"Peter webbed himself to the ceiling again." Ms. Jones, as the disembodied voice of F.R.I.D.A.Y. had called her, is a young, light skinned woman. Her hair falls in a similar style to the child she's come to collect. Bucky wonders briefly if she could be the child's mother, but dismisses the idea as their facial features lack resemblance.
"Thanks for doin' this, MJ." The Sargent had been the last one to sit back down after the Becca/Rebecca mixup of seven minutes ago, besides Sam who stayed standing all together. His daughter stood in his lap, one foot on either thigh, both looking up at the woman.
'MJ' reaches out to take the small girl, "No problem, Barnes, seriously. We hang with Morgan all the time too, when Pepper needs it."
"Well, still," Sam starts, "Just have Friday call one of us down if she's trouble. Usually we'd have Torres watch her but," Sam shrugs.
"Ye of little faith. We'll be fine, right Becks?"
Little Rebecca babbles all the way out of the door, MJ nodding and humming answers along in all the right places. Then they're gone and its just the time travelers plus Sargent Barnes and Sam.
"So," Steve starts. Bucky gets the feeling he's going to zero in on the least important part of the whole day, he's proven right when Steve continues, "Sargent? You-He," a pointed finger from the Sargent to Bucky.
"Yes," the Sargent sends a look to Sam that only gets a half shoulder shrug. He sighs, "Yeah, Army. Drafted in '41. Took you a bit to get your skinny ass in too, but yeah, you too."
Sarah Rodgers looks less-than happy at that but stays characteristically quiet.
"Pretty sure you lied your way in, though," The Sargent laughs, but it's one of those laughs that look like they kinda hurt. "Always looking for a fight, never did know what was good for you."
"I'll say," its mumbled from Sam.
"So we've met?" Steve directs the question to Sam, "When do, or I guess did, I die?"
Sarah Rodgers looks a poorly timed sneeze from a heart attack.
"Man, I can't tell you that!" "You're not dead, Stevie." "We can't tell him that either!"
"Well he's not! Believe me, I tried." "That wasn't you," "That's not the point."
"What year is it?" Bucky jumps in before they can continue fighting amongst themselves.
"Can't tell you that either, kid." The Sargent looks more to Bucky's chest than his face. "Thought we already went over that part? Nice try though."
"What can you tell us?" It's Winnie Barnes and the question is directed to the Sargent who slouches in on himself. He'll meet her eyes, if no one else's.
"Not much, Ma. Not without running the risk of changing everything."
Sam, whose had a hand on the Sargents right shoulder for the last few minutes, moves to having a hand on either shoulder, standing directly behind older-Bucky. The Sargent rubs at his own temples with-
"What's with the gloves?" Rebecca figures the question is innocent enough to not screw up the timeline, or whatever they're worried about.
The Sargent blinks, then he's removing the gloves. The skin of his left hand is revealed to be much darker than the right, darker even than the man behind him. Actually, Bucky's not sure it even is skin.
The jacket follows after. The not-skin running up the entire length of the Sargents left arm up until the short sleeve of the shirt.
Definitely not-skin, Bucky would have to be blind to miss the paneled plating, unnatural golden swirls, the mechanical whirling sound when the Sargent moves the hand in front of his own face, twirling at the wrist.
"Vibranium, you won't hear about that for a while. This is the worlds most complicated prosthetic limb, wired into my nervous system."
“Ha,” Bucky has to physically stop the sound… with his very much still-there left hand. “So you’re telling me I get drafted and lose an arm and, for some reason, I don’t go home. Instead I-you decided to raise a kid in a… bunker?”
The Sargent shrugs, the mechanical whirling gets louder when he does it, the sound more obvious without the jacket. If Bucky were to be completely honest with himself, the arm doesn’t actually make that much noise at all, but he’s so focused in on it that the shifting of the gears seems deafening.
The day continues on much the same, into the evening and then into the night. Question, answer, question, dodged. The trivial questions - the arm, the technology, the food - those are all answered without pause. The bigger questions - who’s the president? You said we were dead? Did we win the war? - those, all less-than skillfully ignored.
Bucky watches the other, older version of himself interact with his family, trying to connect the dots. The Sargent, much like Bucky now (well, 1930 something) mostly ignores George Barnes. Bucky and his father never did get along very well, Bucky always worried that George would find out a bit more than he should. However, when it comes to Winnie and Becca - and even Sarah - the Sargent seems to hang on to every word. He gets a look on his face when he can’t answer one of their questions, like he wants nothing more than to tell them the truth but isn’t allowed to.
At one point, he looks Becca in the eyes and tells her not to marry the first man she falls for, “Even though I know you will.”
Sam’s silent, standing behind the Sargent, hand on his shoulder, or back, or bicep. The Bucky of the future never reacted to that.
Then, George asks, “Where’s your wife?”
He looks from Bucky to Bucky, as if Bucky knows the answer to that. And maybe he does, but he also knows that’s not something he can admit to, ever. No matter how far into the supposed future he finds himself.
Except, maybe he can, because Sam’s hand makes its way up the Sargents flesh-arm and then up some more to push the long hair out of the Sargents eyes. The dark hand twists into the dark hair, sitting casually at the back of the Sargent’s head as if to keep the hair from returning to its original placement.
The Sargent blinks, Bucky’s starting to think of that slow blink as loading-up an answer. “Who?”
“That too,” George, of course, doesn’t take that as the dismissal it is. “You’ve got a kid, there has to be a woman.” He turns to Bucky, “That girl look like anyone you know already?”
Winnie has caught on. George likely has too, but he’s prepared for a cover story, he wants to pick it apart. There’s not a cover story. “George, dear, there is no wife.”
“Nah, just me.” Then, “Shit, I shouldn’t have said that, huh?”
The Sargent laughs, a small but very real laugh this time. “They’re from the 1930’s, Sam, so no, probably not.”