5

REVELATIONS

'Bucky?'

Kit scraped his eyes from between the covers, rubbing the sleep away so he could see what he was believing. His new friend slash neighbor was in his home. He looked to the window where the curtains were still drawn shut and peered back at Bucky again. All the while, Bucky stood there, confused and wondering if this were normal. 

The boy, on the other hand, scrambled off the duvet and peaked from the edge of the curtain to see if it were still night and he was dreaming. It wasn't - the sun had come up and the little bird's nest near his window was empty, signaling the start of his day. His mother had allowed him to feed the birds every day after much groveling. Overhead, the sky was white and cloudy, missing the usual blue tint. He couldn't make out the figures in the clouds that day, the azure a complete sheet of white. 

'Morning pal,' his friend said finally, lifting his lips into an awkward smile. Odd. The people in his dreams never talked. 'You okay?'

Kit nodded slowly. He swept his gaze around the room to search for his mother, gulping when he couldn't find her. Panicked, he questioned Bucky. 'Where's my ma?'

'She went out for a while,' he shared, crossing the floor from the chair he rested on to the bed. Stuffing his fists into his jumper, he nodded at him. 'Are you always this jumpy?'

'No one ever comes over. It's nice,' he revealed, a large smile on his face. He could feel his heart thumping with excitement, the list of activities he was going to effect with him already being created in his colorful mind. 

'Don't get used to it, kid,' he mused, his smile faltering. The boy had him up on a high pedestal. 'It's just for today.'

Before Kit could retort back, something else hooked his eye. The television was switched on with the news channel playing on, but the sound left muted. On the screen was a blurry picture of his favorite superhero, fighting off a group of masked men with a fiery-haired woman on his side. They were throwing kicks and punches, he couldn't let out a soft appreciation in awe at the awesome encounter caught on tape.

The token words of his mother's unbent laws rung at the back of Kit's mind, warning him. He reached past Bucky's lap for the remote, startling the soldier when he pointed it to the television and turned it off. Bucky quirked a brow at the boy, shaking his head.

'I thought you loved Cap,' he mused. 'What happened?'

'Mother said no news channels,' he conveyed with a sniff. He crushed his fist into his eye once again, falling back into the pillows again. He let out a sigh that sounded too old for a four-year-old, Bucky tried to fight off a laugh. Luna was the overbearing mother - sure, she had her reasons - and he found it lovable. 

He used a finger to poke at Kit's ankle. 'Relax, I won't tell.'

It was weird to want company from a boy but he grew on him like moss. Kit was different from most of the kids his age and ever since Bucky learned about his lineage, he started to connect the dots. Apparently, Kit was supposed to be more soft-spoken than most of the star space kids and surely more intelligent, strong and perceptive. And that fact that Kit was not superfetated but hatched shook him to the very core. Luna had not delved into the specifics but he did give her the stink-eye. He was grateful; it would be like Aliens said twice over.

'So,' Bucky started as a vague effort to initiate a conversation, leaning into the bedpost with a clear of his throat. 'Ka'rier, huh?'

The little boy froze dead. He moved his hand from his eyes to show his horrified eye at Bucky, swallowing down the million questions that lodged in his throat. Kit's mouth flopped open, no puffs leaving him.

'How,' he said under his breath, 'do you know?'

'Kit,' Bucky sighed, deciding to spill the beans. 'Your mother and I called a truce. It's about time someone around here helps you live easy. I understand how hard it is to be like this,' he waved to the small home, 'but Luna really is trying - '

Kit raised from his posture on the bed, getting on his knees beside the soldier. He was so lucky to have a friend - his first - who helped him this way. The boy could tell from the eyes of the man, that he was brave and equally afraid. He was yet to find out about the latter.

He placed his small palm over the cold, metal fist that Bucky's hand had tightened to. It jerked when Kit touched it, lithely as possible in an effort to stop his rambles.

'Thank you, Bucky,' he said with an innocent smile, for once seeming the age he was. 'I'm glad to have a friend like you.'

Bucky laughed under his breath, low and strangled. He was not adept to process the sudden affection and it had been too long since he was last taken ahold of gently. He opposed everything and everyone all his life but this fight seemed distinctive. It wasn't his battle - it was his duty to aid these people. He viewed this situation as reconciliation - a chance for him to let go of his past crimes and hopefully, earn the forgiveness that the world was never ready to offer. If not the world, then another planet.

'Ma, look who's here!"

Bucky failed to realize the entrance of Luna, immersed deep in his thoughts, who balanced a large, brown paper bag over her chest and her arms propping it to her chest. Luna didn't look to be struggling at all with the weight like it was a breeze for her. She was clad in sweats material from head to toe, her tousled hair pulled to a braid down her back. Her eyes lit up when she saw Bucky, a grin lifting her lips and his chest felt light suddenly. She dropped the bag carefully over the tabletop and every step she took towards them after, making Bucky's heart race. She was so fluid with her movements - not a speck out of proportion as she approached them.

'Hello,' she received him with a graceful smile. Her eyes flit to her son, her smile widening a fraction. She palmed his cheek, pressing a kiss to it and murmuring. 'Good morning, my heart.'

Kit looked embarrassed, making side-eyes at the soldier who watched the interaction between them carefully. Luna continued to ruffle his tresses, combing her fingers through and straightening his bedhead with a cluck of her tongue. He pushed her hand away, shooting her a warning glance.

'Mom,' he whispered, 'stop it.'

She was surprised. 'Stop what?'

'Smothering me,' he said and looked back at a silent Bucky for affirmation. 'Tell her, Bucky.' 

Bucky leaned his head in curiously when he watched an amber glow strike light in the child's eyes. What happened next shocked the man, a gasp leaving him. He swore he heard something at the back of his, head, it was almost inaudible and it sounded so familiar. He furrowed his eyebrows, rising from beside the boy and taking deep breaths. 

'What - ' he choked out. 'What the hell was that?'

'Bucky,' Luna said, her usual calm distorting. Fear replaced the cool, her hand soothing his shoulders and hoping to pacify him. 'It's okay.'

'He spoke to me!' He sputtered out. 'I-In my head!'

Luna spun around to see her son, whose once alight eyes flickered back off and blinked up at his mother. His aloof expression worried her more, it was as if these sudden spasms were going unnoticed by him. That could either mean he was under the grasps of some superior cosmic powers or he owned something just as dangerous.

'Kit,' she breathed out, fisting her hands beside her how much ever she wanted to reach out and touch him. She couldn't fathom the problem with him so she decided to understand the juncture first. 'Get into the bath. Water up.'

His teared up, his voice cracking as he spoke. 'Mom - ' 

'Now, my heart,' she said pleadingly. Kit gulped down his sob, wiping his hands against his eyes and walking past them. Bucky sidestepped to give him the way, wedging his hands deep into his jumper. He waited until the boy tiptoed to the knob and walked in silently. Luna, to doublecheck, made a forcefield up on the door with a few expert flicks of her fingers. 

'He's starting to phase,' she murmured, raking her hand through her knotty hair. Frustrated, she nipped her lip and paced in front of Bucky. He could only watch on at the door which seemed to resemble the outer appearance of a glossy soap bubble, the colors distinctly making shapes as the light hit it.

'Is that supposed to...'

'I tried to keep him safe,' she whimpered out, kneading her temples and clearly accentuated by Kit's unsaid behavior. A thin line of tears emerged out of the corner of her eyes, half her words chewed up with her cries. 'He was fine - I can't lose him - '

Bucky hesitantly placed a hand over her shoulder to bring her pacing to a stop. She sighed and faced him with pink tinted cheeks and stressed smile. Her eyes finally fell on his and she wasn't ready for it. It came with the force of a thousand winds but warm enough to wrap her in a blanket, the sea of blue glowing with the little flare of light that came from the opened curtains. 

'When I told you, you have me as a backup,' he murmured and intending every word. 'I meant all of it.'

She nodded, swiping a hand against her eyes to brush away the stray tears. His few words had injected her with a bit of hope. 'Alright.'

'What did you miss out on?'

Luna gulped down her hesitation. The piece of erudition that she was educated with could topple the quiet sanctuary she had built for herself and the scraps of her past that was left on the Earth would have to be found again. 

'When Ka'rier was born, I visited the Majestrix of the empire,' she said solemnly. 'It was a procession to bring all the newborns to get her blessing every King's night. It was the night the Kree struck,' she forced out her voice cracking. 

'Death was everywhere in the castle. Blood on the walls. Ships streamed down from the sky. I saw the Majestrix and Majestor and as I turned to find a way back, their eyes were on my Kit.'

Luna couldn't speak further, her throat clogging up with the emotions she was facing. The next incidents screened behind her eyes like a film on repeat, burned into her memory as the forgotten arose. Bucky traversed his hand down to her arm, giving it an encouraging squeeze. Her voice was hoarse when she continued. 

'They absolved him,' she whispered. 'Burned the inhuman gene in his body, imbuing the powers of a cosmic authority which I can't recall. I thought they were killing him - his body blazed like a star in my hands.' 

'Absolved,' Bucky repeated dubiously.

'A child of the Grey, they called him,' she spelt out her thoughts. 'An instrumental.'

*