Stranger Who Knows All My Secrets [A Marvel FanFic]

Chapter 30: You Came Back to Her in the End

The street Bucky grew up on looked eerily unchanged when he and Steve walked down it, all brownstones and iron fences. For a moment he swore it was nineteen-forty-five and that he had finally made it back from the war but the sound of a car horn brought him back to reality and Steve asked him if he was sure he was ready to step inside. It wasn't the forties anymore and Bucky wasn't coming home to see his family, they were all dead now, every last one of them including his baby sister Izzy who passed away two weeks ago, just short of her ninety-second birthday. She hadn't been alone thankfully, her son and daughter had been by her side and so had Steve but Bucky... He was her brother and he should have been there.

It was killing him that he hadn't been there.

It took everything for Bucky to climb the steps of his childhood home. The front door of the house had changed, it was no longer brown, it had been painted black and felt ominous as if trying to instill fear in him, telling him to back out, to run and hide like the coward he was. Steve stood firmly by him the whole time, knocking on the door when Bucky froze. There was a time when either one of them would have just dug their copy of the key out of their pocket and let themselves in but this was no longer Bucky's home. It was Elizabeth's and the person who opened the door for the two friends looked just like her but just slightly past middle age and with red eyes like she'd been crying for hours.

"Oh Steve, I'm so glad you could make it." The woman said with a sniffle and Steve smiled weakly at her before looking at Bucky.

"Uh, Mary, this is... Your mom's brother." Steve said gently.

"Oh... Oh my, let me go get the boys." Mary said, eyes going wide at the sight of him.

Bucky stood there awkwardly in the humid early summer air, waiting for what felt like ages until the door opened again and a teenager appeared along with a man in his late forties and another in his seventies. The three of them looked just like Bucky's father which was weird because Bucky looked like his father and the oldest of the men spoke first, stepping out of the doorway and onto the stoop alongside him and Steve with a bewildered expression.

"You haven't aged." The man said.

"Do I know you?" Bucky asked.

"Oh no, but I know you. Please come inside, mom will be so happy to see you." The man told him and Bucky felt goosebumps break out across his body.

"Mom?" Bucky questioned as he was pulled inside.

"Yes, we have her resting in the living room so everyone can say their goodbyes. I'm your nephew James, and uh this is my son George and uh his son, Zachary." The old man explained as he dragged Bucky by the sleeve, Steve not too far behind.

Bucky's heart sank a little at the realization this was going to be an open-casket kind of affair, that mixed with the fact that he had just met his nephew who was named after him made him more than a little dizzy. There was a sea of confused faces in the living room when they entered, dozens of people and children all sitting around with a mixture of sad and happy tears staining their cheeks. At the front of the room was the casket, beautifully crafted, mahogany in color, and lined on the inside with satin and the wrinkled, little body of his baby sister.

In a strange way, it reminded Bucky of the day their parents brought Elizabeth home from the hospital. How he, Rebecca, and Margaret huddled around her bassinet in absolute awe of the newest addition to their family. This wasn't the day she coming home from the hospital though, this was the day Bucky had come to bury her and as his nephew escorted him towards her, he began to panic. He looked over his shoulder for Steve but instead of his friend, he was seeing a twenty-three-year-old version of himself sitting on the floor with a very upset seven-year-old Izzy looking back at him.