The Pen is Mightier! (penismightier) wrote in chaotic_library, @ 2014-12-25 12:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | bruce banner, bucky barnes, clint barton, maria hill, marvel, natasha romanov, novel, pepper potts, r-rated, sharon carter, steve rogers, thor, tony stark, yuuo, yuuo: marvel |
[Bucky Barnes; R] I'll Be Home For Christmas: Chapter 3
Character/Series: Bucky Barnes, Cast; Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: R
Notes: Steve and Bucky like to cause people to have heart attacks.
Title: I'll Be Home For Christmas- Chapter 3: Sharon
Author: yuuo
Word Count: 4628
Summary: The clothiers wasn't even a clothing store in that there was anything on the racks.
The clothiers wasn't even a clothing store in that there wasn't anything on the racks. Bucky supposed that probably shouldn't have surprised him, it was a high end company that Tony figured was nice enough to just buy out so he had it on hand for his personal use. Tony liked off the rack clothes for the most part, if those band t-shirts he liked to wear in warmer weather were any indication, but for important public appearances, a man in his position would have to go for the nice stuff. Which meant all custom.
Well, at least custom meant that it'd actually fit without being either too tight on his left shoulder, or too loose on his right. And Steve might accidentally fit into something in general. Stupid, dumb, broad shoulders. It'd been a few years and sometimes Bucky still had to make himself remember that they didn't have to look in teen sizes instead of adult sizes for clothes that would fit Steve's tiny frame.
A man in a nice suit and tie approached them as they entered. On his lapel was pinned a name tag listing him as Stanley. "Welcome to Tucci Clothiers. May I help you, gentlemen?"
Steve held out his hand to shake Stanley's. "Steve Rogers." He motioned to Bucky. "James Barnes. JARVIS said he'd let you know we were on our way."
"Oh! Yes, he did," Stanley said. "He said this was for Mister Stark's upcoming charity ball?"
"That's right."
Stanley nodded. "You will get our best. It's an honor to meet you both." He half turned to lead them further into the store. "This way." He led them away from the store front, around what turned out to be a set of mirrors with their backs towards the entrance to provide privacy for the customers getting measured. "The charity ball is the nineteenth, if memory serves?"
"That's what Tony told me," Bucky said. "Can you make them that fast?"
Stanley smiled, waving one hand towards the platform in front of the mirrors. "Of course. We have more than one person working on creating these at a time, after all. Please, whoever wishes to go first, step up here."
"I'll give you the most trouble," Bucky said, walking onto the platform and standing where Stanley indicated. "Probably better get me out of the way, first."
"Nonsense, Mister Barnes," Stanley said, pulling a tape measure out of his pocket. "We have never met a man that was difficult to size." He stepped over to Bucky. "Hold out your arms, please."
Bucky did as he was instructed. "You take shoulder width measurements, right?"
"If it is necessary, yes, but the chest measurement generally dictates the width of the shirt and jacket," Stanley said as he wrapped the tape measure around Bucky's chest. "Do you require a special adjustment?" He pulled a small notepad and pen out of his shirt pocket and scribbled down Bucky's name, the word 'chest' and a number.
"My left shoulder is bigger than my right," Bucky said, dropping his arms when instructed. He wasn't terribly happy when Stanley looped the tape around his neck to take the measurement.
Stanley frowned a moment, and Bucky couldn't tell if it was in concentration, or in puzzlement. With the way realization dawned on his face a couple seconds later, Bucky laid money on the puzzlement. "The prosthetic?"
Bucky watched him write down another number. "If you wanna call it that, yeah. It's not exactly like most prosthetics."
"No," Stanley agreed, signaling for Bucky to hold out an arm again, taking his sleeve length measurement. "From what I have seen of the news, it most certainly is not. It's a marvel, is what it is." He scribbled down another number, then went around to Bucky's left side to measure that arm. "Your arms seem to be the same length, however." Another scribble in his notepad. "Stand up straight, shoulders square, arms down, please."
Bucky complied, and he felt the tape measure against the back of his right shoulder. He heard the pencil scratching on paper again.
"The difference is not as big as you might think," Stanley said. "But it will require a bit of customization."
Bucky made a noise of acknowledgement, then went quiet while Stanley took his waist and inseam measurements. Thankfully, Stanley was professional enough that Bucky didn't feel as uncomfortable about someone's hand that near to his crotch as he might've been otherwise.
Stanley made one last note, then flipped to a clean page on his notepad. "Thank you, Mister Barnes. Mister Rogers, your turn."
Without needing to discuss a special measurement, Steve's measuring went faster, with no talk. Once he was done, Stanley put his notepad and pencil away and rolled up the tape measure. "Thank you, gentlemen. The ball is on the nineteenth, you can expect the suits to be ready for final adjustments on the fifteenth. We will contact you when they come in, and fit for the fine details. They will be ready by the day before the ball."
"Cutting it a bit close, isn't it?" Bucky asked.
Stanley gave him an apologetic look. "It is, I'm afraid. But we have never failed to be on time, and we most certainly won't now. Rest assured, gentlemen, your suits will be on time and will fit perfectly."
"Thank you," Steve said. "Do we pay now, or when the suits are done?"
"When the suits are ready, sir," Stanley said. "We accept all major credit cards."
Bucky noticed something missing there. "What about cash?"
Stanley looked absolutely confused. "Cash? No, we don't keep any in store." He looked even more confused. "You are the first customers I've had to ask to pay in cash."
Steve sighed heavily, looking at Bucky. "I guess I take a trip to the bank to deposit some."
Bucky shrugged. "I'll come with. I need to get put on the account, anyway."
Steve and Bucky bid Stanley farewell and headed out, pausing outside of the store.
Bucky shoved his hands into his pockets. "We should probably deposit enough to pay for shoes, too, because if there's a place around here that sells shoes that nice, they probably don't take cash either. So we have to go back up and get more money to take to the bank."
"Hadn't considered that," Steve said. "All right, fine, we'll stop back at the apartment."
When they got back up to their apartment, Bucky pointed at Steve's laptop. "Check prices on shoes," he said. "I'll get our coats." Steve sat down at the table and grabbed his laptop. Bucky heard Steve typing, then that same deflating balloon sound that Steve had made earlier when pricing the suits. Bucky paused at the coat closet, hand halfway in to grab their coats. "That doesn't sound good."
"Uh. Well, we're taking at least another two thousand to the bank," Steve said with a strained voice. "With tax, anyway."
Bucky felt his heart stop. "How much- wait. JARVIS, please explain inflation again."
"With an inflation rate of one thousand, five hundred, and forty-four percent, a pair of shoes costing eight hundred and ninety dollars today would cost fifty-seven dollars and sixty-four cents, before tax," JARVIS said.
"Okay, better."
Steve went to their wall safe to count out the money for the deposit. The safe wasn't hidden in any way; the only way someone could get into their apartment to steal it was if JARVIS let them in, so why buy a potentially ugly picture that would be very obvious as the only one on the wall to hide something that didn't need hidden? It was still far more secure than the old shoebox in the back of a kitchen cupboard like what they had in DC.
While Steve did that, Bucky headed into his bedroom to grabbed his holster, hooking it on, then checked his gun, a basic Beretta M9, simple, powerful, preferred by the military, and tucked it in the holster at the small of his back. Bucky didn't go out in public without being armed, not with Hydra having poked its head out of its ferret hole recently. If the bank had a problem with it, tough. They'd change their tune if it'd been them that an international terrorist organization was after.
Once Bucky had rejoined him, Steve sighed, thumbing through the cash in his wallet, probably double-checking how much was in there. Bucky didn't know why he bothered, Steve carried perfect grades in math, growing up. "I'm not sure I feel safe on the streets of Manhattan, carrying about ten thousand dollars in cash on me."
Bucky pulled his coat on, and handed Steve his. "I doubt anyone's going to mess with us, Steve," he said. "Crooks go for the easier targets. We both look like we could bench press the average pickpocket."
"Not the point," Steve said. "That average pickpocket could have a gun."
"And we don't?" Bucky asked. "What, do you wanna bring your shield? Because that wouldn't make us walking targets or anything."
Steve frowned, pulling on his coat and tucking his wallet in an inner pocket. "No, I wasn't really thinking of our safety. I was worried about bystanders."
"Still not likely with as fast as we can move," Bucky said. "Stop complaining, let's go."
They had JARVIS lock up behind them.
They took a cab; the bank wasn't far enough to bother driving their own car, too cold to drive the bike, but far enough that walking with that much cash probably wasn't a good idea, despite Bucky's well thought out points. Besides, parking was an annoyance and they weren't going to be in the bank long, or at least Bucky hoped not.
Putting him on the account might take longer, though. He had no idea how modern day banks worked beyond basic deposit and withdrawals at the teller window. He hoped there wouldn't be much fuss, he hated dealing with paperwork.
The bank wasn't as crowded as it could've been. It was past the normal lunch hour, but before work got out, so while there were plenty of people there, the wait to get to the teller wasn't irritatingly long.
And mercifully, there were no little old ladies depositing rolls of pennies.
The deposit didn't take long, and adding Bucky's name to the account wasn't much longer, but it required his social security number, and it took him a minute to remember it. He'd been eighteen when that system got set up, and was nineteen by the time he was actually assigned a number. Other than when he enlisted, it hadn't been terribly important, and even that had been a long time ago.
"Well, we're a proper bickering married couple now," Bucky said upon leaving the bank. "You're lucky I like you, I wouldn't even share a bank account with a woman I was actually married to."
"Yes, dear, of course, dear, whatever you say, dear," Steve said, hailing a cab.
"You're helping so much," Bucky said.
A cab pulled over to pick them up, and a man that looked to be around their perceived age in a business suit tried to shove past them to take the cab. Bucky grabbed his shoulder pointedly with his mechanical hand. The man started to swear at him, but after he'd had a good look at Bucky, he backed away.
Bucky stared at the man with a dead-eyed look, letting Steve get into the cab first before joining him, not taking his eyes off the man until the door was shut. He wouldn't be surprised if the man had wet himself, and he found it kind of funny.
After giving the cabbie the address for Stark Tower, Steve studied Bucky. "You're a sadist," he said.
Bucky's intimidating demeanor instantly turned into a grin entirely too bright for him to deny the allegations seriously. "He had no manners. Maybe next time, he'll wait his turn."
Steve rolled his eyes. "You know, doing that won't help your reputation."
Bucky shrugged. "Yeah, I know, but he pissed me off. People in Manhattan are assholes."
"It's not just Manhattan that that happens in," Steve said. "And it's not as common as you might think. We just got lucky."
"You have a funny idea of 'lucky'," Bucky said.
"Says the man who took advantage of it to scare the shit out of a stranger."
Bucky almost said something, but was interrupted by the sound of their phone going off. He watched Steve pull out the phone from the same pocket he hid his wallet- no longer carrying enough cash to buy a cheap used car -and look at the caller ID.
"It's for you," Steve said, handing the phone over to Bucky.
Bucky took it, eyeing the ID. Ah. Sam. He clicked answer. "What've you got for me, Wilson?"
"You speak such sweet greetings," Sam said. "I got in touch with the guy in charge of the homeless programs at the VA there in Manhattan. He says come on in and kick up your feet, they'll take all the help they can get. I didn't know if you wanted hands on help or donations, so I wasn't able to give him much, so he didn't give me much, but his name is Josh Lewis. He's a former staff sergeant, so I think he outranks you."
Bucky scoffed. "Everyone outranks me, Sam. I've gotten used to it. My baby brother is a goddamn officer."
"What branch?" Sam asked without a hint of surprise, but with a good dose of amusement at Bucky's expense.
"Navy. He decided walking around on the ground was too good for him, he had to go float on the ocean."
Sam laughed. "Navy boys are a weird lot. You know where the VA there in Manhattan is, right?"
"Down on West Houston somewhere," Bucky said. "I'll look it up when I get home."
"I didn't realize you were out."
Bucky glanced at Steve. "You didn't catch me driving, at least. Steve won't let me drive. He thinks I'll break the steering wheel."
While Steve gave him one of those looks that he'd learned at the lap of his Catholic Irish mother that said 'you've done a bad thing', Sam made a noise that might've been a laugh, might've been distressed. "Well, the last time you had your hands on a steering wheel, you did break it."
Bucky took a few deep breaths, counting to five. It was all the farther he could make it. "Wilson, I apologized, shut up about it."
"Hey, whoa, easy," Sam said. "I was making a joke. It doesn't upset me, it shouldn't upset you. Anyway, when you get there, ask for Josh Lewis, tell them that I sent you. He's expecting you."
"Thanks, Sam," Bucky said. "You wanna talk to Steve while you're on the phone?"
"Naw," Sam said. "Tell him I'll call after dinner, unless he's out with Sharon."
"I'm pretty sure not tonight," Bucky said. "If I'm wrong, you're stuck with my happy ass."
Sam laughed. "You are already the best friend ever. I'll call tonight after dinner. Talk to you weird old dudes. But I have some stuff I have to finish up here this afternoon before home and dinner become a real thing for me."
"You don't like offers for procrastination?"
"When I was in school, yes. The Army knocked that out of me. Surprised it hasn't you yet."
"I'm trying to relearn," Bucky said, looking over at Steve again. Steve was watching, apparently very interested in this conversation. "Steve is getting annoyed at me for it."
"According to Steve, you're good at that," Sam said.
Bucky laughed when Steve nodded his head in a long-suffering way. "He's confirming that. You go do your work, I have my own to do now. Someone will talk to you tonight."
"Talk to you later, man," Sam said, before hanging up.
Bucky handed the phone back to Steve. "You have interesting friends," he said.
"Sounds like he's your friend too," Steve said, tucking the phone away in his pocket. "You want me to look up that address now, give you money for the cab and you can just go right there?"
Bucky didn't feel terriblly confident about that. "Do you have enough for a round trip from the Tower? Counting for time in traffic? They don't charge by the mile, you know."
Steve frowned. "Didn't think of that." He pulled out his wallet and counted the money he'd kept for the cab, frowning deeper when he was done. "No, I guess I don't." He tucked away his wallet and looked at Bucky. "Looks like you're coming back up before going out again."
"I'll live," Bucky said. "Might even get there in time to see Tony doing something else magnificently weird."
Steve sighed, paying the driver as they pulled up to the front of Stark Tower. "If he hangs Star Spangled garland on the walls, he's officially a dead man."
Bucky laughed, joining Steve in front of the building once they were out and the cab had driven away. "You know, he wouldn't pick on you if you didn't give him such fun reactions."
"The hell he wouldn't," Steve said, heading inside. "He picks on Bruce and Bruce takes him in stride. Tony's just an asshole."
"Yeah, but you like him," Bucky said, following Steve to the elevators.
Steve gave him an aggravated look. "I have this thing about making friends with people like him."
Bucky made a point of acting oblivious. "Your taste in friends obviously went downhill after I died. Did you get desperate?"
Instead of looking annoyed, Steve's expression softened into a smile. "The modern day didn't have as good of an option as you were. Had to make do."
Bucky didn't say anything, looking over when the elevator dinged and a sea of people swarmed out. He stayed quiet as the elevator took them up, people getting off at different floors. They were the only ones that remained by the time they got to their floor. "And then you shared your 'make do' options when I came back. I'm not sure if I should thank you or hit you for it."
The elevator dinged. "Thank me. You'd be in trouble without our friends."
Bucky had just enough time to make a 'meh' noise before the doors opened, revealing Sharon, in her heavy winter coat, standing on the other side.
"Going down?" Steve asked, stepping off the elevator and off to the side to give her room.
Bucky refrained from pointing out just how dirty that sounded. Steve was far from an innocent, but his brain only took trips into the gutter, whereas Bucky's had set up permanent residence.
Sharon might've noticed the slip, might not have, but if she did, she didn't show it. "No, here to scold you two."
Bucky raised an eyebrow, exchanging a look with Steve. "What'd we do this time?"
"Taking over ten thousand dollars to the bank without any form of security or even awareness to your surroundings?" she said. "The guy on shift said it wouldn't have taken much to take a hit on you, you two acted like there wasn't a care in the world."
Steve sighed. "Sharon, this is not the first time we've gone to the bank with a lot of money. We're more aware of our surroundings than we look sometimes. Besides, we knew one of your crew was around, even if Bucky didn't keep himself armed at all times."
"I suspect that throwing ourselves into the stockade has made her paranoid and cross with us, Steve," Bucky said, acting like he wasn't stating the obvious.
"I couldn't tell," Steve said, then returned his focus to his girlfriend-slash-protector. "Sharon, relax. We know things can be dangerous. But we have to go out some time. We needed to go to the bank. We knew we had someone watching our back."
Sharon frowned, looking like she was internally arguing between her protective and paranoid streak, and Steve's logic. Before Steve could tell her to relax again, she sighed. "I'm sorry. You're right." She rubbed her forehead with one hand. "This job got more stressful than it had been before."
Steve put an arm around her shoulders, steering her down the hall and away from in front of the elevator. Bucky followed on Sharon's other side. "I know, and we're sorry for that. But at least you don't have to try to hide from us at the same time. You live close by, and I'm not going to be surprised this time when you come banging into the apartment and saying you were assigned to protect me."
She gave him a dirty look that didn't look terribly sincere. "I'm sorry. I didn't get much sleep last night. That's a weak excuse, I know."
"We all have off days," Bucky said. "If you want something to do, you can stay with Steve while I'm out."
Sharon whipped her head around to stare at Bucky as they stopped outside of Steve and Bucky's door. "Where are you going?"
"To the VA," Bucky said. "I've picked up my personal charity crusade. Steve's got his kids' hospitals, Tony's got animals now, and I needed something to do with my time."
Sharon was quiet a moment, clearly deep in thought. She pointed at Steve. "You stay in this building. JARVIS, keep an eye on him." She turned to Bucky. "I'm coming with you. You are not going out alone, not now, not while there is still a high chance that you will be targeted for your past." She held up a firm hand when he opened his mouth to protest. "Don't argue with me. This is my job, and you're not stopping me from doing it, or I'll get Steve to help me tie you down for the rest of the Christmas season."
Bucky stared at her. No, she was not- she was. And she'd win, because Steve would help her, and logic was on her side. He could handle pretty much anything people wanted to throw at him, but Hydra was out there, and they still had more resources than he cared for them to have. He may have been their greatest weapon, but that didn't mean they couldn't pile up the not-as-greatest weapons to take him in one shot. And it wouldn't be pretty.
Not that a regular CIA agent with a regular service pistol was going to be much help, but having an extra set of eyes would probably be nice.
He gave her a look of death, took a deep breath. "Fine. But you're not going to try to follow me in a cab. If you're going to be a shadow, you're keeping me company."
"Acceptable compromise," Sharon said. "We'll take my car."
Bucky looked at Steve. "You find the most annoying women."
Steve chuckled. "They're related, it ran in the family."
That was like hitting his head on a wall. It was something he probably should've seen sooner, but he hadn't had reason to make the connection. "Wait." He looked at Sharon. "That aunt you take after."
Sharon looked far too amused. "My Aunt Peggy. That's why Director Fury trusted me with Steve's protection. He knew it was in the genes."
Bucky gave Steve a betrayed look. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Steve shrugged. "I didn't realize you didn't know. You didn't think having two Agent Carters in my life was a coincidence, did you?"
Bucky frowned. "Carter's not exactly an uncommon name," he said.
Sharon smiled, looping her arm around Bucky's. "Come on, soldier. You can tell me about my aunt. Steve feels weird talking about her with me. Ex-girlfriends, you know how he is."
She certainly had a winning personality, Bucky had to admit that. Overtired and paranoid right then, maybe, but charming. He looked at Steve, who merely stepped back and motioned for them to leave. He obviously had no problem with Sharon's fake flirting with Bucky. If it were anyone other than Steve, involving anyone other than Bucky, Bucky would think that Steve was being too damn trusting.
Bucky looked at Sharon. "Just as long as you don't make me feel ancient talking about the old days."
"Deal." She waved to Steve. "I'll bring him back, safe and sound," she promised.
"Just don't go looking for trouble," Steve said.
"I can't say that I don't, I asked for this assignment, but I won't this time, cross my heart," she said, then steered Bucky back towards the elevators. She kept her arm hooked around his, even as they stepped back to wait for the elevator after hitting the button. "I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?" she asked.
He looked down at her. "If you weren't who you were, you would," he said. "But if you've got Peggy's loyalty in you, I'm not worried about Steve getting played."
"Did Aunt Peggy ever flirt with anyone but him?"
Bucky laughed. "No, she had eyes only for him. She'd pick on me sometimes, to an outsider it might've look like flirting, but no, she outright stonewalled me when I first met her, she was so focused on Steve. I'm not sure she even realized I was there."
"Bucky Barnes, the ladies' man, completely ignored," she said. "If it were anyone but my aunt and anyone but Steve, I'd be surprised."
He gave her a suspicious look. "Why?"
The elevator dinged, and they stepped in, Sharon letting go of his arm. "Don't be worried, I'm not hitting on you. I'm observing your character traits. You're a handsome man, and you're kind and deeply loyal. I think most women would fall for that. Steve got to me first, but that doesn't mean there aren't other women out there who'd have the same assessment."
He chuckled. "The first time a woman's said something like that to me and she's already taken," he said. "That's kinda how my luck's gone since the Howling Commandos."
"You haven't been trying much since then," she said.
"Fair enough." He was quiet for a few seconds, wishing that elevators still played music. It would've filled the silence. "Do you know where the VA is?"
"Not off-hand," she said. "But I have my phone. Google maps to the rescue."
He smiled and shook his head once. "Still sometimes amazed by what the twentieth century managed to do despite my interference."
"That wasn't your interference," she said, and he could feel her looking at him to the point that he finally had to look back. "That was Hydra's. Those were not your chosen actions. I would not be protecting you with my life if I thought you were at all the man that did those. I would be helping Steve get you to the point where you weren't."
"You know, a lot of people put too much faith in me."
"Maybe," she agreed. "But we haven't been disappointed."
He studied her, but any thought that might've turned into voice was interrupted as the elevator let them off in the garage.
"This way," she said, pulling her keys out of her pocket. "And before you ask, I was ready to go out to find you two. I wasn't walking around the living quarters floor in my coat with my car keys for the fun of it."
"You are even more paranoid than I am sometimes," he said, following her to her car. "That's kinda sad."
She smiled, turning her head to look at him. "I watch after you and Steve. You've given me reason to be."
"I'd protest, but you're not wrong," Bucky said.
She just gave him another smile, and they continued through the garage to her car.