Chapter 4
Bucky Barnes is many things.
Very confused is one of them.
When Natasha had come to them, telling them that they needed help to protect a child she had adopted, Bucky thought it was great she was moving on.
He had known her as Natalia once before the wipings and mind control became too much and left blank spots in his memory.
But when they step off the quinjet and Bucky spots the teenager (much older than he was expecting) squished against Natasha’s side, the teenager takes a few steps back behind Natasha.
Bucky doesn’t know what’s wrong but Natasha and the girl leave quickly.
The next time he sees them, they approach the others. Steve is all grins and smiles but for some reason, Natasha leaves Bucky out of introductions.
So Steve steps forward to introduce him. Bucky holds out his human hand, giving her a nervous smile.
“Do you know who I am?” The question out of her mouth startles Bucky. No. He doesn’t.
He can only figure one thing. “Who did I kill?” He must have killed someone close to her. Maybe her parents. That’s why she had to be adopted by Natasha.
Natasha’s hand grabs the collar of what appears to be a vest on the girl, holding her back.
“Do you know who I am?” The girl demanded again, this time in Russian.
He doesn’t. If he didn’t kill her parents then what did he do?
The girl’s fingers move toward her vest but Natasha quickly grabs onto her wrists to stop her.
“Yelena, you need to calm down,” Natasha is whispering into the girl’s ear.
“I can’t! Do you know who I am!?” She demands once again.
“No!” His voice raises, confusion on his face. “Who are you!?” He finally demands back at her.
The girl straightens. “I am a widow, I am made of marble. I am a soldier, ready to comply.” The words are ripped from her mouth, staring up at Bucky with horror when they are spoken.
Bucky jerks back because he knows of widows. He knows of the little girls trained to fight. But he doesn’t know her. Does he? “I do know you?” He looks down at her. He’s trying hard to remember who she is. She’s small in stature and filled with an anger that Bucky knows all too well.
The girl reaches a finger up and shoves it at a white scar on her neck just behind her ear that runs up into her hair. It’s an old scar, healed many years ago. “You did this to me! This and so much more!” There’s hurt in her tone. It’s almost more that she’s angry that he doesn’t remember than him hurting her.
He leans forward to look at it but the girl’s immediate reaction is to tense up and flinch away from him.
He had hurt her. He doesn’t even remember it.
She was a young thing. Young enough for Natasha to adopt, anyway. Much to young for Bucky to do… whatever he had done to her.
Natasha pushes him away. “Back off.”
There’s a seriousness in her tone, telling him that if he didn’t listen then she was going to take him down. He backs up a few feet. “I didn’t-- I don’t--” He doesn’t know what else to do except say “I’m sorry.”
Natasha pulls the girl out of the room by her vest. Bucky is left staring at the empty space.
“Are you okay?” Steve’s hand falls onto his shoulder.
“She’s a child,” Bucky manages to get out. “I hurt a child. A lot. Fuck, Stevie. I don’t even remember her.”
“Maybe she’s remember things wrong?” Steve suggests but Bucky shakes his head because that girl was drenched in pure anger and fear. She’s not faking it.
Either she truly does believe that he hurt her or he truly hurt her.
Either way, she was a little bundle of nerves and fear. She was scared of him.
Bucky tries his best to make himself scarce. Stark doesn’t want them leaving their rooms unless necessary. Bucky understands, he hadn’t even thought Stark would have let them here.
Natasha wasn’t the only one protective over the kid, it seems. Stark’s robot voice that he calls FRIDAY constantly stops him from wandering where he might come across the girl. The robot voice will even physically stop him by locking doors or blocking his way.
That’s why he was surprised to come across her in the kitchen. She drops the bottle of milk in her hand when she sees him, her fingers curled into fists as she moves in front of the other teenager in the room.
Bucky doesn’t know the other teenager either but he doesn’t think she’s a widow. The teenager looks at him curiously as the girl backs her into a corner. Bucky grabs the protein shake he came for, glancing at them.
The girl’s face is curled into a sneer, a protective stance in front of the other teenager.
Bucky leaves just as quickly as he came. The girl looked ready to fight him.
He heads back to his room, unsure of why he couldn’t remember her.
Natasha did fill him in a little. He had apparently known her for just about eight or nine years.
How could he forget someone he knew for nine years? He sits on the bed in his room and stares at the wall and wracks his brain for any memory of her.
He thinks he might remember something. It’s a tiny child, staring up at him with tear-streaked cheeks as she’s shoved in front of him. She wore completely grey pajamas that nearly avert his eyes from the bruises on her skin. She was stiff as a board, her big brown eyes looked up at him with fear. Her blonde hair was braided back in a neat braid that kept it out of her face.
That’s the only thing he can remember and he doesn’t even know if the child is the same person.
He wants to talk to her but can’t. He can’t because every single time the girl looks at her she looks like she thinks he’ll attack her at any moment.
Bucky asks Natasha to talk to her. Natasha narrows her eyes at him and denies his request before telling him that if he approached her then she would make him regret it.
Bucky doesn’t blame her. That’s her kid. There was a whole thing about mama bears that he vaguely remembers hearing. Something about how they’re protective and will attack anyone that gets close to their cubs.
Steve is torn between bonding with Natasha’s kid and defending Bucky. Bucky tries to tell him that it’s okay. Even if he wasn’t the Winter Soldier anymore, he still hurt people.
Bucky stays in his room and out of the way. He won’t make that girl frightened to be in her own home.
He stares at the wall and clings to a faded memory of a brown-eyed child staring up at him with such fear that her tiny frame trembles with each breath she takes, tiny fingers curled into fists as she clenches her jaw to stop tears pooling down her cheeks.
And he tries to remember.