Everything the Light Touches

Chapter Two

"And if there are any other problems with the Stinson boy you bring them to me first, don't go busting some kid's head in because he looked at you wrong," George Barnes spoke with a clear pointed voice, his attention focusing on his son to his right, his literal righthand man. George Barnes had been grooming Bucky to take over the 'family business' as he called it since Bucky could walk. If Winnifred had her way, Bucky never would've stepped foot into his role as underboss, he would've gone to college and lived a happy life with a happy wife, 2.5 kids and a picket fence. But that was not what the universe had planned for James Buchanan Barnes. Instead he learned how to run guns, how to get the cops on his payroll, how to extort whoever he wanted. He learned how to gain power.

The Barnes family name had been whispered throughout the city for half a century, with his grandfather running the business, then his father, but within the last decade it had grown from whispers to a roar. Bucky had helped his father take on more businesses and hide the illicit activity behind honest work. Well, as honest as strip and night clubs could get at least. The Barnes family had created "Barnes Inc." many years ago, their business venture with every intention of providing legitimate services to the people of Manhattan. The traffickers, drug and human alike, knew better than to fuck with the Barnes family. It was one business that Bucky and his father ensured they would never mess with. But being the underboss of one of the largest mafia outposts on the eastern seaboard meant that Bucky had to sit in every one of these meetings, listening to his dad talk shit about how he handled business.

"Senator Stinson," Bucky drawled in response, "is no longer a boy, and hasn't been a boy for a decade. If he wants to make his bed then he can lay in it. I'll behave myself if he does." Bucky hated Senator Stinson and his whole family. They were allied with a rival family but were too involved in the upper echelon of Manhattan life to really fuck with. The kid just never knew when to shut up and constantly said things for the sole purpose of getting on Bucky's nerves.

George groaned and rubbed the center of his forehead with the palm of his hand before adding, "like I said. Don't let me see his murder on the 11 o'clock news. We got enough shit comin' our way, we don't need the death of a junior Senator coming back to bite us in the ass. Leave him alone, James." With the finality that only a mob boss could have the conversation was over. The rest of the members at the table didn't have anything to add so George dismissed them, casting a final glance at Bucky before shaking his head and standing up to leave.

"Please, son. Just, for once in your life, listen to me," he pleaded before walking out the conference room, not giving Bucky another glance.

A low whistle sounded from behind Bucky's back as he groaned and rolled his eyes at the dramatics his father was playing on. "Sounds to me, like someone ticked off daddy Barnes. What'd you do this time, Buck?" Steve Rogers teased as if he didn't know about Bucky beating the shit out of the police officer that tried to give him a ticket a week ago, or about the fact that Liam Stinson had been hanging around The Underworld and some of the other Barnes family clubs a little more recently, asking questions of his workers like he was a detective and not the youngest member of the New York Senate.

"Fuck off, Rogers. You know just as well as I do that when the old man gets twitchy he takes it out on me," Bucky joked as he walked side-by-side with his best friend of over twenty years towards his office. The Barnes Inc. building was huge, almost as huge as Stark Industries, with an extremely coveted view of the city. Steve had teased him about his office a time or two once he started officially working with the Barnes family and Bucky had joked right back that he could gladly give him an office in the basement next to the beaten and bloodied bodies that inhabited the space occasionally, Steve had kindly turned him down.

Shutting the door to Bucky's office behind him, Steve made himself at home as he plopped down onto the leather couch in the corner of Bucky's office near his desk. Bucky made the two of them a drink and loosened the tie around his neck. They drank in silence, taking in the view, before their little party was interrupted by a knock and Sam Wilson's entrance before they could even say anything.