Chapter Twenty
"What's gonna happen to all your friends?"
"Whatever it is…..I'll deal with it."
"I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve."
Bucky knew how much he meant to Steve back in the forties, but he was almost sure that his feelings must've changed after seeing all the destruction the Winter Soldier had caused.
"What you did all those years; it wasn't you."
"I know. But I did it."
Bucky looked behind him to check up on Lainey and found her sitting lazily in her seat, her seatbelt, unsurprisingly unused.
He let his gaze linger longer than intended. He couldn't help himself. That was his daughter. He thought that she had been stolen from him forever, but there she was.
He never thought he'd get a second chance with her. But now that he knew he would, he wasn't going to ruin it. She was the only good thing that came out of his time in Hydra's clutches. She deserved to know how special she was to him.
"That little girl back there?" Steve continued the conversation. "She doesn't care about what the Winter Soldier did. She just wants to know Bucky. You can give her that, can't you?"
"I can give her that."
"How's she doing, anyway?" He glanced behind him and rolled his eyes. "Alayna, how many times do I have to tell you to keep your seatbelt on?"
"It's not comfy." Lainey shrugged. "I don't like it. It bothers me."
"Alayna—" He cut himself off when Bucky held a hand up.
"Can I?" The man asked.
"Be my guest. She's just as stubborn as you are."
Bucky chuckled to himself before standing up and making his way to the back of the quinjet.
"Hi." Lainey smiled up at him.
Bucky didn't say a word. He just lifted the child, setting her down in her seat properly, before buckling her in securely. He fastened her in a little tighter than necessary, sending her message. If she wanted it to feel a certain way, then she'd have to do it herself. "Don't take it off again, Alayna."
"Okay." Lainey pouted, looking at him from under her eyelashes in an attempt to make herself look cuter. The message was well received.
"Look at that pout." He tapped her bottom lip, sitting down next to her.
Lainey almost gasped at how similar he was to her mama. If she pouted at Natasha, she would've done the exact same thing! But if she pouted at Steve, he would've promised her a sweet treat if she could keep her seatbelt on for the rest of the ride.
Natasha always thought that Steve spoiled her rotten. Maybe it was true, but Lainey wasn't about to give him any reason to stop.
She caught Bucky just looking at her with a soft smile on his face and she couldn't help but return it. She liked having a father, even if he did make her wear an uncomfortable seatbelt.
Soon, the jet landed in a snowy, deserted area. The only thing around for miles was a bunker.
They hadn't even opened the hangar door yet, but Lainey could feel the bitter cold setting in.
"Okay, Lainey." Steve shut the engine off as he and Bucky prepared themselves for whatever was in there. "Bucky and I are going in, but you're staying in here."
"Do I have to?"
"Listen to me, Lainey." The blonde bent down to be eye-level with his niece, who was trying to get the safety belt off. Bucky had done a good job. "We have no idea what's in there. You need to listen to me about this. I've been very tolerant lately, but I'm not budging on this issue. Do not leave this quinjet. Got it?"
"Yes." She nodded. "You'll come back for me, right?"
"Of course we're coming back for you. We wouldn't leave you here all by yourself."
"Okay." The little girl acquiesced. "I'll stay here, Uncle Steve."
"Good girl." He kissed her cheek and straightened up. "We'll be back soon."
"Okay, but before you go...can you unbuckle me?"
"No."
"But, Papa —"
"— No."
"This is no fun." Lainey huffed, hanging upside down on one of the seats.
Listening and doing what she's been told was hard. She would much rather be out there, helping. But what was she going to do against a bunch of super soldiers except for maybe get herself killed?
Then Natasha would really be upset with her.
The child flipped back onto her feet and fixed the jacket she had found in one of the storage compartments. It was far too large for her, but big was a fit, right?
The only time she had actually been occupied, was the twenty minutes it took to get herself out of her seat. No thanks to Bucky.
The snow outside looked really inviting, but Lainey admonished herself for even thing like that. Uncle Steve said to stay put and that's what she was going to do.
Well, until she saw Prince T'Challa and the fake doctor trudging through the snow.
She knew that that's who Steve and Bucky were looking for, so to see him leave the bunker, was unsettling. What happened in there? Were they okay? Were they still alive?
Throwing caution to the wind, Lainey opened the hangar door and trudged out into the snow. Her Doc Marten's made a crunching noise with every step she took, and she could see her breath in the air, but she didn't care. She just kept it moving.
And with the confidence of someone much older than eleven, she marched right up to Prince T'Challa and Zemo, crossing her arms to make herself appear more threatening.
"Where are they?" She scowled at the doctor. She thinks she heard someone call him 'Zemo' at one time or another.
"I'm sorry." He could hardly meet her eyes. "I never meant for this to affect you."
He was only trying to avenge his family, his son. He never meant for her to be hurt by this. He could never harm a child.
Lainey shot a look of worry at T'Challa and tried to figure out what this man meant.
And that's when she heard it.
Metal on metal.
The loud scream of repulsers.
Tony was in there. Tony was in there and they were fighting.
"Wait!"
Lainey stumbled in the snow as her body went on autopilot. She remembered when she, Natasha, and Steve were in that bunker in New Jersey and Hydra revealed that the Howard and Maria Stark's deaths were not an accident.
And in her mind it all clicked.
The Winter Soldier might have been the one that killed Tony's parents.
And now he was looking for revenge. Why else would Tony be there?
"Don't go in there!" Even Zemo tried to stop her, but she was a girl on a mission.
She knew that if she stopped, she'd lose her nerve and she couldn't afford to do that right now. She ran down hallways and corridors, following the sound of blows and hits before finally finding the three men.
And if you asked her, she wouldn't even be able to tell you what she saw. All she could remember was seeing her father's arm being blow off, him collapsing in a heap, Steve fighting with Tony, and the anger in the air.
Oh, the anger.
It was so thick and strong, she could feel it from where she was standing. She had never seen Tony so angry. In fact, she'd never seen him get angry at all.
This was her uncle. The man she went to when she wanted to break some rules and have a little fun. He was the one who helped her sneak ice cream in the middle of the night and candy before dinner. He'd always do his best to get her out of trouble and he never raised his voice at her.
And now he was trying to kill her father.
The father she never got the opportunity to know. The father she had just met. The father that had been missing her for years.
He wanted to take him away.
Steve was doing his best to stave him off, but Tony was so full of hatred and rage that he wouldn't have it.
Lainey desperately wanted to scream, or yell at them to stop. But she was frozen. She couldn't do a thing but stand there and watch.
There was nothing to be done.
Her body flinched violently when Tony and Steve struck each other, not even bothering to hold back for fear of hurting one another. She tried closing her eyes to stop the horrors from playing in her head, but even then, they continued.
Tony was just about ready to deliver the final blow, when Bucky's hand shot out from below and yanked his leg, sending him hurtling onto the concrete ground.
Steve took that as an opening to destroy the arc reactor, sending his shield to crash down on it as many times as necessary in order to disable the suit. And when he finally did, he let out a sigh of relief and got to his feet, helping a very battered Bucky up off the ground.
"That shield doesn't belong to you." Tony panted, very unwilling to give up. "You don't deserve it. My father made that shield!"
Steve stopped in his tracks and deliberated before allowing the shield to fall from his hands, continuing towards the exit.
And he froze when he saw Lainey.
"Lainey, Honey…" He stammered, not knowing what to say or how much she saw. "I— I'm so sorry."
Lainey's bottom lip quivered as her eyes watered and overflowed. She didn't know what to make of all this. How could this have happened so fast? Why?
"I'm so sorry." Steve kept apologizing.
She looked past him at Tony, but initially, the man refused to meet her eyes. When he did, his own were cold. "Your old man's a murderer." He spat. "He's gonna have to live with that the rest of his life and so are you! The apple never falls too far from the tree!" He spat. "You think you can change? Be better? You'll always be the daughter of two murderers. You don't have to look far to see into your future, do you? Lucky you."
Lainey gasped at his harsh words and felt her heart breaking in two. She and Tony had a very rough start, but she thought that after all these years…..
She thought they were family.
"Lainey?" Steve tucked some stray hair behind her ear. "Talk to me, Honey."
After Siberia, T'Challa offered to take Steve, Bucky, and Lainey to Wakanda to heal. All that time he had been chasing Bucky, he didn't realize the man was innocent. But when he eventually learned the truth, he did his best to make things right.
The flight there was painfully silent. Lainey just curled up in her seat and stared off into space. No one pressed her, or tried to get her to speak. They were all in their own little worlds, dealing with the latest chain of events in their own ways.
But once he and Bucky had been patched up and given the okay to move, Steve sought Lainey out and found her sitting in the same exact chair he left her in hours before, her eyes empty and unfeeling.
Wakanda was gorgeous, and Lainey would've loved it if her mind wasn't somewhere else. Beautiful oranges and pinks painted the sky, the technology was so advanced with things she's never seen before, and there were so many animals!
But Lainey just wasn't excited.
"I don't like seeing you like this, Pal." He took one of her hands in his own. His larger swallowing her much smaller one. "What's going on in that head of yours?'
"I want Mama." She sniffled.
Her mama could make this all better. Lainey knew she could. Natasha made everything better. She guessed that it was a superpower all moms had.
She needed her right now!
"I know, Buddy." He nodded. "Can I hold you?"
He felt that after everything she'd seen, she might be a little cautious around him and Bucky, so he figured it would be best to make sure she was comfortable with him before he did anything he would normally do.
At her nod, he lifted her up and sat down, setting her down on his lap.
"What you saw….." He hesitated. "It was never meant to happen. And you were never meant to see it." He didn't scold her for not staying on the quinjet like she thought he might. They were beyond that point. It didn't matter anymore. "I'm sorry it ever happened, but I can't take it back. I would if I could, but that's not how these things work. In life, things are going to happen and sometimes — sometimes you can't stop them. You have to deal with it and learn to live with it. I made my choice, Uncle Tony made his. We both have to live with that now."
Lainey rubbed her eyes, leaning her head on the man's shoulder. "Is it 'cause Papa killed his parents?" She hadn't known for a fact that that was the case, but it seemed like a big possibility.
"Hydra killed his parents. Your Papa had no choice."
"Then why did Uncle Tony want to kill him?"
"He was hurting, Buddy." Steve lightly bounced his leg. "And when people are hurting, they say and they do things that they don't mean."
"Am I gonna grow up to be a bad person?" She asked. "Is that what Uncle Tony thinks?"
"He doesn't think that." Steve's heart ached for her and with as much hurt he was dealing with, he wished he could take hers on, too. "He didn't mean it. He loves you."
"I don't think so." Her voice shook. "I saw how he looked at me. He doesn't like me."
"Oh, that's not true." Steve rubbed her back to keep her from going into hysterics. "He's hurting, Bubba. He'll come around. But I want you to listen to me." He held her chin between his thumb and his forefinger. "You are not a bad person and you won't grow up to be one. Your Papa and your Mama are not bad people. You all have been through a lot because of people who took advantage of their power. Those are the real bad people. You, Alayna, are a very good person. You're kind, you're smart, and you're beautiful. Inside and out. I don't want you to forget that. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Come here." He went back to cradling her head.
He wished there was some way he could convince her that everything he just said was true. Why on earth had Tony said all those things? It was like he had been harboring those feelings for quite some time and he saw the perfect opportunity to just...spew everything out.
Why had he even brought Lainey into their disagreement? Steve was trying to give the man the benefit of the doubt, but looking at the broken little child in his arms, there was a part of him that didn't really want to.
He wanted to be a little angry for a while.
"Is Papa alright?" Lainey asked after a few minutes of complete silence.
"He's okay. He's talking to the princess."
"Princess?" Lainey perked up, if only slightly. She liked princesses. What little girl didn't?
That was good enough for Steve. "Do you want to meet her? She asked for you."
"She asked for me?"
"Sure she did."
"You'll come with me?"
"I'll be there the entire time."
"Hey, Doll, c'mere." Bucky waved his daughter over to where he was sitting. "We have to talk."
"Hi." She greeted even though they had been in the very same room for hours.
No one really felt like speaking much. The silence was a bit comforting.
"Hi." He chuckled. "Do you remember how Uncle Steve told you that all those bad things I did weren't my fault?"
Bucky was still struggling to come to terms with what was done to him, what he had been forced to do, and the guilt that came with it, but in order to explain this to Lainey, he'd have to do it this way.
"Uh huh." Lainey nodded. "He said bad people took advantage of you."
"That's right. Do you know how they did that?"
"No."
"They took over my mind so that I wouldn't have any choices. I couldn't do anything about it."
There was nothing worse than being someone else's puppet. Bucky could remember doing his best to fight against the programming, only to fail miserably. When he was carrying out orders, he wasn't even unaware of what was happening. He knew full well what they were making him do, but he couldn't do anything but watch.
It was like sitting through a scary film decade after decade.
"Oh. That sounds scary."
"It is scary." Bucky agreed. "And it's still scary, because even though I'm not with them anymore, someone can still take advantage of me and make me do things I don't want to do."
If anybody found that notebook with his code words, they could have him do their bidding. He didn't think he could take much more of that.
"Can anyone fix it?"
"Princess Shuri offered to help me. But until then, I'm gonna go back in cryo-stasis. You know what that is?"
"Uh uh."
"It's when they put me in ice and I go to sleep."
"Does it hurt?"
"No." He smiled. "It doesn't hurt."
"Will you come back?"
"Lainey, I promise you, I'll come back. This is only temporary, okay?"
"Okay." Lainey felt a familiar feeling of separation anxiety at the thought of having to let him go for the time being. "But you're coming back."
"I'm coming back." Bucky didn't care how many times he needed to say it for the little girl to believe it. "In the meantime, you listen to your mama and your uncle. Because when I get back, I don't want to hear about you doing things you're not supposed to be doing." His voice was stern, but Lainey could see he was only joking.
"Okay." She giggled, but she was still upset. She didn't want him to go anywhere. She just got him.
What if this took forever? Would they see each other again?
"And we'll get to know each other again, sound good?"
"Yes." She nodded her head. "Goodnight, Papa." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "Sweet dreams."
"Right back at you, Doll."