Five years later, September 2017

Bucky wasn't too pleased about having to move back to Brooklyn. He had made some good friends in Konakovo, Russia, and suddenly his life would be torn apart yet again.

Moving away to Konakovo had been hard at first, but he had made friends pretty quickly. He didn't want to leave Steve, and it hurt when they officially cut off contact with each other, but his new friends helped him to forget fast.

Now, he would be going back to his old life. He hoped it could be like it was before, but he knew that it was pointless to have his hopes up. Steve most likely made new friends, too. Bucky wanted Steve to have made new friends.

Bucky had already spent an entire summer back in Brooklyn and hadn't seen Steve once. Occasionally, he would walk past Steve's apartment—his excuse being that sometimes he wanted to take the scenic route home from where he worked at Starbucks—but Steve was never anywhere around. If Steve was as frail as he was five years ago it shouldn't have come as a surprise, but Bucky had been hoping to catch a glimpse of his former best friend.

He missed Konakovo a lot. It was beautiful there. He missed speaking Russian. He couldn't believe how in just five years he had already begun to forget a few English words. Thankfully, he picked back up on the language pretty quickly.

What he didn't understand was why they had to move back in the first place. His parents wouldn't give him an explanation. Whenever Bucky asked, they just became all closed off and wouldn't talk about it. He noticed his sister, Rebecca, was acting quite different too. In fact, he figured out a year ago something was wrong with her. She pretended to be happy, but Bucky knew she wasn't.

The first day was creeping closer and closer, and before Bucky knew it he was being shaken awake by his mother, Winifred.

She shouted something about setting an alarm, and how he was going to be late for the first day. Bucky wasn't really paying attention. He groaned and slowly sat up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"Teenagers," Winifred muttered before she left his room, slamming the door behind her.

Bucky let out a heavy sigh. He didn't see the problem. He had gotten up, hadn't he? Maybe it was a little later than intended, but here he was, not begging for five more minutes.

He checked the time.

7:49 a.m

Well shit. So maybe it was a lot later than intended.

Bucky threw his covers off and sifted through a laundry basket of clean clothes he hadn't bothered to fold or put away yet. He grabbed what he needed and headed for the bathroom.

So it's ten to eight now, Bucky though. First bell rings at eight, but I have to be in class by five after. Technically, that gives me fifteen minutes. It takes six to eight minutes to get there, depending on traffic. I should have at least seven minutes to get ready.

He stared at himself in the mirror for a moment. His hair nearly reached he shoulders. He made a mental note to get it cut sometime later that week. For now, he would have to tie it up in a bun to keep it out of the way.

Bucky got ready in record timing. Five minute later he was grabbing an apple and heading out to his black Chevy Cruze. Not without saying goodbye to Winifred, of course. She made sure to stand by the door, giving him a bone-crushing hug before he could leave.

He sped off, probably going enough miles an hour to get a speeding ticket. Somehow, he was pulling up in the already full parking lot of the school only five minutes later.

He didn't have time to take in his surroundings. He only had time to find the entrance, and somehow from there the main office. His eyes drifted to where students were all flocking to the front doors a little ways ahead. Bucky found he didn't recognize many of these people, which he hadn't expected to, anyway. For some reason he was still optimistic for something familiar.

He thought about Steve, and if he went to this school. He had always said that he would. But what if he moved, too? He probably didn't, though. Would he be friends with Steve again? He wanted to believe he would be, but there was this bad feeling inside of him that said Steve moved on.

Would he even make any new friends?

Bucky shook his head and made his way, along with the other students, inside the school. The school had its open house a while ago, but Bucky couldn't be bothered to go. Now, he was beginning to regret it. It didn't look too intimidating from the outside, however somehow upon entering it seemed so much larger and scarier than he cared to admit. He didn't even know where to start.

Thankfully, office was to the left of Bucky, and hard to miss. He noticed it almost immediately upon entering the school.

The first bell had already rung and students were making their way towards class. Bucky pushed open the door to the office, all the while his nerves were going haywire.

The secretary sitting at a desk was a pleasant looking woman sporting a blue sundress. She was rather young; Bucky guessed she couldn't have been much older than himself. She smiled at him welcomingly.

"Hello! What can I do for you?" She beckoned him forward. Bucky's eyes drifted to her nails, which were extremely long, green, and filed to a point at the end. It looked undeniably ridiculous.

"Umm. . ." Still distracted by the young woman's nails, Bucky momentarily lost sight of what he was doing. She nodded for him to continue. "Well, I'm new here."

She smiled again, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "I see. Did you come to the open house in July?"

Bucky watched her lips, which had pale pink lipstick on them. Because her voice was so quiet and soft, he couldn't actually hear a word she was saying.

"No," he said. "I was busy."

She eyed him skeptically. "There was two dates."

"I was on vacation," he lied.

Thankfully, she didn't question him any further. "Name?"

"Bu—James Barnes." He cringed at his real name. Some people still called him James, of course. Like his grandparents. Still, he hated for himself to have to say it out loud.

She shifted through piled of paper on her desk before finally pulling one out that looked like his schedule. "You realize that the first day was a week ago, right?"

Bucky had realized. He had pretended to be sick for the first few days, but Winifred realized pretty quickly that he was lying. She let him stay home for the rest of the week, anyway, assuming that Bucky just wasn't ready for school yet. However, she had to put her foot down. If he didn't go to school today, he'd be in a world of trouble.

The truth was, Bucky hoped that if he refused to go to school for long enough his parents would realize that this whole moving away thing wasn't worth it, and they'd move back to Russia. Winifred was scary when she was angry, so of course this was never going to work.

Bucky never answered the secretary. He yanked the paper from her hands and proceeded to go out the door. She called his name, but he didn't hear.

He was stopped suddenly by a boy with sandy brown hair that looked to be about his age. The boy had his arms spread out in the doorway, preventing Bucky from leaving. Bucky tried ducking under his arms, but the pair of arms only lowered. He sighed in defeat; he wasn't about to shove him away with his metal arm. Believe it or not, as much as Bucky hated being here he wasn't about to get suspended on his first day.

"So you're new," the boy said, finally putting down his arms. Bucky nodded. "Ms. Knight wanted me to show you to your classes, seems how you missed open house."

Bucky glanced back to the secretary, who was now signing things to the boy in front of him.

He's been skipping out the past week, I'm pretty sure.

"I—you're deaf?" he asked, surprised to find someone like himself. Then he noticed that the boy was wearing hearing aids.

"Partially, yeah. Why? Is that a problem?" He looked a little angry, and Bucky couldn't blame him. "I'm Clint, by the way."

"Bucky, and no. It's not a problem. In fact, so am I."

"Really?" Clint said, equally as surprised. He didn't say anything else about the matter. "Let me see your schedule."

Bucky handed it over. He was reluctant at first, but Clint proved to be a big help. After getting a late slip from Ms. Knight, he helped Bucky find his classes for the day before going to his own. The school seemed simple enough. Bucky just hoped he wouldn't forget where his classes were and get lost.

Bucky would be lying if he said that he didn't wait for Steve's name at roll call in every one of his classes. His heart gave a little jolt when he heard it in his calculus class. However, unfortunately for whatever circumstance Steve wasn't at school.

**

Originally, Bucky wasn't sure what he was supposed to do at lunch. He assumed he would get his food from the cafeteria and go sit at some secluded area outside. That wouldn't be the case, because just before Clint went off to his social studies class he invited Bucky to hang out with his friends at lunch. Bucky wasn't about to turn down the offer; this was what he wanted. He liked Clint enough, too. Why shouldn't he also like his friends?

Bucky made his way over to the cafeteria (thankfully Clint told him where it was) after his biology class. He sought out Clint, who was in line waiting for food with a few people who must've been his friends. One was a girl with a hairstyle that reminded Bucky of the 40s, there was a guy with dark hair wearing a purple shirt, and another guy with blond hair so light it looked white, with dark roots growing in.

"Hello," Bucky said quietly as he approached the four. Along with the loud chatter of many teenagers, Bucky couldn't even hear himself speak.

The blond kid looked at him funny before poking Clint in the shoulder. Clint turned to Bucky and smiled. "Oh, hey! Guys, this is Bucky." They all murmured their hellos.

"I'm Peggy Carter." The girl smiled warmly at him.

"Bruce Banner." Bruce and Bucky nodded at each other. "We did go to school together." Bucky thought he looked familiar.

"Pietro Maximoff." Pietro had an accent that Bucky couldn't quite place.

"Bucky Barnes," Bucky said, though the way Clint introduced him made him guess that they all already knew that.

"You're in my calculus class and my biology class," Peggy said.

Bucky looked at her slightly surprised. "I am?" She nodded. He felt a little guilty that he hadn't noticed. Of course, that would be because he wasn't really paying attention to much else in both classes other than what the teacher was saying. He at least wanted to make a good first impression, especially after missing the first week. Besides, he had to catch up somehow.

"I see you were keeping an eye on Bucky," Clint said teasingly. He even threw in a cheeky wink. That bastard.

Peggy rolled her eyes. "Just because I make fun of you for practically st—"

Clint clamped a hand over her mouth. "We aren't talking about Nat right now."

"Oh, so you admit that you like—"

"Peggy, leave the poor guy alone," Bruce said, speaking up for the first time. He was very quiet and reserved, Bucky noted. He didn't quite seem to fit in with this group of people. Meanwhile, Pietro was watching with an amused look on his face.

They didn't say anything about the matter again and instead made small talk while they waited. Bucky mostly remained silent and let himself zone out occasionally. He noticed that they slipped in and out of sign language, which for Bucky was a lot easier to understand. He found with everyone talking at once it was hard to hear what any one person was saying. He supposed this is what they must usually do, for Clint's benefit.

They got to the front of the line and payed for their food. Bucky ended up with two slices of pizza and a carton of chocolate milk.

Bucky wondered where they would sit. Every table seemed to be full. He followed behind as they made their way to a table where a girl and a boy were holding hands.

"Wanda, Vision, this is Bucky," Clint introduced. The two both smiled. "Bucky, this is Wanda and Vision. Wanda is Pietro's twin sister. Vision's name isn't actually Vision, we just call him that because. . .well, it's quite the story."

Bucky already knew Pietro and Wanda, too. With his dyed hair, he couldn't quite recognize Pietro at first, but Wanda looked much the same.

"Vision here seems to have this uncanny ability to tell the future," Peggy said, sliding her arm around Bucky's shoulder. Bucky tensed slightly, but relaxed after a few short moments. "He says it's because he gets these so called 'visions'. We all know it's bullshit and most times he's just lucky. I mean, he isn't always right. Like, last year he said Steve Rogers was going to come out. But really? I mean, we can all assure you that Rogers is far from gay."

"I was joking, you know," Vision says.

"Steve Rogers? Little Stevie?" Bucky said, taken aback. He knew that Steve went to school here, but to hear other people talk about his Steve still somehow surprised him. It brought back a surge of memories.

"Little?" Peggy snorted.

"Not so much anymore, is he?" Pietro added.

"I always forget how small he used to be," Wanda said.

Bruce nodded along. The others seemed shocked by this information.

"Steve used to be small?" Clint asked.

"Out of context. . ." Peggy shook her head and covered her mouth with her hands, stifling a giggle. Bucky hadn't really thought of that, and by the looks on everyone's faces, no one else had either. "Anyway. Bucky, you knew Steve?"

"Yes," Bucky signed back, greatly appreciating her use of sign language. She seemed to understand how overwhelming it must have been, trying to read everyone's lips at once. Although Bucky wasn't completely deaf, it was much too loud in the cafeteria for him to focus on anyone's voices. "We were best friends."

"Peggy is only only asking because she has this massive crush on Steve," Clint signed.

Peggy gave him a warning look. However, her cheeks were now beet red.

"I do not."

**

Bucky heard Steve's name being called again in his drama class. He hoped that perhaps Steve skipped out during math class. He couldn't be Brooklyn's golden boy forever, after all.

He couldn't lie, he was disappointed that he hadn't seen Steve that day, especially after what Clint's—his new friends told him about Steve. Bucky of course couldn't resist asking where Steve might've been, to which Peggy responded immediately saying that he was probably sick because Steve wouldn't miss a day of school unless he absolutely had to.

He also learned about the popular group at school, which weren't actually hated as much as most populars usually were. At least, they weren't hated by Bucky's new group of friends. In fact, sometimes the two groups intermingled. There was Tony, the super rich kid who hadn't changed a bit since he went to school with Bucky, from the sounds of it, and from the glimpses that Bucky caught of him while he was eating his pizza. Thor, a football star, who sometimes brought along his girlfriend Jane and her friend Darcy. There was also Rhodey and Natasha, the girl Clint so obviously liked.  Steve was apparently a part of this group, and also the captain of the football team. Bucky had hung his mouth open at this, like a fish.

Steve Rogers, captain of the football team? Clearly, things were not the way they used to be.

**

A/n: The things they say in italics are what is in sign language.