Hello Sergeant (Bucky Barnes)

Cruise

November 21 2012
James' POV

The day before Thanksgiving took forever. I was home by myself, reading and watching TV while I waited for Sarah and Steve to get back home from work. A little after 1600, my phone chirped at me, telling me I had a text.

Steve said they were just leaving Shield and should be home in 20 minutes, so I figured I would tidy up the mess I'd made today, washing the dishes and putting the last load of laundry in the dryer so it would be done before we had to leave.

Sarah had asked us to come home to her house for the holiday to meet her family and spend some time with Jace and his family. Well, I guess he was my family, too, so his family was my family. It would be good to see him again, too. I texted him a lot, actually; he was the only one who could answer questions about my family or tell me who I should talk to about it.

Right on time, Steve pulled up out front in a newer black armored SUV with tinted windows. They had mentioned we would be taking a different vehicle this morning when I'd offered to have everything downstairs and ready to go when they got here.

"Hey Buck, how was your day?" Steve asked as he came in the apartment, snowflakes in his hair. He pulled me into a tight hug, happy to see me. He was always so happy, it rubbed off on me. I rubbed my bristly cheek on his, making him laugh.

"Good. I went for a run, read a book, bugged Sam and Jace and tried a new recipe."

Steve sniffed before grinning at me. "Smells interesting. What was it?" He let go of me and went to go look in the fridge.

"Charcoal now; I didn't turn down the burner low enough and it scorched," I said sheepishly. "I'll try again next week, now that I know that. I had to take the trash out it stunk so bad."

 "Ahh," Steve laughed. "You ready to help me load up?"

"Sure. Where's Sarah?"

"Putting a couple things in already. She picked up some snacks for the ride and was figuring out how the third row of seats folded down. This vehicle is bigger than the last one we used."

I grabbed the bags while Steve unlocked Sarah's door to get her bags for her. She'd tell us she was perfectly capable of doing it herself, but she was always pleased when we did little things like that for her. For me, it was worth it just to see that big smile she gave us when we surprised her.

"Why are we taking this instead of your car?" I asked Sarah as we hauled our bags down to the waiting vehicle. She'd made sure we'd packed before they left this morning so all they would have to do was get me and load up our bags and winter gear. She gave me a huge grin when she saw I had her bags, too. Steve left them with me and went back up to do a double check to make sure everything was turned off or unplugged.

"Fury's orders," Sarah said. "Whenever Steve travels, he's supposed to take one of the Shield vehicles. Plus there's a big snowstorm coming in and this has four wheel drive. My car doesn't; it's not really a great road trip vehicle for you guys since you're so big."

I agreed with that statement. Whenever the three of us went somewhere, Sarah usually sat in the back seat so I wasn't so squashed; she said being squashed made me irritable, and I'd have to agree with her there.

"Can I drive?" I asked suddenly.

"Do you know how to drive?" she asked me, looking up at me in surprise. "You've never shown any interest in it before."

"Yeah. This has got to be easier to run than some of the crappy Soviet junk heaps I've driven."

"Fair enough. You need to run it by Steve, but once we get on the highway, I don't see a problem with that, I guess."