Questionnaire
Bucky sat against the wall, staring tiredly at the lump in the corner of his apartment; an equally tired little girl who had slept like the dead since she had arrived. Last night, Bucky had pulled his extra blankets out of the closet and piled them on top of his bed, if you could even call some blankets on the floor a bed, so she could sleep comfortably until he figured out how else she could sleep.
He hadn’t slept, he was too nervous to sleep. Pepper hadn’t really explained what was going on and now he was on high alert, glancing anxiously in the direction of any sound he couldn’t explain away.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t good with kids; he was. After all, he had a younger sister who he had all but raised up until the war. It was that, as he sat there and watched the little lump shift onto her side, he thought of how much Tony would have despised this arrangement and how much Bucky respected him. He was nauseous, stomach roiling as he fretted over the ethics of protecting a dead man’s daughter.
He knew he had made the right decision, knew that Morgan was worth protecting, but as he looked down at the little book in his hands, reading down the list of names he had crossed off, his eyes settled on Tony Stark’s name written in his shaky handwriting. Despite his progress, Bucky was still struggling to come to terms with the smaller, more normal parts of being human again. He struggled to write now, he knew how and had written short messages as the Winter Soldier, but now he for some reason struggled to steady his hand or think of the right words. He often forgot to eat; he didn’t need to eat to survive but his therapist had made him promise to take control of normal things like that and she always knew when he hadn’t followed her instructions.
Turning his notebook to a blank page, he began to write a list of things he needed to purchase for Morgan. He didn’t worry about it; he was somehow still eligible for a military pension since he was technically declared MIA despite having served his “twenty years” of service required to receive a pension as a mindless killing machine, so he had the money. He was still astounded, however, that prices had gone up so much since he had left for war. The idea of paying more than 50 cents for a jug of milk had him questioning the validity of this “new world”, but he still continued to write his list, jotting down the things that normal people needed. He had some of the things required to live a normal life; a toothbrush, shampoo, towels, and other miscellaneous things from before. Morgan was different though, she was a person. A real person, unlike him, who needed a grocery list to fulfill her normal, real needs.
- Food (what kind of food does she like?)
- Vegetables???
- Shampoo and conditioner (?), more towels
- Blankets, pillow
He stared down at the list, trying to decipher the mystery of what normal people needed. She didn’t need clothes, her suitcase had plenty, and a teddy bear, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a hairbrush, and a bottle of body wash were packed with her as well. He knew she probably liked certain foods, and he would ask her, but he otherwise didn’t know what a modern six year old would want or need.
He looked up at the clock, 12:30, and glanced back at Morgan. He had googled how much sleep she would need and had found that the answer was nine hours, which had already passed, but he couldn’t bring himself to wake her up. Waking up in an unfamiliar place to see an unfamiliar man with a metal arm leaning over her would probably not be an enjoyable experience so he chose to let her sleep.
He busied himself with a game Sam had downloaded to his phone, slingshotting a bird at a structure full of pigs. Modern games made no sense to him, but it was a mindless thing that helped him take his mind off of what was going on.
It was 1:45 when he heard Morgan shift in her makeshift bed and looked over to see her sitting up, wrapped in sheets and wide eyed as she took in her surroundings. “Mommy?”
She seemed to be asking Bucky for her mother and his heart hurt for her. His mother was long gone and he knew the pain of just… not knowing. He had never been able to bring himself to search for her or any of his family. His parents were dead and the others wouldn’t want him anyway, not with all that he had done and what he had become.
“Uh, she’s not here.” He told the little girl, “She left you with me so you could be safe. Do you remember?”
She nodded and rubbed her eyes, nervous and powerless. “Safe from what?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He said, “But it must have been bad if she left you here.” He thought for a moment, then added. “She, uh, she loves you a lot. She just wants to keep you safe and I guess I was the best option.”
Morgan stared at him. “Who are you?”
Bucky smiled, trying to seem as friendly as he could. “I’m Bucky.” He told her, scooching forwards on the carpet. “Uh… your dad used to know me.”
“You knew my dad?” She was excited now. “Were you friends?”
He sighed. “No, not exactly. But your mom trusts me so it’s ok.”
Morgan was silent for a moment before she spoke again. “Ok. Do you have food?”
Although the abrupt change of subject startled him, he responded with a shake of his head. “No, but I was thinking we could go to the store and get some things you’d like.”
She smiled a bright, innocent smile and jumped out of her makeshift bed.
“Your clothes are over there.” Bucky pointed at the opposite corner of the room. “I can wait while you change.”
She shook her head. “No thank you.” She puffed out her chest. “I’m a kid, I can go to the store in jammies.”
He stared at her for a moment, contemplating how he should respond, before shrugging. “You know what, I honestly don’t care. Do your thing.”
He waited for her while she brushed her hair, recounting the way to the bus stop in his head. Just a left turn then a right one. Sam had brought him to the store before, forcing him to get some bottled water and ingredients for pb&js, so he could recall where he needed to go for the first leg of the journey
Morgan sidled up to him, hair brushed and shoes on, smiling up at him as if she was totally ok with what was happening. Maybe she was, Bucky didn’t know, but it was so strange to him that she was comfortable enough to tell him what to do.
“Ready to go?” He asked her, “We gotta go on the bus since I don’t have a license but it shouldn’t be that far, remember?”
She scuffed the toe of her tennis shoe on the carpet, back and forth and back and forth. “I’m not stupid.” She told him, a bit of frustration in her voice. “I remember things.”
He was taken aback for a moment before his brain clicked into place and he understood that she was just nervous and didn’t know what to do. It was ok, he was fine with a little sass. She reminded him of his littlest sister and how she always thought she knew best. He missed her. He wondered if she had missed him.
“I know.” He said, opening the door so she could step out. “I know you’re not stupid, I’m sorry.”
Morgan smiled again, running ahead of him to the elevator at the end of the apartment hallway. “Can I push the button?” She asked him, “Can I, please?”
“Yea, go ahead.” He said. He had never understood why such small things gave children so much joy.
She giggled, pressing the button and darting into the elevator as he stepped in behind her, before hovering her hand over the button board, looking back at him with a questioning gaze.
“Oh, level 2.” He told her, smiling as she pressed the button with a flourish that only a kid her age could create. “Level 1 is the basement.”
They waited as they went down, Morgan rocking back and forth on her heels. The elevator was settling into place as she looked over at him. “How old are you?”
He looked down at her, stepping into the lobby. “Uh, I’m… I’m 106.”
His hand was on the bar of the entrance door as she stared up at him, seemingly examining every square inch of his face before she burst into a fit of giggles. She pointed up at him as her feet hit the sidewalk. “You’re old!” She crowed, “ You’re an old man!”
Bucky stifled an unwelcome surprise chuckle at her mock insult. “Yea, I am.” He said, continuing to walk down the sidewalk that he knew led to the store. “Really old. Sometimes I forget.”
As he auto piloted his way towards the store, Morgan lagged behind him before yelling after him. “Wait!”
Adrenaline shot through him, his brain going into high alert. He spun around, hand on the pocket knife in his side pocket. “What?” He asked, rushing over to her. “What’s going on?”
She looked up at him, eyes wide and almost offended before offering him her hand. “I’m little, you gotta hold my hand.” She informed him.
His brain short circuited as he looked down at her hand. “You want me to hold your hand?”
She smiled, cheeks rosy and eyes bright. “Yea! I wanna hold your metal hand though.” She looked over at his left arm. “It’s soooo cool.”
He contemplated it for a second, wondering if he should just insist that she hold his right hand, before sighing and taking a hold of her little hand with his bigger metal one. “Is that better?” He asked her. “Does that make you feel better?”
She nodded, happy now, and began to tug on his hand. He couldn’t feel much, but he always knew when someone touched it. He couldn’t feel any pain there, but he could feel pressure as if it was just a normal arm with nerve damage. He pulled the sleeve of his jacket down, trying to cover up anything that he could, as he tucked his glove into his pocket. He could vaguely tell that her hand was warm, and he could feel its smallness as he held it. Looking down at her, now skipping happily beside him as they walked, he smiled. She was definitely cute; even he could acknowledge that.
……………………………………………………………………………………………................
They got to the store sooner than he thought they would and upon her request he lifted Morgan into the cart, letting her sit against the back as they went through the front doors. He didn’t like modern grocery stores; they were too big and full of far too many things. In the thirties, there had been way fewer brands and he preferred that to the endless aisles of different types of everything. They entered near the produce section and Bucky nervously smiled at a woman in her thirties as she walked by, smiling at him and Morgan as she wiggled her fingers in a cutesy wave at the little girl. Morgan giggled and smiled back, wiggle waving her fingers as well.
Bucky leaned down over the handles of the cart. “What do you like to eat?”
She thought for a moment, bringing her little hand to her chin as if she was contemplating something serious. “I like cupcakes.” She informed him. “But my mommy says that I need veggies too. I like carrots. And peppers! Not the green ones though.”
He nodded, angling their cart towards the wall of vegetables, periodically misted with a light spray of water. She leaned over the side of the cart when he approached the carrots, scooping up two bags and a package of orange peppers. He stared at the daunting wall of produce before grabbing a few bags of premade salad.
Morgan directed him towards clementines, pears, berries, and apples; insisting on honeycrisp apples specifically. He told her that he didn’t know the difference and she looked at him like he had lost his mind.
“Normal apples are icky!” She said, “They taste like cardboard. Honeycrisps taste like candy.”
Bucky smiled at her, a small thing that graced his lips for only a few moments. “I’ve never had a honeycrisp before. Guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”
They dipped into the bread aisle, the peanut butter aisle because Morgan insisted on getting something called “nutella”, and then the aisle full of soup cans. As he thumbed across familiar types of soup, considering whether or not he’d like them now, Morgan tapped his hand, the right one rested on the edge of the cart. He looked down at her, a questioning look on his face.
“When were you born?” She asked him, “I wanna know but I hate math.”
He nodded. “Yea me too. Uh, I was born in 1917.”
Her eyes went wide. “Woah.” She said, “That’s a long time ago.”
“Yea, I guess it was.”
She thought for a moment before speaking again. “Do you have sisters or brothers?”
He was constantly surprised at how quickly she changed subjects and found questions to ask. “Mhm, I have…” He paused, the realization of how his wording was wrong drifting through his head; she was probably gone now. She was probably dead. “Uh, I had a sister. I guess.”
“Ooh!” She clapped her hands. “What was her name? How old was she?”
Bucky knew her name now, had forgotten it for all of those years as the winter soldier and had struggled to remember the names of anyone from his old life even when he was free. He had remembered her face, of course, and even felt the warmth of her embrace when he thought of her, but her name floated like mist in the recesses of his Hydra-addled brain until a night not long after he had moved into the apartment the government had provided him. He dreamt of her, dreamt of his childhood on a military base with his family, of his sister picking the wildflowers that grew against the chain link fences around the base, of her pranks, of reading her stories at night, of his mother and her flour dusted apron making bread in their tiny kitchen. He had woken up slowly from that dream, a harsh contrast to the lightning quick jolt of awakeness he would experience after his regular nightmares, with their names on his lips. His parents. His sister. His family. Ripped away from him.
He had sat in his floor bed and cried, shoulders heaving and lungs constricting as he desperately wished to go back. He wanted his old life back; he wanted what had been stolen from him.
“Rebecca.” He told the little girl. “She was 9.”
“Woah! That’s a really pretty name.” Morgan told him, then wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t disgusted, no, she seemed to be confused. “But if her name’s so pretty then why’s your name… Bucky?”
If Sam had been there he would have been howling, Bucky just knew it. Morgan’s face was so earnest, so confused, like she truly thought his name was just that weird. His face had blushed over as he suppressed a laugh; he had forgotten how much fun children could be.
“Bucky’s just my nickname.” He said, hesitantly reaching out to brush a lock of hair out of her eye. “My real name is James.”
“Oooooh.” Morgan nodded, “That makes wayyyy more sense.”
“It definitely does.” Bucky agreed, before turning back to the soup. “Do you like any of these? I used to like the beef and vegetable kind.”
Morgan stood up in the cart, leaning forward to press her finger against a can of chicken noodle soup. “This one is good.”
Bucky nodded, scooping up a few of both kinds since they were on sale. Morgan pointed out canned ravioli, which he had loved before the war, and then canned fruit and veggies at the end of the aisle. She told him she liked canned green beans and peas, as well as canned fruit of all kinds. He bought two of each for her, figuring it might last and he could try some of those things to see how different they were now.
They had barely made it into the cereal aisle when Morgan was saying his name, waving her hand in front of him. He looked down at her yet again as he took a box of wheaties from the shelves and threw it into the cart, raising his eyebrow at her.
“Why’d you leave your sister?” She asked him, innocently enough that the coil of nervousness in his gut almost seemed ridiculous.
He grappled for his words, wondering to himself what she knew about the world and how dark it could be. “I went to war.” His voice cracked. “I, uh, I didn’t come back.”
Morgan’s mouth formed an “o” before she nodded solemnly. “You died.”
Bucky nearly choked on air, smiling despite himself. “Not really.” He said, “The military thought I did though. What cereal do you want?”
She paused her interview to respond to his rapid conversation switch by pointing at something called honey nut cheerios and then to something else called cinnamon toast crunch. They had grabbed milk back near the produce section, so now all they needed was towels and blankets from the home section as well as a toothbrush and hair products from the toiletries section.
“What happened though?” She inquired as he rolled her squeaky wheeled chariot down the pathway between aisle rows. “Why’d you not come back?”
To be frank, Bucky had absolutely no fucking clue how to answer that question. It wasn’t like he could inform the six year old girl that he had fallen off a train and then become a mindless murder machine that spent some time in cryo and was responsible for the deaths of over a thousand people including her grandfather and an acting US president.
He settled on the vaguest, but also true, answer he could think of at that moment. “I disappeared.”
Morgan furrowed her eyebrows. “But where did you go? Why didn’t you come back?”
He grimaced, searching for the sign that would tell him where the bathroom section of the home department was. He found it, heading over to it with single minded focus as he decided to ignore her question in favor of asking her one in return.
They pulled into the towel section, eyeing the many colors and types that Bucky was definitely not accustomed to; the thirties had always been different. “What color do you want?” He asked her, hoping she’d forget to ask again. “We gotta get you some towels and a washcloth.”
She scanned the aisle before pointing at a teal-ish blue. “I like those ones! It’s a pretty color.”
He nodded, pulling two towels and a matching washcloth from the shelves before plopping them down onto her lap. Ducking his head at a woman holding a pile of hideous pink towels, he steered around the aisle towards the nearby toiletries section, which he could already tell would be an entirely different type of overwhelming culture shock.
“Are you gonna answer?”
His heart sank as his head started spinning, trying to find a way to answer the questions she’d asked that would appease her without telling the whole truth. “Uh, I couldn’t.” He told her, voice dropping to a whisper as he passed a man wearing an army veteran hat. “Some…”
He desperately tried to find words to explain this without making her afraid of him. He wondered if that was possible; HE was afraid of him. Everyone was. He was a monster, after all.
“Some bad people wouldn’t let me go, they kept me prisoner for a long time. They made me do some things that weren’t great... I couldn’t come home.”
Morgan’s eyes were saucers now, his heart dropping even lower as he panicked, knuckles white as he gripped the handle of the cart. She was scared of him, he knew it. He had tried to be vague, but even something like that could make a little girl fear him. Only a half a day into this and he had already fucked it up. He hated himself, shoulders hunched forward in shame and anger at himself. When he heard her voice again, her words surprised him.
“That’s gotta be real bad.” She told him, eyes wide with what appeared to be sympathy. “I’d be sad if that happened to me. I’d miss my mom.” She looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry you got tooken.”
He stared at her, having stopped in the soap aisle, unable to comprehend the sympathy in her voice. His amusement at her childlike grammar mistake was washed out by a strange feeling in his chest that he could not identify, despite how hard he tried.
“It’s… it’s ok.” He said. “I’m fine now.”
Morgan shook her head. “No you’re not!” She insisted, startling him. “I wouldn’t be and I’m a kid! We’re ok with everything.” She scrunched up her nose in thought, tapping her finger to her chin. “You’re old, so you’re probably really sad.”
Bucky absolutely could not comprehend this fucking child. He stood there, staring dumbly at her as he tried to figure out where the sudden childish wisdom had come from and trying to figure out what to say.
“I guess I’m sad sometimes.”
She shook her head again, waggling her finger at him. “No, I’d be sad ALL the time. You look sad, you’ve got sad eyes. My mom said you can tell who somebody is by looking at their eyes.”
It was as if she was completely certain she was right, which was fair; she was completely correct. Bucky felt joy, had loved being with Sam and his family and loved seeing Steve again once he remembered him, but there was always a baseline of dark, murky water inside of him. He never felt happy, not really. Not in the way that lasts, stretching out on all of your good days. He was happy when the kids in Sam’s neighborhood had taken a liking to him, happy when he saw how well Sam could wield Steve’s shield. But it was so quick, so fleeting, and when those moments were over he was left with the depression that had clung to him since he had heard those words.
“I’m with you til’ the end of the line.” Steve had said, and Bucky had been blown off of his feet.
He hadn’t known him, had been wiped repeatedly by Pierce and the HYDRA soldiers until his voice was almost slurring. They’d taken precautions after he had mistakenly told them he thought he knew Steve, forced him through that torture until they thought they knew for sure that he would not remember his best friend. But when Steve said the words that had meant so much to him, a hollow pain had shot through him, electrifying his bones and making his lungs constrict until he could barely breathe. He didn’t know him then, but he knew he should. He knew that Steve Rogers wasn’t just his mission; he was someone to Bucky. Someone whose memory Bucky couldn’t quite grasp out of the swirling emptiness in his warped, scraped clean mind.
He’d dragged Steve from the water and walked away, eyes blank and mind battling demons he hadn’t known he possessed for over seventy years, the sadness setting in with every step until he collapsed near an empty, broken down barn and screamed until his voice was hoarse. He hadn’t remembered how to cry yet, but his body went through the heaving motions as he grappled for whatever he could call the truth. That sadness had been with him ever since.
“Mr. Bucky?”
He looked back up at the little girl. “Yea?”
Her eyes were earnest and she seemed concerned. “Did I make you sadder? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” He assured her, blinking away the mist in his eyes. “It’s ok, you’re… I guess you’re right. I am sad a lot.”
“My mommy used to be sad a lot. After my daddy died.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that either, so he picked up a bottle of shampoo and held it up to her. “Is this ok? I don’t know much about this stuff.”
She squinted at the soap before nodding. “Yea that’s ok. It smells like apples, I like apples.”
Bucky nodded, scooping it and its matching conditioner into the cart before jerking his cart towards the exit. He was so fucking done with this store, it was culture shock incarnate and every turn and twist made him want to vomit from overstimulation. They had gotten everything on his list, even picked out some pink and white sheets for Morgan as he stood there without a clue as to what a child would actually want. This sucked and he hated it.
As he wheeled up to the checkout, directly behind an older woman and a young boy who appeared to be her grandson, he noticed that Morgan was staring up at him with squinted eyes that he could swear were piercing into his soul.
“Are you ok?” He asked her, glancing behind him to make sure she wasn’t staring at something else.
“I just remembered you. You were at my daddy’s funeral!” She informed him, pointing up at his face. “My mommy wouldn’t let me go. I saw you from the window. You weren’t wearing sad clothes, it was weird.”
It was true, Bucky hadn’t worn a suit or anything that was indicative of funeral attendance to Tony’s funeral. He didn’t really have anything like that then and he still didn’t; he owned only three shirts, two pairs of jeans, and two jackets- a ski jacket and the leather one he wore almost every day. He had gone in casual clothing that day, wanting to pay his respects but uncertain of his place. Would Stark have wanted him there at all, after what he had done? It was like a fail safe; if Pepper, Happy, or Rhodey kicked him out he could leave without looking like someone who had just been kicked out of a funeral. He could walk away like it never happened, like he had never made that mistake. It was a flimsy, stupid comfort but it comforted him all the same.
He was ashamed to stand there as if he had any right to mourn a man like Tony Stark, but he stood there all the same; he respected Stark. Both of them. Howard had been his friend, part of the Howlies on the sidelines. He had created the super soldier serum. Tony… Tony continued his legacy and he was a good man. An honorable man. Everything Bucky wasn’t. Thinking about them made him nauseous; he knew what he had done, could taste it on his tongue. Could remember how HYDRA held Howard’s photo in front of him and reprogrammed him again and again until he couldn’t even recognize that there was a face in the photo at all so that he could complete his mission. So that he could kill his friend.
“Yea.” Bucky said, “I was there. I just didn’t have… sad clothes.”
“Oh okay.” Her eyes left him, darting around to see her surroundings, before they stopped on the rack to the right of the line.
He followed her gaze to a line of stuffed animals on a circular shelf. They were bright, weird, and had inconsistent parts, like a lion with a horn and a monkey with wings, but her eyes lit up when she looked at them. He looked at the prices; five dollars each. It wasn’t too bad and it appeared that they made her happy, so why not splurge a bit? She was bright, and he was dark. She deserved something to make her feel like her brightness wasn’t being overtaken by clouds.
“Do… do you want one?” He asked her, “They’re not too expensive.”
She whipped her head back towards him, eyes bright and happy. Maybe Pepper had been right about her eye theory. “Really?”
He nodded and watched her excitedly pull a sparkly blue penguin off of the rack, clutching it tight to her chest. Her excitement was cute, really cute, and it reminded him of his little sister and how excited she, too, had been when their parents had gifted her a teddy bear. Everything reminded him of what had been lost, it always would, and he swore he could almost see Becca in Morgan’s eyes, swore he could hear her in Morgan’s laugh. It made his chest tighten; grief was endless and it never left him alone.
“Thank you Mr. Bucky.” She said, looking up at him. “You’re awesome.”
He wasn’t “awesome”, he knew that. He was corruption and emptiness, there was nothing within him that could, or should, inspire awe. But he smiled at her, grateful for the positivity, and as the cashier called them up to the register, the store didn’t feel quite as scary and overwhelming as it had before.