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Bucky sighed, rubbing his left shoulder. The scar tissue was almost always stiff, and there was almost always a low grade ache from where the bullet that had ended his career in the US Army had hit. He then sighed again, rubbing at the outside his right leg. The wound there wasn’t career ending, but the fact that he was shot in the left shoulder as the bullet grazed his right leg meant that his brain sometimes conflated the two injuries, pain wise.
He gripped the folding cane he kept for flare ups, and used it to leverage himself to his feet. He limped his way out into the hallway, wincing at both the pain in his leg and his shoulder, and the noise in the hallway. There were times when he couldn’t believe that after everything he’d been through, everything he’d survived, that he was back in high school.
He’d enlisted the day he turned eighteen, and spent three tours in Afghanistan before his career was ended by an Afghani bullet to the shoulder. Just like Dr John Watson in that story he hadn’t really understood in high school. Despite the damage to his shoulder, he also had an unexplained limp. Unexplained in that there was no physical reason for it (the bullet wound there was barely a graze and hadn’t even needed stitches), not that he didn’t have screaming pain in his leg on occasion.
Psychosomatic, the doctors called it. A pain in his ass, is what he called it.
After numerous rounds of therapy, and completing his bachelor’s - thanks to online classes, he was about halfway there already - he’d mostly recovered. Physically, at least. He was pretty sure the nightmares were going to stick around forever. He was working on those, and being around high school students seemed to be working, making him think positive things about the world. Ish.
During one of his mandatory VA therapy sessions, he’d found a flyer for a Troops to Teachers program. He’d applied, not expecting anything, since it was almost halfway through the school year. He was shocked when he got the letter, offering him the position at Smallville High School, in Smallville, Kansas, population (including surrounding Reeve County) 4,000.
If he accepted, he’d have less than year to pass a variety of tests and things. But Smallville was apparently desperate for a high school science teacher, as they offered him up to $5,000 to relocate by Christmas, a $10,000 signing bonus, financial help with finding a place to live in Smallville, financial help with his necessary tests and licenses, along with another $10,000 bonus if he successfully passed his first year in Smallville, post licensure. All he had to do was sign on the dotted line. Go Crows
Oh, and take over for the newspaper teacher.
Three years later, there he was limping into his next class. It was the first week of classes, and he was meeting his newspaper class for the first time. All of them has asterisks next their names, telling him to talk to other teachers. There was even a note about how when something happens, was always the last three.
His four students were Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan, Pete Ross, and Clark Kent.
It only took two classes for Bucky to realize that something was up with the Kent kid.
The Kent kid was a contentious student, and had numerous notes in his school file about how impressive it was that he had a 3.8 weighted GPA, was on the junior varsity football team, was taking two AP classes, while doing hours of farm chores every night. Several teachers mentioned specifically that he’d always catch up, should he fall behind.
It took Bucky five classes to realize that the reason Clark Kent was able to keep up with everything because he had superspeed. It took Bucky ten classes to realize that he also had superstrength to go with the superspeed.
It took Bucky four more weeks of classes to decide to reach out to his former VA counselor, Sam Wilson.
“Do you have any contacts for… what’s the new word for people with… powers?” Bucky asked. He’d met a fair few of them in the Army, and them with S.H.I.E.L.D. after his discharge. He’d also been out of the loop since moving to Smallville. His weekly FaceTime with Sam was one of the things that he looked forward to, since Sam was happy to gossip about things back home.
“Metahumans,” Sam said. “And I know a guy who knows a guy.”
“You mean Clint knows a guy,” Bucky muttered, relaxing into his chair, and taking a sip of his scotch.
“Clint knows a guy,” Sam agreed. “Want me to pass along a message?” Sam asked that as if the answer could possibly be ‘no.’
“Yeah…” Bucky said. “Can you ask him what he knows about Smallville? The one I moved to in Kansas. Not any other Smallvilles that may exist.”
There was a long pause on the line. Bucky pulled the phone away from his ear to confirm that the call hadn’t actually dropped, it was so long.
“Bucky,” Sam finally said. “Do you know anything about the town you moved to?”
“It’s a tiny town surrounded by corn fields in flyover country,” Bucky said. “What is there to know?”
“So, you don’t know about the asteroid?” Sam asked.
“The asteroid?” Bucky asked.
“About twenty years ago,” Sam explained, “an asteroid, or perhaps best a meteor, hit Smallville. Killed a bunch of people. There have been weird happenings in Smallville ever since then.”
“Oh, that explains… a lot,” Bucky said, after a moment. It really did.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Sam said. “I’ll tell Clint you think the asteroid had a longer impact than originally though, if you have a superstrong speedster. Do you know if he’s from Smallville or did he move there recently?”
“He says his family farm has been in the family four generations,” Bucky said, “so I have to presume that he was born in Smallville.”
“You’re not talking about the Kent Farm, are you?” Sam asked.
“Why do you ask?” Bucky asked.
“No reason,” Sam said. “Did you hear that? I think that was the smoke detector. Batteries must be dying. I’ll call you back.” Sam hung up the FaceTime call before Bucky could call him on it. Sam clearly knew more than he wanted to say, especially about the Kent family.
Now that Bucky was watching the Kent kid, it was clear that he was super powered. He was also a horrible liar when it came to said super powers. On top of the superspeed and superstrength, he seemed to be relatively invulnerable.
(There was also other stuff, like how he seemed to have superbreath? Which Bucky had never heard of, but it was clearly useful, that day someone spilled one of those giant coffee containers on Bucky. It had hit him stone cold, despite having just been filled with fresh hot coffee)
“He’s Kryptonian,” Clint said, landing on the roof next to Bucky. Bucky startled so hard he almost fell off the roof.
“He’s what?” Bucky asked, once he got his breath back.
“Kryptonian,” Clint said. “Likely landed here when the meteor hit 15 years ago.”
“He… landed here?” Bucky asked.
“His adoption papers are as fake as our military records,” Clint confirmed. Like Bucky, Clint’s military service was more classified than not. Clint pulled a six pack of beer from somewhere, popping the cap off one of the non-twist off bottle.
“And how did S.H.I.E.L.D. get from ‘fake adoption papers’ to ‘alien’?” Bucky asked. “That’s quite a leap.
Clint made a considering face, taking a pull from his beer.
“I was on the initial investigative team,” Clint said after about half a beer.
“S.H.I.E.L.D. investigated the meteor strike?” Bucky asked. He’d done research at the local library after Sam had mentioned the meteor. There had been millions in property damage and over a dozen killed, including both of Lana Lang’s parents. The Kent farm had suffered almost a million dollars in damages to crops and livestock.
“We’ve kept an eye on Smallville ever since,” Clint said, using the Royal We. “The projections on what hit Smallville indicated that something that was not meteorite hit the earth. Hit just off the US Route that runs on the south side of town. Rumor has had it that it was a capsule of some sort. Probably occupied.”
“Why the Kents?” Bucky asked. He’d met Jonathan and Martha a few times at various PTA events.
“They ‘just happened’ to be Metropolis,” Clint said, making finger quotes, “adopting a child? No one knew they were looking into adoption.”
“That’s still a leap,” Bucky said. Clint nodded, pulling his phone from his pocket, and swiping through until he found the pictures he was looking for.
“Still think so?” Clint said, finishing his beer as Bucky flipped through the images.
“Where did you get those?” Bucky asked. “That’s CIA level imaging.”
“Wayne Enterprises, believe it or not,” Clint said. “Their imaging satellites are the best in the business.”
“That’s an alien pod,” Bucky said after a moment. Clint nodded.
“There’s an alien pod under my star student’s barn,” Bucky said faintly.
“There is,” Clint said. “What are you doing to do?”
“Nothing,” Bucky said. “Ignore the information. He’s a good kid, and one day, he might grow into a good man.”
Clint smiled over his beer bottle.
“That was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s conclusion, wasn’t it?”
“Almost verbatim,” Clint said, smiling softly, inclining his head.
“Natasha?”
“Natasha,” Clint agreed.
Bucky grinned, finishing his beer and grabbing a new one.
Many years later, there was a swish of cape as Superman stopped Bucky from possibly falling to his death during an Assembly. They landed on the roof, Superman immediately taking to the air, his bright red cape billowing in a non-existent breeze.
Bucky looked up and into the eyes of… Clark Kent?
“Clark?” Bucky heard himself say. Clark Kent being the man under the cape explained so many things.
“Mr Barnes?” Superman asked, his voice cracking as it went up at least two octaves. Bucky smiled, shrugged.
“Mr Kent,” Bucky said, grinning. “Don’t worry, I’ve known that there was something special about you since you were in high school.”