Archive of Our Own ^beta

As per usual, he was ambushed the second that he pulled his car up to the docks.

Sam’s nephews sprinted across the deck to him, and he groaned lightheartedly as they immediately latched themselves to his arm.

“So, when does the whole ‘metal arm’ thing stop being interesting to you two?” He quipped, and both boys laughed.

“As soon as it stops looking cool,” AJ remarked, trailing Bucky as he made his way over to where the Wilsons and some of their neighbors had already started to gather. He smelled something incredible cooking, and he looked around for Sarah before he heard her call out to him.

“Bucky! You drinking?” He turned left to see her holding out a bottle of beer from the cooler in offering. He just laughed.

“Unfortunately, still doesn’t really do anything to me.” As the words left his mouth, Cass ran up and tackled him from behind, and he stumbled forward a bit with a grin. “If these two don’t let up though, I might need to!”

“Come on, guys. You’re never this happy to see me!” Sam emerged from the house holding a tray of something, dodging people as he set it down on a nearby table.

“We see you all the time, Uncle Sam,” Cass argued.

“Plus, Uncle Bucky’s got a metal arm,” AJ said, hands on his hips as if that was a completely airtight argument. Sam just raised his eyebrows.

“Technically, it’s vibranium,” He countered. AJ shrugged.

“That’s even cooler. And still a metal. We’re literally learning the elements right now.”

“Alright, I get it,” Sam said, his tone lighthearted as he crossed the deck to grab AJ and lift him into the air. “Somebody thinks he’s smarter than me!”

“It’s not his fault if he’s right, Sam!” Bucky teased from the side before turning back to Sarah. “You know, I think I might actually take you up on that beer.”

“And I absolutely wouldn’t blame you for that,” She laughed, passing him one as they both watched Sam attempt to fight his nephews.

-------------------------

It didn’t take long for the party to get into full swing. Sarah Wilson’s cookouts had become somewhat notorious in the neighborhood, and Bucky was grateful to have been invited to every single one. While he hadn’t been able to come every time just because of how far away he lived, he was there often enough that people knew him — besides the fact that technically, everybody knew of him — and he was happy to say that he was at least amicable acquaintances with most of them. He never claimed to be the best at socializing in the modern day, but he was clearly doing something right if all of these people continued to want him around.

The sunset over the water was always a sight to behold, no matter how many times he’d seen it. The first cookout after they’d fixed the boat, he remembered finding Sam staring out at the endless sea, and he found himself doing the same as he wandered in the direction of the ocean.

It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy talking to everybody. Sometimes he just needed a minute alone, to realign. He sipped what he was pretty sure was his third beer and steadied himself for a moment with the sound of the gentle waves, the chatter of everybody behind him fading to the most pleasant background noise. But when he turned around to go back to the group, something felt different.

Maybe it was the way that the fading sunlight lit everything up, or the purity of the love found here, or the fact that this was the closest thing to family he had felt in years. Hell, maybe it was the alcohol finally managing to make a dent against his superhuman metabolism. Either way, as he watched the group from afar, the moment felt heavier. He was overcome with a flood of emotion, and he was shocked to find his eyes watering.

It was all so beautiful.

And it was his.

Wasn’t it?

Peace was hard to find for somebody with his background. Very rarely did he find himself looking around at the life he had built and believing that it belonged to him. Something like this… it felt too good to be true. Like an illusion, a fading dream conjured up by his brain in an attempt to maintain some sort of sanity. Everything good that he’d ever had had been ripped away from him in time.

So why would this be any different?

He looked away from the crowd and back out towards the water, blinking away a wave of tears that seemed to come out of nowhere. The omnipresent anxiety living in his bones flared for just a second to whisper that they could find him. That this was temporary, that he could always be forced to go back. It was inevitable, it was what he was designed for, it was who he was meant to be. He’d had his reprieve. It was time to go back in.

But they couldn’t make him anymore. They couldn’t make him anymore. He’d lived for so long without the will to choose his actions that sometimes he forgot he had it now. Even if somehow Hydra survived and came back for him, they wouldn’t get past the skills that they gave him. If they were going to drag him back, he wouldn’t be going without a fight.

Nobody could make him do anything that he didn’t want to do, anymore.

He had to keep reminding himself of that. Free will was still a foreign concept to a large part of his brain.

He allowed the sounds of the party and the waves to overwhelm him for a moment, blotting out all other thoughts in his mind. And for some reason, the simple beauty in that sent another wave of tears through his system, one that he quickly wiped with the back of his hand before looking back in the direction of the group.

This was his life.

This was the life that he had built for himself. Where he felt happy and supported and loved by the people he chose to surround himself with.

It was the life that he’d built, and he got to keep it. Nobody was coming to take it away. Not again. Not this time.

A contended smile settled onto his face, and he was shaken somewhat out of his reverie by the sight of Sam striding over to him.

“Trying to avoid my family, are we?” He teased, and Bucky just laughed.

“Never. Just got a bit overwhelmed for a second.”

“You alright?” He asked, and Bucky was surprised to find that the idea of talking about what he was feeling didn’t make him want to jump headfirst into the ocean. He looked over at Sam and nodded.

“Yeah. This… it’s just all so beautiful. I have a hard time believing it’s real, to be honest.”

“Buck…” Sam looked at him for a long moment before wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “You deserve to be happy. You do know that, right?”

Bucky stared at the ground for a lot longer than he planned to, at that comment. Because there was still that nagging little part of him, the part that hadn’t truly processed that he had been brainwashed, the part that was dead set on making him hate himself forever, that still didn’t really think he did. After everything he’d done, after all of the pain that he’d caused, how could there exist a world where he’d get to experience a sunset?

“I’m working on it. Knowing that, I mean,” Was the answer that he settled on. Because he was. He was taking steps to let himself experience joy and warmth.

Even small things had started to become acts of defiance. Every time he put on a comfortable sweatshirt, every time he allowed himself to just sit and watch a stupid movie, every time he leaned down to pet his cat, he was working on letting himself be happy. Reminding himself that the world was something that he could still enjoy. Obviously there was still so, so much pain, and it could be easy to let that be the only thing that he focused on. But there was also beauty worth finding, even if sometimes it came with anxiety.

“It just feels like somebody is going to take it from me,” He spit out before he could stop himself. “Having good things in my life feels like a threat.”

He said it with a weak laugh, attempting to be lighthearted, but Sam just nodded with a deep-rooted understanding in his eyes.

“It’s hard to let yourself experience comfort when you’ve been in survival mode for so long. Also: you’ve got PTSD, man. None of this is surprising.”

“Yeah well, my therapist sucks, so it’s not like she was going to sit down and explain to me the symptoms.”

“Google is free.”

“And? I’m from the 40s.”

“And you’ve been in the 2000s for long enough. Figure it out, old man.”

Bucky laughed for real this time. “Damn, low blow. Here I was thinking that we were bonding.”

“If we’re just now bonding, then what the fuck was all that time we spent fixing my family’s boat?”

“I don’t know, labor exploitation? Having a guy around who can grab things without getting burned had to have been super helpful.”

Sam threw his arms up in mock frustration, though he was having a very hard time hiding his amusement. “Dude, the one time that we needed that skill, you literally forgot about the metal arm and used a wrench anyway.”

“Fuck off,” Bucky joked, because he didn’t really have anything to say in rebuttal. It wasn’t his fault that he was right-handed.

They fell into an amicable silence after that, both of them turning to look out at the nearly-set sun over the water. After a while, Sam spoke again.

“It really is beautiful, isn’t it? I feel like I’ll never get tired of this view.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.”

“The sunset, or free will?” Sam asked, and Bucky couldn’t help the laugh that tumbled from his mouth. He glanced over at Sam and saw that he was smiling a bit to himself, and it almost felt like a milestone, the fact that other people could joke about it with him. It got exhausting sometimes, being all brooding and mysterious.

“Both, asshole,” He replied, and Sam laughed outright at that. After another beat of silence, he put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

“You’ll get there, Buck. And you don’t have to do it alone.”

He faltered, unsure how to respond to that before just turning and wrapping Sam in a hug. “Thank you.”

Sam returned the hug, and for a second Bucky was overwhelmed by how grateful he was for the people in his life.

His life.

His.

Nobody else’s.

“Anytime, man. Seriously,” Sam said as they broke apart, and Bucky nodded. They glanced back out towards the water, before looking towards the party.

“Alright. I think I’ve been antisocial long enough,” Bucky said. “Your nephews’ friends don’t believe that I can lift all five of them with just the one arm.”

“Jesus, can they cool it with the obsession with your arm?” Sam shook his head as they started back across the dock.

“Just admit it: you’re jealous that they think I’m cooler than you.”

Sam looked at him, appalled. “Excuse you, I can literally fly. Also, I’m Captain America! That’s cool as hell!”

“Keep telling yourself that, man.”

The amicable chatter of the party enveloped them again as they returned to the group, and Bucky mostly fell back into a rhythm. The sun didn’t take long to set after his and Sam’s conversation, but it was summertime in Louisiana. The air would stay warm.

It would all stay warm.