The Pen is Mightier! (penismightier) wrote in chaotic_library, @ 2014-11-27 12:36:00 |
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Current music: | Mannheim Steamroller - Jingle Bells |
Entry tags: | bucky barnes, maria hill, marvel, multi-parter, natasha romanov, novel, r-rated, sharon carter, steve rogers, tony stark, yuuo, yuuo: marvel |
[Bucky Barnes, Cast; R] In Derelict Sidings The Poppies Entwine
Character/Series: Bucky Barnes, Cast; Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: R
Notes: The song Natasha is listening to at the beginning of this chapter is "Private Parts" by Halestorm and James Michael Of Sixx:A.M. Entirely because it happened to be what was playing on my Winamp when I wrote that line. And yes, Nebraska is that crazy.
Title: In Derelict Sidings The Poppies Entwine: Chapter 12
Author: yuuo
Word Count: 3919
Summary: Bucky actually slept through lunch.
Bucky actually slept through lunch; the food had smelled good, but the cold, shaky feeling that had plagued him all day was still making his insides feel like ice, so he'd burrowed under the extra blankets- much better than before -and napped. His body needed the fuel, but his brain needed the downtime more.
"James?"
Bucky slowly roused himself out of sleep at the sound of his name, forcing his eyes open and peeking out over the edge of the blankets. It'd been Natasha that had said his name, and she was looking at him from her desk. On the computer, the telecomm program was up, and the winamp was playing something softly, a duet of some sort that almost sounded like it was a rock ballad, but wasn't quite what he'd come to think of as rock thanks to Tony.
"Who did you call?" She motioned to the screen of her computer.
Oh. That. "Tony," he said, laying his head back down. "Told Carter to ignore his calls, I'd take care of it. So I took care of it."
Natasha sighed deeply. "If you'd called anyone else, I'd have to strangle you for compromising me," she snapped. "You could've asked."
Bucky closed his eyes again, intending on not dealing with her. "I wanted it to be a private call. It wasn't any of your business. And like you said, anyone else. You know Tony can keep his line just as secure."
"Which is exactly why I'm not asking Steve to smother you," she said. "I'd ask how it went, but I have a feeling you won't tell me."
Bucky quickly realized that he wasn't going to get her to leave him alone, and he felt rested enough to wake up anyway, so he sat up with a noise of frustration. "I think you can guess how it went," he said. He rubbed his chin, grimacing at the feeling of fur there. He wanted a shave. He looked at her. "I don't suppose you two bought anything for us to shave? I don't want to reuse your razors."
"Don't like beards?" Natasha asked, looking and sounding vaguely amused.
"I don't think I've ever seen him with one that wasn't against his will," Steve said, not looking up from whatever he was drawing.
"They itch," Bucky complained.
"And they look funny," Natasha said. "I have disposable razors, you can grab a new one. As far as shaving cream goes, I hope you don't mind if your face smells like tropical flowers."
Bucky stared at her, first taking in the knowledge that the most deadly female spy in the modern day liked girly-smelling shaving cream, and second, trying to decide if he cared or not. He decided on the latter "Couldn't care less," he said, emerging from under the blankets. He grabbed his comb out of his bag to take with him; his hair was probably a mess and he could feel that the ponytail had fallen halfway down his head. Obnoxious.
Fortunately, Natasha didn't make comment on it as he went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He studied his reflection in the mirror. He was a goddamn mess. He felt like a goddamn mess. He had a headache from sleeping too much, but his mind still felt fatigued and he wondered sometimes exactly why it took so damn long to recuperate from an attack. But at least he was only fatigued instead of wound up tighter than a spring, ready to snap at any time.
He felt much better after he'd gotten his face smoothed and his hair combed back to its usual style. He felt human again. But Natasha was right, his face smelled strongly of flowers. Steve would probably have a good laugh at his expense, but the feeling of not being a wild cave bear was worth it.
"You look like you're feeling better," Natasha commented as he walked back into the main room.
Steve crinkled his nose. "Natasha, that is the most perfumed shaving cream I have ever smelled. I can smell him from here."
"I can and will kick your ass, Steve," Bucky warned him. He looked at Natasha. "Have you had contact with Agent Carter today?"
Natasha grabbed her phone off her desk and looked at it, scrolling quite a bit. "Got about ten messages of new hits that have come out. Looks like most of your work was posing as a Soviet. Although there was a hit that looks like it was done by SHIELD that's getting credited to you. All together, counting the first two, we're at twenty." She looked over at him. "It's about five minutes to kick off, I'll contact her after the game, unless it's an emergency. We can talk then. But I promised Clint."
Bucky nodded. "Yeah, I'm not going to ask you to break a promise." He sat back down on the bed for lack of anywhere else to sit, careful to not jostle Steve's drawing. He looked over Steve's shoulder, knowing that Steve hated that.
Steve paused, looking back at Bucky. "You know I don't like that."
"Doesn't stop me," Bucky replied. "Gimme your other book, the one that's full."
Steve set down his pencil and current sketchbook, and grabbed his overnight bag. Bucky was polite and refrained from sneaking a look at Steve's unfinished work while his attention was averted. Steve handed the older sketchbook to Bucky. "Here. There's some really old stuff in there of the Howling Commandos and us. Second half is mostly the Avengers."
Natasha looked over from where she was changing the radio channel on her computer. "Aw, you drew us? How adorable." The music stopped, changing to the sounds of a couple of talking heads discussing people Bucky assumed to be Husker players. Football stats that meant nothing to him.
Steve shrugged. "I don't like taking photographs. They're always too staged, and candid shots look awkward."
Bucky ignored them, flipping the book open to the early pages. Several pictures of the Commandos, profile studies, names written in Steve's neat script next to the finished pictures. They looked more like snapshots, posed pictures like the kind that Steve hated, but Bucky had a feeling that Steve had to go on photographs to get the details, so many years had passed. They felt forced.
But not the pictures of the two of them. Some were old memories from before the war, memories, some of which Bucky recognized, others, not so much. He smiled faintly at one that wasn't actually of Steve and Bucky, but rather Steve and Rebecca, the latter trying to teach the former to dance at Bucky's request (and bribe, she accepted nothing less than three rolls of Lifesavers and one Hershey's bar). Steve was twenty-one, still trying to learn and failing horribly, and Rebecca was fourteen, hair was done up in braids, too long for some of the more popular styles of their day. Bucky used to tell her she'd never get a date if she couldn't make herself more fashionable. Steve had actually told Bucky off on the matter, telling Rebecca that she'd find the right person if she stayed who she was, because anyone who wouldn't date the real thing without shallow frippery wasn't worth the effort.
He laid his metal hand down on the picture, next to Rebecca. His flesh hand might've only smudged the pencil lines. He missed her, hadn't been there for her like he should've. He hadn't been there to give whoever she married tips on how to make her puff out her cheeks in anger, because then the whole situation seemed funny, no matter how angry she got, because she just looked like a chipmunk with an attitude problem. He wondered if Paul or Peter had done it in his stead.
In the background, he heard the sounds of an audience screaming, and those talking heads, and Bucky could only assume without actually paying attention that the game had begun.
"Is that just the radio?" Steve asked, his voice jarring Bucky out of the trip down memory lane he was taking.
Natasha got that not-smile. "Not just the radio. We're about four blocks from the stadium, you will be hearing every touchdown before the radio even broadcasts it."
Steve looked over at Bucky. "Just like back in the days when we'd listen to the games from outside the stadium, hm?"
Bucky chuckled. "Did the Dodgers ever win?"
"Only on Halloween," Steve said, going back to his drawing.
It took Natasha a second- Bucky had almost completely gone back to the pictures -but she spoke up, frowning. "I didn't think baseball played on Halloween."
Steve snorted, laughing hard enough that he had to set down his pencil. Natasha didn't look amused at his laughing, nor when Bucky joined him. Before she could make an indignant statement to burn their ears off, Steve waved it off. "It's an old joke from our day, Natasha, that's all. It used to be said that the Dodgers would only ever win if they played on Halloween precisely because they never won."
Natasha shook her head. "You sports fans are some of the strangest people."
"I'm sure you have room to talk," Steve said, pointing the eraser end of his pencil at her.
Bucky decided to tune them out, returning to the sketchbook. Very few of the pictures actually went back before the war, most were of Captain America and Bucky Barnes, and there were pictures of Peggy, exactly as Bucky remembered her. Even though he'd seen her one last time before she died, he couldn't bring to mind the image of the old woman in a bed, senility all but destroyed her mind before her body had caught up. It was always that young woman with the painted lips and the brown eyes and the smile she seemed to save just for Steve.
Then there were the pictures of Howard. Howard trying to explain girls to Steve where Bucky had apparently failed him, Howard and Bucky working on weapons designs together. Bucky had worked for Stark Industries before America officially joined the war, worked as a weapons designer in Manhattan, and upon finding this out, Howard had taken Bucky under his wing and had Bucky design custom weapons for the Commandos to use, something Hydra wouldn't be prepared to fight against.
He wondered if Tony would ever know any of that.
There was a lump of lead that landed in Bucky's stomach at that thought. He'd been friends with both Starks, and had lost them both, all by his own hand. Maybe if he'd just fought Hydra harder, maybe if he'd found a way to kill himself so they couldn't use him, honorable suicide, or found a way out, maybe if he'd been honest with Tony from the start, although he thought that wouldn't have helped much. Tony would be stupid to not hold Bucky accountable for Howard's death.
He quickly closed the book and set it aside, hearing the thick crack of a snapped neck and not wanting to destroy Steve's work because he started clenching his fists without noticing that he was gripping something at the time.
Steve looked at him, frowning slightly. He glanced at Natasha, who was focused on a solitaire game and the play-by-play coming from the radio station that identified itself as KLIN, then looked back at Bucky. 'You okay?' he asked silently, moving his lips but not giving any voice to the words.
Bucky bit back a sigh, shook his head, and grabbed his book that Steve had gotten him and held it up. 'Gonna read,' he replied, then motioned to Steve's sketchbook so Steve didn't lose track of it.
He had trouble focusing on the book. He couldn't count how many times he re-read paragraphs, not parsing them the first few times. He knew he'd probably have to go back to the start and try again tomorrow, or maybe the day after, depending on how long it took him to make his peace with himself enough to do exactly what he knew he needed to do.
Time passed. He glanced up every time he heard cheers from the stadium, waiting for the radio broadcast to catch up and tell him the score. Nebraska thirty-one, Miami seventeen, end of the first half. Forty minutes later, end of the third quarter, Nebraska thirty-six, Miami still at seventeen.
Another half hour had gone by, when Bucky heard the sounds of artillery, and he automatically dropped his book, jumping and wishing he had a weapon in reach. Steve's reaction was about the same, the sketchbook landing next to A Dance With Dragons and his pencil suddenly an impromptu knife.
The artillery was accompanied by screams, and then the radio announcer started shouting, "he's at the thirty, the twenty, the ten- touchdown Nebraska!" and the screams they'd already been hearing blasted over the radio, accompanied by the sound of what Bucky now realized was nothing more than fireworks.
He put a hand over his heart. "These lunatics set off fireworks when they win?" he demanded.
Natasha had been looking at them in alarm, dead silent, like she was listening for whatever threat they'd heard, then relaxed, shoulders slumping. "Sorry, I didn't think to warn you. Don't worry, nobody's dropping bombs on Lincoln, that's just Nebraska being a bit enthusiastic about their team."
Steve sighed, rubbing his face with one hand, then looked down at the other, which held a snapped pencil. "Good thing we picked up a pack," he grumbled.
"Sorry, guys," Natasha said, sounding genuinely sorry. "I'm used to them, I don't think anything of it." She got up. "I'll cook dinner, you two try to unknot your nerves a bit."
"I'd ask if you had alcohol, but that shit doesn't work anymore," Bucky grumbled. Then he remembered something. "You said you don't know how to cook for more than one person. Maybe one of us better cook."
Natasha paused at the fridge, looking back at him. "If you want to go all domestic on me instead of read, don't let me stop you. Just don't ruin any of my pans or I'll have to hit you with them."
Bucky got up, once again being careful to not jostle Steve, who was already searching for a new pencil, and gave Natasha a scowl on his way to the kitchen. "Your pans are already shit, Romanov," he said. "Haven't you ever heard of no-stick?"
She smiled, passing him on her way back to her desk. "What, are they too hard for you to clean?"
He paused by the fridge and gave her a murderous glare back over his shoulder. "Being annoying does not mean difficult," he said. When she didn't respond except to give him that smile he really hated and loved, he made a noise of disgust and turned back to the fridge. They'd really stocked up, and it looked like Steve had had some input, rather than having been the guy to carry the bags when he and Natasha went out earlier. His brain just wasn't putting anything together yet, not without checking their vegetable stock.
They had potatoes. A damn lot of potatoes. Why did they have so many potatoes? Bucky immediately blamed Steve; the Irish bastard had grown up with his mother's cooking, and potatoes had been cheap back then. He noticed, however, that Steve had yet to volunteer to cook, not once since Natasha had plopped herself down on their laps.
If Steve wanted potatoes, by god, he'd get potatoes.
Natasha switched the radio- now nothing but talking heads discussing the game they'd just discussed in real time, why did sports shows do that? -to her music, and Bucky decided that was definitely some form of rock, but it wasn't nearly as bad as that garbage that Tony played. The main singer, whoever she was, was actually singing instead of just yelling and screaming. Modern music, what the hell was wrong with it.
Dinner was almost done cooking, Bucky waiting boredly for the apples to finish softening, when Steve lifted his head. "You're making one of Mom's recipes, aren't you?"
"Your sense of smell is terrible if you're just now noticing that," Bucky said, turning back to the stove to poke at the apples. They seemed soft enough. Mushy was the word Bucky wanted to use, it worked since the meal was called apple potato mush, but Steve would never let Bucky get away with saying that without a proper scolding. The potatoes were mush, but the apples were soft. Picky, picky.
Natasha looked over at Bucky. "Steve's mother taught you to cook?"
"No," Bucky said, paying too much attention to mixing the food to quip back at her. "I learned to cook from my own family. But Missus Rogers knew she wasn't going to be around forever to cook when Steve needed help, so she made sure I knew some 'home food' to make him. She was very intent on him not becoming fully American." He looked back over his shoulder at Steve. "And then you went and became Mister Star Spangled Banner."
Steve laughed. "I think she would've laughed until she cried if she'd seen any of my USO shows," he said. "But it's fine, Captain America represents the part of America she liked. She just hated American food."
"It was more than just our food that she hated, but okay," Bucky said. "Romanov says she's a lady, so I suppose we'd better let her come dish up first." He turned off the stove and set the pot with the food on a cool burner, then stepped away to let Natasha get her own damn bowl.
"You're charming," Natasha said, getting up and walking over. She eyed the food. "What is this?" She seemed hesitant, but she was grabbing a bowl and dishing up anyway.
"Apple potato mush," Bucky said. "Basically, it's mashed potatoes with apple thrown in for the hell of it."
Natasha looked back at Steve, who'd walked over and stood hovering over her shoulder. "What is wrong with your people?"
Steve looked offended. "I don't want to hear it from you, I've sampled Russian food." Then he reached over and punched Bucky on the arm, yelping as his knuckles clanged off Bucky's metal arm.
Bucky laughed. "A year and a half, Steve. Really."
Steve shook his hand, glaring at Bucky's arm, then up at him. "There is nothing wrong with my mother's cooking."
"I never said there was anything wrong with her cooking," Bucky said, motioning for Steve to grab a bowl; Natasha had slipped out of friendly fire range with her food. "I just said what this particular recipe was. It's mashed potatoes and mashed apples mixed together. Deny it."
Steve looked grumpy. "I can't and I won't, but you don't have to be so insulting about it. You eat hot dogs at baseball games, and those are just meat fat in the shape of a-"
"You just don't like them because you couldn't eat one without gagging on it," Bucky interrupted.
Behind them, Natasha did that laughing and choking at the same time thing she'd done more than once since eating meals with them. "I hate you both," she finally said after managing to swallow instead of killing herself.
"That's why you're laughing," Steve said, shooting Bucky one more unhappy look as he walked away with his food.
"I'm laughing because everyone is secretly a thirteen year old boy inside," Natasha said. She eyed her food. "This is weird."
Steve turned that really not happy look on her. "Don't you start."
"No, it's not bad," she said. "Just not two flavors I'd ever think to mix together, that's all. It's good, just strange to me."
"Damn right, it's good," Steve said. Then he motioned to Bucky with his spoon as Bucky settled down next to him with his food. "It's good, but Mom's was better."
Bucky rolled his eyes. "Excuse me for not being your mother."
After Steve had gone back for seconds, taking Bucky's bowl with him after Bucky gave him the puppy eyes to get some for him, too, Natasha made a noise that sounded vaguely like she was trying to say 'eureka!' or maybe just 'oh!' around a mouthful of food. Bucky looked at her patiently, waiting for her to swallow. "You wanted me to contact Sharon tonight, right?"
Bucky didn't answer right away, looked over at Steve, who didn't seem to notice, or at least was only listening without taking attention off the food. Now that Bucky was set in his decision, he wanted to get it done and over with, a mission in mind, so contacting Sharon right away was his first inclination.
But he really should convince Steve to help him before he started trying to recruit Steve's not-girlfriend to his cause.
Bucky looked back at Natasha. "It can wait until tomorrow. She's been busy today, if how many times your phone has gone off this evening is any indication. It's nothing urgent."
Natasha shrugged, acting nonchalant about it, but Bucky had learned to read her facial expressions, as subtle as they were, in the way too much time they'd been around each other. She was far more curious than she was letting on, but she knew to wait, and she'd find out later. "All right. Just don't wake me at stupid o' clock to call her if you change your mind."
"Heaven forbid I interrupt your beauty sleep."
She raised an eye at him. "You really think I need beauty sleep?"
There was one of those questions females liked to ask men just to watch them squirm. Bucky decided to take the blunt way out. "I'm not answering that."
"Good answer, James," she said, then looked at her empty bowl on her desk. "So who gets kitchen duty?"
"Not me," Bucky said immediately, glancing up at Steve and taking his bowl as Steve handed it over and then sat down next to him with his own food. "That's why I volunteered to cook. I don't do both."
When Natasha looked at Steve, he shook his head. "Don't look at me," he said around a mouthful of apple potato mush. "I'm the guest."
Natasha looked less than amused. "How magnanimous of you," she said. "Fine, when you two finish stuffing your faces, I'll clean the kitchen. Then I am taking a shower and heading to bed, so if either of you want to use the bathroom before I turn it into a steam room, speak now or forever hold your-" She cut herself off. "I'm not juvenile enough to make that pun, even by accident."
Bucky went still, a bite halfway to his mouth, looking at her. "And yet you're juvenile enough to point it out."
"You two were the ones making dick jokes earlier," she pointed out.
Bucky glanced at Steve, noticing he was pointedly staying out of this conversation, then looked back at Natasha. "We're Army, everything's a dick joke in the Army." He went back to his food, only pausing enough to motion at the hallway. "Go take your shower, then do the kitchen. Unless you want to run out of hot water in the shower because you used it all cleaning dishes."
She considered that. "Wise words," she said, then got up, and took her bowl out to the kitchen.