A series of one shot chapters about Bucky Barnes mostly told in the first person by different people. Stories will reflect different times in the life of James Buchanan Barnes. This is PG rated and any sexual content will be kept to a minimum.
Mar...
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October, 1936 It was what we all knew would happen. Sarah Rogers had been sick for several months and when she finally went into hospital it was just a matter of time. Just a few weeks from the day she was admitted she was gone and her son, Steve, at just 18 years old, was left alone in the world, except for us. Our son, Bucky, had been Steve's friend from childhood.
Steve was a sickly boy who was small, asthmatic, and seemed to catch every virus going around. His dad, who died from a mustard gas attack in France during World War I never saw his son as Steve was born a few months after he died. Sarah was left to look after him as best she could on the meagre widow's pension she received. In those early days she lived in Hell's Kitchen which is almost as bad as it sounds for a widow with a sickly son. Somehow, through hard work and a strong will, she earned enough to move to Brooklyn. The neighbourhood had its own issues but there was one thing here that Steve didn't have there ... Bucky.
He was our oldest child, born in 1917. Rebecca, our second was born in 1929. Bucky met Steve in 1930, when the smaller boy was 12. He was being beaten up by bullies who wanted his lunch money. If there was one thing Bucky couldn't stand it was bullies. Being a bigger, stronger boy himself he laid into those others who were pummelling Steve and showed them that they couldn't have their way all the time. He brought Steve home with him, his nose bleeding, a black eye forming, and his shirt ripped. I chipped a piece of ice off the ice block in the icebox and wrapped it in a rag, told the boy to hold it to his eye. Bucky put pressure on the bridge of Steve's nose to stop it bleeding. While he was doing that I went up into the attic looking for some of Bucky's shirts that he had outgrown. Surely he had one that Steve could wear so I could launder and mend the one he was wearing. When I came back down Steve was holding Rebecca in his arms as she had started to cry. Bucky just shrugged as he held the bleeding nose back and pressed the cold rag into Steve's eye. Rebecca just cooed at the boy and the smile on his face and Bucky's face was wonderful.
They were friends from that day on. Steve's mother found work as a cleaning lady and I asked if Steve could wait for her at our house, worried about him being alone. She had the same worries and readily agreed, offering to pay for my time.
"No, you don't need to pay us," I said. "The boys can do their homework and watch Rebecca while I get supper on. Bucky likes him and boys need good friends. We're happy to have him for a few hours until you pick him up."
He was with us every week day after school, doing homework, having a snack, playing with Rebecca. Occasionally they went out and canvassed the neighbourhood for soda bottles to cash in, or doing odd jobs. Both boys liked to keep busy. They showed initiative often and I know the money both boys earned made the difference during the Depression. In 1935 Sarah Rogers was able to get work as a nurse in a TB ward. It was better paying than the cleaning jobs and with Steve in high school she didn't worry about him being home alone. Bucky was already graduated and working at the docks but they hung around together on the evenings and weekends.
