"Who are you people?" JJ demands.
They all look at each other in concern. They are praying that this is some sort of joke. When no one answers, he continues.
"Where am I?" He asks.
Steve is the first of the bunch to recover.
"Wakanda, it's in Africa," Steve says.
"Why am I here?" JJ asks.
Sarah can't stand to see her cousin like this. He was more than a cousin to her, he was like her brother and he had no idea who she was. She wanted to run away and cry but she had to stay for JJ.
"You got hurt. We brought you here to get better," Bucky explains.
He was terrified for his son. He doesn't remember who he is. Bucky knows that feeling better than anyone. It is a horrible feeling when someone you love knows you but you don't know them.
JJ asks this next question really quietly and avoids eye contact with everyone.
"And who am I?" JJ asks softly.
This is worse than any of them could have imagined. Whatever happened to him wiped his entire memory. Everything that made JJ, JJ.
Steven doesn't want to overwhelm him so he thinks of the simplest introduction he can manage.
"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes II. We call you JJ," Steven says.
"And who are you?" JJ asks.
"My name is Steven and I'm your brother. Your twin," Steven explains.
JJ eyes him suspiciously but he doesn't hear any duplicity in his voice. Plus, he has no idea who he is but he seems familiar.
"Are the rest of you my family?" JJ asks.
"Yes, I'm your dad," Bucky admits.
"I'm your cousin, Sarah," Sarah says.
"I'm your uncle, Steve," Steve says.
He looks at Natasha last. Is this his mother?
Natasha doesn't know how to describe their relationship. They are family even if they aren't blood but she doesn't know how to explain that.
"I'm... a friend. My name is Natasha," Natasha says.
JJ looks around the room but there is no one else. He looks at Bucky.
"Where's my mother?" He asks.
They couldn't just spring everything on him all at once so Bucky goes for the simplest answer.
"She's gone but she was amazing. She loved you so much," Bucky says.
Bucky holds back tears because in that moment, he almost feels like a widow. He hopes that that's not what Lizzie felt like when she lost him all those years ago. He hopes she moved on even though he knows he never will. His boys are mostly grown but he never fully realized that he has to be both parents for them now.
JJ can tell from his father's voice that he misses her greatly. He knows that when he says gone, they didn't just get a divorce. She must have died somehow.
"Oh," JJ says.
JJ feels like he should be crying but he didn't really know her. He doesn't know any of them.
"Ah, Mr. Barnes, you are awake," Shuri says as she walks in the room.
"Am I supposed to know her?" JJ asks.
"No," Steve reassures him.
Shuri raises in eyebrow and looks at Steve.
"Um, JJ is experiencing some memory problems," Steve admits.
Shuri nods in understanding.
"Let me run some tests," she says.
They all leave the room in order for Shuri to have the space to work.
"Do you think it's permanent?" Sarah says looking at Steve.
Sarah always looks to her father for guidance but unfortunately, in this case, he's as clueless as the rest of him.
"I dont know, honey. I hope not," Steve says.
Steven wonders if he might be able to reinvent JJ's memories through visions. It won't be the same as having personal memories. It will feel more like watching a movie than living the experiences himself but at least he'll remember something.
He decides to not bring it up to his family though quite yet. He needs to ask Shuri if it will work before anything.
Steven is completely thrown on how to handle this whole situation. They hadn't been able to change anything but why were they able to change this? JJ's fall prevented Rhodey's paralysis but either way, someone was critically injured at the airport fight.
Steven thought that they were all knowing but apparently, that's not the case. Maybe JJ was right. Maybe they are here for a purpose and fate brought them here. Was their purpose to save Rhodey? For some reason, Steven doesn't believe that's the case. He does believe that his family has a big role to play in the wars to come but he has no idea how.
Steven sees Bucky standing by the observation window and walks over to him. He can see that his dad is staring at JJ as tests are run on him.
"When you see us, do you see mom?" Steven asks.
Bucky glances down at Steven and then back to JJ.
"I haven't had a lot of interaction with your brother but I see a lot of me in him, well the old me, but I see so much of your mom in you," Bucky says.
"How so?" Steven asks.
"Well, I was very impulsive and head strong as a kid. I was passionate but I was also reckless. Your mom was the antithesis of me. She was level headed and so smart. She thought things out and never made any rash decisions. You and your brother definitely mirror that dynamic," Bucky says.
Bucky gives a small smile as he thinks about the days before they first got together.
"It took me quite a bit of time to convince your mother to be with me, actually. We were so different that she worried we would fight all the time. I disagreed with her. I believed that our differences balanced each other. We tempered each other worst impulses and made the other person better. I pulled her out of her shell and she kept me grounded," Bucky says.
Steven knows how much his dad loves his mom. It was so obvious growing up that they were perfect for each other. He can hear in his dad's voice that mom was his everything. It still made no sense to him why his dad didn't immediately agree to go back with Uncle Steve after the final battle against Thanos.
"If someone offered you the opportunity right now to go back and live the rest of your life with mom, would you?" Steven asks.
Bucky doesn't have to even think about the answer.
"No," Bucky says.
"No? But she's the love of your life!" Steven says.
Steven doesn't understand. If you love someone, you should want to be with them, right?
"When you love someone like I love your mother, your happiness ceases to be important. Everything is about keeping them safe and happy even if it means a life of misery," Bucky says.
"But my parents in my timeline are so happy together. You make mom happy," Steven says.
"Going back to your mother is everything I would ever want in life but not at the risk of her safety. The way I am now... I'd just put her in danger. Hydra still has too much of a hold on me," Bucky says.
"Well what if you get better?" Steven asks.
"I'm never going to be right again, bud. I'm not the same man who left your mother in 1943. Hell, I'm not even the same man who raised you. It's a moot point anyways because I can never go back to her," Bucky says.
"What about if you get the words out of your head? I heard you and Uncle Steve talk about it," Steven says.
He didn't actually overhear the conversation but he knows that they have already talked about it.
"I wanted to tell you and your brother that in person. I don't know if I can leave your brother like this though," Bucky says.
Steven knows that his dad has to get the trigger words out of his head or he'll never go back to mom. His mom and dad belong together and he doesn't want their intervention to screw up their happy ending.
"Dad, don't take this the wrong way but I think you need to do it. I'm not scared for our safety because we have a lot of people protecting us plus we can protect ourselves pretty well. I think you need to do this for you. You will never trust yourself if you don't have those trigger words out of your head," Steven says.
He doesn't know why but Steven's speech reminds him so much of Lizzie.
"But you and JJ," Bucky starts to say.
"We will be fine, dad. We're going to be okay. Look around at how many people are looking out for Jay. Plus, you won't be in cryo long, just until Shuri finds a cure," Steven says.
Steven definitely does plan on speeding up the process since he already knows how his dad gets fixed, however, he can't tell them right away without being suspicious.
After Shuri finishes up running the tests, she calls them back in. She basically tells them what she told them before. Because of his powers, it is incredibly hard to predict what is going on with his brain. She's going to try a couple different therapies to see if any of them work.
When Steven asks Shuri about projecting memories into JJ's mind, she hesitates.
"I would prefer if he remembered on his own but if all else fails, it is definitely something to consider," Shuri says.
Later that day, Bucky begins getting prepped to go back in to cryostasis.
"You sure about this?" Steve asks.
With everything going on right now with JJ, he isn't sure that now is the right time for him to go under. However, if that's what Bucky decides, then he'll support it. He knows that Steven pushed Bucky to go through with it.
"I can't trust my own mind. So, until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head I think going back under is the best thing . . . for everybody," Bucky says.
He glances behind Steve to look at Steven who is taking to Sarah. He's doing this for him.
He wants to be in the twins lives permanently. He wants to get to know them and he wants to be a family. However, he knows that he can't do any of that until he trust himself around them. He prays that Shuri finds a quick fix for both himself and JJ.
Shuri is young but she's very smart. Bucky learned at an early age that you don't have to be old to be a genius. Lizzie was a genius long before she reached adulthood. He believes that Shuri can help him and his son.
He is helped into the cryotube and is strapped in. He looks over to see Steven approaching.
"You ready?" Steven asks.
"It's not my first time in cryostasis. I'll be fine," Bucky reassures him.
"I know but just because you've done something before, doesn't mean it's not worrisome," Steven says.
He can't help but smile because it's such a Lizzie thing to say. She was always so philosophical.
Oh, how he misses her.
"Steven, I have a favor to ask," Bucky says.
Steven raises his eyebrows in surprise. He doesn't know what his dad could possibly want from him but he knows he'll help his dad in anyway he can.
"Can you show me your mom while I go under? Not something from your timeline but something from mine? Something from when we were young?" Bucky asks.
Bucky knows it's a strange thing to ask his son but he needs her in order to be brave. In that moment, he just needs to be with her even if it's just a memory.
"Of course, dad," Steven says.
Steven has watched his parents fall in love through his vision. He has watched different moments from when they first met to when dad left for the war. When he was at The Raft, he had a lot of time on his hands so he watched a lot of visions including his parents story.
Steven racks his brain for something to show his father as he goes under. He wants to show him something happy. It takes a moment of thinking but he finally finds it.
Steven can see that the doctors are preparing to start the cryofreeze so he is quick to start the vision.
"Close your eyes, dad," Steven says softly.
Bucky does as he says and is immediately brought into the memory. It only takes a few moments to place what Steven is showing him.
It was the first Christmas after he and Ellie got together. They had decided to not get gifts for each other and instead, they decided to take the train to the Rockefeller Center and see the Christmas tree.
He had never seen anything so grand but he wasn't looking at the tree, he was looking at her. Looking at her was his favorite past time. He loved seeing the wonder on her face as she looked at the lit up tree.
She turned to him and gave him the most glorious smile and he couldn't help but want to keep that smile on her face for the rest of their lives.
He wanted to propose to her that night but she had her silly rule about not getting engaged until a year after they were together.
They went ice skating and he kept having to hold back the laughter from how horrible she was. Neither of them had skated before but Bucky was always the more coordinated of the two. It wasn't long before he was able to skate around like a pro.
He had to coax her to let go of the wall and join him out onto the middle of the ice. He skated backwards as he held her hands and pulled her with him. He had to reassure her multiple times that he would catch her if she fell.
She did end up falling and she pulled Bucky down with her. He managed to spin their bodies so she landed on top of him. She accused him of not catching her but he said it was close enough. They laughed together as they laid on the ice with Lizzie on top of him.
Their laughter stopped as Lizzie leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to his lips. He could see the love in her eyes and he knew it was reflected in his.
They eventually got up but Lizzie was shivering from the cold. They bought some hot chocolate and sat on a bench in front of the tree. He had wrapped his arm around her shoulder to help keep her warm.
They talked and laughed for hours as he fell even more deeply in love with her.
He could feel the cold from the evening sinking into his bones but he didn't care because he was with her.
Steven finishes the vision right as his dad goes under. He hopes that it gave his dad some peace.
He hopes he dreams of mom so they are together in the days to come.