Don't Care if He's Guilty, Don't Care if He's Not
It’s two weeks before Christmas, and Steve climbs the last set of stairs to get to the fourth floor apartment he is learning to call home.
It’s in Brooklyn, no one’s surprised. He has since relocated since Fury came crashing into his last apartment, bringing the hounds of hell with him, and Steve just hopes he can stay here in peace.
Not many people know he lives here. Natasha comes by fairly regularly, as does Sam, and of course Tony knows where to find him.
He didn’t ask for much, just a two bedroom with a fire escape, but Sam convinced him to get the nicer apartment with an actual balcony he can walk out onto.
“You’re freaking Captain America, Rogers. You don’t need to be crawling out of windows to drink your damn coffee.”
So that’s what he does, even though Steve doesn’t even remember liking coffee all that much. It’s more of a routine, something to look forward to that vaults him into the day. Like adjusting to a bed softer than the ground, Steve finds he can only drink the cheap, weak coffee that he buys at the corner store, mainly because it tastes like the sludge he was served every morning in 1942. It still tastes like sludge, but it’s all he can get down.
These days, he can think of nothing but Bucky. Or the Winter Soldier. Or whoever he may be. Call him pigheaded (Bucky would), but he was right about one thing: Bucky knew who he was. Bucky recognized him on the helicarrier, and though no one was around to see him, he knew it was Bucky that pulled him out of the depths of the Potomac.
He has Bucky on the brain again today while he looks down at the busy streets below. He blows gently on his coffee, watching people run their rat race, the streets a little busier with the coming holiday season. Life in this world is strange, fast and desperate, like there’s a clock running out he doesn’t know about. Steve stopped worrying about clocks a long time ago.
He’s been looking right at him for several minutes when Steve realizes he knows the man standing in a group of people waiting to cross the street. He’s standing near the back of the group, face impassive, but when Steve looks closer, he notices the clench in Bucky’s jaw, a nervous tick that hasn’t been burned out of him. Steve almost crawls over the railing to get a closer look.
The light changes, and Bucky’s eyes roam around before he crosses with the other pedestrians, keeping a slight following distance. He starts moving east, going to pass under Steve’s building. He’s wearing civilian clothing from this decade, and navy blue hat pulled low on his brow.
Steve scrambles into the apartment, throwing on pants and shoes, and goes leaping out the hallway window to bound across several roofs, trying to get ahead of wherever Bucky is going. Two blocks down, he drops into an alley and waits, unsure of what he will do or say when he crosses Bucky’s path. Invite him over for coffee? Thank him for saving his life? For the life of him, he’s trembling in a mixture of anticipation and fear, the feeling similar to the moment he recognized his childhood friend under the Winter Soldier’s mask.
He creeps closer to the street, but both Bucky and the Winter Soldier have disappeared.
When Steve sees Bucky again, he’s out in the open, which startles Steve so much so that he almost drops his coffee. Steve slowly makes his way across the street and ducks into a department store so he can watch Bucky in hiding. He tucks in between two racks of women’s coats, and an associate asks him to please not eat or drink amongst the merchandise. She does not, however, ask why he’s loitering in the women’s department. For once, he’s thankful it’s 2017.
Bucky is still across the street at a small Ma and Pa grocery, the kind you can still find in this neighborhood that puts their fresh produce out in stands on the sidewalk. Bucky is currently inspecting a plum, bringing it to his nose like he’s testing it for ripeness. He nods casually at the owner, who sweeps dirt off the sidewalk next to him. Bucky’s metal arm is concealed by a black jacket, the hand tucked into the pocket of his jeans.
Steve stands there for awhile, just watching as Bucky selects a few other pieces of fruit: a yellow apple, a banana. Steve smiles to himself to see that Bucky still has a sweet tooth. He’s still pursuing the fruit stand when a movement beside him startles Bucky, which in turn startles Steve, and he watches as Bucky jumps like a frightened cat away from some oranges tumbling into the street. A young, dark-haired girl stands stock still next to the stand, looking as spooked as Bucky. Steve chuckles to himself amidst the coats he’s knocked off the racks.
Bucky slowly surveys the scene, very subtly checking his surroundings, and Steve pushes himself back away from the window to keep his cover. It’s then that Bucky notices the girl.
The Bucky that Steve used to know was fantastic with kids. Growing up with three sisters groomed Bucky to be quick with a reassuring smile and a trove of interesting stories that kept any child following after him, starry-eyed and good as gold.
Steve watches this Bucky as he eyes the girl across from him, and he prays that Bucky is still somewhere deep inside the layers of the WInter Soldier.
After a beat, Bucky takes a tentative step forward and slowly lowers himself to one knee, reaching for one of the fallen oranges. He offers it to the girl, who can’t be more than seven years old, his eyebrows raised in a silent question. Her worried eyes soften a fraction, and she takes it with a slow smile. Steve holds his breath as he waits to see if Bucky will talk to the little girl, thinking maybe he’ll open up to her, if just for a moment.
But the girl doesn’t talk, just brings a flat, open palm to her chin and back out again while facing Bucky, and Steve recognizes the gesture as sign language. Thank you.
Bucky stills, and Steve can’t tell if he understands the girl or not. He remembers a boy that lived on their street when he and Bucky were kids, and Steve had gotten in a fight with some guys bullying the kid whenever he was around, which wasn’t often. When he was, through a few awkward signs and scribbled notes, he told Steve and Bucky that he lived at a school for only Deaf people up in White Plains during the year, like a boarding school. He learned sign language there, learned how to talk with other people like him, and he only came home to see his family during the holidays. Steve remembers a few signs, but they’re fuzzy in his memory now. He wonders if Bucky still has that memory.
Together Bucky and the girl gather the four or five oranges that have rolled into the gutter, the young girl wiping one of them on her plaid skirt. Bucky holds up his flesh hand, palm up and shakes it gently, telling her not to. She holds it out for him and he points to a splash of mud she overlooked. The girl giggles and with a wrinkled nose, signs dirty, her fingers waggling under her chin. He takes the orange from her to wipe it on his own jacket and stacks the oranges neatly back on the stand.
The girl seems to have taken a fondness to him, at no surprise to Steve, and she pulls on his sleeve to get his attention again. She points to the oranges and opens and closes a fist under her chin. Then she points at Bucky. He looks lost, but not like the wild-eyed soldier Steve had faced before. He gives the girl a slight shrug. She giggles and rolls her eyes playfully, repeating the gesture like he’s playing dumb with her. Bucky looks at the fruit and picks up an orange, and the girl nods, repeating the sign. Orange , Steve realizes she’s asking him if he wants one. Bucky’s eyebrows raise, he puts the fruit back on the stand so he can appease the girl with his right hand. Steve notices he still keeps the metal arm concealed. Bucky repeats the sign and points at the orange, as if asking if he’s doing it right. The girl giggles again, and Steve swears his heart thumps right into his throat when Bucky gives her the same slow, easygoing grin he used to give his sisters when he teased them.
The girl holds up her own orange, points at Bucky, and pulls her middle finger and thumb out away from her chest to touch one another. Steve recognizes the sign for like ; she’s asking Bucky if he likes oranges. He nods, and points back at her, asking her the same question. Bucky must remember that sign too, and Steve smiles at the idea.
The girl points at Bucky’s yellow apple from where he’s lain it on the stand. She crooks her pointer finger into a hook and touches it just above the corner of her mouth, twisting. Apple.
Bucky nods back, and they fall into a simple teach and learn, ask and respond conversation, the girl slowly teaching Bucky signs for the produce around him, and simultaneously teaching Steve too. This goes on for several minutes, until one of the many yellow school buses weaving through the streets pulls up to the curb, blocking their interaction. Steve sees the girl bounce onto the school bus, her small hand waving out the window at Bucky. When the bus pulls away, Steve sees Bucky standing alone, face open and turned down the street to watch the girl drive away. To anyone else, he could have been a father seeing his child onto the bus for the day. Steve sees a young man, younger than his years, softened by an interaction with a curious child on the street. What he does not see is the Winter Soldier.
And when he slips back out of the clothing store and walks back home, drinking his now cold coffee, he knows the only thing he’ll be doing when he gets home is brushing up on some sign language.