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24th December 2024
It was strange being back. Bucky hadn’t really expected that. After all, New York City had been home for a very long time, from the day he was born, until he went off to war, and then, when he and Steve woke up to the new world, for quite a few years.
The exact house or apartment or building didn’t matter, he had only really known the five boroughs, or more specifically two of them, for the larger part of life, but home wasn’t the view from the tenth storey balcony he stood on now, nor any other place in town. Bucky wasn’t so sure his home had ever really been a place, as such, not even the time he had left behind so long ago. It was people, a few specific people, in particular.
“How you doing, Buck?”
The familiar question from the very familiar voice, as well as the hand on his shoulder, made him smile widely without even trying.
“I’m doing okay,” he assured Steve, looking over the moment his buddy leaned on the railing beside him. “Just needed a minute. A little fresh air, you know?”
“I know.” Steve nodded in genuine understanding, before casting his eyes over the view. “This time of year, more than most, it makes you think, makes you look back. We’ve come a long way.”
“In so many ways,” said Bucky, contemplating just how true that was. “Just two working class Catholic boys from Brooklyn, born off the back of the Great War, no hope of really amounting to anything much. Should’ve grown up just like our fathers and their fathers, lived and died, without anyone hardly noticing we were there.”
He didn’t mean to be maudlin about it, he honestly wasn’t feeling sad at all, just thoughtful, contemplative perhaps. If anyone could or should understand, he suspected it was Steve.
“I think about it sometimes too. Not just what life would’ve been if we hadn’t slept those seventy years in the ice, but before. If there had been no war, or if Erskine hadn’t chosen me...”
“If HYDRA hadn’t got their hands on me, if you hadn’t saved me, or if we got discovered in that ice sooner, by other people in a different time. There are a lot of what ifs, Stevie,” he said, smiling across at his best friend, his brother. “Good thing for us, God or fate or whatever it was decided that what we faced, we faced it together. I’m honestly not sure how I would’ve got through without you.”
“Same here, Buck,” Steve told him, honest as the day was long, because the guy knew no other way to be, even before he was the great Captain America. “You wanna come back inside now? Pretty sure the kids will be done with their game in a few minutes and I think they have you in mind for the next round.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there soon,” Bucky promised him, turning back to the view, as Steve headed inside, closing the glass doors behind him.
Aside from the memories of the seemingly never-ending ice that haunted him even now, sometimes, the cold didn’t really bother either man with super-soldier serum in their veins. It was all the other feelings that Bucky was trying to get a hold on before he went back to his family.
“They make me happy,” he said aloud, eyes tilting to the Heavens. “All of this... It was so unexpected, but I’m happy, more often than I’m not. Probably more often than most other people. I don’t know exactly what I did to deserve it, and I know I’ve said it before, plenty of times, but... but I’m grateful. I am so grateful, and I promise, whatever you need me to do in the future, to keep the world safe, I’ll be there. I’ll do what I can with the gifts that I have, just... just please, let me come home to them. Let me always come home.”
He ended his prayer with his eyes closed, right hand making the ever-familiar gesture of the cross, as he had done so many times before.
Just last week, he and Natasha had received a call from Nick Fury, a special mission that was going to require their particular skill-sets, intel, and levels of unwavering teamwork. They suited up and did what they must, alongside Banner, Sam, Scott, and others besides.
Leaving the kids, it had almost broken both their hearts, but they did it. To save the world, so that their twins, as well as everybody else’s children, had some place to grow up safe. It was worth it, but Bucky had been terrified the whole time, scared to death of leaving those that loved and needed him behind, all over again.
“I’m here with a message from a couple of rambunctious eight-year-olds who seem to think Daddy promised to play their new board game with them again before dinner.”
Bucky’s smirk turned into a genuine smile before he had time to check it, especially when Natasha’s arms wrapped around him from behind, her cheek settling between his shoulder blades.
“I’ll be right in,” he promised, turning around in the circle of her arms, holding her tight.
“You’re cold,” she said bluntly, shivering some, but not letting go.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be gone so long.”
When she looked up a him then, eyes searching his face, it was clear she was looking for a problem. Bucky was quick to tell her there was none to find.
“I swear, I’m fine. I was just taking a minute, you know, processing,” he explained, hands moving up and down her arms to keep her warm in the bitter New York winter air. “The whole mission thing from before, it just... It was a lot. Getting home with you, to the kids and everything... It just makes me glad it’s not a regular occurrence, that’s all. Not that a regret a second of our lives, because I don’t. I mean, without the Avengers, who knows if I ever would’ve met you or had this life at all. It’s just...”
“I know.” Natasha nodded, the look in her eyes, and all their years together, both proving to him that she meant it so very much.
She really did understand. She wasn’t just saying she did to make him feel better or trying her best to empathise. Natasha knew she wouldn’t be who she was or where she was or as happy as she was now without the hell she had gone through before. Neither one of them could possibly have deserved the joy they had found at this point in their life, if they hadn’t had to live through the trials and pain that came before.
“You’re one in a million, doll,” he told her fondly, pushing her hair gently back from her face. “And I love you, more than I could possibly explain.”
“Then it’s lucky you don’t need to,” she told him, with a wide smile. “Just so long as you know I love you just as much.”
They were close as close could be to another serious kiss when suddenly a joyful yell was heard from inside and the kids came clattering out through the doors, literally jumping up and down and being so loud, they could probably be heard in the streets below.
“Daddy! Mommy! Daddy! We beat Aunt Yelena! We beat her! We won the game!”
They talked all over each other, but since they were saying all the same things, it hardly mattered. Bucky was just amused to hear his wife’s sister had been bested at anything. That couldn’t be going down too well at all.
“You beat Aunt Yelena at your new game?”
“Yes, but you should come play, Daddy!” Stephanie told him, pulling on his hand.
“Yeah, we wanna beat you too!” Frankie told him, laughing and yet serious too, Bucky was sure.
“Oh, now that sounds like a challenge,” he told the kids with a grin. “Are you sure you want to take me on? Really?”
“Yes!” said Stephanie happily. “And Uncle Steve said he’ll play too, and we’re going to beat both of you, ‘cause the only heroes more super than Captain America and the Winter Soldier are Little Spider and Soldier Boy!” she declared, holding her fist out to her brother, who responded by bumping his own against it, the two of them ‘making it explode’ right after.
“I think we have Uncle Sam to thank for that,” said Natasha with a look.
Bucky rolled his eyes, sure she was right, but still, he couldn’t keep the smile off his lips. Of course, he easily agreed to be dragged into the living room, where Steve had already dutifully reset the game board for them all to play. He noted that Natasha was soon taking a seat on the couch, right alongside Yelena, offering consolation on her loss. Since it came with a vodka-based cocktail and first dibs on a fresh bowl of chips, Bucky had no doubt White Widow would be just fine.
Sat down on the carpet, the over-sized Christmas tree on one side and a table laden with sweet treats on the other, the room was warm from the imitation log fire, but ever more so from all the genuine family cheer within. Bucky glanced up from the game board, into the smiling and laughing faces of his wife, her sister, his own brother, and at last, his children. He could hardly believe how lucky he was.
Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to embrace it all, every ounce of love and warmth and family that he could possibly get. His life was already a long one, though he had slept the majority of it away in ice, but however many years remained before he had to depart, Bucky knew he was going to make the very most of every single one, every day, every hour, minute, and second.
On this day, more than two millennia before, the first Christmas Day brought light and hope to the whole world, a promise for future peace. Bucky supposed that the Avengers had played their part in keeping some of that peace on Earth, at least as best as any humans could, and before that, back in a war that would never be forgotten, he and Steve had tried to do the same. Peace was not everlasting, at least not on Earth anyway, but the promise that it could be one day, that anything was possible, that there would always be light in the dark, Bucky understood it better now than he ever had in his life. Far better than the little boy who sat on a hard church seat listening to Midnight Mass, more concerned with whether or not Santa Claus would come that night. Now, the true spirit of Christmas was in his heart, and all year round too. It wasn’t going anywhere.
“Daddy, it’s your turn again,” said his daughter urgently, hand tapping relentlessly on his knee.
“Of course, it is,” he replied. “Thank you, Stephy,” he said, affectionately ruffling her hair then reaching for the dice to roll.
“Lucky sixes!” Frankie cheered on his father’s behalf, also moving his marker around the board for him, since it was over on his side anyway. “That means you can steal from Uncle Steve’s pile, if you want.”
“Is it stealing if I don’t mind?” his brother asked him with a look.
“Okay, that is taking the good guy bit just a little too far,” Yelena told him pointedly, making Steve blush and everybody else laugh in good-natured fun.
“It’s not stealing, it’s just sharing,” said Bucky with a grin, as he liberated what he needed from Steve’s pile. “And hey, I’m sure on the next turn, I’ll lose some of my stuff too. The game’s only just begun, after all.”
“And if we lose, we’ll just play again,” said Stephanie happily.
“If we win, we’ll still play again,” her brother told her, to which she agreed with a vehement nodding of her head.
“I think there’s a lot of that board game in all our immediate futures,” said Natasha, taking a long sip from her glass, trying to sound like she wished it weren’t true, but secretly loving the prospect, Bucky was sure.
Alpine meowed as she appeared at his elbow then, rubbing up against him, eager for attention. Bucky gave her what love he could, while still being a part of the game, at least until the cat realised Liho had found a really great patch of sun to lie and went to go join in. At least now they were older, the two of them caused less mayhem. Most of the time, anyway.
Not that Bucky would ever want to be entirely without mayhem in his life. As he told Natasha, more than once, since they got their houseful of pets and kids, she would be bored to tears if their life were ever too normal. They both would, which was why they were both so happy with their noisy, overcrowded special occasions, be they with the Bartons back in Iowa, or here in the city with Steve and Yelena, or anywhere else with whatever combination of friends and family showed up.
Whatever the future held, Bucky was sure it couldn’t beat what he had in the present, but then, he never could have imagined the future he ended up with, when he was way back in what was now considered the dim and distant past.
It was true, he supposed, that God always had a plan, whether the mere mortals involved understood it or not. He would leave it to Him to decide what came next and just enjoy the ride for as long as he was on it, living every moment to its fullest, this Christmas and for all the rest he was gifted with, as time went on.