70 Years of Waiting
Bucky sat heavy beside Steve. They had been quietly returned to the building they had just made a mad dash escape from, and now sat together in a pristine looking conference room.
They were both sat with shoulders suddenly slouched as they looked passively at the pictures Fury showed them one by one.
“Whadda ‘bout my family, huh?” Bucky asked, turning away from the newspaper heading that showed some gibberish about some supposedly all-important future happening. Bucky didn’t much care for any of it just then. “What happened to my Ma and my siblings – my sister and brother?”
Steve tensed further in his seat, eyes coming up to fix Fury with a hard stare as they awaited his answer.
Fury seemed completely unruffled by their twin glares. There was something a lot like sympathy in his eyes as he looked at them – there was also something calculating there too; enough so that Bucky knew this man wasn’t to be fully trusted.
“Far as we can tell, Sergeant, they lived very good lives. Your mother lived until she was sixty-eight years old before passing in her sleep. Your father passed at seventy-two from heart disease. As for your brother, he married a woman and had three children with her. He passed two years ago from heart disease, as well.”
Bucky gaped, lips forming words that made no noise.
“They’re gone?” Steve asked in Bucky’s place. He sounded just as wrecked as Bucky felt, even as he reached out to grab Bucky’s hand tight in his own.
“Yes. I’m sorry for your loss, son.” Fury sounded completely sincere when he said it.
Bucky looked down, blinking his eyes rapidly. He turned Steve’s fingers bone white with how tight he held on. When he was sure he wouldn’t do anything embarrassing, he looked back up. It took working his jaw for a minute before he managed to croak out; “My sister?”
“Your sister resides in Brooklyn with her husband. They had two children together.”
“She’s alive?” Bucky had to be sure. He felt something fragile settle in his chest when Fury offered a sharp nod. It felt a lot like hope. “I wanna see her. I wanna see her right now.”
“We can facilitate a reunion once we’re finished with your briefing-,”
“Fuck the briefing!” The chair Bucky had been sitting in crashed to the floor as he wrenched himself to his feet. “You think I give a rats ass about any of this?” His hand swept just above the pages sat on the desk before him; he only just managed to stop himself from sweeping them all to the floor in a fit of childish rage. “I wanna see my sister right the hell now!”
“Sergeant Barnes-,”
Steve was on his feet standing close beside Bucky and radiating a similar level of tension, “With all due respect, Director,” and his tone implied not much was due, “I think Sergeant Barnes has waited long enough to be reunited with his sister. Seventy years is an awful long time.”
Fury was silent as he gazed between them before he gave a very sharp nod. He swept from the room without so much as a word.
The minute he was gone, Steve turned to his friend. A heavy hand landed on Bucky’s shoulder, squeezing tight.
“Buck-,”
“Don’t, Stevie.” Bucky interrupted quickly. “Please don’t.”
For a second, Steve said nothing but the hand on his shoulder gave another tight squeeze. “Yeah. Okay.” He agreed quietly. “Let’s go see Becca.”
Rebecca ‘Becca’ Barnes lived in a modest two-story brownstone house a street over from where Bucky and Steve had grown up.
Seeing Brooklyn looking so far removed from anything they remembered had been hard for the two recently defrosted soldiers. None of that compared to the nerves they felt standing on the steps outside Becca’s door.
Both Steve and Bucky had requested dress uniforms so they could at the very least look respectable when they presented themselves on the doorstep. The suits they had been given were different to what they remembered. More modern. But it still felt more familiar than the shirt and pants they’d both first woken up in.
“Ready?” Steve asked.
Voice too tight to speak, Bucky could only nod.
Steve nodded back before bringing his fist forward to knock smartly against the aged front door.
Bucky felt like his lungs had all but frozen stiff as he stood waiting for the door to open. When it finally creaked open it was to the sight of an old wrinkled man that neither Bucky nor Steve recognised.
“Oh,” The man blinked as he looked between them. “Can I help you boys?”
“Is this the address of Becca Barnes?” Steve asked when Bucky still could not get his voice to work.
“Well, she hasn’t gone by that name in a while,” The man said with an amused smile. “It’s been Rebecca Proctor for over fifty years now.”
“But she does live here?” Steve pressed.
“She does. What’s this about?” The smile on the old man’s face turned to something sadder. “Is this about her brother? Did they finally find James’ body?”
“It, uh, it is about her brother, sir. But they didn’t find his body.” Steve hesitated, eyes flicking from Bucky back to the old man.
“Can we see her?” Bucky blurted, voice box suddenly coming back online. “We gotta see her, please mister.”
The old man stared for a moment before stepping back and gesturing for them to come inside. Together they stepped inside. Bucky stayed huddled closer to Steve than the small entrance hall really required.
“Why don’t you take a seat in the living room, and I’ll go fetch her.” The old man said, gesturing to the left where a set of very comfy looking couches sat. “Can I offer you gentlemen some refreshments? I’ve got some beer in the fridge?”
“Maybe after. Just-,” Steve broke off to clear his throat. His eyes were glassy and rimmed in red; his face was a shade of milk white. He looked about how Bucky felt. “Please, can you fetch Becca?”
Confused though the old man might be it didn’t stop him from offering them both a kind smile. “Of course.”
Steve and Bucky both wandered their way into the living room, though neither took a seat. Steve stood, fidgeting at the front of the couch, while Bucky migrated to the many picture frames located on the mantle. Almost instinctually, his eyes locked on to a picture of two very familiar individuals.
“Jesus, Steve, c’mere ‘n look at this.” Bucky called hoarsely. He carefully plucked the picture frame from the mantle with shaking hands. “That’s my little brother and my little sister.” Bucky choked. A trembling finger traced the two deeply wrinkled faces staring back at him. “God, but they look older ’n I do.”
Steve’s hand landed on his shoulder and held tight even as the blond peered over at the picture.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.” Bucky’s voice trembled as hard as his hands. “Last time we seen him he was still just a kid.” In his minds eye he pictured Robert ‘Bobby’ Barnes the way he’d last seen him. Fourteen years old with skinny limbs that stretched too long. Freckled face smooth of any wrinkles and blue eyes lit up with a fathomless love for life that came with youth. Bucky remembered Bobby’s nervous energy around the fairer sex that he was only just starting to realise might be something interesting.
His memories jarred almost painfully against the wrinkled skin and grey hair of the man stood in the picture he now held. There were similarities, in the pattern of freckles and the shade of his blue eyes, but those were far and few between. Even the overall shape of his face had been changed with age. Bobby Barnes looked more like their father in this picture than he ever had in the memories Bucky had of him.
Footsteps behind them had him carefully putting the picture frame back in its place.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. My husband said you came calling for me. Something about my brother?” A female voice spoke. She sounded nothing like the nine-year old Bucky had said goodbye to when he shipped out. Age had made her voice crackle in unfamiliar places even as it softened her words.
Bucky and Steve both turned around as one.
She looked very little like the little girl he’d left behind. But there could be no doubt that standing before him was his Becca.
Her face was frozen in shock, wrinkled hand coming up to cover her lips. Her eyes filled with tears before they overflowed, twin streams slipping quickly down her face. Her brown eyes, the eyes of their mother, hadn’t changed. “B-Bucky?” She cried.
Bucky was across the room and scooping her up before he could even blink. He forced himself not to squeeze her too tight as he enveloped her in his arms and buried his face in the side of her neck. She hung on him; hands fisted in his lovely new jacket; no doubt leaving wrinkles.
“Hiya Becca,” Bucky murmured before lifting his head up enough to press a kiss to hair long since turned grey. He pretended not to notice the dampness on his cheeks as he held her through her own tears.
Only once her sobs had begun to taper off did he step back a bit.
Looking behind him, Bucky gave Steve a pointed jerk of his chin. “Get your big ass over here, Rogers, and greet my sister.”
“Yessir.” Steve croaked before he was swooping Becca into another hug.
“Steve?” Becca trembled as she held him just as tight as she had held Bucky seconds ago.
Bucky watched them for a whole minute before he stepped forward and joined the hug. Becca cried from her carefully squashed position in between them. Bucky’s arms weren’t quite long enough to stretch across Becca and all the way around Steve’s wide back, but he gave it his best damn attempt.