Meeting Parents and Other Relationship Cliches
“I changed my mind. This is a bad idea. What if they don’t like me?”
“Then they don’t have to go to the wedding.”
“I haven’t proposed yet.”
“I’m telling you that if they don’t like you, they don’t have to go to the wedding. What does you proposing have anything to do with‒”
The door opened.
"Well, if it isn't the one who never visits! Come in,” your mom said snarkily as you stepped inside.
So, you hadn’t exactly told her that you had a boyfriend. It’s not like you said you didn’t have one, you just avoided the topic. And you hadn’t told her you were coming, either. Though it had been, what, a year and a half since you and Bucky had starting dating, so you thought it was about time you took him to meet your parents.
It was actually him that had brought up the subject of meeting your parents. You were lying in bed one night and you said, “It’s probably too late for me to meet your parents, huh?”
“Yeah, like 80 years too late,” he’d replied. Then, in lieu of you meeting them, he described them for you. “What about your parents? I’m assuming they’re...I mean, since I haven’t met them...”
“No, they’re alive, I just‒” Fuck. You had no excuse. “We’ve been so busy, you know. No time.”
He sat up. “Have you not told your parents that we’re dating?”
“Well, uh....I‒”
“Y/N!”
“I’m sorry, I just...”
“Okay, first thing tomorrow, we have to go wherever they are living and I have to go meet them.”
You exhaled. “If you insist."
And here you were, after travelling all day, though much less travelling than you’d anticipated. You walked inside, motioning for Bucky to follow you.
“Where’s–?”
“In the kitchen. More importantly, who’s this?” your mom asked.
“James Barnes,” Bucky said confidently.
“You’re one of Y/N’s friends?”
“Uh, actually, this is my boyfriend,” you said, smiling awkwardly.
“Oh, thank god, finally. It’s wonderful to meet you, James,” your mom said, holding out her left hand for him to shake. You could feel the panic radiating off him as he pulled her into a one-armed hug instead.
You had to hold back a laugh, the scene before you was so awkward. His left hand was crammed into his hoodie’s pocket and he put his right arm around her shoulder, and after the short second it took to react, your mom wrapped her arms around his waist and they hugged for two seconds before Bucky pulled away, his face red.
“You guys came just in time for dinner,” your mom quickly recovered, leading the way into the kitchen. You intertwined your left hand with Bucky’s right as you followed. Your stepdad, when you got into the kitchen, was stalling on his phone, waiting for the food to cook. “Look who’s here!”
He looked up, “Oh, Y/N, hi!”
“Hi,” you said, forcing a smile.
His eyes drifted to Bucky. “Hello.”
“This is Y/N’s boyfriend, James,” you mom said.
Your stepdad’s mood seemed to lighten a bit. “Nice to meet you, James,” he said, pocketing his phone and taking a step toward Bucky, this time holding out his right hand.
Bucky shook his hand, saying, “Nice to meet you too, sir.”
“Hey, dinner’s gonna be ready in about twenty minutes if you guys want to stay.”
“Sure.”
Forty five minutes and a large bowl of spaghetti later, you were having some post-dinner conversation.
“So, we haven’t seen you in nearly a year, what’ve you been doing?”
It probably took all of Bucky’s strength not to say, “Me.”
“I’ve been really busy, you know, with the whole S.H.I.E.L.D. shutting down and having to restart thing.”
“It’s been two years, you’d think S.H.I.E.L.D. would be back together already,” your stepdad remarked.
“Two years?” you asked.
“Since the whole thing with Hydra and the Winter Soldier, you know?”
“Oh, right,” you muttered, noticing Bucky going stiff. You gently took his hand in yours under the table.
“Wasn’t that horrible? I mean, it was bad enough that they infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. from the inside out, but hiring that psycho try to kill Captain America and his friends was a little too far. I would hope that he died during it, you know, drowned after he fell off the helicarrier or something. We don’t need horrible people like that in our country.”
Bucky squeezed your hand, hard.
That was your kinda-safeword for the evening. You’d told him that your stepdad tended to push limits, though not usually intentionally, so he said that he’d squeeze your hand if he felt uncomfortable. And right now, even you knew that this was a serious red flag.
“I’m gonna go get some more wine for you guys,” you said, pushing your chair back.
“I’ll go with you,” Bucky said, avoiding eye contact as he got up and followed you into the kitchen.
Bucky immediately broke into panic. “Y/N, if you ever tell them who I was, my past, anything, they’ll hate me for sure. Oh god, if they even see my arm–”
“Shh, Bucky, calm down. It’s okay. They’re not going to hate you, and it wouldn’t matter if they did, because I love you,” you told him, resting your hand on the side of his face, tracing his cheekbone with your thumb. “And you can stay in here for a little longer, until you feel comfortable. I can explain a little bit. About how you–er, how the Winter Soldier had been brainwashed and all, okay?”
“Yeah, that’s...that’s okay. I love you,” he mumbled, leaning into your hand.
“I know,” you said, kissing him quickly before grabbing a bottle of wine off the counter and returning to your parents with a brief, “Sorry.” You sat down. “So, about the whole Winter Soldier thing...”
Bucky waited in the kitchen, trying to get ahold of himself whilst you explained that Hydra had literally taken some random guy and trained him to be a weapon, brainwashed him when he remembered anything other than what his mission was and how to do it. “He didn’t know what he was doing, he couldn’t control himself,” you explained.
“But he still did all those things, he still had a choice. He could’ve run away from Hydra, but chose to keep killing people for them,” your stepdad countered. He was always a smartass.
“No, he–he was brainwashed, he was under control. Heavy control. It wasn’t until after he fought Ste–er, Cap, on the helicarrier that he was free from Hydra. He was under heavy guard for all the time that Hydra had him. I’m trying to tell you that he was Hydra’s weapon. He had no free will. He was brainwashed.” You exhaled harshly, realising that you were near shouting at this point. “Sorry. It’s my job as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to keep the story straight as much as I can.”
“Whatever,” your stepdad nodded. “Where’d your boyfriend go?”
“I’m here,” Bucky said, rounding the corner and finding his way back to his seat next to you, lacing his fingers together with yours. You squeezed his hand as if to ask if he was okay, and he squeezed back as if to say he was.
“Hey, if you guys don’t mind, we drove about eight hours to get here, so could we stay here tonight?” you proposed, changing the subject.
“Oh, sure. Your room is just how you left it. You could sleep in there or–” your mom began.
“That’d be fine,” Bucky said, cutting her off and winking at you.
That day, you checked “Survive an 8 hour car ride together” and “Meeting parents” off your relationship cliche checklist. And that night, you finally got to check “Have loud sex in childhood bedroom” off the list too.