big and strong
The lab was easier to navigate under duress. Steve finds that this is the case for most things: the drugstore is a walk in the park when you’re in dire need of gauze in the middle of an alien invasion. On any other day it’s a minefield. It feels like they’re passing the same doors over and over, even though that’s not possible due to JARVIS’ navigation. But the one with the rainbow painted by its side has creeped into his peripheral vision a couple times now. Maybe it’s not the same door, but it certainly feels so. There’s something unnerving about seeing an image so colourful and innocent in such a hellish underworld.
“I think we’re going in circles, Tony.”
“Nope,” the man in question responds without even a glance.
Steve keeps pace between Tony’s lead and Bucky’s steady stride. Clint and Nat flank them at either side with nobody taking up the rear – nobody needs to, with two super-spies part of their impromptu protection detail.
He says, “I’ve seen that rainbow door four times.”
The child whispers something into Bucky’s ear. He frowns, says: “No.” Then, he briefly addresses Steve. “Four doors.” Bucky’s tone is short. Abrupt. It leaves no room for argument. Steve doesn’t want to nag him, but.
“Want me to carry them– the kid for a bit?”
Clint looks like he’d been about to ask, and while he and Buck get along too well at times, it’s hard to tell how Bucky might take such a question at a time like this.
“She’s fine.” Ah. The buzzed hair had made it difficult to discern.
“That answers one question,” Clint snarks. “Avengers: one. HYDRA: zero.”
Evidently Tony feels that remark is worthy of a side glance. No doubt, the expression behind his helmet is scathing. “Uh, I think you mean – HYDRA: two million, five hundred and fifty six thousand, nine hundred and seven. Avengers: one.”
Nat, like Steve, thinks this is dumb. “She’s obviously a little girl.”
Steve just about catches a dart of a smile being buried in Buck’s neck. The little girl understands English, then.
Bucky carries the child the way he did the potatoes last Thanksgiving. She’s half-slung over his shoulder; maybe it’s easier, not having to look at her face. Once they make it to the elevator – a functional one that hasn’t been shredded by a super soldier – he stares straight ahead. The girl is a tad less controlled, eyes flitting back and forth, lingering on Steve and Nat a little more than not. She doesn’t appear frightened by any of the noises, the flickering lights, the jolt and creak of the doors as they emerge at ground level.
The lobby’s in tatters, dust gathering on the broken lamps and chairs that indicate it’s been vacant for longer than the last hour. Bucky makes right for the door – which is still ajar from his simple solving of the biometric lock – no longer following Tony’s lead (though that seemed to be more out of courtesy than genuine need), and once he breaches the threshold, the girl’s face splits into a broad and toothy smile that she quickly hides in his collar.
“Leafs,” is all Steve picks up with his enhanced hearing. Then: “Sky, Papa.”
Bucky ignores this. It’s a pitiful sight and one that makes anxiety squirm in Steve’s gut. He longs to better the situation, to make the little girl feel heard – Lord knows what she’s been through – but she appears fairly content when he speeds up to match pace with them.
Nat and Clint slow down to relay info to the team that Maria deployed. They’ve got the HYDRA agents cuffed, unconscious and piled into the back of a more spacious quinjet than their own. They’re here to extract far more than agents – seems like this lab favoured paper copies of everything.
Thor waves their way from the ramp of their own quinjet. It’s built for combat; feels wrong to be bringing a child into it, but Steve figures they have little choice – she doesn’t appear inclined to let Bucky go so easily.
Bruce edges uncomfortably around Bucky and his limpet. Where to start, how to help? Steve gives him a nod, at ease, Doc, and he drops into the chair he was occupying upon their arrival. These missions stress Bruce out far more than he lets on – a child is only going to worsen that.
“Wheels up in two,” Tony says, stepping out of his armour on the way to the cockpit. Nat and Clint, of course, make straight for the weapons cache. Nat delicately removes the glock clipped to the top of Bucky’s spine, inches from where the little girl’s hands cling. Bucky doesn’t react at all, only stands stock still in the middle of the quinjet as the ramp closes and Thor moves to block it.
“We go?” The girl whispers, and Bucky slams so suddenly back into action that both Bruce and Tony flinch.
Bucky makes tracks and puts the girl on a bench to the far left, but she begins to fidget and shiver. The jet takes off and the noise of it frightens her, even though Tony’s designed it to be particularly quiet. Even though nothing in the lab frightened her once she was being held by Bucky. Eventually, Bucky relents and drops down beside her, spine straight and feet planted. Then, after brief consideration, pulls her into his lap when her shivering gets worse.
The child paws at Bucky, trying to hide her face in the crook of his neck again. He doesn't appear to know what to do with her, so he settles his arm delicately around bird boned shoulders like he’s afraid he might break her.
"Buck," Steve says, quiet as he can. "Maybe you should let Bruce take a look at her. He's not that kind of doctor, but he knows enough."
Bucky looks at Steve, gaze flat as the Soldier’s. "I know."
"So..."
"Not yet," Bucky says. "She's scared."
Steve's whisper is urgent, though the girl can most likely hear them. "She could be seriously hurt."
"She's not." Bucky's eyes flit downwards, and the girl's own rise to meet them.
Her face is marred with streaks of dirt, grubby fingers digging into the peek of a shirt collar above Bucky's kevlar vest. Not for purchase, no, but as if it brings her comfort. He holds her in the crook of his metal arm and pulls his sleeve down over his flesh hand to wipe the blood around her nose. She lets him, chin tilting upwards so Bucky can check to see if it's all gone.
Between forefinger and thumb, she twirls the split ends of his hair. Buck won't let anyone touch him most days, yet this little girl he claims to not know is given free reign so long as it seems to calm her. Steve thinks of Becca and Evelyn and, later, baby Frances. Christmases spent in the Barnes' apartment, the four of them a pile on the couch that they dragged Steve into, all casual affection that Buck carried with him right the way through to the Commandos.
It’s been hard to imagine this Bucky like that, after everything. Sometimes he will hug Steve, sit too close to Sam, or kiss Natasha on the cheek, but his affections are few and far between. Never has he held someone so close – not since family dinners in Brooklyn, not since soldiers half-dead and crying for their faraway mothers. But this child, she seems so used to it. As if she has made a home in this exact spot a thousand times before. She carries on with such an ease for someone who has only just seen Bucky fire a bullet right through the black of someone’s eye. She holds his robotic palm in both her hands and draws circles with her fingers.
“Are you cold?” Steve asks, only to be ignored.
“My readings indicate that the child’s core body temperature is consistent with having been removed from cryogenic freezing. Abruptly, might I add. ”
At JARVIS’ response, Bucky flinches and tucks the child’s legs into his lap. She then shoves her face between Buck’s ribs and bicep and doesn’t remove it for the remainder of their flight.
“Christ,” Tony says from the cockpit. Christ is right. There’s no way anyone, let alone a kid, would be able to survive being yanked from cryo without the assistance of the serum. “J, prep medical prior to landing.”
“Will do, Sir.”
They land and there’s no real attempt at triage. A medical team is on standby, per Tony’s orders, but none of them have the heart to inflict such a thing upon the child yet; not when she is stuck to Bucky like glue, face still buried where no one can see it.
After several attempts and some respiratory distress, Bucky places her on the soft cot in a private medical suite and takes a few steps back, then some more, until he’s standing behind Steve. His breathing only slows a fraction, but it deepens by a large amount to match Steve’s own.
This is too much, that’s clear. Buck’s not able for such proximity without explanation. Steve knows by the look in his best friend’s eye that he’s overwhelmed and out of his depth, that he doesn’t know this girl, but feels obligated in some way to relieve her anxieties; to alleviate any potential hurt.
“What’s your name, honey?” Steve asks, because God she’s just like Becca; just like Evie and Frances. Because even if Bucky doesn’t remember this girl, or even his own sisters on bad days, they were still real. Still are. And one of them needs help.
The child’s eyes latch onto him and there’s a degree of familiarity there, but nothing close to what she showed Bucky in the lab. Behind him, Steve can feel how Nat is poised, observing; ready to act at a moment’s notice even though the only possible assailant would be a young child.
“Steve,” the child finally says, a whisper in comparison to her only other exclamation.
There’s a collective sense of relief accompanied by a wave of unease. Steve chooses to focus on the former because why else would she know him, only Bucky must have told her. Which means that Bucky must have remembered him before all this; before the helicarriers and the fall of SHIELD. And that she has actually met Bucky prior to this. That, or she’s been reading files on Captain America and the Howling Commandos in place of bedtime stories.
Still, he frowns, trying very hard to hide it behind a smile. “That’s my name.”
Palm flat to her chest, she says, “Eleven.”
Which can’t be right, because there’s no way this girl is a day over three years old.
Tony says, “Is that your age, or…?” He’s completely clear of his suit now, though the gauntlet remains. Steve wants to tell him to put it away, to stop acting like this child is any great danger — anything other than a child — but how can he say that with certainty?
“Papa.” She looks at Bucky, eyes wide and fretting, then points to Steve. “Steve,” she says, insisting.
Bucky steps closer again, slower this time. Each movement is clear and measured, like he’s afraid of what he’ll find if he gets too near. But he reaches for her arm then, a frail and breakable thing, the pad of his thumb curling around the edge of her wrist to turn it over; where there are some marks, black like ink.
“Eleven,” Bucky says, like he knew it all along. “That’s her name.”
“Papa.” The child presses her index finger to Bucky’s chest. “El.”
“El.” Bucky says the name like he’s trying it out. “El,” he says again, and it sounds so settled, so familiar to him. But the look on his face? That tells Steve he’s scared. “Nice to meet you.”
The girl smiles and Bucky smiles back. The fear never leaves either face.
“I’m sorry,” Tony cuts across. “Are we just going to ignore the fact that this kid’s name is a number? Zero-one-one, right there. We’re all seeing the same thing, right?”
Nat’s eyes roll. “Tony.”
“Who’s tattooing kids these days, huh? Have HYDRA got a live-in guy?”
“Probably,” Barton says.
“Very bad men.”
Three words together, the most the child – Eleven – has said at all.
“Bad men coming?” she asks Bucky, who’s thrown and clearly retreating ever so slightly into whatever space in his head that keeps him calm. He flies from one extreme to the other so quickly that it’s nigh on impossible to keep track of. Steve doesn’t pretend to understand it, or even try to, because it belongs to Bucky and not him. Still, a pit of concern is widening in his chest for how Bucky is slipping over an edge that none of them can see.
Steve reaches for him, any attempt to coax this situation into calm, to prevent a meltdown much like the one a week prior, when a poor choice in film had resulted in a tower lockdown and another broken television. But Buck rears back, stumbling a step. He’s not here, and Steve can rarely reach him when he’s somewhere else.
“I…”
Bucky says no more, eyes wide and vacant. Eleven’s own are panicked and in demand of an answer. She’s a child, a frightened child they only just found half frozen in some rapidly abandoned HYDRA base.
Steve says, “Eleven, we– ”
“No,” the child snaps, and if not for his serum enhanced hearing, he might not have heard the crack of glass in some far off room. What? “Papa. Answer.”
But that’s just not going to happen. Buck is- he’s standing there, chest heaving, eyes darting wildly around the room like things are going to get bad again. Tony activates something in the gauntlet and Bruce takes a step back; even Thor readies himself into some kind of fighting stance.
Bucky’s out of place, caught up somewhere else in his head, because he only asks, “Where…?” before he backs out the sliding doors and puts as much distance between himself and medical as possible.
“Buck!” Steve cries, and he’s so distracted, so ready to follow his friend anywhere, that it’s Thor who must catch Eleven before she escapes.
“Now, now, little one,” says Thor, arms clamped around her torso. “You must await the healers before returning to the field, as a wise warrior would.”
He receives a bite to the forearm for his efforts.
“Children on Asgard are never this difficult.”
Thor’s hold on Eleven loosens despite how she continues to struggle. Her feet touch the floor and Steve crouches to meet her gaze before she can make a dash for the door.
He asks, “You know me?” And the child nods, stiff and unsure. “I’m a friend of Bu- of your, uh, Papa. And I know you’d really love to see him right now but first we need to warm you up. How’s that sound?”
The child scowls, hard stare boring into Steve’s softer gaze. She’s defensive, she’s exhausted - leaning on Thor despite the fact that he’s relinquished his grip almost entirely.
“Want Papa,” she says, a near growl. Steve flounders a little, rarely able to say no to such demands from small children. Frances Barnes had him wrapped around her little finger with only a well-placed pout and some scuffing of her Sunday shoes. They just found Eleven half-frozen - he’s not a monster.
“We can- ”
“He’s busy,” Nat interrupts whatever he was going to say. “Checking that there are no bad men.”
Eleven’s face only pinches further, worry watered at its edges by the addition of tears.
“Hurt?”
“No,” says Nat, undeterred by this reaction, where Thor is fidgeting with the hem of his cape, Tony is pretending some monitor needs fixing, and Bruce is looking anywhere but the child. Even Steve is still half-crouched on the floor. At least Barton looks purposeful when he does that.
“Your Papa is big and strong,” Nat says. “Though, I’m sure you know that.”
Immediately, Eleven nods in agreement.
“So, we’re agreed, then? There’s nothing to worry about.”
Eleven doesn’t nod, but she doesn’t make a break for it either.
“Good. Now, Agent Barton and I are going to see if your Papa needs help – Tony too, for that matter.” Stark turns his head sharply, as if he’s only now clued into the conversation and hasn’t been listening in the entire time. At least Nat is giving him an out. “Thor, you’re the biggest and strongest here besides El’s Papa,” here, Tony sputters, but Nat carries on - “so you can secure the ward and make sure no bad men can get in, hm?”
As in: Thor is probably the only one who could possibly contain her relatively unknown yet possibly limitless powers without having to turn into a raging, green monster. Steve hates that he agrees with her.
Thor nods. “It would be my honour.”
“Banner,” Nat says to Bruce, whose head turns even more sharply than Tony’s did, because he actually wasn’t all that clued into the conversation. “You good to hang on?”
“Wha– Oh, yeah. I’ll,” Bruce begins, seemingly calmer. “We can get Eleven warmed up. JARVIS, can you set the thermostat accordingly? Oh, and ask a female nurse to send in blankets and compresses.”
“Consider it done, Doctor Banner.”
“Steve,” says Bruce as the others make their exit. “If you could lift Eleven– El onto the bed, please. Best not to have those sore feet touching the floor for the time being.”
They each ignore Tony’s distant cry about his building’s underfloor heating as Steve regards Eleven once more.
“I’m going to pick you up and put you on the bed, is that okay?” Before giving time for a response, he adds: “If that’s not okay, you can climb up there yourself.”
El looks at him for a moment, teeth all but chattering in the quiet room. Steve can’t help but wonder how much of a difference Bucky’s hold of her was making, seeing as none of these waves of exhaustion or coldness seemed present before. But it’s far from a worrying state that she’s in, made clear by how El turns from him and out of Thor’s grasp to walk towards the bed herself. There, she climbs up onto the mattress, bare feet hooking around the metal bars below.
In the end, Eleven won’t let the nurses near her until Steve promises they’re good. No doctor but Bruce is allowed in the room, but he manages just fine, patient as ever and explaining each of his actions to the small child. She’s curious, watching everything he does, even as he draws blood from the crook of her elbow; even as it takes a few tries for how narrow her arms are.
She’s content, it seems, to think that Bucky is off securing the building. Ridding it of bad men, establishing a perimeter. She’s also relatively content with having samples taken by a rather large needle. What were HYDRA doing to her?
Later – long after the tests are taken, El is given new, warmer clothes, put to sleep with a caloric IV snaking from beneath her blankets – Bucky returns. Once El’s eyes had closed, Steve told Bruce and Thor to go and get some rest. There was no need for all three of them when it was clear that El had no intention of attacking anyone again. Steve wasn’t sure she could even manage such a thing with how her eyes drooped, her head dipping sideways onto the thick pillow. So he stays by her side, reading to himself from a book that JARVIS had sent down with an orderly.
It’s five or so chapters in when Bucky reappears, with more colour in his cheeks, if anything, but still hunched awkwardly at his shoulders. He steps through the door and watches El, then Steve, then back to El.
“Hey, Buck,” Steve says cautiously. “You okay?”
Bucky nods.
“I’ve got this, y’know. You can take all the time you need.”
“No,” Bucky says, pulling up a chair next to the bed.
“You sure?”
Bucky nods. “Yeah.” He shrugs in on himself, hesitant and shy, as if there’s something to be embarrassed about here. With Steve. His hair, damp and stringy from the shower, hangs limp from the hood of his sweater. Bucky folds his arms into their opposite sleeves and says: “Don’t want her to wake up here alone.”
And God, whether Buck knows this little girl or not, it’s the most raw of reminders that the man Steve used to know like that back of his hand is still in there. It’s not so obvious in his words, which fluctuate between a Russian-accented bite, his Brooklyn drawl, and absolute silence, but it’s clear as day in actions such as these. The Bucky from before bent over backwards to help those in need, to be there for anyone at all that might do well with some company. He did it for his sisters. He did it for Steve. Been doing it their entire lives.
So Steve settles back in the seat and flips the book open where he was holding it with his thumb. “I guess I’ll stay then, too, if that’s alright with you?”
Bucky visibly softens; the severe line of his shoulders drooping slightly, socked feet tucking up into the seat opposite. “Thanks, Stevie.”
“Anytime, Buck.”