Soul Stealer ~ (A Bucky Barnes Love Story)

It's My Life

"Explain it to me again."

I groaned, covering my face with my hands.  "I suppose the 100th time's a charm."  He glared at me, crossing his arms over his barrel chest, the plates in his arm whirling menacingly.  Rolling my eyes, I leaned back against the wall, stretching my long legs across the bed.  "Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter are my parents."

It wasn't a difficult concept, but no matter how I stated it for Bucky it did not compute.  He'd been asking me to explain it to him for the past hour.  There were only so many ways you could say "my parents got it on" before you went a little crazy.

"How is that possible?"

I smirked, "You see when a man and a woman..."

He waved me off, "The Steve Rogers I remember couldn't even talk to a dame."

"I don't think what they did involved a lot of talking." 

The thought made me want to hurl and made Bucky send me the evil eye, again.  Bucky's recollection may not be up to snuff, but on this, he was spot on.  My mom loved telling me awkward Steve Roger's stories.  My favorite was when she got pissed and shot him, or his shield.  Classic.   

"They hadn't even kissed when I..."  Fell off a train.  I wasn't touching that subject with a ten-foot pole or any pole for that matter.  "When did they...fondue?" he trailed off, eyes unfocused for a moment like he didn't understand why he'd used that particular word.  That made two of us.

"What the hell does fondue have to do with it?"  His face burned crimson, and I snorted in amusement.  I'd finally found The Winter Soldier's weakness, sex talk.  "It's not like my mom gave me the play-by-play, but the night before he crashed the Valkyrie they...fondued."  This might be the most uncomfortable conversation either of us had ever had.  "Nine months later I was born."

"So he didn't know?"

"Not unless he's clairvoyant."  He sent me a withering scowl, the feeling of annoyance dominating the bond.  "Cut that out," I chastised, rubbing my chest with the heel of my hand.  "No, he didn't...doesn't know."

He tilted his head a fraction of an inch, studying me.  It was freaky how still he could be when he wanted to.  It didn't even look like he was breathing.  I could only imagine the fear others felt when faced with a similar situation.  The Winter Soldier was a straight badass.   

"That's why HYDRA took you."  It wasn't a question.

"Yes," I sighed, rubbing my eyes.  It was gonna be a long night or morning.  "My mom knew if anyone found out I was Captain America's daughter I'd be a target." 

I laughed at the irony.  My childhood had been spent in near isolation.  The only people in my world were my mom, Uncle Howard, eventually Aunt Maria, and Jarvis.  I didn't go to school.  Instead, I was homeschooled by Uncle Howard and I used that term loosely.  Uncle Howard considered me hanging out in his lab while he blew stuff up "school". 

I didn't have friends, go to sleep overs or play with other kids in the neighborhood.  Uncle Howard set my mom up in what he called a house, my mom called a mansion, and I called a prison.  It was a sprawling gated estate located in upstate New York with 10-foot high solid stone walls surrounding the 10-acres.  The main house had 8 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms which never made any sense to me.  There were two separate houses complete with a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom for the guests we never had, and a gigantic lab where Uncle Howard could destroy things without fear of burning down anything important.  The whole setup screamed privacy and money.  For a little girl struggling to come to terms with her lineage and abilities in seclusion it also screamed lonely.