Opposites

7

    Three Weeks Later

Bucky's POV

"Hello?" I said immediately answering my phone that had Annie's number flashing across it.

"Um, Mr. Barnes could you possibly come down to the school?" Annie's voice called nervously "Like, now?" I was already sprinting to the car, still on the phone as I ran.

"Is Cecilia OK?" I asked frantically, weaving through traffic on the highway.

"It's better if you see for yourself." I sighed heavily before hanging up. I don't know why I'm so worried. Yes, I adopted Cecilia, but we weren't really that attached to each other. Even so, I couldn't help praying that she was unharmed.

"Oh my God Kid, what happened?" Cecilia stared down at the ground, trying to cover up the fact that she looked like she'd been through a war. One of her eyes was black, her face and knees were all scraped up, and she looked like she'd been crying.

"Clearly we need to rethink recess." Annie said grimly.

"Did she get into a fight?" I asked resignedly. Annie nodded and led me over to her desk.

"From the tail end I caught," she said quietly "which was mainly just the fight, a kid was making fun of Cecilia for being adopted and told her that her parents must have been horrible people. I'm also fairly certain that they made fun of her for just having a dad." I rested my head in my hand and tried to keep myself from spewing out a string of curses.

"What happens now?" I asked tiredly.

"Well in most cases, Cecilia would be the one in trouble, but pretty much all the teachers heard what the other kid was saying. They left it up to me to decide her punishment and the other kid's teacher is dealing with him." I breathed out a sigh of relief that Cecilia wasn't going to be expelled. "I figured Cecilia can just take the rest of the day off." Annie said softly "She has one extra homework assignment for a punishment, but it's not that long."

"Thank you." I said with a smile. She nodded at me and I walked over to Cecilia who was still staring at the ground. "You ready to go?" I asked, tapping my foot against hers. She stood up silently and followed me outside to the car.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" I got silence as my response and with a sigh I pulled over to the side of the road and parked the car. "Look Kid," I said "I'm not asking for a detailed description, I just want to know the basics."

"I got into a fight." Cecilia muttered.

"Did you win?" a small smile flickered across her face and she nodded. I ruffled her hair with a grin and turned to face her.

"I punched him in the nose." she said, barely above a whisper "His mom had to come take him to the ER."

"Normally I'd be upset with you for that, but I have a feeling that kid got what he deserved." I said "What was the fight about?"

"He told me that my parents must be terrible if they gave me up for adoption." she said, tears now starting to well up in her eyes "He said that either something was wrong with me, or my parents were just bad." I sighed heavily, realizing I had no choice but to tell her the truth about her parents.

Cecilia's POV

"Look Kid," Bucky said after a minute "there's something I need to tell you. When I told you that story about your parents... I didn't exactly tell you the entire truth." My heart twisted and I looked up at him nervously.

"How much of the story was true?"

"Well I do know your parents," he said sheepishly "and that's about the only true thing." I closed my eyes and leaned back in my seat.

"What's the real story?" I asked quietly.

"Your parents worked for the people who captured me. They were scientists." Tears started to well up in my eyes, but I forced them down.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I choked out.

"What was I supposed to say?" Bucky protested "You looked so happy Cecilia and I didn't want to ruin that. I'm so sorry Doll, I didn't think this would happen." I moved to brush the one stray tear that had escaped and winced as I grazed my black eye. "Let's get you home and get some ice on that." he said gently.

"Thanks for picking me up." I whispered.

"Anytime."

The second we got home, Bucky set me on the kitchen table and grabbed the first aid kit.

"Hold this right here." he said softly, placing an ice pack on my black eye. I did as Bucky said while he started cleaning my scraped and bloodied knees.

"Ow." I muttered, clenching the edge of the table with my free hand.

"Almost done Doll." Bucky quickly said as he started wrapping my knee with a bandage and moving to the other one. He finally finished and sat on the chair with a sigh. "How's the eye?" he asked, nodding at the ice pack that was covering my black eye. I reluctantly moved the ice and Bucky winced when he saw it again. "Damn that's a pretty good shiner." he said.

"It hurts." I mumbled, bringing the ice back to my swollen eye.

"Well it should, your eye looks like it's inside a black hole." I glared at him and he ruffled my hair with a small smile. "Why don't you get started on your homework?" he suggested.

"I already finished it while I was waiting for you." Bucky chuckled softly and he picked me up and carried me to the couch.

"In that case, you need to get some sleep. Consider an early bedtime your punishment from me for getting into a fight."

"Yes sir." I said quietly. Bucky gently took the ice pack off my eye and tucked me under the covers.

"Goodnight Kid." he said, walking out of the room.

"Goodnight Bucky."