The Encyclopedia Of Bucky Barnes' New Beginnings | Stucky

Eleven ∆ The First Winter

The rest of the seven day holiday went well. Olivia was excited to learn more, even more excited to figure out that she didn't have to do as much for her workbooks or enrolled online courses. Shabbat was separate from Sukkot, but still celebrated during, and Bucky still told her all about it as they lit more candles at each day's sundown.

It was a lot. But she was smart, and she was just soaking in everything that Bucky was telling her.

And Steve? Well, he was just happy to make the blanket fort after they ate on the first night. It would stay up for the whole week unless it absolutely had to come down, stand in as the sukkah besides the little one that sat on the dining table. In the days following the first, they ate in the blanket fort, a sheet rising over the top of the TV so they could watch more movies as a family, backs leaned up against the front of the couch.

All in all. Bucky loved the holiday, had since he was little and his mom was waving off the things that were hard for them to do but going out of her way for what they could. And now, being able to pass down traditions to his daughter, as his mom did to him and his sisters? Bucky couldn't wrap his head around it.

~∆~

November came and went. The election, the riots, Steve's auction commission. On a weekend where the wind tumbled the dying leaves throughout lawns and the asphalt roads, Bucky posed on the red wraparound chair in Steve's studio, frame open and sprawled. He kept his head tilted back over the edge of the chair, baring more to the artist's eye, pajama pants on but his chest uncovered.

It wasn't for long, mainly so Steve could get the line work and depth graphing done. Bucky stayed for a little longer afterward, as the morning sun rose beyond the window he was positioned under, until the time came where he had to go wake up the little one.

Olivia's door was usually cracked while she slept, but Bucky found it wide open. Turning on the hallway light, he walked up to the doorway and found her sitting up in her bed, surrounded by her stuffed animals, hugging Denise, the bottom half of her face hidden in the purple side of the octopus.

"Hey, sweetie," he gently greeted her. She glanced up at him, and he spotted the shine of tears in her eyes. He moved to sit on the foot of her bed, wanting to comfort her but still not too sure of how she wanted him to, or if she just wanted Steve. When she woke up in the middle of the night, which was just a few times, she usually came up to their room for a hug from Steve.

Bucky understood. Steve's hugs were pretty great. But it still didn't fail to sting.

"What's wrong, honey?" he asked, trying to see if he could prompt her.

"I -" the word was muffled in the stuffed animal, and she raised her hand to take a deep, sharp breath. Voice breaking until it was nothing, she ground out, "I just want mommy."

Bucky had to keep himself together. He couldn't fall into that grief pit, not when his baby needed him. But he didn't know how to help her, because nothing helped. Not even time, which was what everyone had told him. That it would someday get better. Well it wasn't better, not without his dad being in his life, because how would he ever move on from that?

But Olivia was so young. She was so intelligent, but death and grief were so much to wrap her little head around, and so much happened at once to change her life. One day, she wouldn't remember too too much of Dot. For her, it really was time, but the hurt would always be there.

So he opened his arms, and she clambered over to stick herself up against him. He wound his arms tight around her, curling over her to fully cradle her body and the stuffed octopus she had dragged along with her.

~∆~

Winter Break was embodied in quarantining. Steve ran to the store the first day, before Bucky came home from the school, so they would be ready for spending two weeks in the house.

No one was sick. But they all wanted to be sure, before they went to see Bucky's mom and sisters, and Steve's parents, on New Year's. Bucky was going through withdrawal with not being able to see or properly talk to his mom for so long, and this was important. This was special. This was Olivia's first Hanu-Christmas, and damn it if he wasn't going to get her to meet her bubbe and aunts.

Hanukkah went well, ending on the eighteenth of December. They lit the candles each night at sundown, Bucky made latkes and Steve fried up chicken thighs on the first night, they watched stupid Christmas movies because there was nothing else, Steve tried to teach Olivia how to make brownies from scratch and it was all just so adorable.

They put up Steve's quaint Christmas tree partway through Hanukkah, where they put together their blue and silver decorations. Not only was it just a beautiful color scheme for a tree, it complimented the Jewish side of Bucky's family. His parents, now just his mom, had kept the meaningful childhood ornaments, such as "Baby's First Christmas" and the really special ones, but Bucky had a few. Steve was the in the same place, hanging up a popsicle stick sled painted red, with his name and the year it had been made.

Even Olivia had some contributions, that Steve found in one of Dot's totes. A bobble with paint and glitter poured on the inside, a frame ornament with a picture of Dot holding a freshly newborn baby, that made Bucky tear up when he saw it and hold on to it for a few minutes before he let Olivia hang it up where she wanted on the little tree.

Even with being able to see his family in the next few days, Bucky thought that the holidays just couldn't get any better.