The First Meeting
Bucky Barnes finds himself sitting in a slightly uncomfortable chair in one Sam Wilson’s apartment on a Wednesday morning instead of in his slightly underfurnished apartment. While he might not like that he has to come to Sam for help he appreciates that Sam offered to help him find a cause that Bucky would actually like spending time at.
The reason he had to find a cause was because as part of his pardon he had to complete an insane amount of community service hours. Instead of just picking one at random and probably being miserable the entire time Sam suggested that Bucky find a place to spend the time where he would actually like being.
“So did you have a place in mind?” Sam asks once he grabbed a notepad and his laptop.
“If I did, I wouldn't be here right now, would I?” Bucky asks, getting slightly annoyed already. He doesn’t mean to but he can’t help it.
“Okay man no need to get antsy, we’ll just start with easy questions to narrow our search down a bit. Do you have an age group or specific cause in particular to work with?” Sam goes on asking more questions and Bucky answers his questions with patience this time. They end up with a small group of options for Bucky to choose from before he makes his final decision.
“That seems like a good place to choose. We can go over and check it out and if you don’t feel comfortable then we can always find another place.” Sam assures Bucky.
“Yeah okay that sounds good. And just… Sam I appreciate that you helped me with this, with Steve being gone I’m not sure how I would have figured this out on my own.” Bucky gives Sam a soft but slightly uncomfortable smile.
“It’s no problem man, it's for a good cause and we’re friends even if you don’t want to admit it.” They both laugh at that and get ready to go.
…
They find themselves outside a brick building with not much on it except for the sign proudly displaying “Brooklyn LGBT Center” over the door. There were a few young people hanging out near the door, all very visually queer, some looked over at Sam and Bucky with some interest. They weren’t exactly famous famous but they still got recognized often enough. Waiting for them inside was the director in charge of the center, Sarah, who greeted them with a smile.
“Hello Mr. Wilson and Mr.Barnes. I’m Sarah, thank you for coming to see our center. I'm sure some of the members will be happy to see you.” Sarah seemed to be telling the truth and that calmed a few of Bucky’s nerves. Sam must have emailed her about their trip out there beforehand which Bucky was thankful for.
“Of course, thank you for having us. Please call me James or Bucky. If I’m going to be spending my hours here we don’t need to be so formal.” Bucky introduced himself with a small smile. Sam and Sarah start talking and Bucky gets distracted and finds himself looking around the room. It was large and had a few couches and chairs in one corner as well as tables and chairs scattered throughout the room. On the walls hung many colorful flags that Bucky didn’t recognize other than the rainbow one. There were a few people in the room all doing their own thing in small groups. Bucky was almost done with his casual examination of the room when something caught his eye. A, what looked like a kid, sat on one of the couches in the corner with a book on his lap but wasn’t paying it any attention. Rather all the boy's attention was focused on Bucky which took him slightly off guard, though he didn’t show any signs of it on his face. They had a short staring match across the room before Bucky’s attention got pulled back to the conversation happening next to him.
“Buck- Bucky, Man. Me and Sarah were just talking and She thinks it would be a good idea to take an hour or two to hang out and from there we can figure out a schedule for when you can come and do your hours.” Sam said which brought most of Bucky’s focus on Sam and Sarah.
“Yeah, that sounds good to me. I’m good on my own Sam if you got places to be you don’t have to play babysitter anymore.”
“I’m happy to stay with you, but if you’re sure then I do have a couple of things I wanted to get done at the Tower.” Sam seemed a little skeptical but agreed nonetheless.
“Alright well James you can go ahead and look around and talk to anyone. If you have any questions you can ask me I’ll be in my office.” Sarah points to an opened door which from what Bucky could see seemed to be just as colorfully decorated as the rest of the center.
Once Bucky was on his own again he did another sweep of the room and saw that a few new people came in and a couple of people had left. Once again when he looks over to the couches he finds the boy looking at him with slightly confused interest. Bucky doesn’t really know what else to do so he walks over cautiously to him and introduces himself. The boy takes a second but responds with so much energy it gives Bucky slight whiplash.
“Hi I’m Mason! Are you actually Bucky Barnes? Like from the Howling Commandos Captain America’s best friend Bucky Barnes?” He talks so fast it takes Bucks a second to comprehend what the boy said and when he does he wonders if this was the right choice because Steve was still a sore subject for him.
“Uh yeah that’s me.” Mason doesn’t notice the slight grimace or if he does he doesn't acknowledge it and goes right back into more questions.
“Wow, that's so cool. I had to write a report about you back in middle school. I thought I did a good job but I only got a B minus but I think the teacher just didn’t like me because I'm… well y'know.” Mason trails off after muttering so looking like someone just kicked his puppy. Bucky wasn’t sure what happened in a few seconds that made him so sad so he tried helping.
“Um kid are you okay? I don’t really know what you said but I’m sure you did a good job on the report.” Bucky tries but it doesn’t seem to totally work but the kid seems to not be so down.
“I said she didn’t like me because I’m trans. We always had problems and she never called me by my name. Also hey! I am Not a kid. I am a legal adult now. I could join the army if I wanted or buy a lotto ticket and whatever else 18 year olds can do.” Mason points out indignantly.
“Sorry sorry. But it sounds like she was not a good teacher. That sucks and you didn’t deserve that Mason. And Sorry but 18 is a kid to me, I’m over a hundred years old kid.”
“Ugh whatever I thought you were going to be cooler not act like a grandpa, grandpa.” Mason says in a tone that only teens can somehow master.
They go back and forth for a bit, just some friendly banter. Bucky asks about the center and what the artwork was for. Some of the pieces made his heart hurt when he saw something that looked like something Steve would have drawn back in the day, but he moved on to the other pieces. Different cultures and styles were seen all around the room.
“Kid, what do those flags mean? I only know the rainbow, but can you explain them to me?” Bucky asks looking over to Mason.
“Still not a kid but sure. I mean it makes sense that you don’t know because you are like a hundred years old so it’s okay you’re not caught up with the times just yet. Okay so theres the rainbow one which is obvs the gay pride flag which represents the pretty much whole LGBTQ+ community, and the one next to that is the trans flag, my flag which is for the trans community. And then that one…” Mason goes on and gets through all the flags and by the end Bucky feels like he just got a book squished in his brain taking in all of that information so fast. Bucky had some questions but decided that when he gets home he’ll research it himself. If he was going to be spending a lot of time there he shouldn’t be ignorant.
“Okay so I have a question and you totally don’t need to answer but I’m pretty curious. So like why are you here? Don’t take that the wrong way but superheroes don’t usually come down to talk and hang with the queer kids.”
It takes a minute for Bucky to figure out what he was going to say because he wasn’t necessarily closeted but he wasn’t really out either. In the forties the only people who knew were the Howling Commandos and that was by accident. Apparently his love for Steve was more obvious than he realized. But they were all cool about it and it’s not like there was really time to be homophobic in the middle of the battlefield.
“I’m no superhero kid, but I’m here because I chose this place to be where I did my service hours. I know it may seem like there were no queer people back in my day but we were right here in Brooklyn. I couldn’t be open about myself back then but I want to use my required hours to maybe help other people be themselves.”
After a moment of taking in Bucky’s mini speech all Mason says is “Okay. But I think you're a superhero.” And moved on to the next topic and talked a mile a minute. It was getting late and Bucky could only handle so much of this kid talking on and on, he found himself saying bye to Mason and telling Sarah when would be good times for him to come in and they decided on a schedule. He left feeling a little lighter than when he walked in.