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Today’s one of those days that he doesn’t quite make it to scraping himself off the couch, just a bit too tired to do anything, maybe even a little too broody to — Ava always tells him he’s as broody as her. She’s right, too. Yelena says it even more.
But they all lost their lives, and they’ve all got their own sufficient list of reasons to be broody, so.
Alexei lost his daughter and came from basically nowhere.
Yelena lost her sister, had a really messed up life, and only now got a fixed relationship with her dad – the first she’d had since she was six.
Ava lost her parents as a kid and has had no one since – and even about her entire molecular being, which is a fear no one can compete with
John lost his best friend, wife, and son.
Bob never had anyone to lose, which is almost worse.
Bucky lost… well, what didn’t he lose? He’s even down an arm. Not that it means much – Anakin is still competing with him there.
Anakin, well, lost his galaxy, though seems happier camping out with the Thunder – no, New Avengers in the old Avenger’s Tower than he is thinking about going home. Bucky wonders why, what it could take to make someone want to leave their entire past life and world and be happier elsewhere, but Anakin doesn’t talk about it much. He, like all of them, is twitchy. And with good right.
Bucky respects that. Whenever someone mentions HYDRA, Peirce, World War II, or cold, he’ll freeze up faster than the solidified honey bottle that Anakin took a lightsaber to for the rest of the team to lick clean. Most of them had gleefully complied, much to Bucky’s horror. Well, Bob and Yelena, sure, but Ava and Alexei jumped it like a cat on a laser. Bucky and John had just shared a look of horror and fled for their lives.
Anakin is allegedly in his twenties, but acts far younger.
Bucky’s pretty sure he’s younger than Yelena, but the duo are probably holding hands under the table form the looks of it, talking to each other about something…
Horrifyingly food-related.
Yelena is laughing as she passes him her catchup doused noodle bowl, and he carefully looks away to suppress a disgusted shudder.
Anakin just laughs and snatches it with glee, though.
They’re both laughing, and both look so happy.
That’s good.
It’s heartwarming, though the sight reminds Bucky jarringly of one or two of his own sisters, memories from so many years ago they’re slowly fading away in his mind. He hates how faint they are, how fast they’re disappearing, fading away into something… too distant to grasp, because they’ll never come back.
He got drafted a bit over eighty years ago, and he’s never seen them since.
Yelena’s said before that the emptiness never goes away, and his therapist always said it never truly gets better – depression is a never-ending struggle. The point is how long you fight, and he has a good reason to fight.
But this is… familiar.
Are they flirting?
Yelena tries to punch Anakin’s arm, hits the metal, and shrieks. “Yeeeeow!”
“Oh, sorry, that was the metal,” he offers, holding out his other one. She lightly bats him away.
“How did you do that?”
“Lose my arm?”
“No, make me hit that! I don’t hit metal! I never hit the wrong spot.” She is definitely being dramatic – Bucky has seen the girl hit real metal hard enough to split her knuckles to the point of drawing blood without a sound. She’s so… well… Yelena.
“Sorry, it must be my Jedi reflexes,” Anakin answers sweetly.
Yelena scoffs with a laugh.
Okay. Yeah, definitely.
An ex-assassin and ex-Jedi, why not?
On one hand, at least it means they’re both moving on from their last lives. That’s good. On the other, it’s also mildly terrifying.
The couch dips beside him as Ava sits down. “You caught it, too?” she asks with fond amusement.
“Been watching them all day,” Bucky tells her, half amused, half horrified. He has no idea what Alexei would do. The man is so unpredictable. He’s Yelena’s dad, but he likes Anakin, so… Actually, he’ll probably be their biggest shipper.
“I hope we don’t get some more ketchup-eating kids around, because the tower won’t survive that.”
He nods a mildly disturbed but mostly amused agreement and continues watching the duo’s insanity. Actually, he doesn’t know how he survived his whole life, much less post-HYDRA or post -Snap without all of them. His therapist was right – it does get better. “Should we stop this?”
Ava hums and shakes her head. “No, I want to see what they set on fire first.”
…
Fair point. Even if he’s a little bit old for this.