Kapitel 1517: 16
Chapter 16Summary:
All aboard... It's going to be a bumpy ride.
First there's the twins.
Then there's the Valkyrie and Steve.
Why is Bucky's gun there?
And is that his knife?
Bucky gets to deliver a gift to a birthday boy AND smack him upside the head. It's a good day.
Chapter Text
"When are you due?" T'Chaka asked.
"Mid-April." Darcy replied. "Assuming this pair doesn't decide to pull a Weasley and go on the 1st. I do not need April Fool's Day babies."
Most of those at the table laughed at the thought, although Tony thought comparing Bucky and Darcy's children to the Weasley twins was a fair call.
April 2nd 2000
"Goddammit…" Darcy grumbled.
"Close, doll." Bucky grinned.
"But not close enough…"
"You know what they say about 'close', don't you?" Bucky's grin softened as he looked at the bundle in his arms. "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades."
"We are not calling our kids, horseshoe or hand-grenade, James Barnes." Darcy mock-glared at her husband.
"Nah, doll, wasn't suggesting it." Bucky absently replied.
"Why couldn't they have waited another half-hour?" Darcy muttered.
"Should we name them after the Weasley twins, then?" Bucky looked up at her.
Darcy blinked and began to giggle. "Fred and George Barnes…"
"My mother was Winnifred…" Barnes said teasingly.
"My mother was Georgiana…" Darcy replied in a similar tone.
"And any kids of ours are going to be hellraisers." Bucky smirked.
"Let's do it." Darcy laughed, quietly. "Winnifred Jane and Georgiana Elizabeth."
"That works." He frowned. "Do we know anything about Jane's whereabouts right now?"
"Culver, working on her Astronomy degree. She's still got three years to go." Darcy sighed.
"When are you going to meet her?"
"I'm planning on offering her a Stark grant, her last year." Darcy sighed, she missed her little science demon-boss-lady.
There was a quiet tapping at the door and when the pair looked up, Pepper was standing there with a curious expression.
"Are you ready for the invasion?" She smiled softly.
"Yeah, just muzzle Tony first, wouldja?" Bucky grinned.
"He's promised to keep a lid on his… exuberance." Pepper said.
"Then sure, send in the clowns." Darcy grinned and watched as people burst into the room in a silent roar of motion.
"What did you name them?" Yelena asked.
Darcy grinned and Bucky smirked.
"Oh, hell…" Tony muttered.
"Please welcome our daughters." Bucky's smirk grew wicked. "Winnifred and Georgiana."
"Or… Fred and George." Darcy laughed.
"Oh, no…" Tony sighed.
"Oh, yes." Darcy and Bucky said together, causing most people to laugh.
~~~
May 3rd 2000
"We're ready…" Darcy sang as she pushed the double stroller up the ramp and onto the ship.
"What?" Tony blinked. "Ready for what?"
Darcy frowned at him. "You don't really think you're taking my husband off to Greenland or Iceland without me, do you? Any of you speak Norwegian or Icelandic?"
"No, and neither do you." Tony replied.
"I speak more than you do." Darcy retorted, sharply.
Tony glared at her. "Really?"
"Yes, Tony, really." Darcy sighed. "Eric taught Jane and I the basics, while we were stuck in New Mexico, after Agent iPod Thief stole Janey's Life's Work. I can hold a basic conversations in Norwegian, Swedish and Finish and know enough Icelandic to get directions and food."
"Okay, then. You're hired. Give me my goddaughter and stash your stuff, we sail in an hour."
"Aye, aye, Sir." Darcy gave him a one fingered saluted and handed George over. She left Tony singing away in Italian, as she and Fred made their way below deck.
"Hey Darce." Clint said as he approached down a long corridor. "Gimme." His hands were reaching for Fred when he was still six feet or more, away. Darcy shrugged and unhooked Fred's carrier and handed the sleeping baby to the blonde. "Ta. I'll give her back before we launch."
"Don't bother, I'm coming, too."
Clint frowned before his faced cleared. "Oh, right. Eric, Swedish, Finish and Norwegian." He'd been on obs-duty when Eric decided that the girls needed something to occupy themselves with.
"And a bit of Icelandic, too."
"Cool." Clint vanished into the depths of the ship and Darcy went looking for the small suite that she'd allocated to herself and Bucky, the rooms were the benefits of her being the coordinator on this particular project.
"Hey, Doll." Bucky stood in the middle of the sitting room. "This is a bit bigger than I expected."
"You don't expect that we'd jam into one of those tiny cabins, with two babies, did you?" Darcy countered as she dropped the handle of the trolley-case.
Bucky looked up at her, his expression brightening. "You're coming, too?"
"Babe, you speak Russian, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Greek. You're going to Norway and maybe Iceland. No-one on this boat speaks Norwegian or Icelandic."
Bucky started to nod. "And Eric taught you and Jane. Right. I keep forgetting." He looked at her again. "Where are the girls? Who's got them?"
"Who do you think?"
"Tony's got George and Clint's got Fred." Bucky sighed.
"Bingo. Someone give the man a kiss."
"That's your job, doll."
"Well, come here and let me do my job." She grinned.
"Yes, ma'am." Brick gave a dramatic sigh.
"Or I could go annoy Tony…" She offered and started to turn around.
"Nope." Bucky grabbed at her hand and reeled her into his arms. "Mine. Tony's got his own wife, he doesn't need mine, too." His head lowered and all thoughts of Tony vanished.
~~~
June 2nd 2000
"Okay, we've reached the third set of coordinates that JARVIS salvaged from the Data Dump. No idea whether we're any closer to finding the Valkyrie or not." Tony told the crew gathered around the large cartographic map-table.
"How many sets were there?" Clint asked.
"Nine." Tony sighed.
"And we've no idea which ones were the right set for the location of the plane? Why not?" Darcy asked.
"Because even then, Nick was a paranoid bastard and didn't trust more than a few people." Tony huffed. "It could be any of them." No-one mentioned Nick's surname as they were trying to keep his identity from those not already in-the-know.
"What if they're all false leads?" One of the ship's recon crew asked. A few of the more reliable IT workers had been poached from different departments for this expedition and had been told a slightly fabricated story of the SSR dumping a heap of files off on Howard, who had just shoved them into the attic, until Tony got curious and went through them.
"I'm fairly confident that one of them is right. Which one? I'm not sure. But hey, third time's the charm, right?" Tony said. "I asked Nick about it and while he wouldn't tell me which it was, he did say that he'd put the extra sets in on purpose, he didn't want any enemies of the US getting their hands on the plane."
"Well the scouting party are due back soon, so we should have an idea of the lay of the land and where we need JARVIS to send a suit for sonar mapping and where we need a suit on metal detection." Bucky grimaced.
An hour later, the group were still studying the map table, making notes on areas to send which suits and arguing over who was going where. So, it caught all them by surprise when the team leader of the last scouting team, Billy from security, ran into the cabin, panting.
"We…" His chest heaved for breath. "We… found… it…" He gasped. He grabbed a pen and stabbed it onto the map table. "There…" He slumped down onto a seat.
"You found it?" Tony blinked a few times. "The Valkyrie?"
"Bloody great… wing… like a… a hang-glider…" The man nodded.
Tony blinked again and leant over the table to see where the pen was. "Land… It's on land…" He exchanged a stunned look with Bucky. "Recon team is leaving in five. Better hustle if you're going with them." Bucky was up and moving before Tony finished speaking.
Repelling down into the main compartment of the Valkyrie was eerie for Bucky. He remembered listening to Steve tell him about the crash and he'd read Coulson's report on the recovery, so he had a fair idea of where to find Steve, but he wasn't the only one in the recon team, he had to at least make an effort to scout the plane's interior. He swung to face the rear of the plane before he gave his first order.
"Dobson, Higgs, to the left. Bell, Wheeler, to the right. Palmer, Brooks, Thompson, Fielding, bomb bays to the rear. Benson, Simpson, Chapel, with me, we get centre forward." He said.
"Yes, Sir." The eight men and three women replied and broke into their assigned teams.
"Simpson, Chapel, take the control area. Benson, work your way around the cabin, to the right. I'll take the left."
"Yes, Sir." The two men and one woman nodded and began to move, their 300° of visibility gas masks not impeding their sight, allowing them to concentrate on the space around them.
Bucky moved through the steel girders and checked all the corners, who knew what could be laying around?
And speaking of just laying around? That was Steve's service pistol. He bent and scooped it up, to put into the bag hanging at his waist.
"Found a Colt looks to be a M1911A, probably Steve's." Bucky had made no effort to hide his identity from IT staff. "Bastard, that's not his…"
"Sir?" Benson turned to look across the cavernous space.
"Bloody punk took my frigging gun." Bucky muttered loud enough for the other three to hear.
"At least you're getting it back, now." Benson laughed, she was an ex-Army sergeant, just like he had been and had proven herself as unflappable as Pepper and Darcy.
"Someone better find the punk, I owe him a thumping for taking it. I told him I wanted him to take it back to Becca for me." He went on. His reunion with his sister had been a bittersweet thing, seeing her and introducing her to Darcy had been great, but seeing how frail she was, wasn't.
He spent a few more minutes working his way forward, before someone spoke.
"Sir?" Simpson stood up and waved. "Sir, we found… something…"
"Coming." Bucky abandoned his corner of the cabin and headed to Simpson and Chapel. "What've you… Oh, shit…" He exclaimed as Simpson brushed loose snow away from a familiar round red and blue surface, he could see the equally familiar golden leather of Steve's gauntlet gloves grasping the shield's edges. "Chapel, get to the relay point and send for a recovery team. It's time he got out of the cold." He dropped to his heels and laid a hand on the ice-covered shield. "I told ya, punk, how many time did I tell ya? Not to do an'thing stupid 'til I got back." He sighed. "And what do ya do? Ya sign up to be Science!'d on. Idiot." He smiled and patted the ice above the shield. "As Darcy says, 'payback's a bitch' and I owe you. You just wait. The future's swell. You're gonna hate it."
His comments drew smothered laughter from Benson, as she joined him. "Nothing to the right. Want me to finish your sweep to the left?"
"Thanks." Bucky nodded. "Oh, and when we get back on board, remind me to ask Tony to transfer you to the Thanos Project, I think it would suit you."
"Thanos?" Benson asked. "The Greek God of death?"
"Later, Benson." Bucky waved her off. "We've got more important things to worry about." He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and opened the camera app, taking a series of pictures before he put it away again.
"Blackmail, sir?" Simpson asked, clearing space around Steve and his shield. "Pops always said, you found the best blackmail."
Bucky turned to look at the man. "Excuse me?"
"Pops was a Howlie." Simpson kept working. "He used to tell me and Maggie about the war. He always said you found the best blackmail stuff, mostly on the Cap, but also on Pops and Stark."
Bucky frowned. "Who was your Pops?"
Simpson turned to look at him. "I… I thought you knew... I thought that was why I got this job?"
"No, job's nothing to do with me." Bucky said. "But you didn't answer the question."
"Me and Maggie are… Our Pops is Dum-dum Dugan." Simpson said.
"Who's Maggie?"
"Maggie? Margret Benson, sir." He nodded to Benson as she ducked under a girder.
"You're both Dum-dum's?" Bucky blinked a few times. "Hold on. You said 'is' not 'was'. Is he still alive?"
"Of course, he's still alive." Benson muttered loud enough for Bucky and Simpson to hear. "Stubborn old mule."
"Not a mule, a donkey." Bucky corrected automatically.
"What?" Simpson tilted his head.
"The last mission I was part of, we had to climb a damn mountain, just to get to the forward staging post, then it was another long, cold hike to the deployment site. We used a donkey to haul our gear and Dum-dum lost the toss, he got to be the donkey handler for the trip."
Simpson blinked a few times before starting to laugh. "That would be why he wouldn't let momma take me and Jordy on donkey rides when we went to visit Falsworth in England, then?"
"Probably." Bucky grinned.
"Excellent. Thanks, Sarge. I know what I'm getting him for Christmas."
"A stuffed donkey?" Bucky asked.
"Wearing his bowler hat." Simpson nodded.
Bucky began to turn back to look at Steve, when something tickled his memory. "What's today's date?"
"June 2nd. Why?"
"His birthday's the 20th, we should be back in New York for that. I'll deliver the donkey in person, if you like."
Simpson started to laugh and even though he kept clearing debris, snow and ice from around the control area, he kept bursting into the odd bout of badly smothered laughter.
"Oh, hell… I'd pay to see that, Matt." Benson joined them. "I found a Luger and a bowie knife, sir. I'm assuming that the bowie is Cap's."
"Little star on the hilt?"
"No, sir. A wing."
"Dammit, Steve, did you have to take my knife, too?" Bucky sighed.
"Here, you go, Sarge." Benson handed over the knife and Bucky slid it into his boot.
A noise behind them had the three spinning, all three pointing weapons at the door.
"Ah, sorry…" The young man grimaced. "I can't feel my toes and it's making me clumsy."
"Never mind, lad." Simpson shook his head. "Get in here and let's work on getting the Cap, home."
"Yes, sir." The young man nodded and stumbled forward, dragging his bundle. He was followed by two more men, one close to his age and one much older. "He deserves to come home, not be stuck here in a German plane."
"It's not so much the German bit as the HYDRA bit, that he wouldn't like." Bucky said.
"Ain't that the truth?" Benson said.
"Names?" Simpson asked the three newcomers.
"Adam Brown." Said the first man.
"Chris Reed." The older man said quietly.
"I'm Tom Lloyd." The third man said and began opening his bundle. From it he pulled various pieces of metal that he slotted together with pieces from the other two men's bundles, to form a pallet.
"Excuse us, but you're in the way. If you'd move to one side, that would be much appreciated." Reed looked at them expectantly.
"I guess, we're moving, then." Bucky took a few steps back.
"We'll prepare him for transport, but as I told Dr Stark, preparing the body for burial should wait until we have access to a proper morgue."
Bucky nodded, he'd waited nine years to come and get Steve, he could wait until they got back to New York.
~~~
June 20th 2000.
Bucky held his smile down to the barest twist of his lips and waited for someone to answer the door. Benson and Simpson had informed him that the last few Howlies were going to be at Dum-dum's birthday. That each year, they gathered in advance of Steve's birthday, to hold their own private memorial for the fallen.
Only this year, they weren't aware that they were getting a very special guest.
The door opened and Maggie Benson gave him a wide grin. "Good to see you. Wasn't sure you'd actually turn up."
"I did offer." He smirked.
"You did and Matt and I are looking forward to it. He's on camera duty."
"Lead the way, Benson."
"Maggie, sir." She corrected.
"Then call me, Bucky. Or Barnes, if you prefer?"
"Bucky it is. Come on." She lead the way into the house and out onto a wide deck.
"Who was it?" Dum-dum asked.
"Just a delivery guy, Pops, don't worry, I dealt with it." Maggie said as she joined the others on the deck.
Bucky was waiting for the attention to leave the doors to the deck before he quietly made his entrance. He waited until Dum-dum put his mug of coffee on a table beside his chair, before dropping the donkey plushie, with its attached bowler hat, on Dum-dum's lap, from behind his chair.
"What the…?!" The squawk the man let out had Bucky letting out a chuckle, which silenced the deck.
"Sarge?" Gabe Jones eyed the two men, one gawking at the toy and the other wearing a grin.
"What?" Dum-dum replied.
"Yeah?" Bucky answered at the same time, causing Dum-dum to lean back in his seat and tilt his head backwards to look at Bucky, upside-down.
"Barnes?!"
"Dum-dum." Bucky's grin grew wider.
"What the hell?" Dum-dum asked.
"Got some't to show ya." Bucky let his Brooklyn accent out.
"Yeah, like what?" Dum-dum demanded.
Bucky pulled out his cell-phone and opened the photo app, bringing up a clear picture of a frozen Steve, before stepping to the side of Dum-dum's chair and dropping the cell onto his lap. The older man cautiously picked up the cell and studied the image before tossing the cell to Jones, he also studied the picture before passing it on. It took a few minutes before it was returned to Dum-dum.
"When was that taken?" Dum-dum asked.
"The 3rd of this month." Bucky said.
"When's the funeral?" Jones wanted to know.
"Well, that's complicated." Bucky grimaced.
"Why?" Jones asked.
"We had a… what do'ya call 'em? The Funeral house fella that prepares the body?" He always got them mixed up with the fella that plans the funeral.
"Mortician." Dum-dum answered, automatically.
"Right, mortician." Bucky nodded. "Anyway the mortician was chipping way the ice and he saw one of Steve's wounds."
"So?"
"It was still bleeding."
"Which means what?" Dum-dum frowned.
"Dead men don't bleed, asshole." Bucky said and smacked Dum-dum upside the head, gently, with his flesh hand.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein