It’s the morning. There’s a bird chirping on the ledge of the balcony outside of his window. The sun gleams through a crack in the curtains. Bucky rubs his face in his hands and sighs. He grabs his phone, checking the time. 7:08. A text from Steve, simply asking “Run today?”, like every other morning. Another sigh.
He swings his legs over the side of the bed, scratching his head. He stands slowly and stretches, leaning on the balls of his feet. He hears scampering and lazily smiles, shuffling his feet towards the kitchen for a pot of coffee. He waits for the pot to brew, inhaling the scent of the fresh Brazillian coffee Steve had brought back from a mission. Out of all the new things from this century, coffee had to be his favorite. He could drink a million cups of it a day, but Steve told him that probably wasn’t a good idea, so he refrained. He stuck to maybe 7 or 8-which, as Natasha pointed out, wasn’t really any better.
Bucky pours his cup of coffee, brings it over to sit down on the futon. He pats the lump lying next to him, grinning lazily.
“Mornin’, Annie,” he says to the dog, and the German Shepard licks his hand. He pats her again and sips his coffee, lifting his feet for another lump to plop down underneath his legs. He doesn’t put his full weight on the dog, knowing she was old and tired. “Ah, sweet pea, you need a bath,” he rubs his feet on the snoozing Rottweiler, smiling at how she rolls over onto her stomach. He was glad that her ribs weren’t showing anymore.
When Bucky first started to adapt to the new world, Steve recommended him to a therapist, Doctor Jolene R. Kelemen. The woman was very stern and straightforward, and Bucky found her… dull. He wasn’t very verbal at the time and she almost seemed like all she wanted to do was coax him into speaking more. He knew he should, being as he was technically 95 years old, but the words wouldn’t come out. Years, decades of training-brainwashing-had near permanently erased any communication not pertaining to mission reports and commands. Eventually, after almost three months of visits to Dr. Dull-men (this was the first sign of the old Bucky, Steve noticed-the nicknames he gave to people of authority) the woman assigned him to a therapy dog. Bucky was bewildered at first- he could hardly take care of himself, now he had to take care of a dog? It didn’t make sense.
Steve came with him to pick one out. All of the dogs in the shelter were specially trained to help people like Bucky, those who suffered PTSD, depression, anxiety, and many others. There were so many dogs to choose from, Bucky almost backed out of it. Steve reminded him that he needed this.
“Buck, this’ll be good for you, I know it will,” he told the man, patting his friend’s shoulder.
“I…I just don’t think I’m fit to take care of a dog, Steve,” Bucky explained, staring down at the polished tile below him. “I can hardly take care of myself.”
Steve pats his shoulder again and steps in front of him. “Bucky, that’s what they’re here for,” he reassures him. “They can help you just as much as you can help them.”
Annie was his first choice. When he looked at her, tail wagging with her eyes closed with happiness, he knew that she was the one for him. When he walked to her, he places his hand on the top of her head, and she leaned into his touch. There was a lump in his throat and his nose burned, like it does when you’re about to sob. He looked at Steve and back at her, and then looked at her collar.
“Annie,” he said aloud, and Steve grunts in question. “Her name is Annie.” Bucky states clearly, unsure if he meant to assure himself or Steve.
“Is she the one?” Steve asks, and Bucky nods slowly at first, and then frantically, unable to speak. The woman at the counter was very understanding when he signed the papers, small, hot tears dripping down his cheeks. Steve does most of the talking for him, patting his back reassuringly. Bucky doesn’t know why he’s crying, but as he walks down the busy city streets with his best friend, he understands that these tears, they’re tears of joy.
Sweet Pea was a rescue puppy. (Let it be noted that to Bucky, all dogs, no matter how old, were puppies.) Bucky had Annie for nearly a year, and to him, getting a dog was the best idea he’d ever heard. The German Shepard was his companion in everything he did. He shared his bed with her (the first few nights of that went rather strange. Bucky still had nightmares for a long time, but Annie would climb into his bed and lay next to him. Eventually, this would calm him and gradually the nightmares disappeared.) Bucky realized one day that he wanted to rescue another dog like Annie had rescued him.
There were plenty of sites on the Internet (so helpful, Bucky thought) for adopting rescue dogs. He wanted a dog that would catch his eye like Annie had, one who’d work their way into his heart without a second guess. He visited a website and looked at the provided pictures of the dogs, all looking sad and malnourished. He wanted to take home all of them, but Steve said he should probably just stick with two. Maybe one day. For now, they’d go down to the little shelter in Upstate New York and adopt another dog.
When they got there, none of the dogs that Bucky saw caught his eye. Most of them looked almost hostile and very… plain. He knew that he liked bigger dogs because they were easy to handle and not many people wanted them if they had small children in the family. That also went for older dogs, and he found them to be just as cute as the newborns. As he walked through the shelter, the woman rambling on to Steve about health issues in the various dogs they passed, Bucky stopped.
Lying down on the ragged pink carpet was a beautiful black Rottweiler. Her eyes were droopy as she looked up at him, blowing a puff of air from her mouth. He walked over to the small baby gate of her cage and stuck his hand out. She curiously stood up and inched towards him, sniffing his hand suspiciously. She gently licked his fingers and Bucky smiled gently at her.
“That’s Sweet Pea,” the woman told him. Bucky didn’t even notice her walk over; the black dog in front of him enraptured him. “She was brought to us about 4 months ago, abandoned on a farm in Texas by the owners,” she chimed.
“How old?” Bucky asked. She looked aged, but from what he researched on rescues, they aged physically quicker than others. She looked tired. He remembered feeling like that.
“We estimated that she’s around six years, but Rotties live to be around nine years. She was extremely malnourished when we rescued her, and a lot of us thought she wouldn’t make it more than a couple of months,” the lady reached into the cage to pet the dog’s head. “She sure is a fighter.”
The word stung his heart. The dog must have felt so much in her short lifespan. Bucky understood what it was like to lead an existence of dread. This dog fought death, and he respected her for that. She needed someone to love her again, and he was going to be the one to do it.
“People aren’t usually into bigger rescue dogs,” the woman, Bucky believed her name was Carol, explained. “A lot of them are concerned that they will lash out at their small children and in some cases themselves. I personally believe that a dog will have no reason to attack someone unless they give them one.”
Steve nodded and Bucky grunted in agreement. He continued to gaze lovingly at Sweet Pea, who leaned into the hand residing on her head.
“I want to take her home with me,” Bucky said, and Steve gave him a questioning look.
“You’re sure of it?” Steve asked, and Bucky nodded. They both turned to Carol and she smiled, leading them over to a desk to sign a few papers and discuss the financing. Bucky’s mind was in a haze. He kept looking back at the dog in the cage.
They gave him a leash and a complimentary food bowl, told him what Sweet Pea liked and how often she ate. They told him she was afraid of thunderstorms and cats and that she loved to be pet behind the ears and on her chin. She got to say goodbye to some of the shelter employees, who seemed to care for her as much as Bucky would. Steve brought the car around and Bucky waited at the sliding glass doors in the front of the shelter, petting her behind her floppy ears. She seemed content with this, and it radiated off her in waves. Bucky felt it and he knew he was content, too.
The two dogs had drastically altered his new life. Bucky knew that without them (and a few other factors, like Steve and his new friends [both of which he’d tried to kill at some point in time]) he’d have gone down a different path, something much darker. He was eternally grateful for what Steve had shown him. He was even more grateful for the two new companions currently nudging his legs for food.
He gets up from the couch and saunters over to the bag of dog food beneath the cabinet, scooping a full cup and pouring it into the metal bowl. The dogs wagged their tails (in Sweet Pea’s case, her nub) and excitedly dug in. Bucky smiled and patted their backs, turning to the refrigerator for some water. He poured each dog a drink and sighed again. He pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his sweats and looks at the short message from Steve again.
Annie loved to run, but Sweet Pea had a hard time keeping up. She was old and worn out and preferred to watch movies with Bucky. The German Shepard was energetic and playful, constantly wanting to play. Sweet Pea was quite lazy, and much calmer than the younger dog. Being that she was nearly eight years old, she liked to relax, and some days, Bucky agreed. Annie gave a refreshing burst of energy to his lazy, depressive days by getting him to get up and go for a run with her. She loved running, and every other morning he’d take just Annie to the track not too far away for a jog. They all benefitted from it. Bucky was able to wake up in the morning and the dogs had a home and someone to love them.
Bucky pulled on a sweatshirt and some clean running shorts, tying his sneakers tight. He walked into the tiny kitchen where the keys were, shooting Steve a quick text. He grabbed the red and brown leashes from off the hook, whistling to get the dog’s attention. Both of them ceased eating and cocked their heads to the side.
“Who wants to go for a walk?”