The Pen is Mightier! (penismightier) wrote in chaotic_library, @ 2014-05-29 22:43:00 |
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Current mood: | busy |
Current music: | Linkin Park - Given Up |
Entry tags: | bucky barnes, marvel, pg-13, short story, steve rogers, yuuo, yuuo: marvel |
[Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers; PG-13] All Work And No Play
Character/Series: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers; Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Because Bucky sucks at putt putt and the idea of a pen as a knife never ceases to amuse me.
Title: All Work And No Play
Author: yuuo
Word Count: 6829
Summary: Bucky didn't feel awake.
Bucky didn't feel awake. But then, seven in the morning was just barely past stupid 'o' clock, so it wasn't much surprise. His elbows were propped on the table, his head in his hands as he stared blankly somewhere over Steve's shoulder in front of him. His coffee was cooling to a sane temperature in between his arms.
Steve was already drinking his, apparently ignoring the scalding heat. He didn't look much more awake himself. But he was the first to break their early morning silence. "You know the one thing I miss about being in the field?"
Bucky slowly blinked, turning his gaze just slightly to the right to look Steve in the eye. "Huh?" Intelligent, really, but at that hour before coffee he couldn't formulate much better.
"Nature. New York and D.C. are too urbanized. Remember the leaves in Germany during the fall?"
Bucky had to really think on that one. His memories were still scattered, but more were coming back every day, and the more stories Steve threw at him, the faster they came. But he still had to stop a moment to think. "Oh, yeah," he finally said. "Yeah, the city's got nothing on the countryside this time of year. I don't care how many damn trees they try to plant, there's too much concrete." He took a tentative sip of coffee. Okay, it was drinkable.
Steve seemed to get lost in his thoughts again, making Bucky wonder where that strange observation had come from. He was probably sleep deprived. Bucky had noticed a bit of restlessness from his roommate the night before. He didn't ask about it, assumed it was probably nightmares, as haunted anyone who'd been in the business. He figured if Steve wanted to talk about it, he would.
"You know, New England's supposed to be pretty nice around this time of year. Wanna take a trip to Vermont for a couple weeks?"
Oh. So that's where the observation came from. Steve wanted a vacation away from D.C.. Bucky didn't really blame him for, but Vermont? Really? "Why Vermont?"
"It doesn't have to be Vermont. Maybe just one of the New England states. It's gotta look better than this place right now."
Bucky was way too tired for this. "What, a romantic getaway? The more you talk, the more I want to move to my own room again." Not really, but Steve was just trying too hard sometimes.
Steve laughed, his face lighting up with a brilliant smile. "Buck, don't be an asshole. I just want out of this city for awhile, and we're between jobs, so why not? We have enough to afford it."
While the idea of a trip intrigued him, Bucky wasn't sure how up for it he actually was. He set down his mug. "Why don't you get a date to go with you?"
Steve sighed. "Two reasons. One, I haven't had anyone special since Peggy. A few dates now and again, but there's a distinct lack of shared world views. I'm old enough to be these women's grandfather. Little hard to find common ground. As for the other, you know damn well I don't like leaving you alone for long, and you don't like it either, so again I ask, why not?"
Bucky chose to ignore the question for a moment to hone in another thing Steve said. "Cradle robber."
"You have no room to talk."
"I don't date."
"Not my point, Bucky, quit being pedantic."
Bucky gave him an offended look. "I'm being accurate, not pedantic."
Steve gave him one of those looks that promised something thrown at Bucky's head if he didn't stop talking. "Bucky? Just answer my question. Do you want to get away from D.C. for awhile or not?"
Bucky took a drink of his coffee, considering that. They saw plenty of places with their jobs, but it might be nice to get to enjoy being somewhere rather than on guard the whole time. "Eh. Why not. Question is, where in Vermont?"
Steve was quiet. "Normally I'd look at a map, but this is the computer age, I think I should probably look around on Google or something."
"So go get your laptop. Unless you had pressing business right this second?"
"No," Steve said with an amused grin, then got up, grabbing his laptop from the coffee table in the living room area about ten feet away and then pushing his coffee mug out of the way. Bucky moved his chair around closer to Steve to watch over his shoulder and either heckle Steve's lack of computer skills or offer input. Probably both.
Steve opened Google, then stared blankly at it before looking at Bucky. "Should we look for small towns? The big cities would defeat the purpose of getting out of a big city."
Bucky shrugged. "So search for small towns in Vermont. Just because Google doesn't have SHIELD's old search resources doesn't mean it's stupid. It'll come up with something."
Steve took Bucky's suggestion, bringing up- of course- wikipedia. "Okay, so what isn't on wikipedia?" Steve asked, clicking on the link for a list of towns in Vermont.
"Probably nothing," Bucky said. "Especially now that SHIELD and Hydra's secrets are out all over the place. Wikipedia's probably got the best rundown of that information."
"Yeah, I've read some of their files," Steve said, a bit distracted by scrolling through the towns. He paused, scrolled back up, and stared. Bucky glanced through the list, trying to find what had Steve staring so hard at the screen that it might break. "Lewis in Essex county, population zero. Does that even count as a town anymore?"
"It's an ex-town."
Steve slowly switched his gaze from the computer to Bucky. "When did you watch Monty Python?"
"Netflix while you were at the VA," Bucky said. "I got bored. My question is, when did you see it? It doesn't strike me as your sort of humor."
"Tony," Steve said, turning back to the listing of towns. "He's caught me up on a lot of pop culture movies."
"Oh good, you can help catch me up." He sipped his coffee, watching the names of a million generic towns scroll by. "Hey, there's one with a population of five. Is that any better?"
"No, Bucky. We need something big enough to have a hotel. Unless you wanna sleep on the ground. We don't have camping stuff."
"We've slept in worse," Bucky pointed out.
"Why do it when we don't have to though?" Steve looked over at him.
Bucky watched him over his coffee mug. "Okay, point. So look for towns with a population of at least five thousand. We might find something there. Just don't suggest a bed and breakfast, or our hosts will start asking if this is the honeymoon."
Steve gave him another one of those looks that promised bodily harm. Bucky just flashed him a bland smile, then looked back to the screen. "What about that one?" he asked, motioning to the screen.
Steve clicked the link. "Springfield. Home of the Simpson's movie. Wow, we're really aiming high here."
Bucky couldn't help but laugh. "We have standards around here, Steve."
"Yes, but are they good standards?"
"They involve you and I. I'd say no." There was another one of those looks. Bucky couldn't help himself, that look amused him so much because Steve had always had it perfected and spent most of their lives together able to do absolutely jack and shit to really be a threat. Sure, he could probably fling something hard enough to hurt now, but that was beside the point.
A bit more looking proved that Vermont was a whole lot of nothing. Lots of maple trees, but that was about it.
"We'd be going there for leaves and nothing," Steve said.
"Isn't that the point?" Bucky asked.
"I know you don't like playing tourist, but I'd like a place a little less... barren."
Bucky gave him a cross look. "Just remember, this is your idea."
Steve sighed. "So okay, Vermont was a bad place to suggest. I've never been there, I didn't realize it'd be so empty. You make a suggestion."
"Maine?"
"Known for their lobster, of which you cannot have, because you're allergic to shellfish."
Bucky looked blankly at him. "I am?"
Steve glanced at Bucky. "You were before Hydra got ahold of you, at least. You might not be anymore, but I don't think you want to chance it."
Bucky searched through his brain for that memory. "Oh yeah," he finally said. "I had shrimp once and-"
"-and puffed up to twice your size," Steve finished. "I remember. I mean, if you really want to tempt fate..."
"Not particularly," Bucky said. "Does it have to be New England?"
"No, just somewhere with less concrete than here." Steve stared blankly at the computer screen. "Florida?"
"Right, where the cockroaches could carry us to Disneyworld."
"Okay, your turn."
"Absolutely nothing in the mountains," Bucky said, quickly ruling out half the country.
A muscle in Steve's cheek twitched. "No, no mountains," he agreed. "And no leaving the country. Most places are either work places and I want away from that, or they're full of poisonous bugs and animals out to kill everyone."
"You mean like Australia?"
"And South America."
Bucky tried not to laugh. "You mean you don't wanna go to Venezuela where there's plenty of things for us to do?"
"You make me tired, Bucky. No leaving the country."
"You're tired? I'm not even awake enough to be having this conversation." He stifled a yawn for added effect, then glared at his empty coffee cup. "You decide where to go, I'm getting more coffee before I get cranky."
"You're like a toddler who needs his afternoon nap," Steve agreed. Bucky shot him a dirty look before leaving the table to get more coffee. "We could always go to Nebraska," Steve called into the kitchen from the dining area.
Bucky paused, hand on the coffee pot handle. "What the hell is in Nebraska?"
"Right now? Football."
Bucky decided to finish pouring his coffee before asking for further elaboration. "I didn't know you cared about football. I thought baseball was your thing."
"It's not, really. I'm just noticing how in love that state is with their college football team. Some other state. There's nothing else there but corn."
"Ooh, corn. Exciting. I think we probably live in the best vacation spot in the country, Steve. Unless you either wanna go back to New York, or cross the mountains to the west coast." He walked back to the table, taking his seat next to Steve again, glancing over his shoulder at the computer screen. Steve was now wiki-hopping through every state's associated links. "Steve, focus. You can get lost in wikipedia later."
"Surely there's something better," Steve griped, closing a few tabs. He idled through the list of states. "Okay, the west half of the country is out, mountains are a big no. Hawaii is nothing but giant mountains that spew fire. Alasaka's already in winter. So that's out. The great plains are nothing but farmland now, so not that entertaining. New England is nice, but I don't want to spend all our savings on a vacation that's for no other reason than to just leave the city for a few days." He scrolled some more, then paused at Ohio. "What about Ohio?"
"What's in Ohio?"
"Why are you always the one asking that?" Steve demanded, clicking on the link.
"Because you're the one with the internet to answer with," Bucky explained, talking slowly as if speaking to a child, then took a sip of his coffee.
Steve gave him one of those looks again. "I hope you choke on that."
"There's worse things to choke on," Bucky said, setting his mug down. "Like money."
"You're the one that decided to hide your allowance in your mouth, Bucky."
"I know. It was a quarter! Made me feel rich. I didn't need it getting stolen."
Steve shook his head while slowly scrolling through Ohio's page. "Still not one of your better ideas."
"No," Bucky agreed. "So what's in Ohio?"
"Lake Erie, if you still like lakes."
"I haven't drowned in one yet, so it's not on the list of things to avoid."
Steve sighed, glancing over at Bucky. "You have simple qualifications."
"It's a good one, though," Bucky said. "Okay, so we could go to the lake. I hope you know I don't swim."
That got Steve to look at him in surprise. "Since when? You loved swimming as a kid."
Bucky went quiet a moment, studying his coffee. "Since I got a computerized left arm that could short out in the water and go dead. I only go in when I have to." Like when he pulled Steve from the Potomac. Right after nearly killing him. Steve could've gotten out himself if not for Bucky. He set his jaw in a hard line to bite back bile at the memory. He'd been coping enough to let the Winter Soldier simply be an exercise in training as a super soldier to work next to Steve, but that last week before he ran away still ate at him, and probably always would.
The unpleasant images and thoughts were interrupted by Steve's hand on his flesh shoulder. "Don't go down that path, Bucky," he said. "I can't follow you there."
Bucky looked at the hand, then at the man attached to it. "Like you don't have regrets."
Steve gave him a pained smile. "You don't let me feel guilty about them, I'm not letting you feel guilty about yours." Then he gave Bucky a stern look. "And don't you dare tell me it's different as an excuse."
Bucky stared at him, wanting to say more, to argue, but he had no interest in going through this run around again. He bit back a sigh, looking down at the table, then turned his head, almost looking at the laptop. "So what else is in Ohio besides a lake?"
Steve seemed to give Bucky the pass on the discussion that he wanted, turning back to the computer, although he didn't drop his hand right away. "The Geneva wine tasting tour."
That perked Bucky up. He leaned over, finally looking at the screen. "Alcohol?"
Steve chuckled. "I thought you preferred harder liquor than wine."
"Booze is booze, Steve," Bucky said. "And wine means prettier girls."
Steve started searching around for more information on the tour. "Says the man who never asks any out on dates."
"I like looking," Bucky said. "Getting involved means admitting I'm old enough to be someone's grandparent now. Makes me feel skeevy." Then he gave Steve a pointed look. "Unlike a certain cradle robber I know."
"Kiss off," Steve replied with a grump.
Really, Bucky just felt he was too dangerous and had too many enemies and too many issues to safely date a woman anyway. He was happier not getting involved beyond looking these days. Besides a girl would interfere in his current lifestyle, and he was happy enough it in to not want to change it.
He didn't know what he'd do if Steve ever found someone to settle down with. That was a thought for a later time, though.
Bucky and Steve looked over the page for the lodge at Geneva, which had golf (which appealed to neither of them but the nearby Strip had minigolf, which Steve decided he'd talk Bucky into playing; Bucky was skeptical), boating, arcades, fishing (again, appealed to neither, but there it was) and about a million other things. They settled on that.