A Funny Thing Happened During The Battle of New York

xxv.

It's been a while.

I think it's been and entire month since I last sat down and had a moment to spare to write down my thoughts.

Maybe I've finally come to the point where I don't need to write down everything. Does that mean I've grown as a person?

Surprisingly, my life once again has been turned upside down, and this time....this time I think it was...good? The last year or so has been a whirlwind of crazy—things haven't been the same since Steven Grant Rogers crashed into my life. I started out, an orphan coffee girl...and now...well...now I've got a family of superheroes.

Oh, and an amnesiac former assassin...who also happens to be my great uncle.

PLOT TWIST RIGHT?!

I've gotten ahead of myself. Let me go back a bit.

While Steve and I were perfectly capable of housing the aforementioned amnesiac in our apartment in DC, the executive decision was made that housing him in a more secure facility while we figure out the whole "fugitive" thing out was probably best.

In comes Tony Stark and his multi level skyscraper in Manhattan with a giant A on the side. I gotta say it's good to be back in New York. I may have run to the coffee shop and cried and snotted all over Manny our first day back.

Steve and I now live back on his old floor with Bucky. Currently Buck sleeps on the fancy couch as he's not quite to the point where he's comfortable in his own space. He still has off days, days where he's a little lost and not sure where he is or who I am. He always knows Steve though, and even when he's getting me confused with his younger sister he's never violent. We are working on finding a good therapist for him, to start maybe helping him reclaim who he was before—well just before everything.

He has nightmares a lot, and I can sympathize. So can Steve. Usually after a particularly bad one we all end up drinking hot cocoa on the couch and watching House Hunters. Moose has been like Bucky's shadow since the day I found them in the alley in D.C.

Basically I've been replaced as his best friend. The cat barely gives me the time of day anymore, the little traitor. They probably bonded on the run so I can't blame Moose for abandoning me for someone who has no qualms giving him treats off his plate. (Apparently cat diets weren't a thing in the 40's.)

I digress.

Ok. Back to the original plot of this journal entry.

A week after we got settled into the Tower, Tony got a hit from those HYDRA files. He was finally able to find records kept from when they had taken me hostage. They were all redacted correspondence so it was hard to piece together at first, especially given that Bucky and my memories of the ordeal are still hazy at best.

But one file was the jackpot.

It contained a blood panel report that was found nestled into one of the memo's to this guy (Who we assume was Pierce) telling him about a discovery.

Apparently my DNA matches with Bucky's. I'm directly related to him, the markers are close enough to prove that without a doubt. Since he never had any children of his own, and his sister was his only living relative to procreate, basically everything starts to make sense.

The confusion he has around me, the similarities in our features. Steve couldn't believe he hadn't put it together. (I mean the last time he saw Rebecca she was 13, and he also had other things going on so I wasn't shocked) He thinks it's why he felt drawn to me when we first met, the familiarity when he was so lost in this new time sucked him in.

I like to think it was my sparkling personality. Maybe a bit of both.

Tony had J.A.R.V.I.S. take a picture of me and Steve's faces when he dropped that bomb. He said he's going to use it for the Avenger's Christmas card. I told him if he did anything of the sort I'd sabotage the espresso machine.

Tony immediately started research on Rebecca's children. Turns out her only child, a son named Jamie (named after the brother she lost—I might have cried when we learned that), never married and got around quite a bit. So the trail on who my mother could be runs cold there.

And Jamie—my father—well looks like he disappeared sometime time after I was born.

I'm thinking it was the Mob. Probably got mixed up with the wrong crowd. But that may just be my wild imagination creating fantastical scenarios to try and cope with the fact that I found out about my family, but have still lost them all the same.

Well. The mystery of me continues. Tony said he'd keep looking into it.

But! I have Bucky now. A great uncle, who physically looks about my age—which is just weird—but I mean what isn't weird now a days?

He's slowly figuring things out, and we are both learning about his past together. Steve floats about us like a mother hen half the time—it's really cute.

God —I love him.

Things might still be uncertain, and life may be crazy, but I couldn't be happier.

I spend my days either hanging with Bucky and Steve or pestering Tony while he tinkers in his lab. I think Tony gets some kind of sick joy out of using me as test dummy, but Steve has threatened bodily harm after we had an incident with a laser the other day. He's over reacting in my opinion, it was a small explosion—it barely shook the room.

Sometimes Natasha drags me to the gym to "toughen me up". (It's more like her beating the shit out of me for an hour and leaving me in a pool of my own sweat and tears) Her friend Clint (THE HAWKEYE) who I recently met when he was in town, has a strange habit of hanging out in the ventilation system of the tower. He's like a gerbil or something. Between him and J.A.R.V.I.S. I'm liable to have a heart attack at any moment from being snuck up on or spoken too while I'm distracted.

I've also been teaching Bucky to make coffee with the fancy espresso machine. When I first showed it to him he stared at it like it might bite him. I assured him I would protect him and he got this funny look on his face.

Moose is also living in luxury being spoiled endlessly by Nat. He's basically the Avenger's mascot now. He has more fancy cat toys than he knows what to do with, and he's never wanting for snuggles with a Bucky around.

At night, Steve wraps me in his arms in our bed and holds me close—pressing soft kisses against my temple.

It's in those moments I feel most whole. It's in those moments I know I've found my home.

-Wren

I'm squeezing this in at the very bottom of the last page of this journal to say......I may or may not have found an ABSURDLY large piece of jewelry hiding in Steve's sock drawer. It explains why everyone has been weird the last few days.

I think I'll say yes.

++++++++++++++++

Author's Note:
Hey guys! Oh my gosh I'm so sorry this took so damn long. So much was happening and I was sick and then family stuff and then trips and etc. It just got away from me.

This is the end of Steve and Wren's story for now. There is always the possibility of coming back to them in the future.

Thank you to everyone for commenting, liking and voting! I never expected to get this much response to one of my fics! I have some ideas for other's in the future. But with how crazy life is right now one shots might be my only thing for a bit.

Thanks again! And I hope you guys enjoyed!