Chapter Text
Steve had been staring at the ceiling in his darkened bedroom for several hours when the sharp knock on his front door rousted him out of bed. A glance at the clock told him it was 3:48am. Tugging on a pair of sweats over his underwear Steve hurried through his unlit apartment trying not to examine the relief he felt too closely. His mind flashed through several possibilities, most pretty dire, the least likely being the hardest to suppress.
But not even that came close to the reality.
It was Bucky, standing in a pool of his own blood, one shoulder propped against the doorframe as if he could barely stand. A little girl covered in dirt and blood clutched his right arm, leaves caught in her springy black curls. A tiny baby was carefully cradled in his left, black streaks of grime standing out against its china-pale skin.
“I need your help.”
Jerking away from the doorframe Steve pushed away his shock, forcing himself into mission mode.
“Injuries?” he asked brusquely as he ushered the three inside, heading straight for the bathroom and its arsenal of medical supplies.
“Three gunshot wounds, broken wrist,” Bucky reported from the living room, aware of Steve’s enhanced hearing.
“And the children?”
“Fine.”
“Is there anyone coming after you?” Steve asked, returning to find Bucky collapsed on the couch, the baby still tucked in his metal arm and the girl curled up against his side watching Steve warily.
“Yes. I lost them, and I doubt this is where they’d look for me, but,” Bucky shrugged, though it looked like it cost him. “It’s HYDRA.”
Which meant resources and unholy luck. Not a problem for right that moment, though.
“Can you hold the baby safely?” Steve asked the child, knocking everything off the coffee table and tipping out the first aid kit.
“Yes,” she croaked, staring at him distrustfully.
Bucky nodded to her, carefully passing the infant into her skinny arms.
“I need to sit there,” he told her, trying to summon his Captain America demeanour and knowing he was failing. Cap was good at reassuring kids, but Steve was too terrified his friend was about to bleed out on his couch. The girl slipped silently down off the couch to sit cross-legged at Bucky’s feet, baby carefully held in her lap. Steve didn’t bother to point out the armchair behind her.
Bucky was only half-conscious as Steve stripped him out of his tac vest. He clearly couldn’t move his arms enough to get out of his ruined t-shirt, so Steve just ripped it off like it was tissue paper.
“Through and through?”
“Bottom two,” Bucky croaked. He’d obviously been shot in the back. Steve blinked away the image of him curled around the children and got to work stitching up the exit wounds as fast as he could.
“If you were a normal person I’d leave the bullet in there until I was sure you wouldn’t bleed to death,” Steve said, a question.
Bucky tipped his head side to side where it lay against the couch back. “‘M body’d push it out.”
Steve’s mouth twisted. “That’s what I thought.”
For a long time there was nothing more than the sounds of four humans breathing quietly as Steve stitched Bucky up in the dark. His enhanced eyesight was more than up to the task, and he knew it was making Bucky feel safer. The little girl watched him carefully, seeming entirely unbothered by the gory scene taking place over her head. Her dark eyes glinted as she stared, thinking hard.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Steve helped Bucky sit forward so he could work on his back.
Bucky licked his pale lips. “Raided a HYDRA base,” he rasped. “Huge crew, tiny base—they were in the middle of a transfer, which is the only reason I got out.” Bucky sucked in a breath through his teeth as Steve stuck his forceps into the wound on his shoulder. “Went in for information. Found a little girl in a cage, pumped full of drugs.” Steve didn’t look away from what he was doing, but he wondered what kind of face the child was making. “Put her on my back and kept looking. There was another kid, maybe eighteen, but he just ran as soon as I let him out. No idea if he made it.” He paused for breath, exhausted. “And then—there was a, a scientist, holding a baby and surrounded by guards, trying to evacuate. I took her and ran, and I almost didn’t make it.” Bucky twitched as Steve found the bullet. With an awful sucking sound Steve pulled it out in a bloody rush, letting Bucky lean his shoulder against his chest to stay upright. There was a pause, and for a moment Steve though Bucky had lost consciousness. “I didn’t know where else to go,” he said softly in the end, and Steve’s heart clenched at the quiet hopelessness in his voice.
“I’m glad you came here,” Steve said, voice rough. “I’ll look after you.”
Bucky closed his eyes.
Steve quickly finished dressing the wounds. “Do I need to splint your wrist?”
“No, it’s just a scaphoid fracture. It’ll heal.” Bucky sounded ancient. Steve nodded and stood, still full of adrenaline. He collected every piece of bedding in the house and a bottle of orange juice from the fridge and brought them to the living room. Bucky was speaking quietly to the girl in Russian, clinging determinedly to consciousness as Steve carefully covered him up.
Steve knew there was only one way he’d get Bucky to sleep
Moving swiftly Steve tipped all the shirts out of his dresser drawer and lined the bottom with two folded towels, carrying it out to place on the coffee table. The girl caught on quickly, laying the sleeping infant in the makeshift crib as gently as she could.
“The bed’s through there,” he told the girl, but wasn’t surprised when she shook her head and returned to Bucky’s side. Using the rest of the bedding and the seat cushion from the armchair Steve made a nest for her on the floor next to Bucky.
Steve carried the gutted armchair to the spot with the best sightlines, setting it down as softly as he could. There was a part of him that resented his inability to switch off that kind of thinking in his own home, but right now he was thankful for it. Finally, he went to the locker that housed his modest arsenal, taking out his shield and a loaded handgun, careful to lock it behind him.
Bucky watched all this through half-lidded eyes, still terrifyingly pale, exhaustion stark in every line of his body. The little girl was curled up beside him on the floor, gripping his metal hand, dead to the world. Bucky’s expression as Steve sat down to keep watch was harsh, but grateful.
“What are their names?” he asked, almost too quietly to be heard.
“Tanika,” Bucky sighed as his eyes fell closed at last, lifting the little girl’s hand an inch, “and May."
The grisly tableau—Steve had only nominally washed his hands, and both Bucky and Tanika were covered in blood—remained undisturbed for almost a full four hours before the baby woke herself up crying. Steve, whose mother had been a nurse and an active member of her parish, was honestly surprised it had taken this long.
Tanika slept through it admirably, scrunching up her tiny brow and rolling over, throwing one leg out of the blankets. Bucky’s eyes had flicked open almost before the noise began, as if it were the preparatory inhale that had woken him.
“She’s hungry,” Steve whispered. “I’ll have to go buy formula. Can you sit up?” Bucky’s flinty expression suggested he damn well would sit up whether he was healed enough or not, and Steve wanted nothing more than to push him back down and demand he sleep for another three days. Unfortunately they didn’t have a lot of options.
“I could call—”
“ No. ” Bucky’s frown was fierce, but Steve read the fear in it clear as day.
“Okay,” he acquiesced easily. If HYDRA hadn’t found them by now, they were unlikely to for a while. Handing the gun off to Bucky Steve quickly threw together a truly prodigious pile of sandwiches and set the plate on Bucky’s lap. He filled a glass of milk for the girl and handed the rest of the half-gallon to his friend. He knew better than anyone how many calories advanced healing required, and in the absence of rest this was the best Steve could do for him.
“Have you seen their files?” he asked softly.
Bucky shook his head. “Their charts. Numbers, birthdates, allergies.”
“Allergies?”
“Just shellfish for Tanika. She’s six, the baby’s one month.”
“One month.” Steve nodded. “Okay, I’ll be back in a half hour. She should eat something, but if she’s sleeping through this—”
“Yeah, I’ll let her rest,” Bucky said. “Hurry.”
In less than five minutes Steve was showered and out the door, racing through buying the barest of essentials. Re entering his apartment not twenty minutes later Steve was hit with the sound of cartoons turned up loud enough to be heard over the baby’s crying, with the quiet patter of Russian and clinking plates filtering through underneath. For a moment Steve was held motionless by the sound of life filling his home.
Pulling himself together Steve walked straight through to the kitchen to make a bottle, smiling at Bucky’s exasperated expression as he spoke to Tanika. She was currently working on her sandwich in front of the TV, eye bags still obvious beneath the layer of dirt
“Are you going to make her stop?” Tanika asked warily as Steve came back in to scoop the baby out of her makeshift crib.
“That’s the idea,” he said, fitting the baby easily onto his forearm and hand. She immediately latched on to the bottle and began sucking with gusto, her pudgy fists curling in the fabric of his shirt. She had a modest amount of platinum fluff on her tiny head, and the muddy blue eyes of a newborn. “You need a bath,” he told her, wiggling the pinkie of his bottle-hand into her palm just to feel her squeeze it. She was the smallest thing he’d ever touched.
When he looked up Bucky was watching him with an unreadable look in his eyes.
“So you’re Bucky’s friend,” Tanika said, eyes narrowed.
“Yeah,” Steve said, trying to look competent and non-threatening. The baby probably helped. “My name’s Steve.”
“Are you going to do experiments on us?” She stumbled over the word ‘experiments’, but it didn’t make the statement any less heartbreaking.
“No,” Steve said, couching down carefully so he wouldn’t disturb the baby. “The people who did experiments on you are my enemies, because they did experiments on you. That’s a bad thing to do, and I try to be a good person.” Tanika didn’t look like she believed him. He supposed she didn’t have much occasion to trust adults.
“Bucky said we could trust you,” she said begrudgingly after a long moment. Steve smiled, though when he snuck a look at Bucky he was expressionless.
Once the bottle was done Steve carefully burped May while running a shallow bath and digging out a long-sleeved t-shirt.
“Okay, first thing’s first,” Steve said, handing the baby to Bucky. “You need to get clean, kiddo.”
Tanika seemed to instantly lose three inches, her shoulders drawing up around her ears. Steve froze, concerned.
“He’s run a warm bath,” Bucky told her, and some of the tension went out of her immediately. Steve closed his eyes for a moment, trying not to picture how HYDRA had kept her clean.
“Yes, I’ve run you a bath. I don’t have any clothes for you, but I’ve got a washer and dryer, so if you want to wear this like a dress for an hour, you can put your own clothes back on.” Steve held the shirt out to her. He hesitated. “You can wash yourself?” His own mother had insisted on scrubbing his knees herself at Tanika's age, but he didn't think he could help without terrifying her.
“Yes, ” she said suspiciously, and Steve hurried to accept it.
“Okay, good. Throw your clothes out the door once they’re off, okay?”
Tanika took the shirt from his fingers and slipped into the bathroom, moving surprisingly stealthily for a six year old. Steve heard her throw the lock.
Bucky watched this whole exchange with a tense look on his face. Steve waited until he heard the bathroom door close before he finally asked him the most important question.
“Their parents?”
“Dead.” Bucky looked away. “They’re probably dead too, legally. If they ever existed.”
Steve sunk into the couch and rubbed his eyes. “How badly do HYDRA want them back?"
“More than they want me,” Bucky said, and there it was. “From what I could gather, HYDRA was moving them because some sect of the government had found out, and wanted them for themselves.”
Steve stared. “Why are they so important?”
Bucky closed his eyes. “Tanika can compel you to answer any question truthfully.” Steve sucked a breath in through his teeth, instantly able to see how her life would play out if almost any corporation, organization, or government got ahold of her. Whether for evil or the ‘greater good’, she would always be a tool. “I don’t know what the baby can do,” Bucky continued, “but she was being guarded just as heavily.”
“Are they mutants? Inhuman? Experiments?”
Bucky shook his head, face pinched with frustration. “I don’t know. I could try and find that information, but it would give them a perfect way to track me down. Right now I’m relying on them assuming the Winter Soldier dumped them the first chance he got.” He pushed out a shaking breath. May had gotten the corner of his sleeve in her mouth and was studiously soaking it with drool. “Steve, what am I going to do?” He finally met Steve’s eyes, voice breaking on the final word. “I can’t look after them—I’m only barely fucking human myself right now. There’s no one who could be trusted if they knew their secret, but a normal carer couldn’t defend against a STRIKE team. And what about when May’s powers kick in? Or if Tanika lets something slip?” Bucky’s hand clutched painfully at his hair, the hunted look he’d worn since he’d arrived finally breaking into desperation. Bucky was a realist, and he was out of options.
Except for one.
“So we go,” Steve said, feeling a weight he hadn’t know he was carrying suddenly lift.
Bucky glanced up, shocked. “What?”
“I’ve got money. We’ll take the kids and disappear."
“Are you insane? You can’t just disappear, Captain America isn’t some babysitter—”
“Captain America protects people. What do you call this?” Steve felt something fizzing inside his ribcage. “I’ll take out as much as I can, buy a car and supplies. They’ll know I’ve gone, but even if they suspect I’m with you, who would ever guess about the children?”
“That isn’t—”
“We’ll need fake IDs and stuff, for the kids as well—"
“Steve—”
“Maybe we can say May is a boy, change our profile a bit. I can grow a beard now, did you know? I bet if we let things settle we could buy a house somewhere, get Tanika in school. Do you think—”
“Steve!"
Steve paused, momentum broken. He blinked at Bucky, took in his raw, almost hostile expression.
“Buck?”
“You’re talking about giving up being Captain America and leaving your whole life behind to go raise a couple of orphans with your dead best friend!"
Steve swallowed. Bucky had said it like he was doing something something crazy, but it was the best thing Steve had ever heard. “Yeah,” he said roughly. “Exactly.”
“Lying to your neighbours every day, never speaking to your friends again.” Bucky’s voice was hard.
Steve nodded. He’d miss them, he knew, but they weren’t dying. He’d lost far more than and gained far less in his lifetime. “But I’d have you.”
Bucky looked away. “I’m not—I’m not the same. You know I’m not the same. I remember hardly anything.”
“I don’t care. Nothing’s the fucking same. Bucky, you came to me. You trusted me with this. I’d give up my life literally to save these kids, any kid, and I almost did saving you.” Bucky flinched and Steve grabbed his chin to turn his face towards his. “You know me,” he said quietly. “You know I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Bucky sucked in a broken breath and, after a strained moment, tipped forward to rest his head on Steve’s shoulder. Between them the baby made an incoherent noise and kicked her feet.
Steve reached up to cup the back of his neck with a trembling hand. He hadn’t realised it last night, too busy trying to keep Bucky alive, but this was the first time he’d touched his best friend without violence since 1945.
He still smelled the same.
Steve bit his lip hard to keep the tears from falling, something expanding in his chest until it hurt to contain it, pushing painfully against his ribs.
Too soon Bucky straightened up. “Go put her laundry on,” he said roughly, turning his face away, and Steve went.
Filling the kitchen sink with warm water Steve washed the squirming baby with a soapy cloth, to her extreme displeasure. Her diaper hadn’t been soiled, which struck him as odd, but thankfully her onesie had kept most of her relatively clean. Bucky watched him clumsily replace her diaper like he was cataloguing the steps for later.
Eventually Tanika returned, clean skin glowing a beautiful chestnut brown, hair reaching well past her shoulders when wet. She’d stepped into the neck of Steve’s shirt and pulled it up under her armpits, tying the arms around her waist like a sash.
She frowned prodigiously. “What?”
“What, what?” Steve asked her.
“You’re sitting there. You wanna say something,” Tanika said with certainty. Steve looked down at himself, wondering how she’d known.
“Yeah, kiddo. We wanna talk to you,” said Bucky.
Lip trembling bravely Tanika marched over to the armchair and dragged herself up into it. “You’re sending me back,” she stated, glaring at them even as her hands twisted in her dress.
“ Never, ” Bucky rasped.
“We’re going to adopt you,” Steve told her, because it was basically true. Her eyes went as wide as dinner plates. She looked over at Bucky, who nodded. They got somehow wider.
"Bucky too?" They nodded. “Why?” she asked, caught between awe and suspicion.
Steve watched Bucky dig his fingernails into his leg. He didn’t answer for a long time, visibly searching for the right words. Steve recalled what he had said about not feeling human and had to force himself not to help. “Because you’re our kid,” he said at last. Tanika’s face did something complicated, and for a moment Steve thought she was going to cry. In the end she just bit her lip and nodded.
Steve let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as that. “We’re going to have to hide.” His tone was grave.
“From HYDRA?” Her little face was painfully serious.
“From everyone,” said Bucky.
Tanika paused. “Like, in a cave?” She tipped her head in confusion.
Steve surprised himself by laughing, feeling some of the weight dissipate from the room. “No, like telling people lies about who we are.”
“Oh, yeah.” She nodded. “That’s better. Caves have bugs. ” Steve laughed again and Tanika scrunched her face at him, annoyed.
“You know what that means, don’t you?” Bucky pressed. “You might make friends, or enemies, but you’ll never be able to tell them the truth, or HYDRA will find you.” Tanika looked down.
“I know,” she said quietly, holding her elbows. “They were—” she cut herself off, chewing her lip. “I know about lying.” Tanika met their eyes, and Steve saw a core of solid steel. “I never want to go back.”
Steve stood, drawing himself up to his full, considerable height. “And I swear, Tanika, you never will.”
“Again.”
“My name is Nikki, I’m five years old, you are my Papa, and Steve is my Dad. You adopted me when I was just a baby, and now you’ve adopted Mark. We’re going on a road trip to meet Dad’s family because my grandma is very old, and she wants to meet the baby before she dies.
Steve grinned at her, impressed. She seemed like she was having fun.
“And what do you say if someone says ‘your dad looks a lot like Captain America’?” Bucky continued quizzing.
“‘I know! ’”
“And what do you say if someone sees my arm?”
“You lost it in the war, I don’t know anything else. Don’t tell them how it can move and stuff.”
“And how did Dad and I meet.” Steve wondered if he’d ever get used to hearing that.
“Through a friend from the military, yeeeears ago.”
“And what is the number one rule?”
“Don’t use my powers, don’t mention my powers, ever ever ever.” Tanika chanted. Steve suspected it was a mantra they’d be hearing a lot of.
“And the other rules?”
“Don’t speak Russian in public, always listen to direct orders no matter what, never forget HYDRA is watching.”
Bucky smiled. “Well done, Tanika.”
“Thank you, Papa.”
Steve stared at the phone, wishing he missed calls more often so he’d have plausible deniability now. Tanika caught his eye and covered her mouth. Bucky was watching him, tense as a bowstring.
Steve picked up.
“Hey, Natasha,” he said, opening the fridge to give him something to focus on.
“You coming to Tony’s thing tonight?” she asked abruptly, as if she could startle him into agreeing.
“The dinner? Nat, you know me better than that."
“I know you well enough to know you need to get out more. Come, I’m inviting Danielle from legal, you’ll like her.”
“Danielle? Is she the one—you know what, I don’t even know why I’m asking, it doesn’t change anything.”
“You’re going to have to come out sometime, you know.”
“Yeah, but a formal dinner isn’t going to be it. I know you’re smart enough to pick your battles, Nat, why are you really calling.”
Natasha was silent for a long moment. “I think I have a lead on the Winter Soldier.”
Steve kicked the fridge closed to cover his shock. “I’ve heard that before.” Bucky was staring at him like he was holding a gun to his head. “You know you’ll never find him if he doesn’t want to be found."
“Awfully complacent of you, Rogers. Are you giving up?”
“I was never after him in the first place. He knows where I am, and he knows I want to see him, but—he’s had too many choices taken away from him, Natasha. I’m not going to send the good guys hunting him, too.”
Natasha hummed. Bucky’s mouth had tightened with apprehension when Steve glanced at him, but this was an old argument. “What if I told you it was here in New York?"
It wasn’t hard to summon up an unsteady breath. “Well, then I know I’m doing the right thing. If he’s right here and he hasn’t—hasn’t come to me, then I know he’s not ready.” Natasha was silent. That always meant she had an opinion. “Say it.”
“You know he may never be ready.”
“Of course I know that,” Steve said, surprised by how harsh it came out. “You think I don’t? But what the fuck gives me the right to drag him back into the past if he doesn’t want it? I’ll damn well burn HYDRA off the face of the earth for him, and I’ll make sure he knows he can always come to me, but I’m not going to be the one to bring him in.” He realised he’d been glaring down at his hand curled on the counter. During the silence following this pronouncement, he turned to look at Bucky. He was staring at Steve like he couldn’t understand him. It made him want to look away.
“You’re a good friend, Steve,” Natasha said at length. “I wish I had known you ten years ago.”
“You know me now,” he offered, and then flinched, because this was the last time he’d ever talk to her.
“Guess I do, Rogers. Think about Danielle, okay?” She hung up just like that, as she was wont to do.
Bucky leant back into the couch cushions and closed his eyes.
“Who was that?” asked Tanika.
Steve smiled wistfully. “A friend.”
Steve managed to keep Bucky on rest for another two days, and that was it. In that time he’d bought a nondescript sedan for $1000, straight out of the $10,000 cash supply in his go-bag. He filled it with all his weapons and tac gear, as well as enough clothing and essentials for Bucky and himself for a long while. He drove out to New Jersey at 3am to fill the trunk with baby gear from a 24 hour Walmart, as well as car seats for both the kids, and clothing and entertainment for Tanika. It took another chunk of his cash, but three hours later the grey Ford was kitted out for an epic family road trip—though Steve suspected the hidden weapons stashed all around weren’t exactly standard.
While he ran around trying to think of every contingency Bucky and Tanika ate a stupid amount of take out and watched cartoons. Tanika was slowly relaxing into being around Steve and Bucky, asking too many questions and making Steve laugh more than he had in the previous month. Bucky answered the questions directed at him stoically, and never let his knives out of his reach. They all practiced with their new names, titles, pronouns, and Steve’s heart clenched every time Tanika called him ‘Dad’.
On the fourth day Steve dyed his hair a warm brown and tidied up his stubble so it looked intentional. He dressed Tanika and the baby in some of their new clothes while Bucky showered and changed, feeling the way he’d felt the day he stepped into the Vita-Ray machine.
“One last thing,” he said once everything was ready.
Lifting the shield one more time, Steve took a moment to look at it. It was heavy, it was so heavy, and Steve felt a little guilty at how easy it was to put down. As he brushed his fingers over its cool surface he thought of Peggy, and felt his only true twinge of regret. But then he looked over at Bucky and the girls, and thought—she would understand.
Placing it down on the counter where it couldn’t be missed, Steve tore a page from an old sketchbook on the bookshelf and grabbed a pen.
Sorry, had to go.
You know what would be cool? Captain America with wings.
And then he drew a quick, cartoonish doodle of Sam, wearing the stars and stripes and holding the shield, soaring across the page with a little speech bubble: ‘This is your Captain speaking!’
Taking one last look around the apartment Steve breathed in the familiar smell and turned to leave. Only, when he turned his back, he found that his home wasn’t behind him at all.