If Bucky were in his wolf shape, his ears would have pricked at her tone, the way it changes from one statement to the other, and his nose would have been in the air checking for a threat. As it was, his hackles still rose and he had to squash the urge to look over his shoulder for a tail. It's an itchy, uncomfortable sound. Maybe without the wolf's senses he wouldn't hear that flatness or sense the emotion in it—anxiety, maybe? Suspicion? He still couldn't quite put a name to it, but he felt it in his gut.

"No, we don't," he told her firmly. They're just writing the story. No need to take it too personally, right? No need to read into it. Still, he found himself adding, "And not all of our family. My sister Rebecca and her kids adore you."

Rebecca was the only one of his sisters still alive, and her daughters were in their sixties, nearly in their seventies. They're also the only part of Bucky's living family to make contact with him when he came back from the war changed, to accept him as he was instead of as he'd left.

He was pretty sure if they were really married, they would accept Natasha.

"If we did settle up here, they'd visit around Christmas."