“You haven’t got anything better to do?” Her warm winter coat, a final gift from Bucky before he left America for good, some time between the training camp — when they all realised what it would be like without Bucky and Rob and Arthur and Omar and George — and his orders, just a little after his promotion to sergeant which meant a little money and therefore slapdash spending and spoiling from her older brother, was not really keeping out the Brooklyn temperatures and her arms shivered around the bags of groceries. “Like… crime or whatever it is you do with my brother?”
Laurie laughed, leaning hard on his cane. “Day off, my dear cousin. You’re stuck with me. At least let me walk you home.” His laugh, so uncommon now without Rob and Bucky there to tease it out of him, reminded her of the time he’d hobbled up to her so fast he was practically running, waving a flyer which proclaimed Steve as ‘Captain America’. God but that had been a field day. The letter she had sent her other brother (or, as she suspected, brother-in-law) had been in parts mocking and proud. (Particularly she had been proud of the line “had I known it was Captain America who had had a crush on me all those years ago, I would have said yes a thousand times over”.)
“I don’t need walking home.” But she let him take one of the bags (he could only handle one and the cane at the same time) and they shivered on home down the street together.
Home, Steve and Bucky’s old apartment, which she was ‘house-sitting’ for them while they were away along with Margaret and occasionally with Laurie to stay, was quiet when they got in. Later Dorothy would think this should have given her some premonition, as if it wasn’t always quiet at home. Quiet as the grave, Grandma Jocelyn would have said. The grave was quieter than that, though.
She set the groceries on the side and Laurie locked the door. She called out for Margaret but there was no noise and she thought her sister must be over at their parents’ house cooking or cleaning or whatever it was she did over there.
When she turned, Laurie was standing very still, staring at the ground. “What?”
He did not reply. Only shifted a little. And, by the end of his cane which was shaking he was leaning so hard on it, there was a telegram and a letter. A telegram.
I REGRET TO INFORM YOU.
“No.” She rushed over and hit the floor hard, almost knocking Laurie over. “No.”
SERGEANT JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES —
“No.”
Laurie dropped to the ground beside her and his arms were round her. “Dot.”
“No, no. It must be a mistake.”
She tore open the letter thinking it must be an apology. Sorry, all a mix up at the post office. Terribly sorry.
It was in Steve’s handwriting. It was tear stained. The letters were jagged like the hand had been shaking.
Dear Dorothy, Margaret, Laurie, and the rest of the family,
I regret to Bucky is dead. I don’t know how else to word this except to be blunt. He may have mentioned he is a sniper in a part of the taskforce I am the Captain of. During our most recent mission he waskilledhe fell from he died. My most sincere apologies. He was under my command and he paid the greatest pr
I’m no good at letters. Buck was always the one best with words. I’m being too formal with you all, this is no way to inform you of our Bucky’s death. Our brother, father, protector, the head of our little family that he pulled up out of the ground with nothing but his bare hands. I’ll miss him from now until we are reunited at the gates of heaven, even though I know Buck didn’t believe in all that I know that’s where he’ll end up. Whatever he said, he wasis was a good man. Always will be.
There’s no body that we’ve been able to recover but I’m trying to get his things safely shipped back to you all. The best I can say is he was a hero right until the end. He saved me in more ways than I can count, saved all of us in a thousand ways we probably never realised.
All my love to you all, and all Buck’s love as well. He missed you all, spoke about you non-stop. Me and Rob and George, we’ll end this fight for Bucky. For all of you.
Deepest respect and love,
Captain Steve Rogers
Love,
Steve
The letter was tear stained by more than one pair of eyes.
*
Margaret had always been a quiet child, her tearing screams at Dorothy’s throat were anything but. Their mother and father were both sitting in the living room, staring at the wall. Not moving. Not flinching. Dorothy hoped for a savage terrible moment that they were thinking about every wrong they had ever done Bucky. Had ever done her real mother and father all rolled up into one.
She stroked her little sister’s back, wished that, wherever he was, she could comfort her little brother too. Bucky, Bucky was gone. She remembered dancing with him in this room, Margaret calling him dad. She remembered thinking he was so dumb when she would see him preening in his mirror rubbing too much Brylcreem through his dark hair. She remembered the flash of his smile. Him standing at the stove teaching Maggie how to cook.
How, how could he be gone? There was so much space left for him to fill.
Laurie came back in through the door. “I’ve let them all know,” he murmured to Dorothy. “I’ve let them all know.”
Let them know. There was no knowing of this. It was incomprehensible. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.
She needed Bucky. He would know what to do. He would know how to comfort, how to rebuild, how to start over. Ironic, that he couldn’t be here for the thing she desperately, desperately needed him for. The only thing he would never try to help her with. Could never.
*
HERE LIES
SERGEANT JAMES BUCHANAN “BUCKY” BARNES
DEVOTED SOLDIER, BROTHER, AND SON
HE WILL BE FOREVER MISSED
AND FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS
The funeral had all been paid for. Something from Buck’s will apparently. Providing for them until the last, of course.
Steve, George, and Rob hadn’t been able to fly back for it. They were too busy fighting the war that they were going to win for Bucky, apparently. Dorothy thought it was more they couldn’t face it. They were missed at the funeral, as were George and Omar. All their missing boys that might too never come back.
“I can’t remember if I ever said it to you, and if I did then I didn’t do it enough, or properly. Thank you Buck, for everything.” Dorothy does not cry. She has no tears left. She looks down at this stone which is now her brother, where his body doesn’t even lie (the headstone is a lie), and cannot weep. Perhaps she always knew she would lose Bucky to something like this. She always thought it would be to the Gowanus, or drink, or a knife fight. Some would have said this was better. It was honourable, a noble death. But they didn’t know Bucky.
Bucky would have wanted to die in Brooklyn. He would have wanted to die after a Sunday dinner with Steve sitting beside him. He would have wanted a grand funeral with his body in the earth and everyone crying and missing him, because he was a drama queen. And he wouldn’t have wanted “Buchanan” on his stone and definitely not “Sergeant”. If Bucky could have had a headstone it would have read:
BUCKY BARNES
HIS HEART RESTS IN BROOKLYN
WITH HIS FAMILY
“Soppy bastard,” whispered Dorothy.
And look at that, she did have tears left in her.
She clutched Margaret’s hand in one, Laurie’s in the other. Looked across the grave at Sandrine and Marie, Ameena and Molly, and all the family Bucky had had to leave behind and knew that in all honest truth, Bucky would have rather not have a headstone at all. Would rather be living. Because he had loved to live, however much it seemed like he didn’t at times. And she knew that the grave Bucky Barnes did have, at least, was true in one part: he never would be forgotten and would always, especially when she needed some advice or felt the chill or felt a little hungry, be missed.
*
On the other side of the world. Bucky Barnes opens his eyes.