovering once again but instead of any kind of greeting or indication that they should meet, all Bucky could type were two little words.
Bucky: She passed.
Not even a minute later, he got a response.
Steve: I know. Her daughter called me. Are you okay?
This was the first contact he and Steve had had since DC and at that time, Bucky’s mind was worth no more than a blank piece of paper. He wondered how much and often Becca updated Steve about him that he didn’t seem even the least bit shocked to have Bucky text him. Or maybe he had just always had faith that Bucky would get to this point, that he would recover.
Bucky: Not really
Steve: Would you like to meet? No pressure
Bucky hesitated, wanting to say no, wanting to not respond at all. He wanted to flush that phone down the toilet and move halfway across the globe but he made a promise to Becca and he sure as hell wasn’t going to break it. He’d reached out to Steve so that was one promise down. Now he had to make good on not being alone.
Bucky: Yeah. Somewhere quiet please
Steve: You got it
Bucky waited while Steve typed and then researched the location he was given in every way he knew how. As far as he could tell, it was just an apartment in Brooklyn and it was under the name ‘Steven Grant Rogers.’
Steve: I’m there now if you’d like to come
Bucky thought about that for a second.
Bucky: I’ll meet you there tonight. There’s something I have to do first
Steve: Of course, I’ll be here, Buck
Bucky closed out his chat with Steve for now, a hopeful warmth blossoming in his chest that had been ice cold and vacant just moments ago. The pain was still there, the loss and anger and everything else was still felt but the warmth was stronger than he expected.
He smiled softly at the thought of Becca looking out for him so well even after all this time. She knew what he needed.
He opened his notes app next, scrolling through all of the information he had noted down from Becca about her kids and so on until he found her daughter’s address.
He wasn’t sure this was the smartest idea ever but he needed to do it. For Becca.
Two hours later he was cleaned up and had even eaten a little as he walked up the stairs of a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. He lifted his gloved hand to knock and then hesitated and switched hands, holding the flowers he had bought in his left instead.
He took in a deep breath and knocked once and then twice and waited.
He could hear kids playing and screaming, he could hear a crying baby, and he could hear heavy footsteps coming down the stairs and towards him until the door swung open and Marla stared up at him.
She was the spitting image of her mother and Bucky instantly teared up but held them back even as his chest felt like he was being stabbed over and over again.
Bucky’s lips parted in awe that even the way she frowned was her mother’s. Pictures and viewing from a distance hadn’t done their likeness justice and now here he was emotionally sucker-punched and unable to speak.
“M—” he began only to be cut off when Marla stepped forward and pulled him into a hug so tight it surprised him. All of his instincts were screaming to run and protect himself, that this was going to end badly for him and then she started crying and all those alarms fell silent.
“She told us you would come but I stil can’t believe it’s really you,” Marla whispered between sobs, managing to hug him even tighter. “You look so much like grandma.”
He hugged her back, closing his eyes and enjoying the embrace. He had imagined many things would be waiting for him when he broke free from Hydra but this had not been one of them and was a very pleasant surprise. He hadn’t expected to have a family.
“Please,” Marla said, pulling back from him and offering a warm smile, “come in, Uncle Bucky.”