Ghost

Sam, maybe due to his being a scientist, was more than skeptical when he was told his house was haunted. First off the home was two days older than dirt, of course it made weird noises and stuff. That’s what old houses did. But Riley hated the house with a passion, claiming that it was creepy and his stuff kept moving at night. Sam never noticed any of this stuff, or heard any noises that were weird, or anything that the nannies reported. Neither, incidentally, did Riri. He figured if anyone would notice a ghost it would be the kid seems how they did weird and creepy shit all the time but no, his daughter never seemed to notice anything amiss, it was just Riley and the five nannies he’s gone through in a year.

He worked a lot but he also made a sizable amount of money so he could afford to have someone else look after his daughter as much as it pained him to do it. But he was up early and out late if he was even home at all and he needed someone to watch his child. Unfortunately his ghost kept terrorizing the nannies so he had to get a new one every couple months. This time he hired some guy named Bucky, figuring maybe switching the gender up might deter the ghost from terrorizing the poor bastard. Besides, he had experience, Riri seemed to like him when they talked via Skype call, and Sam was an excellent judge of character so he was sure Riri would be fine. It was the stupid ghost he had no evidence for he was worried about.

*

Bucky heard the house was haunted, the media had gotten ahold of Sam’s ad and turned it into something of a joke but even if it was haunted he wasn’t deterred. Some wispy asshole wasn’t going to screw him out of one hell of a salary thanks. When he gets to Sam’s place he’s not exactly surprised at what he found though single fathers weren’t very common with this kind of job. Most of the time when he found ads on the site he used to find these jobs when men posted ads they ended up being kind of creepy but the site filtered those out. Sam, however, just had a tragic backstory and the woman he had his kid with had died in a car accident or something. Bucky didn’t track the details because they weren’t really important or relevant to his job.

Either way the job wasn’t difficult- all he had to do was keep Riri entertained and he quickly discovers she likes math like some kind of freak. To add insult to injury she was infinitely better at math than he was and she’s five. The ghost, at least for the first week, was MIA.

“I don’t like apples,” Riri tells him as he packs her lunch for school.

“Do so, you’ve been eating them all week you just want another treat,” he says and she makes a face, irritated that she’s been found out.

“Can I have a kiwi instead?” she asks, bargaining.

“Maybe tomorrow, you ate the last kiwi you had two days ago,” he tells her. She sulks but dealt with it just fine, which was merciful. Bucky once had to watch a kid for a year who didn’t speak at all, just grunted and pointed at things until he got what he wanted and if he didn’t get what he wanted god had mercy on the soul who had to deal with the following tantrum. By the end of the year Bucky had him speaking in full sentences and he only had tantrums if his parents were around because he was damn good at his job. Riri, though, was pretty good so far though they were all good for the first couple weeks. They didn’t know their limits yet and once they got comfortable then they started pushing their luck.

“Okay but can you get some kiwis tonight?” she asks.

“I’ll grab some after I drop you off at school. What do you want done with your hair?” he asks, eyeing up her bedhead skeptically. He was hardly used to the coarse texture of her curls but after watching a ridiculous amount of Youtube tutorials and taking advice from Riri herself he’s managed a couple styles. He preferred a simple ponytail because it was simple and also the little ball of hair on the top of her head was adorable but she was adventurous. He was currently compensating by sticking colored bows in her hair because he didn’t want to send her to school looking like a fool because he tried some new style and didn’t have time to change it before they had to leave.

“Can I wear the red bow?” she asks, brown eyes lighting up in excitement. He thanks his lucky stars she wanted something simple and tells her to go get her bow while he finishes with her lunch. He turns to the fridge to go get a juice box and he hears Riri’s lunch box slide across the counter and he sighs.

“Riri, leave the food alone, I’ll give you a snack before we go if you’re hungry,” he says. The box stops moving and he turns back around except Riri isn’t standing there. He frowns, “Riri?” he asks, looking around.

She comes bounding over from across the room, obviously having just got back from her room upstairs. “Yeah?” she asks.

“Leave you lunch alone,” he tells her, “do you want a snack or something?”

Riri frowns, “I didn’t touch my lunch,” she says. He looks over to the lunch box and finds it halfway across the counter from where it was.

“Well someone moved it and it wasn’t me.” He raises an eyebrow at her expectantly but she just looks more confused.

“I can’t even reach it,” she says, walking over to the counter and trying to reach for her lunch but her hand does fall short a ways given how far back on the counter Bucky had it.

“Oh,” is all he says because he didn’t really have anything else.

“Must be the ghost,” Riri tells him, “I changed my mind about the bow and got the purple one, is that okay?” she asks. He nods because he didn’t really care and tosses her juice box into her lunch before he goes off to put the bow in her hair and send her off to school.

From there the ghost problem gets worse, which he found more annoying than anything because the damn ghost has lost four of Riri’s bows and all four of them were the ones she liked best. The ghost also liked to wake Bucky up at three a.m and had a fondness for pushing cups and bowls off the tables or counters they were sitting on. The damn thing did it enough that Bucky went out and got plastic cups and bowls to one up the Nancy the Ghost.

“You know we have cups, right?” Sam asks, home late as usual and Bucky looks up from yet another hair tutorial. Riri’s love for bows was waning.

“Yeah, but your ghost hates me and keeps knocking them on the ground and breaking them. So I got plastic ones so it stopped breaking the cups,” he says. So far three of his drinks had hit the ground and not one cup has broken. Take that ghost.

Sam raises an eyebrow, “so you and the ghost have had encounters. I was wondering, by now most of the nannies are complaining about it.”

“Stupid thing keeps waking me up at three a.m by throwing socks at my face so I got a hamper with a lid. Throw my socks out of that,” he says, vindicated. Stupid ghost and its antics.

This reaction makes Sam’s eyebrows climb higher, “the ghost is throwing socks at you at night?” he asks.

Bucky shrugs, “figured it was telling me to clean up after myself so I did. Now it pulls the blankets off but the weather is unseasonably warm so the jokes on it, I would have kicked the blanket off anyways.” It was irritating when the weather was colder like it was supposed to be this time of year but he just pulled the blankets back on and fell back asleep.

“You are really calm about this,” Sam says, frowning.

“It’s dead, what’s the worst its gunna do? Knock some stuff over? Please.” He could handle cups falling on the ground and some jackass ghost pulling his blankets off. That wasn’t even that bad.

“I’ve never even seen any of this stuff happen and I’ve lived here for ten years. Apparently it’s been haunted for ages but the ghost doesn’t seem to bother me or Riri, which really only reaffirms my opinion that this stuff only happens to white people.” Sam, Bucky knows, has lived here for at least Riri’s whole life so he figured there was lots of time for him to notice something if something was happening.

“And all the nannies were white too?” Bucky guesses.

“The brownest they got was Italian,” Sam confirms.

“I have an Italian friend, he’d shit his pants if a ghost pulled his blankets off at night,” Bucky says. Then try and scientifically confirm ghosts existed because Tony didn’t like believing in things with no evidence for them. “Maybe you should have hired a black lady or something, see if your theory held up. Not that I don’t appreciate the job, obviously.” And he got more vacation time than usual. In Europe it was normal to get like a month off every year but you usually only got a couple weeks in America though some families offered more. Whatever Sam’s job was it must have more vacation time than normal and Bucky was planning on meeting Tony somewhere and getting blitzed so he could forget his problems.

“Black people are too smart to apply to a job that outright states the house is haunted,” Sam says and Bucky laughs even though it probably wasn’t true. “Besides, you had experience and came with excellent recommendations. And Riri likes you, which is odd because she hates everyone,” Sam says.

So Bucky’s noticed. She was very introverted and it didn’t seem like she connected with her peers well. She seemed to prefer to draw or read than spend time with her classmates. “I know, her teacher is worried about it but she seems fine to me, she just doesn’t like her classmates.”

Sam is silent for a few moments before he sighs, “do you actually think that?” he asks, “because sometimes I wonder and I know I don’t spend enough time at home and-”

“Sam, I’ve worked for like five families. You’re not doing anything they didn’t, except for the one family but their kid sucked and so did they. No discipline at all,” he says, shaking his head. He got real annoyed of the grunting child after a few days and refused to do anything for him until he at least attempted a word. Needless to say it didn’t take long for him to figure things out, not that his parents were fond of keeping that up and the little brat liked to give Bucky looks because he knew he was getting away with something that was against Bucky’s rules. Boy were the parents shocked when he had them watch from the other room as the kid spoke full sentences without throwing a fit when the grunting didn’t work. “Trust me though, Riri is fine, she’s just an introvert.”

Despite the teacher’s worries Bucky didn’t see any sign that she was maladjusted or anything like that, she just preferred her own company. Bucky couldn’t blame her for that after seeing what she had to work with to be honest.

“Thanks,” Sam says softly, “I worry about her and I’m not around as much as I’d like to be. Maybe I worry more because I grew up with that absentee black father stereotype and never really wanted to be that stereotype.”

“Well the good news is that you aren’t. You spend all your time with her when you’re home and she’s awake and you leave little notes and things around for her to find, which she loves by the way. It’s like you’re here even when you aren’t and she likes to tell me lengthy stories about your adventures. Trust me I know lots of kids and a few adults with parents that weren’t there for them, Riri isn’t one of them.” His most prominent example would be Tony given how loud he was about it, but Steve’s father wasn’t around much either and when he was Steve would have preferred he wasn’t. It was, unfortunately, one of those things he and Tony bonded over because people didn’t usually have fathers as shitty as theirs. Bucky’s own father had been mostly absent but he hadn’t really thought much of it, even when he was a kid.

That was somewhat unusual, kids tended to take things harder than adults in a lot of cases because they sometimes didn’t quite understand how things really worked. Sam had nothing to worry about with Riri though; they had a good relationship even with Sam being gone for most of the week. Actually it was better than most all things considered.

Sam laughs, “she tells you stories?” he asks.

Bucky nods, “all the time. It’s sweet and she always gives you super strength so there’s that.” He and Sam chat some more before they both go to bed, tired but at least on the same page with Riri.

The damn ghost pulls his blankets off at three a.m like normal and he tells it to fuck off.

*

Bucky is Skype calling Steve and Tony mostly because he wanted to rip out his hair and Riri’s. Usually she was a quiet child with no problems but today she was a damn handful and she refused to be cooperative about anything. Apparently this started at school when she refused to do some work and her retched mood just continued when she got home. Everyone had bad days but damn, Riri was an asshole when she wanted to be.

“Well it’s been two months and your room is haunted apparently, I mean all things considered you’re doing well,” Steve tells him.

“I was four seconds away from sacrificing her to the ghost,” Bucky says almost seriously. Riri refused to eat, refused to do the work she didn’t do at school, refused to change into pajamas, refused to brush her teeth, refused to go to bed, etc.

“It’s one day,” Steve says, “she’ll be fine tomorrow. Maybe she didn’t sleep well, you remember what I was like when I didn’t sleep well as a kid.” Yeah, Bucky did because Steve was a whiny little bitch.

Tony snorts in the background, working on some design on a board. Bucky didn’t understand a damn thing on it. “You still act like a pissant when you’re tired. It’s very annoying,” Tony tells him. Steve flips him off and Bucky shakes his head.

“I can hope,” he says as someone knocks on the door to his bedroom. He ignores it because the stupid ghost fakes him out almost every night with this shit. He used to get up every time to see if it was Riri but it was always nothing.

“How’s Sam?” Steve asks.

“Fine, worried about his kid mostly. He works ridiculously long hours but his paychecks must be fucking nice with the wage I get.” Sam was always up around four and out of the house by five and he usually wasn’t back until at least midnight. Some days he didn’t come home at all but he always warned Bucky when that was going to happen.

“Given that you have to deal with a five year old and a ghost your wage best be good,” Tony says. “But seriously, be lucky this is the only time you’ve wanted to rip your hair out with this kid. When I had nannies I made sure to run the poor things ragged every day by being as purposefully annoying as possible,” Tony says, looking over his shoulder at Steve’s computer.

“I would have given you a lot of time outs,” Bucky says.

“I’d probably kick you in the balls,” Tony retorts and Bucky debates on tracking down his previous nannies to apologize for his friend’s behavior as a child. “I actually ran into a nanny I had the other day. Constance was the only one I behaved for but that woman was fucking terrifying, a great nanny, but boy did she know how to deliver a death stare. She told me I was the worst kid she ever had and she was happy that I didn’t grow up into too big of an asshole. I figure that’s a compliment considering she used to call me ‘devil child’ in her native tongue. Didn’t figure that out until I was fifteen though.”

Bucky hears that knock again and he ignores it, “you’re a devil adult too,” he and Steve say in sync, making eye contact and laughing as Tony huffs out his offense. He can be upset all he wants they can’t help it if the statement is true.

“Bucky,” a voice calls and he swears under his breath. Of course the one time he ignores the knocking it’s Riri.

“Give me a minute,” he says to Steve and hops off his bed and opens the door, finding Riri there looking upset with her red blanket. She loved that thing. “Yes?” he asks, raising an eyebrow when Riri leans forward and hugs his legs.

“I’m sorry for being a brat earlier,” she says, “I can’t sleep.” Well that explained the apology, she probably wanted something. “Can I stay up a little longer?” she asks and there it was.

He considers for a long moment before sighing, “this isn’t going to become a habit,” he tells her, “go downstairs, I’ll get you some warm milk.” And hopefully knock her out too. He grabs his computer and explains the situation to Steve as he heads downstairs after Riri. He doesn’t mind though Bucky knew he wouldn’t. They continue chatting as Bucky makes Riri her milk and he goes to sit on the couch while she drinks it.

She’s content to sit around with her drink, thankfully, and Tony makes annoyed noises in the background while he and Steve talk about that one time they were in Romania visiting Bucky’s family. They almost got arrested. Twice. Peggy hadn’t been impressed but it hadn’t ended up mattering because she and Steve broke up not long after that. They were still good friends though and Bucky figured he’d try and find a job somewhere in Britain so he could go harass her for his year long nannying contract.

“Hey,” Riri says, surprising Bucky with how close she was, “your math is wrong.” It takes everyone a minute to realize that Riri was talking to Tony.

Tony raises an eyebrow and smirks, obviously not taking this too seriously. “Yeah? Where did I mess up?” he asks, mostly keeping his doubts out of his voice. That was more respect than he’d afford anyone his own age and Bucky was surprised.

“The third line on your equation, you messed that up and that’s why you can’t figure out your problem,” she says, pointing to the right area on the screen. Tony, to Bucky and Steve’s surprise, actually looks at the line and Bucky knows the exact moment when Tony realizes she’s right because he stops smiling.

“What exactly did I mess up on, explain it,” he says and Riri does, using math that went way the hell over Bucky’s head. Steve’s too if his confused was anything to go by. Tony follows along fine, shaking his head in wonder when she finishes. “You’re right,” he says, “what’s you’re name sweetie?”

“Riri Williams,” she says proudly.

“Thanks, you’re officially getting credit in a physics paper on the theory of gravity. Congrats,” he says, writing out new numbers and looking cowed.

“Cool, I don’t know what that is. I’m tired, can I go back to bed?” she asks and Bucky nods, sending her off. In the meantime he had a bunch of questions for Tony.

*

Sam is headed to work when he hears Bucky talking and he frowns. He had rules for overnight guests, namely not to have them, but he doesn’t hear anyone talking back. “Jesus Christ Nancy, leave the blankets alone. This is the third time in the last hour and I’m tired of your shit,” he mumbles. Sam waits for a response but none comes.

“Uh, Bucky?” he asks, stopping outside his door.

It takes a moment for Bucky to respond, “sorry, the stupid ghost keeps pulling my blankets off. I have to talk to you after work too,” he says and Sam can hear his snoring start so he shrugs, heading off to the office.

Riley meets him in the gym like always and raises his eyebrow when Sam relays this morning’s tale. “He just told the ghost to fuck off?” he asks as they ran on their respective treadmills.

“Yup. He also named the ghost ‘Nancy’ I think. To be honest he is weirdly cool with the ghost thing, it’s like it doesn’t even phase him,” he says. Sam still had no evidence for a ghost but Bucky talked about his experiences enough that there must be something he’s experiencing. And it all lined up with the previous nannies tales.

“No shit,” Riley says, “who is cool with a ghost?”

“Bucky I guess. The other day we were talking and he said he’s been having really strange dreams lately, one that included him being dragged to hell and he woke up half off the bed. His reaction? It was fine because he got to punch Hitler before he woke up. He’s a strange dude.” Riri liked him though, and he’s seen Bucky watching tutorials on how to do Riri’s hair, which was always appreciated. Riri liked to get creative with it and he’s noticed how confused the nannies got when they tried to work with a hair type that wasn’t their own. Bucky just went with it, which Sam got the feeling is what he did with most everything.

“Fuck that,” Riley says, “if that were me I’d leave the country let alone the house.” So would Sam if that were him but it wasn’t, the ghost seemed to avoid him if it existed, but Bucky didn’t seem to mind.

“The ghost keeps knocking over his drinks too so he got plastic cups. Honestly I think he might be in some kind of competition with the ghost to try and find ways to avoid being irritated by it.” The cups, Bucky has reported, have deterred the ghost from breaking the glasses because it found no fun in knocking plastic to the ground Sam guessed.

“SHIELD needs to recruit this guy. I mean if he’s cool with ghosts he’s got to be cool with mutants,” Riley says. Sam snorts because most people who found out about mutants were not cool with mutants. “What? Dude got dragged to hell in a dream and woke up like he’d actually been dragged, what the hell is a telepath after that?”

God damn terrifying is what Charles was but thankfully he didn’t seem fond of using his telepathy for evil. Erik Lehnsherr on the other hand, well, Charles got him to mostly fuck off the last time they had to deal with him. “I think you’re overestimating Bucky’s ability to keep his cool. I think he just doesn’t believe in ghosts.” Which is what Sam did and his ghost left him alone. Riri, well who knew with her but she didn’t say anything about ghosts so it seemed like she wasn’t affected either.

“I think this guy should be our next hire,” Riley says, hopping off the treadmill.

“Yesterday you took down a guy who could spit acid and you’re worried about ghosts?” Sam shakes his head in wonder at the things Riley has faced only to be afraid of something that didn’t even exist.

“You were the one who said only white people dealt with this shit, I’m a blonde haired blue eyed Texan, I’m fucked six ways to Sunday if you’re right,” Riley points out and Sam rolls his eyes, hopping off the treadmill and heading into the showers.

By the time he gets home he’s so god damn done with SHIELD’s bullshit and mutants and Coulson’s massive piles of paperwork. He forgets that he’s supposed to talk to Bucky about something until he gets in the door and finds Bucky standing there looking like he’s been staring at that door for the last few hours. “Please tell me you haven’t been standing there since Riri went to bed,” he says. He’d feel pretty damn awful if he had.

Bucky snorts, “of course not but uh, I figured out why Riri hates people so much. And why she likes me more than most.”

Sam raises an eyebrow and gestures for Bucky to talk while he hung up his coat, wincing when he accidentally moves his shoulder the wrong way. “So uh, I was Skyping with a friend last night and he’s dating Tony Stark which is relevant I swear. Anyways so we were talking and Riri couldn’t sleep so I made her some warm milk and she was looking over my shoulder when she was drinking it and she corrected one of Tony’s math problems-”

Bucky probably would have continued but Sam cuts him off, “she five, there’s no way she corrected one of Tony Stark’s math problems correctly. If she thought it was wrong it was a lucky guess,” he says. It wasn’t the first time she would have done it either; she’s been right about some of his own math too. He did his best not to bring work home with him but it happened sometimes and SHIELD was short on scientists so he played around in the lab and on the field.

“Tony probably thought the same, so he asked her to explain step by step where he went wrong and to correct it. Sam, she was right. I noticed she was good at math like forever ago but I didn’t think she was that good. So I asked Tony some questions because you know, he’s been a child genius. Maybe there were similarities and there was a surprising amount. Mostly though he hated school for the first few years because it was boring as hell to him. He didn’t want to spend time doing addition when he was doing advanced calculus in his head so I figured what the hell, I’ll have Tony write Riri a test. So uh, this is the result,” he says and hands over a piece of paper. “And before you say anything I have no clue what the fuck half of that is so I didn’t help her with it.”

Sam takes the paper and looks it over, eyebrows climbing high fast. The math, even if he didn’t know Stark wrote the test, was unmistakably his. Sam kept up to date on scientific discoveries, this was a brand of math that was all but invented by him to explain his theories on… well he dabbled in a lot. This particular math seemed to be related to the mini arc reactor he released earlier in the year, specifically the core bit of it. Riri had even helpfully drawn a few picutes of what it would look like and there was no way she’d seen blueprints of the design or the math that went into creating it. “Holy shit,” he says for lack of something better.

“Yeah, I know. So I asked Tony some more stuff about being a child genius and you know how Riri hates people? Tony said that he hated being around people his own age because it was just painful to talk to them because of how behind they were intellectually. He still has that problem actually. I asked Riri why she didn’t really talk to anyone around her and her response was literally ‘because they’re stupid’ so I mean I can’t blame her there,” Bucky says, shrugging.

When he was a kid he had the same problem, and he also had problems with teachers too because he usually knew more about the subjects than they did and he wasn’t afraid to say something about it. And Riri has had more than one call home about her behavior…

“Sound familiar to you?” Bucky guesses.

“Yeah actually it does. Guess it should have occurred to me sooner that she might have inherited my intelligence…” He sighs and leans against the wall, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. How the hell did he miss the fact that his kid was obviously a genius? “You said you figured out why she likes you?” he says a little tiredly.

Recognition shows on Bucky’s face, “oh, right. I asked her about it and she said I let her do math, which is true because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and every time I’ve double checked her answers they were right so I figured what the hell, I’ll ask Riri to do the math.”

Sam gives him a look, “you’ve been taking math advice from a five year old?”

“She’s smarter than me, I know when I’m out f my depth. She said she liked that I trusted her to know the answer, which totally isn’t true because I usually double check if I think something is off but she’s never been wrong. That, and I don’t care if she watches the same cartoon show for however long she wants on Saturdays but what kid doesn’t like that?” Bucky shrugs like this was nothing but it wasn’t, not really. Not to Riri anyways and that was all that mattered really.

“You remember that she has limited T.V time, right?” Sam asks mostly just to fuck with Bucky.

“It’s Saturday, give the kid a break. I kick her off in the afternoon but until then I let her have a break from being an active child. It’s good for her to veg out every once and awhile,” he says in his own defense.

Sam snorts, “sure it is.”

“If it makes you feel any better we bake in the afternoon and I make her do all the stupid conversions for liquids and shit because my brain was never meant for math.” Bucky shudders, wrinkling his nose and Sam laughs.

“That apple pie you guys made was pretty good,” he says.

“Pretty good? You ate the whole thing and I had to tell your kid that, she was so mad. She wanted some of that in her lunch and she was mad that she got stuck with regular apples,” Bucky tells him, shaking his head.

That was better for her anyways so Sam didn’t feel too bad about eating the entire pie. He got one hell of a stomachache from the sugar anyways so he got his comeuppance. He and Bucky chat for a few more minutes before he pries himself off the wall so he could go the hell to bed.

“Hey Sam,” Bucky says as he walks by and he turns. “What’s Riri’s favorite color?” he asks.

“Red,” Sam says easily. As if Bucky hadn’t noticed her preference for the color by now.

“What about her favorite movie?” he asks.

“Princess and the Frog but it’s been a tie with Moana since that came out,” he says. Moana was good but if he had to watch it one more time he might just break the disk and tell Riri it didn’t exist anymore. It was mean but he was sick of it and Riri was still captivated by the movie.

“Her favorite breed of dog?” Bucky asks.

Sam frowns, “she’s a cat person,” he says, which was disappointing because he was fond of dogs himself.

“I know you think you’re a bad father for being away so much, but bad parents wouldn’t know the answers to those questions. So you didn’t notice her intelligence, who expects a five year old to be as smart as she is at her age? Don’t beat yourself up over it,” he says.

“Anyone could know that in like five minutes,” Sam says because it’s true. He’s been trained to notice things like that.

“Fine then, can you answer any of those questions if you replaced Riri’s preferences with my own?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. That… gives Sam pause because he didn’t actually know much about Bucky other than his being strangely okay with living in a supposedly haunted house. “See, because those things aren’t common knowledge. You’re too hard on yourself Sam, you’re a good dad and your kid knows it. Sometimes quality is better than quantity.”

Huh. That actually made him feel a little better about his being somewhat absent from his child’s. He’d take more time off if mutants would stop showing up and people stopped filming it. As it was they needed to gather the resources together to actually teach the mutants to control their powers let alone figure out how to deal with people finding out they existed considering it would happen. They were Lucky Xavier was invested enough to sink his parents’ fortune into taking mutants into his freaking mansion. He didn’t really want to think about what would have happened to them all if it wasn’t for Charles.

He goes to go upstairs to sleep and pauses, “what are the answers? To those questions,” he clarifies.

Bucky half smiles, “Red, Captain America: Winter Soldier, and anything that’s a Wakandan cat breed respectively,” he says, grinning.

“Damn freak, dogs are obviously superior,” he mumbles, heading up the stairs. Bucky’s laughter follows him as he goes.

*

Sam finds Bucky on the couch the next morning and frowns, “what are you doing down here?” he asks.

Bucky cracks an eye open and glares at him, “your bitch ass ghost keeps shaking my bed no matter how much I tell it to fuck off.” He probably shouldn’t but he laughs and Bucky affectionately flips him off before going back to sleep.

*

Riri comes up to Bucky with yet another completed notebook- she’s into some grade four material now- and he sighs. She goes to turn around to talk off but she turns back, “the ghost says his name isn’t Nancy,” she tells him and then she flounces off to do whatever.

Sam, who happened to be home at the moment grabbing something for work gives him a look. “She ever hear you call the ghost Nancy?” he asks.

Buck shakes his head, “nope. I usually only call it that at night when I’m telling it to fuck off,” he says. Sam makes the face that accurately displays how Bucky feels. “Yeah, that’s terrifying. It’s new name is George.”

“You’re really not well adjusted man,” Sam tells him and he heads back out to work.

*

Sam stands in Bucky’s room with his hands on his hips determined to figure this damn ghost thing out. Riri is at his mother’s and Bucky graciously volunteered his time to help Sam out with the ghost. “There is no ghost,” Sam says more to comfort himself than anything. “Riri just heard you call the ghost Nancy once and it stuck.”

Bucky sighs, “fine, one way to find out. Hey ghost, if you’re here turn the over head light on,” he says. Sam jumps a good foot in the air when the light turns on.

“Oh that is some spooky shit, you better not be fucking with the lights Barnes,” Sam tells him, trying to figure out how Bucky could have done that.

“Fine, ghost, turn the light on and off four times and leave the light off for three seconds once Sam and I are out of the room. I’ll count,” he says and he walks out, Sam on his heels. Bucky counts and the fucking light turns off and back on every time on cue. Sam quickly moves behind Bucky so he could sacrifice him to the ghost and run if he needed to.

“I don’t know if there’s some weird electrical problems of something but this is some exorcist shit right here. You’ve been sleeping in there?” he asks.

“I don’t see why you’re freaked out, it only bothers me and Riri that one time when it got annoyed that I kept calling it Nancy. Clearly it likes you,” Bucky says.

“I don’t give a damn who it likes I am moving out if I don’t find anything wrong with the wiring.” His mama didn’t raise no fool, he knew when to get the hell out.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “you aren’t moving out because a ghost that doesn’t even bother you is in your house. Give me a few minutes,” Bucky tells him and he goes back into the ghost room like some kind of white person in a horror movie and Sam was real tempted to just run right then and there but he must be hanging out with too many white people because he sticks around to see what Bucky does.

It takes a few minutes and a lot of Bucky swearing but he eventually gets a bowl of some leaves burning as if that was supposed to do something. “It’s sage,” Bucky explains when Sam gives him a look. “It’s for cleansing things like spirits and all that. Now George, I just was a damn peaceful night’s sleep so you get the hell out you wispy piece of shit.”

Sam, because he must be going nuts, laughs at Bucky as he waves his hand over the leaves, spreading the smoke out as he curses George the Demon out up and down for waking him up at night and stealing all of Riri’s bows.

He was still moving the fuck out because he wasn’t a damn white person in a horror movie, this house was haunted and he had money. No way was he sticking around.

*

“He up and moved?” Steve asks, laughing.

“Can I go do a paranormal investigation? Because I totally want to be that guy to prove ghosts actually exist if they do,” Tony says, shoving Steve over so he took up most of the frame of the Skype call.

“I’ll ask Sam,” Bucky tells Tony, “and yeah, he up and packed his shit and moved because the lights flickered a little. I’m telling you, Sam is so extra.” They’ve been talking more since he took a week’s worth of vacation to move out of his house and Bucky has discovered that Sam was hilarious and extremely dramatic. “The ghost didn’t even bother him, I don’t know why he was so freaked out and I did a sage cleanse so I mean it’s probably safe,” Bucky says.

“What the fuck? How am I supposed to prove ghosts are fake now if you fake got rid of it?” Tony asks, annoyed. Steve pushes him back out of the frame and Tony makes an offended noise.

“Ignore him and tell me more about Sam because he sounds like he’s got some stories attached to him,” he says. Bucky complies, telling him about Sam’s rush to pack his belongings and leave his house fast enough that his coworkers even stopped by to laugh at him. Riley had spent a good portion of time helping and making fun of Sam every step of the way. He was a pretty funny guy and he and Bucky got along well, mostly because they both enjoyed poking fun at Sam for fleeing from a flickering light when he had no evidence there was a ghost before.

*

“Hey,” Sam says, walking up to him after Riri has gone to bed. “Remember when you said you were having weird dreams?” he asks. Bucky shrugs, remembering the odd dreams. “You still having those?”

“Nah and I appreciate a full night’s sleep without some asshole shaking my bed or throwing socks of cups around. Why?” he asks.

“See? Clearly there was a ghost and now you aren’t being bothered by it!” Sam says, obviously taking his word as evidence.

“Didn’t all the other nannies say the same things I did?” he asks, wondering why Sam didn’t believe them.

“Yeah, but none of them had the ghost turn the damn light on and off like some terrifying version of a disco,” he says, exaggerating considerably but it’s funny so Bucky laughs. “Stop laughing at me, I lived in a haunted house!”

Bucky rolls his eyes, “chill out Sam, you lived in a house that haunted your nannies.”

“I don’t care, I could have died in there,” he says and Bucky starts laughing harder.

*

“Maybe your ghost is a mutant,” Charles says entirely unhelpfully to him one day.

“Better god damn not be not that it matters. I moved,” he says. Charles frowns and Riley starts laughing.

“When we met I knew we were going to be BFFs for life but your terror over some flickering lights is honestly my new favorite thing about you,” Riley says.

Sam flips him off because this was some serious business, he checked all the wiring and nothing was off. Hell, he even went into Bucky’s room without Bucky and told the ghost to turn the lights off so he knew Bucky wasn’t fucking with him and it did. He ran from the house screaming at that point.

“The good news is that it doesn’t appear that there’s a mutant in your house right now,” Charles tells him. Sam frowns at him because the telepath thing freaked him out every time Charles did it over long distances like that. His house was miles away and yet Charles had no trouble feeling it out.

“That’s terrifying news, Charles,” he says bluntly.

“What? I wanted to see if maybe you had an extra houseguest in there that chose to mess with your nannies. Guess not,” he says.

“Scope out my new house,” Sam says, just to be sure some asshole mutant wasn’t following him around freaking out his poor nannies. Charles looks surprised with the request but his fingers go back up to his temples, which was an easy tell to know that he was using telepathy. Sam had no idea why he did it when he didn’t need to but whatever.

“Nope, seems like the only people in your house are your nanny and you child. She’s happy that Bucky is letting her watch Moana again,” he says and boy that was creepy that Charles knew that.

“Good, he can suffer with it instead of me,” he says instead of his actual thoughts. Charles probably knew those already anyways. “Thanks,” he tells Charles, tipping his head in appreciation.

“No problem, I wanted to see if it was a mutant anyways so it was no bother. So are we going to go find that shape shifter or what? I knew a girl who could do that once but unfortunately things between us ended rather badly, my fault I’m afraid,” he says in a regretful tone. Sam doesn’t bother asking, they just head out before the damn mutant managed to rob another bank by pretending to be a worker there. Charles would be able to determine the mind of the individual and direct the team. Creepy or not his telepathy was useful.

*

Riri makes significant progress in schooling, working her way through the material far quicker than Sam ever had as a kid. He was proud of his kid for being so smart and a little proud of Bucky for figuring it all out. He debates for a good while whether or not he wants to ask Bucky to extend his contract but eventually he decides to ask Bucky about it and see what he said about it.

Of course he doesn’t expect Bucky to show up to his office- how he even got that location he had no clue- and find out about mutants.

Bucky stares across to room at Raven, who grins cheekily and waves despite her cuffs. Charles was being helpful and keeping her in that form before she tries to turn herself into a child to slip her cuffs and run off again. She was pissed but mostly because it turned out that that was Charles’ sister. Sam was glad he was an only child after the debacle that followed that revelation.

“That chick is blue,” Bucky says, dumbfounded. Raven’s form flickers for a moment, an obvious show of her mutation that was intended to freak Bucky out but her form doesn’t actually change thanks to Charles. “I don’t know what the hell that was but Riri wants to know if you’ll be home for breakfast tomorrow,” he says, completely nonplussed.

Off to the side Coulson is watching he entire interaction probably prepared to chew Sam out for giving Bucky classified information but instead he walks over, focused on Bucky. “You’re the nanny that didn’t freak out about the ghost that had it out for him?” he asks. Bucky nods and Coulson takes the information in, “that blue girl? She’s what we call a mutant, they’re humans with superpowers basically. She’s a shape shifter and you’re the only one I’ve met who didn’t lose their shit when they saw something like her,” he says.

“Hey, someone asshole!” Raven calls from across the room.

“She makes a point,” Bucky says, raising an eyebrow at Coulson.

Coulson rolls his eyes when Raven tells Bucky she likes him. “Regardless, I want to offer you a job. You’re ability to keep your cool is a valued asset here,” he says.

“Uh hey, excuse you you can’t poach my nanny. Riri likes him,” Sam says, offended at this.

“Sam, finding mutants who are causing trouble and either breaking the law or in need of help controlling their powers is more important than being nanny. You can find someone else that your kid likes. So Bucky, what do you say?” he asks.

Bucky turns to Raven, “how come you don’t just turn into a kid to slip the cuffs and run off?” he asks. Coulson smacks his palm to his forehead and Sam laughs.

“Tried that,” Raven says, “my asshole brother is keeping me in this form. He’s a telepath.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, “neat. Any chance you guys will let me see her change forms because that’s the coolest shit I’ve ever seen.”

Coulson sighs and waves a hand, “Charles, just make sure she doesn’t run off.” Raven grins and stands up, switching into Bucky’s body easily enough and he jumps a little.

“Freaky but awesome, how long have you been able to do that?” he asks.

“Since birth, my parents were pretty freaked out when they had a blue kid. These assholes probably shut them up about it,” Raven says in Bucky’s voice, glaring at Coulson and Sam.

“Probably,” Sam agrees. They had to do a lot of hushing up these days, especially with cameras everywhere recording everything.

“Damn. Coolest thing I can do is stick my fist in my mouth,” Bucky says and Sam starts laughing again, earning a dirty look from Coulson.

“What? He’s funny,” Sam says in his own defense.

“Aw, Sam has a crush,” Riley says, making kissy faces because he’s a damn child. Sam rolls his eyes at him and Riley laughs because he thinks he’s funny.

“So,” Coulson says, “how do you feel about exiting the nanny business?”

*

Bucky had to laugh at how mad Sam was that SHIELD poached his nanny. But in their defense after learning about all the weird shit the government kept from the general public and even most of the actual government did require a person with his ability to not freak out. Bucky was sad that he didn’t get to see Sam’s reaction to all of this though because that had to be hilarious.

The thing he was most upset about was that Tony knew about all of this the whole damn time and didn’t even tell him, or Steve. And now they both had to keep their mouths shut about it. in hindsight they’d need someone with Tony’s impressive tech abilities to get rid of camera footage and all of that other pesky tech stuff but still. He was how Bucky even knew where Sam worked, which pisses SHIELD as a whole off something fierce but he learns this is nothing new for Tony. No one seemed to like Tony playing fast and loose with SHIELD’s secrets but they needed him too much to get rid of him.

He did get the pleasure of being trained by Sam though so that was fun for a hot second. Then Sam beat him up and he was sad and hurt on the floor while Sam tried to peel him off the ground to continue training. “Come on hotshot, lets go,” Sam says in that annoyingly peppy tone of his.

“I want to die,” Bucky says very seriously.

“It’s called exercise Bucky,” Sam tells him, pulling at him to get off the ground again. Bucky groans and pulls himself off the floor while Natasha and Riley laugh off to the side.

They were making bets on when Sam and Bucky started dating and they thought they were sneaky about it but Tony was the one keeping track of the bets and if they thought he was above cheating his way into winning he was wrong. He might not take the money on account of being rich but he was in it to win it.

Bucky honestly had no idea what they were seeing because Sam was mostly intent on kicking his ass up and down the gym while he whined and cried about it.

He ends up on the ground with Sam pinning him to the floor yet again and he groans. “Stop trying to kill me,” he whines.

“I’m not trying to kill you Bucky, I’m trying to prepare you for the field now get up so we can go through this again,” he says.

Bucky remains firmly on the ground until Sam starts trying to peel him off the ground again. Riley informs him after practice that Sam was never this patient with anyone and Natasha agrees to readily for them not to have an agenda. Clearly they were firmly on the ‘Sam and Bucky will date’ side of things. Coulson was against. Bucky thought they all needed more spy training because they were misreading everything.

“I hope you guys know I know about your bet,” Bucky says, shocking them both.

“Look a that!” Sam says, “you’re coming along in at least one area if you managed to out spy the spies.” He sounds and looks so happy that Bucky doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he didn’t out spy anyone, Tony just told him about it because he wanted to win either way. Riley and Natasha look unimpressed with this development but when Bucky sees them later he damn well knows they’re talking strategies for getting him and Sam together. He hears Riri’s name at least twice and he shakes his head at their antics.