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Chapter Text

   Steve had hardly ever thought of having kids in his life. Before the war he was to sick, he couldn't have kids and even if he couldn't he wouldn't in fear that his offspring would have the same defects he had. Then he got the serum but he was at war he never thought about it then. Even after that when he had time to himself before SHIELD had got him back into the fight he was adjusting to a new time he didn't think about it, then the Avengers and SHIELD, jumping from fight to fight. He didn’t think about it. Right now he did though, he had to. Looking at a file he found in a now abandoned Hydra base on his search for Bucky, the face of a freshly 2 year only baby with gray blue eyes and blonde curly hair. 

   The file said he was Steve’s, Steve didn't know how. He hasn't done much with anyone in this day in age, a couple a small flings but never anything serious. He was careful, bought his own condoms and he wore them every time. Had one of them broken? Then he saw the next line, 

   Offspring of the Asset. 

   Steve knew what that ment. It was Bucky, he heard enough of the Hydra scum call him that, but how the hell could a baby be made from both of them. Steve has known Bucky practically his whole life he knew Bucky was biologically a male. So this had to be some kind of fear tactic or a way to manipulate Bucky. That was it. It had to be. 

   The more he read the more he knew it was true. DNA splicing, forcing a young woman they stole off the streets to cary the baby. His baby. Bucky's baby. They used a blood sample the SSR had taken right after he was given the serum. He didn't know how they got ahold of it. Steve took the file, he had come here alone so he didn't have to worry about telling anyone yet. He needed time to think about it himself. 

   The file sat in the saddle bag on his motorcycle, Rogers drove far faster than he should have especially without a helmet but he needed to do something to clear his head. He hasn't ever thought about it. He never had the time or the care for it and now like most things a child was being shoved into his hands. Sure there are probably options, but none that felt right. This boy was his son and he needed to find him. He needed to find Bucky too. Did Bucky know? No he couldn't Hydra wouldn't have told him. 

      Steve drove fast and recklessly all the way back to the compound, where all of the Avengers lived, with the exception of Clint who lived with his family. He didn't say anything just sent Nat a text that said there was nothing at the base. Steve walks to his room, then into the connected bathroom, he felt faint. It was hard to breath. Its been a very long time since he's had an asthma attack but that is exactly what this felt like. He sat down on the floor holding back tears, wheezing, hand gripping the front of his uniform. It took him a while to get his breathing under control. 

   He had a son, one with his best friend. Said son was likely alone in a Hydra base somewhere being neglected or worse. Part of him hoped it was just neglect and not everything they had done to Bucky. He was just a boy. Bucky was just a boy when it happened to him too. He needed to get his head on straight. He needed to find them, as much as he desperately wants to find Bucky he would have to take a backseat on this one, its what he would want. No, Steve would have Nat and Sam keep looking, he'd go with them on every very promising lead. He would look for his son. He needed to tell them but then there would be no one looking for Bucky. 

   Steve needed to tell someone. He turns the shower on, the water warmed to the point it would scold a none enhanced person, Steve didn't like cold water. Or the cold at all, but especially cold water. 

    Sure his skin turned red and it burns but it was something to get his mind off of it. He just needed his mind cleared for a moment so he could think better. He scrubbed his skin raw, washed his hair rough enough to pull several strains out not the normal amount that falls out but not enough to be noticed. Steve got out of the shower he pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Clint. He would know what to do, he has kids. And from what he knows now Cooper had been a complete surprise. He should know what to do. 

   It rang three times before someone picked up, "hello, Barton residents?" A young girl answered, it was Clints daughter, Lila. 

   "Hey, where's your dad at I need to talk to him." Steve said hoping his voice wouldn't hold a tone that would worry the girl. 

   "He's in the barn, he broke his hearing aids." Of course he did. Clint was a hit mess all the time Steve would have been more surprised if he hadn't broken something.

   "Your mother?" Laura would be told anyway, Steve could ask the man to keep something from his wife. 

   "She's with dad and Nathaniel." Lila said he could almost hear her little nod. 

   "Alright, can you run the phone out to her for me?" 

   "Yeah!" Steve could hear the sound of a door open and close then running then some soft talking he couldn't quite make out. 

   "Hello Captain. What's the matter?" Laura asked as she set the phone down and put it on speaker so she could sign for Clint. 

   "I have a son." There was a several second period of silence where Steve tried to find the words to explain the situation. How the hell didn't he know? Why didn't he ever look into the two vials of his blood that went missing? 

   "A what! Who the hell did you get pregnant Rogers? Is he born? Whats his name?" Clint rushed out, excitedly yet equally freaked as Steve was. A soft chuckle left Laura, this was just a more verbal way to how the team reacted to Clints family. 

   "I didnt get anyone pregnant. Hydra made the kid with my DNA, he's two years old as of last week. I don't know the mother, they never learned her name, and Bucky is also the father."  Steve explained and he knew it was a terrible explanation as it took several seconds before there was another response. 

   "DNA splicing into a human host?" Laura spoke this time. "Yeah, that." Steve answered he nodded even though the two couldn't see. 

   "Those viles of your blood the SSR lost? Or did they take a seamen sample from you?.. Ow! It was a real question I swear I'm only teasing a little." Clint said, that second half was in response to his wife punching his arm.

   "The blood." 

   "Alright. We'll help you find the boy. You don't have to keep him you know. There are options." Clint said he held a serious tone this time. 

   "No. He's my son. And he's a super soldier so... yeah I feel those options could very easily go very wrong when the boy inevitably throws a fit." 

two weeks later

Bucky Pov

   This wasn't at all how the Asset saw his life going. Not in the slightest. He saw himself living as a soldier and dying a hero. He wasn't so sure anymore, the flashes of... things hurt his head. He saved the captain, he was called Bucky and when he looked into the man he found that seargent James Buchanan Barnes was dead he died a long time ago. He looked like him though, his hair is longer, his face shallow and sad, a little bit of scruff. The Asset would never have mistaken himself for this man. 

   The other big thing was his son. His and the captains. The little blonde two year old had been at the base he had ransacked just three weeks ago. He was alone, like the Asset himself. He was crying and scared, a file that explained everything. He thinks he vaguely remembered, hands holding him down, touching him. A woman's pleas to be let go, she was ignored as was all pleas. The Asset should have known he wasn't helping. He wasn't the good guy he did bad. He was rembering though, he wrote it all down. Every scrap he wrote down in a notebook and stuffed into his backpack. 

   He had taken the young boy with him. He's killed enough people, sure he wasn't sure if they were all innocent but this boy was. He didn't know what he was doing but the boy was fed, clothed, a roof over his head, and he wasn't being experimented on or brainwashed. The bare minimum but that's all the Asset had to offer right now. So he was going to lay low in Romania with his son and provide that bare minimum for as long as he could and then some. This boy deserves a chance, the chance and choices that he never had himself. 

   Caring for another person felt so much easier than caring for himself. It was like second nature even as he guessed and made things up as he went. The boy didn't cry as much as he had just two days ago and as he sat on the floor with the two year old in his lap a light blue pacifier in the child's mouth while he started to tell him a story. The boy gently put his hands on either cheek and just held his face. The asset didn't know what to do.

   Emotions were new to him. He felt like he wanted to cry but his chest felt light not heavy or tight. His own flesh hand came up and gently rested on the Boy's cheek. 

   "You need a name." He said after a while, the boy didn't talk, the Asset knew why. Hydra didn't like it. 

   "You are a person, a real person, your own person and you deserve nice things. I can't give you much and what I can give you certainly isn't nice but what I can give you is a name." He continues tucking a peace of those blonde curls behind his little ear. 

   His son smiled, he didn't have a clue what he ment just that he liked the sound of it. Of being a real person, his own person. The Asset liked it too. They could be their own people together, learn how to together. He just wished he could teach him how, thats was a real father would do. A real father would know what to do and would know how to provide properly. 

   "A name is real important. Its what everyone is going to call you for the rest of your life." The Asset said gently booping his boys nose. 

   "How about... damn this is harder than I thought it would be." He said he obviously made a face as the boy laughed. The asset tickled the boys tummy making him laugh more. 

   "Dont say damn. Its a bad word.... Malachi. Do you like that name?" 

   The boy snuggled into the Assets chest a yawn leaving him causing him to drop the pacifier. A small smile on the boy's lips. 

   "Let's get you to bed, Malachi." The asset said. Hes sire he's heard that name somewhere else and as much as it caused him physical pain to make that decision on his own someone had to. 

   Malachi needed a name and it was apart of that bare minimum that the Asset promised himself he would provide.

Chapter Text

    Two months passed while Steve, Clint, and Laura looked for Steve's son and Natasha and Sam looked for Bucky. Two months and Steve hasn't told anyone but Clint and Laura. He doesn't know why he's so nervous about telling people, its not like he got someone pregnant or sold the kid to Hydra. In this situation he is just as much a victim as everyone else involved even if he didnt know about it while they did. Well except the boy who is to young to really understand much. 2 years old should be around the time they start speaking full sentences and have enough autonomy to destroy everything they touch. 

   Steve couldn't shake the feeling that this was all his fault. What happened to that girl, the fact Bucky was ever in Hydra, the innocent little boy. Steve supposed that over these two months he was a bit distracted, it must have shown as Natasha approached him about it. 

   "Steve. I know you're worried about him but we're going to find him." Natasha said after cornering him in the gym. 

   "I know. I just... I don't know." Steve really didn't know. He doesn't have a clue how to fix this. To make the problem go away, he can't punch it away. 

   "Yes you do. What aren't you telling us?... you're gay for him, aren't you? Fuck guess I own Clint 20 bucks." Natasha said sighing, she seemed a little annoyed at losing this bet. 

   "What? No!... no. We weren't ever... we didn't go steady." Steve had hoped his voice didn't sound the way he knew it did. Flustered and a little panicked. 

   Natasha smiled like she knew something Steve didn't, "but you wanted to....no that's not it there's something else isn't there." Her smiled faded as the topic changed. 

   "Yeah there is." Steve said a few seconds later. He couldn’t look at her when he said it, like he had somehow forced himself on not only that girl but Bucky too. 

   Steve grabbed Natasha's wrist and pulled her to his room he took the file out of his bedside drawer and handed it to her. He sat down heavily on the bed his hands ran over his face, he couldn't look at her while she read it. Rationally he knew none of this was his fault he didn't cause any of this. That guilt stayed. It wouldn't be hard to have saved Bucky. All he had to do was reach a little further, had not even thought about that mission. He should have just held him. Bucky always deserved to be held, he used to work himself to the bone for everyone else, like taking care of other people was the same thing as taking care of himself. 

   He would make a good father. That is if he wants any part of this. Steve wouldn't make him, he's been forced to do to much already. 

Bucky pov

   The Asset walked through a little farmers market Malachi was on his back giggling and playing with his own baseball cap. It was too big for him just another one the Asset had and Malachi wanted it so he gave it to him. Life wasn't bad, the Asset did odd jobs to make money, sure it was a little rough but it kept a roof over their head and some food on the table. The neighbor loved Malachi and she helped a lot, watching him while the Asset worked or having them over for dinner. 

   She was an older woman her husband had passed two years ago, her kids no longer lived with her, her grand kids old enough they don't need her. Malachi enjoyed her company and she spoiled him rotten with sweets and clothes that belonged to her son. This includes the outfit Malachi was wearing right now, overalls and a white shirt that had a small stain down the front from breakfast this mornings.

   Her name was Relia, she had said she would watch Malachi tonight so he could do another odd job, rent was coming and he was short. He couldn't bring Mal with him, he would get hurt. 

   "Malachi, what do you say we start heading back now?" The asset asked the boy even though the boy hasn't said a single word to him ever. 

   The Asset doesn't know anything about kids but it feels a little weird that his two year old wasn't speaking. Relia had also said it was a bit strange. However he was getting the strange feeling that they were being followed. The Asset might just be paranoid, he had been a lot recently. This is the longest he's stayed in one place in a long time but he didn't want to just take Malachi away from here. Relia was a good person and a great help and he doesn't know what he would do if he no longer had her next door. 

   He started the walk back to the apartment, he hadn't bought anything, he doesn't have the money for it right now. Though they were running out of food in the house. Getting a real actual job wasn't an option not when he had no identification, no name, no birth date. So odd jobs, sketchy jobs were all he had access too. 

Steve pov

  Natasha sat there on his bed shocked to her core. She's read the file nearly three times before she spoke, 

   "It's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong." She said

   "Thats the problem though. I didn't do anything at all. I hadn't even known, I should have known Natasha." Steve ran his hand through his hair. 

   "Have you been looking for him?" Nat questioned handing the file back to Steve. 

   "Yeah, I've got Clint and Laura helping me with it while you and Sam looked for Bucky." Steve explained still not looking at her. 

   He just couldn't, his skin crawled he just felt sick. Worrying about a kid, his kid, and not being able to get that poor girl out of his head. A young blonde woman, with brown eyes, she had been taken off the streets, it had happened in a college town. She was likely going to school at that campus or perhaps just visiting someone there. He could help but think about her surfing nine months of pregnancy with his kid. Steve knows rationally that he didn't do anything wrong, that Natasha was right, but he couldn't help but feel like he had somehow raped that poor girl.

    Before the conversation could go further or Steve spiraled too far into his own head he got a call from Clint. He took a few steps away from Nat and turned around, though now that she knew about the boy this conversation likely didn't need to be private. 

   "We have a positive ID on Barnes and the boy. They're together." Clint said.

Asset pov

      The Asset hadn't been sleeping, he couldn't. Every time he closed his eyes he saw flashes of things. Of what he os starting to belive are memories, time before Hydra. He didn't want to believe in a time before Hydra, a time where he had been a person. 

   He wondered what Bucky's life had been like. 

   Malachi wouldn't sleep through the night, the poor boy kept waking up screaming and crying shaking like a leaf. It always took a whole to calm him back down but he often didn't go back the sleep.

   Right now Malachi was in his lap on the floor face tucked into his chest as he cried.

    The Asset found that singing often helped calm Malachi down, he discovered this just a few nights ago. Mal had been sobbing after another nightmare and he just wouldnt calm down in a last ditch effort the Asset started to sing a song he heard a long while ago. For some reason the song had stuck in his mind.

   "kiss me once, then kiss me twice Then kiss me once again It's been a long time Haven't felt like this my dear Since I can't remember when It's been a long, long time You'll never know how many dreams I dreamed about you" the Asset sang softly rubbing the small boys back in soft little circles.

   It takes a while fo Malachi to calm down. He was still sniffling and clinging to the assets shirt. He keeps rubbing the boys back placing a small kiss to the top of his head. 

   "Think you can..." the Asset had started talking softly but paused when he hears a noise outside their apartment door. The walls are very thin. For a moment he suspects its a neighbor about to complain but something felt wrong. 

    "Malachi, I need you to listen to me very carefully." He started as he quietly walks Mal to the closet. "Stay in here and stay very, very quiet." He instructed setting him down in the closet behind some clothes before closing the doors.

   The door to his apartment opened. The Asset grabbed the nearest gun and listened very closely. 

   "Bucky?" It was the captain.

Chapter Text

33 months ago

Victoria POV

  Vic was a good kid in high-school, she never got in trouble and had a 3.7 GPA (she had only failed her algebra class). She got into a good college three hours away from her parents who helped pay her tuition despite she saying she didn't need them too. She had scholarships but it wasn't a full ride. 

   One night, one normal night walking back to her dorm from a night class. She had always been a night owl and hated mornings ever since she was a baby. She was walking alone on the familiar streets of her college town oblivious to the three men following her. It wasnt unusual to be walking the same direction after all she lived in a co-ed dorm. Victoria payed them no mind at all, hardly even noticed them. She was just texting her roommate to let her know she was on her way home. 

   The text never got sent. 

   The next thing she was really aware of through the haze of some drug was a room. For a second she thought she was in the hospital. Figured she wasnt paying enough attention and get hit by a car or something like that. But no, it didnt take long to realize that she hadn't had a single clue where she was but it most definitely wasnt a hospital of any kind.

present day

Bucky POV

   The Asset stood in front of the Captain silently after the name had been said. He didnt quite know what to say, he hoped hearing the name wouldn't confuse Malachi. His boy didnt even know the Assets name. Well he doesn't have a name, but maybe he could give himself one just so Mal knows how important a name really is. 

   "I'm not Bucky." The Asset says after the long silence. 

   "Yes you are. You might not remember-" Steve started to talk to try and reason with the Asset but he just shakes his head. 

   "No." He said, he was stern, saying no was a weird thing it felt wrong in his throat but he knew Malachi could hear him and he needed the boy to know how to say it even if it burnt a whole through his own chest first he would not let his boy be hurt by the inability to say no. 

   "I'm not Bucky. I don't know him. I read about him in the museum, we have the same eyes. That must have confused you. I got confused too sometimes when I was frozen for long periods. Thats probably what caused it.... I read about you too." The Asset said. He was hoping he could talk his way out of this. Get the captain to leave. 

   He just wants to spare his boy the violence. Rhe Asset doesn't want Malachi scared of him but he would rather the boy be scared and safe then then not scared and not safe. He would kill the captain not for a mission given to him but for the mission he had chosen.

   "I'm not confused." Steve said then he shakes his head a little like he had better things to focus on. 

   The Captain looks around the small open plan living room with the small kitchenette. There wasnt much a couch, carpet, pillow and blanket, various kitchen utensils like a toaster and microwave. Two doorways, one too a bathroom too small for everything to fit comfortably but the Asset has always been most comfortable while uncomfortable. The other, the door the Asset stood in front of, was the door tk the only bedroom in the apartment. The room he had given to Malachi. The room where Mal was hidden in the small closet. 

   "Where is he, Buck? I know the boy is with you." The Captain said, and in a way he has a right to know, Mal is his son too. 

   The Asset doesn't want Steve here though, he doesnt want his son around Rogers and his life style or Hydra and there's. He wants his small apartment and his neighbor and eventually a small school and normal problems hes not equipped to handle. 

    He wants. 

    The Asset isn't supposed to want but god does his chest burn with it. Every bone in his body aches for this want like his very soul was clawing its way out of his marrow. 

   "Bucky, be reasonable ok. You can't keep this up. Every country in the world is after you... you look like shit. Have you been eating?" The captain spoke his voice started out stern like the beginning of some lecture neither man wanted but the more he spoke the more his voice softened. 

   It was as if every second he looked into the Assets eyes his sand stone walls of righteousness washes away leaving behind his own selfish desires.

   The Asset sees this, he had been trained to see vulnerability to use these openings and go for the kill. He doesn't want blood to taint these floors. He doesn't want anymore of the Captains blood on his hands. He hates this man. 

   It used to be easy. The Asset would listen and obey. He did his job and he did it well. Took out every target, didn't hesitant, it was was a weapon. Now all because of this man he was expected to be a person. To feel all the pain he had caused and all the pain he hadn't realized had been inflicted upon him simply because he had been too weak to stupid and nieve. This man ruined everything and yet without the Captain the Asset would never have Malachi. 

   Would never have seen the small boys smile or hear that laugh or those cries or hold the weight of his warm body to his chest when it ached to much from all the feeling he had never wanted but was forced to bare. 

   The Asset wanted not to want. He had no choice. There was never a choice.

   "You will not take him." The Asset says this firmly, it was not an order or a factual statement. It was a threat.

   "I would sooner die before I let you have him. Before I let anyone take him from me." The asset knew that speaking if his own death would distract the Captain. 

   He was a sentimental man. Easy like a picture book. Mal likes books, likes to smell the pages and pet the printed animals. Maybe, when the Captain was gone, they would get a cat. 

   "Bucky." The tone the Captain uses makes his heart hurt. The fibers of his muscles scream with the knowledge his mind had long forgotten.

   "Just come with me. The Avengers we can-" 

   Three things happened too fast for the Asset to properly process while being so distracted by the captain. He should have suspected a trap but the thought had never occurred to him. He knows the Captain would never have thought to use a trap not while foolishly believing the Asset to be Bucky. Natasha though... the Black Widow. She would make traps and plans on plans that weren't just talking in circles until the inevitable fist fight. 

1.    Malachi screams in such a way it raises every hair on the soldiers body and fills him with such an adrenaline buzz his vision tunnels to the door. 
2.    The Asset busts the door down with enough force to splinter the frame and break the thin drywall. 
3. A bight hot pain filled his skull and his tunnled vision blurred and his ears ring leaving him with just enough of his senses for just long enough to see his boy in someone else's arms.

   The Asset should have planned for the Widow and her traps.

33 months ago

   The Asset had not been told what this was for. It had not needed to be told It knew what it's job was and that was enough. The Soldier lays on a table that wasnt all that different from one in a typically medical office. The main difference was the heavy duty cuffs used for it's wrists and ankles. 

   It was out of uniform, the only other times it was out of uniform were for bathing, some matenance, and the occasional other reason like today where they don't specify what it will be used for but the Asset didnt need to know what or why it knows this is right. Its handlers would never lie, there was no use in a stupid lie. 

   The soldier heard screams and yells of a young woman. Pleading with Hydra. Didn't she know please were a waist of air? Please would get you no where when a strong fist was needed to correct bad behavior.

   "No. No no no no nonono." The woman had such pretty blonde hair with just a slight curl, her eyes were pretty and blue, her skin was a sun kissed olive. 

   Eyes were red and puffy, her face splotched red. She looked so scared, like she knew something the Asset didnt. The Asset didnt mind not knowing, knowing wouldnt help it do its job better. 

   The young woman was naked much like the soldier himself.