Chapter Text
It had been a full week and Bucky was totally over Steve. In fact, he was over everything. He was done with sulking in his room. Done with the fear and the isolation. Done with having only one friend, no offence to Natasha, she's great and all, but still only one person. He was ready to built his life now. He’d even been considering looking for a job.
After Fight-squad, as they called it, he hadn’t dared to think of getting a job, but that was starting to change.
His hands were aching for something, anything, to do. He wanted to get out there, make a difference. Maybe help people, actually helping them. He was thinking of volunteering at the rest house. It was close to where he lived and he was good with elderly.
He would take a look and see if it was something for him, before telling Natasha. He didn’t want her getting her hopes up in case this turned out to be a huge fail. He knew she was worried about him. He saw it in everything. In the way she talked to him, the way she made him coffee in the morning after nightmares, the way she made food for him when she suspected him of having forgotten to eat. He had lived with Natasha for a while, until the nightmares really started to kick in. He’d wake up screaming and sweating in the middle of the night. Natasha never mentioned it but he saw the circles under her eyes when she gave him coffee in the morning. He decided it was better to live on his own for a while. If someone asked about where he lived he’d still tell them about Natasha’s place. Natasha still considered it Bucky’s place, too. But at least one of them could get some sleep.
Bucky had called the rest house beforehand. The woman who answered sounded really nice, Sharon was her name. She’d told him they were always looking for some extra helping hands and to come by so he could see the place for himself.
He’d showered, Bucky reminded himself of fixing the pipes for warm water, as he should have done some weeks ago. He’d practiced some standard answers, for questions about his arm or his past, in the mirror. He’d put on some clean clothes, got his bag with all the important stuff like his “normal” resume and his ID, said goodbye to the bed monster, and locked his door. He was ready for this.
The walk was short but nice. The weather was a bit to warm for his liking, but still nice. He reached the rest house all to soon.
The doors slid open and he was greeted by the cool air of the room. He walked up to the desk, the girl behind it was on the phone to someone so he waited patiently a few steps removed from the desk as not to seem impatient. She ended the call and smiled at him, he stepped closer.
‘Hi, sorry for the wait, how can I help you?’ She asked. He recognized the voice from the phone.
‘Hi, I called earlier about the volunteering I might be interested in.’
‘Ah, yes!’ a look of recognition shot over her face, ‘You’re Bucky, was it not?’ He nodded, glad this wasn’t as awkward as he thought it would be. ‘Well, I informed someone from the staff and he is very willing to help out so he’ll give you a tour and he could show you what we do all day. Oh, and I’ll need to see your ID if you really want to give this a shot. It’s so I can put you in the system so if you have it next time than that’d be wonderful.’ She smiled reassuringly, Bucky smiled back. ‘I’ll call the guy who’ll tour you, you can wait over there,’ She pointed at the circle of chairs and tables in the extended part of the hall. He nodded and thanked her, then walked to sit on one of the tables.
The woman sitting opposite of him had pearl-white hair, her hands trembled a bit as she turned the page of her newspaper. She looked up when he sat down.
‘Hello boy,’ She looked nice.
‘Hello miss.’ He greeted politely.
‘It’s a nice day today, isn’t it?’
‘It really is a beautiful day.’ He confirmed, glancing outside then back at the woman who was still looking at him.
‘You know, when I was younger I was a real troublemaker,’ She chuckled, then continued ‘These days were my favorite. I would get all my friends and we’d think up some plan to do.’ Bucky studied her face for a moment, her skin was worn out but her eyes were still shining. ‘One day, we were out and we thought it would be a good idea to prank our teacher, Mr. Fredrick. Mr. Fredrick came from Germany, so we didn’t like him very much if you know what I mean.’ Bucky nodded.
‘It was warm and we all put some money together to buy eggs and other stuff. We went up to his house in the afternoon, we knew he’d be out for a walk by then.’ She took off her glasses and looked outside, paper laying abandoned on the table. ‘We ran away before he came back. Next morning in class, he started by telling us someone egged his house. I would have sworn he looked every and each one of our group directly in the eye. He started telling us about where he came from. I didn’t wanna listen at first, but if I didn’t I thought he might call the cops on us so we kept seated, quiet.’ Bucky leaned forward, he didn’t know why but he wanted to know how this story ended.
‘What did he say?’ Bucky asked.
‘He said he was from Germany, which we all knew, then he told us why he wasn’t in Germany anymore. Mr. Fredrick had a boyfriend.’ She takes a sip from her cup and then smiled. ‘With the keyword being “had”. Until the nazis made him fight in the war. Mr.Fredrick had promised him to flee the country, find somewhere safe, and he had. But then someone had egged his house, and he felt like he was being brought back to Germany.’
‘How did you react?’ Bucky asked quietly.
‘Shocked, of course! We hadn’t had a clue. One of the girls, Doris, I believe she was called, still didn’t like him. Next house we egged had been Doris’ house.’ She laughed at the memories, Bucky leaned back in his chair chuckling along.
‘I’m happy Doris got what she deserved.’ A low voice came from behind them. Bucky turned his head.
‘Steve?’
‘Good to see you, Buck. You were thinking about volunteering here, correct?’
‘Yeah, yes, I thought uhm, I don’t know what I thought, but it seemed like a good idea.’
‘Well, it hope you still think so after today.’ They smiled at each other for a quiet moment until the woman opposite of them cleared her throat.
‘Ah yes! Mrs Williams, I see you’ve met Bucky.’
‘He’s an excellent young man.’ She confirmed.
‘Thank you ma’am’
‘Alright, well if I could borrow him for a minute I would like to show him around.’ Steve asked her.
‘Have fun, boys.’ She turned to Bucky, ‘Maybe I’ll see you around then.’
‘Maybe.’ Bucky responded, Mrs. Williams turned back to her newspaper.
Sharon looked from behind her desk as the Steve introduced the new guy to the building. This might get interesting, she thought.
The work looked nice. Of course Steve knew everyone’s names, not only those of his coworkers and the people who lived there, but also of those who came to visit them. And they all loved Steve. Bucky had a positive feeling about the place. His job was easy and clear, he was mostly there to make sure everyone got coffee or tea, to make sure everyone got invited to dinner in the evening, and to talk with the people to keep them from getting lonely. Bucky felt really positive about it.
He thanked Steve for showing him around and made an appointment with Sharon to put him in the system. Steve had walked him to the door, and Bucky could feel himself melt a bit when Steve said “Mind the step”.
Bucky couldn’t wait to share the news with Nat and decided to go straight to her place. he hadn’t seen her all day and it was around dinnertime anyway. He hadn’t felt so happy, so human, in a long time. He was also slightly exhausted from being so nervous and happy all day, he should go to bed early tonight. But first Natasha. And, most importantly, food.