WHO: Tony Stark (MCU)/Bucky Barnes (MCU)/Natasha Romanoff (MCU)/Bucky Barnes (616)/MJ (MCU) WHEN: Sunday, after this WHERE: The Avenger's Facility then the road WHAT: Chasing down dumbass Bucky (616) and MJ TRIGGERS: Grand Theft Auto, swearing, and road rage/violence (nothing graphic)
Tony was enjoying a relaxing day for once. Now that the Collector had said his peace, there was a lot to think about. But, lately, the portals hadn’t been acting up, and while they hadn’t found Ross, the government was quiet for now. Things were almost too quiet, but he wasn’t going to question a day spent with Pepper and maybe Morgan, catching up and just being human for once. It was an order from Dr. Jones, who seemed to think Tony needed some kind of rest.
Which was true, but he wasn’t going to admit it out loud.
However, his peace was rudely interrupted with an alert on his watch. And Tony pulled it up only to groan and excuse himself to watch something on a screen nearby.
Sure enough, two teenagers were stealing one of his cars. Looked like the new kid and one of Peter’s friends. Great. He momentarily considered going after them himself, but seeing the look he was getting from his fiance, thought better of it.
Sure, it was just a joyride, but at the speed those two were going (and the lack of license) they were probably headed for a bad time. And Tony REALLY didn’t like that they stole one of his favorites.
So Tony did the reasonable thing. He was going to pass this problem onto someone else.
Meanwhile, Bucky was finally trying to relax, heading to his room to get a long shower when his communicator buzzed. When he pulled it out to check and saw it was Tony Stark, he nearly hung up before thinking better of it. What the hell was Tony Stark calling him for?
“Hello. What’s wrong?”
“Can’t I just call to see how you’re doing?”
“Uh-huh. But we’re not exactly friends and that’s not why you called. What’s going on?”
“Looks like Mini-You went for a joyride.”
Bucky stopped in the hallway. “What did he take?”
“Sending you the picture now.”
“I know my cars, Stark.”
“This one is special,” Tony explained and Bucky pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the image. “I’m uploading the tracking data to you, too. Have fun.”
“Not bad.” Bucky paused. “I’m on it.” He hung up and went to the room he shared with Natasha, walking straight in and tossing his workout towel on the bed.
“Hey, you doing anything?”
Natasha looked up from the chair she was tucked into with a book. There was an imperceptible expression on Bucky's face that most people would have taken for perturbed, maybe constipated, but Natasha knew it as an annoyance. Not everyone could read his stares, after all. They just make most people uncomfortable.
"What do you need?"
He hated asking her like this, but he already knew going after these guys himself wasn’t going to work out if he knew anything about Jimmy.
“A driver. The new kid’s taken MJ on a joyride with one of Tony’s cars.” He still hadn’t told her much about the new kid beyond that he’d given him the black eye that was currently healing on his face, but he pulled it up on his phone and showed it to her.
“Looks like they’re heading south.”
"Ooh, the 1949 Mercury Coupe. Bet Tony's head is spinning right now." Natasha was on her feet in an instant, grabbing for a pair of shoes. Seemed a strange choice of cars to go for a joyride. She would have thought the Tesla Roadster or any of the other convertibles, but the big, bulky, and arguably boat-like appearance was not what she'd expect a teenager to go for.
Shoes on, she immediately followed Bucky out of the room toward their parking. She figured they'd take the Stingray. It had been a while since she'd driven it, and it was going to pick up speed a whole lot faster. Unless they were looking for one of the quinjets. Somehow she doubted it.
"Didn't peg MJ for the joyride with the new guy type. What's the new guy's name?"
“Yeah, so why isn’t he the one looking?” Bucky muttered as he changed his shirt quickly, not a huge fan of missing the shower for this. But he figured there wasn’t time given who was behind the wheel.
He just followed Natasha once they reached the garage, getting into the passenger side. “I’m calling him Jimmy.” No last name, but Bucky didn’t look thrilled about it. He knew Natasha wouldn’t let it drop there. She could read him like a book, and would do that if he didn’t at least give her more details.
“He’s from the 1940s. He was fighting in the war when he got pulled through.”
"Well, I think you just answered your own question as to why Tony isn't taking care of a younger version of you."
Natasha didn't waste time. Multitasking was a specialty, just ask Steve. She peeled out of the garage and headed out onto the open road. She set in the moving coordinates and calculated a route that would head them off before they got to the city.
She had to admit: she was interested to see what this Barnes was like before that fall, before HYDRA, before the Winter Soldier. It was curiosity and nothing else. Especially given the ages. She'd heard there had been another Bucky, another Winter Soldier, but until she saw it with her own eyes…
Natasha's driving may have seemed dangerous, but she'd had hundreds of courses in the Red Room on how to drive in various situations. The other drivers weren't too thrilled with the black Stingray darting in and out of traffic, but she couldn't say she cared all that much.
Yeah, Bucky kind of knew Nat would figure it out with that information. She wasn’t one of the world’s greatest spies for her looks alone. He had braced himself a bit as she drove, both because of the speed but also because he was thinking, trying to figure out how to handle what was coming next.
This other him was still kind of an enigma, even if Bucky should know how he thought. He was younger than the Bucky who had first entered the war by a few years, and he could already tell their life experiences must have varied somewhere beyond the Winter Soldier. This kid was rougher around the edges, something Bucky was when he was younger but grew out of while growing up with Steve. He wondered if this would have been him had Steve not been around.
One day he’d ask. Maybe. For now, he was watching the road and the homing signal, as Natasha closed in on the location and formulated a plan.
When they started finally gaining on the car, he asked. “Can you pull up beside him?”
"You got it!"
The Stingray gunned it until she pulled up alongside the Mercury. She glanced over at the driver and passenger before giving them a little wave.
Bucky rolled his eyes at Natasha’s cheekiness. He wasn’t as friendly. He rolled down his window hoping Jimmy would do the same. “Pull over now!!” He was clearly unhappy with the two, but he had a feeling young him wouldn’t listen. And he was ready.
James saw the other car coming up quick and was braced for company. It was wishful thinking that they would have a clean getaway. He caught the driver's eye and heaved a sigh at the wave, then doubled down upon seeing Bucky.
"Hang tight, MJ." There was one play here: jam the brakes, and pull a tight right turn into an upcoming side street. It probably wouldn't work out, but damned if he wasn't the type to try any dumb plan.
"Hang onto what?" MJ looked around the front passenger side for something to hang onto, but apparently, this car didn't have an oh shit bar.
Meanwhile, Natasha saw the jerk of the wheel. The Stingray had a much better turn radius and handling and they easily followed after the pair. Cars coming in the opposite direction weren't quite so thrilled with the action and several long honks followed the two cars.
Bucky realized that the other car wasn’t going to slow down. He caught sight of the look in the eyes of his younger self and knew exactly what he was thinking.
“He’s going to do this the hard way.”
He was watching the traffic. He wasn’t worried about Natasha’s driving. He knew she was skilled enough to dodge whatever was coming her way. But young him? There was definitely a chance he was going to flip that car and kill someone.
All to impress a girl.
Bucky unbuckled his seatbelt. “Do you think you can get in front of them?”
James was quick to act upon realizing that maybe this wasn’t MJ’s element. He held out an arm to keep her from being whipped around by the turn, then deftly steered with the other hand. Except the other car was behind them again, and he knew that they were out-machined. When the hell did cars get so fast?
“It’s the goddamn cavalry. You think they’d have better things to do…” So what now? James looked in the rearview mirror and then furrowed his brow. He didn’t ease off the gas. “Pretty sure the City might be off the table.”
"Maybe you should just pull over," MJ implored. Trying to be the voice of reason this late in the game was useless though, and she knew it. She could tell by the pitch in his tone.
Natasha replied by simply putting on the gas and getting ahead of the car. She jerked the wheel over into their lane as soon as she had enough distance that he wouldn't smash into the back of her car. "What are you gonna do?"
“Something really stupid.” He had rolled down the window completely and started climbing out of the car, hanging on tight to the side of the door and waiting until Nat could steady it before making his move. One jump, then another right after the other, he had hoisted himself onto the roof of the Stingray, then the trunk, and bang! He hit the hood of the other car and clung onto it for dear life.
His metal hand dug into the metal (Tony would make him pay for that if he knew), and met Jimmy’s eyes. “PULL OVER NOW!”
He had no idea what the plan was if this didn’t work. To be honest, Bucky was winging it.
“You gotta be kiddin’,” James breathed out, first at the solid THUMP on the rear of the car, then he chased it with a colorful string of words as a fully-grown man came into view on the hood.
“WHAT ABOUT THIS APPROACH FEELS LIKE IT’S GONNA WORK THE WAY YOU WANT?” James shouted back through the windshield. For good measure, he flicked the windshield wipers. He did slow down, minimally, out of recognition that there was a car in front and the hood ornament was blocking his view.
Natasha put a few more feet between the cars in case the kid didn't know when to stop. She really didn't want a dent on this car, but James had crawled all over it with his Super Soldier ass. She had a feeling she was going to have to take it into the shop, even as she slowed down just a little to get the kid to slow down more.
MJ felt like a third wheel in a fight between a couple. She looked between the pair, horrified, mouth hanging open. How the hell could anyone see with a grown man on the windshield? This was not okay! "GET OFF THE HOOD! ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE US CRASH?"
He’d apologize about the car later. Right now, he was trying to stop the idiot behind the wheel of Tony’s from killing himself. The windshield wipers threw him off and he backed off a little, glaring.
“JUST STOP THE CAR!” It was as easy as that. All the idiot had to do was stop the car. But no. Goddamn dumbass. Bucky gave MJ a steely-eyed glare.
The real question was how to slow the kid down without killing anyone.
James grit his teeth, but options were fleeting. He wasn’t winning this. He turned his head slightly to MJ and quietly -- calmly -- told her, “I’m going to brake hard in three seconds.” It was enough warning for her to figure out how to secure herself, he figured. He counted to three and…
SCREEEECH.
Bucky knew it was coming before it happened. He could read it on the kid’s face. So he braced- and good thing he did. As the car came to a screeching halt, it threw him off alright, straight off of the hood and into the road, sending him tumbling onto the street.
Lucky for Barnes, he used the vibranium arm to break the fall, rolling into it and coming to a rest on his back just off the side of the road as the car stopped ahead of him.
He lay there, breathing for a couple of seconds before slowly sitting up. This was going to hurt in the morning. Bucky pushed himself back to his feet, roadburn on his other arm and the side of his head, but that would heal quickly. He made his way to the car slowly.
Now that the view was cleared, James could see the other car stopped, as well. He looked down for a moment, clearly revisiting the events as they led up to here, then gave a shrug and put the Mercury into park. “Don’t sweat it, ‘kay? You were just along for the ride,” he told MJ, offering what might’ve been a small apologetic smile if she caught the fleeting ghost of it.
James rolled down the window. “I stopped. Happy?”
Natasha had been eagle-eyed, watching in the rearview and in front of her. When she saw the Mercury slam on its brakes, she did the same and put on her hazards. She didn't get out of the car just yet. The kid was still behind the wheel, and should he decide that both of them out of the car meant gunning it, well… She wasn't going to let that happen.
MJ, for her part, was nervously watching everything. She'd never done anything so illegal, and eventually, there'd be a part of her a tiny bit thrilled with it, but for now, she folded her arms across her chest. Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Yeah, because you forced me into the car."
Walking up to James’ side of the car, Bucky did not look happy. His expression was stoic as he waited then nodded. “Out.” He looked ready to pull the kid out if he had to. “You, too.” Nodding to MJ.
“You’re both going back with Natasha. Get in the car. We’ll deal with this when we get back.” He looked back at the Mercury with a sigh as he waited for them to get out.
A part of him wanted to rage and scream, but he knew the police were probably already on their way. It was better to try to get out of there and back to the Facility where he could vent later. And probably a good idea to clear his head before he did something he might regret.
James didn't budge, even despite the glowering man outside his driver's window. He tapped his fingers along the steering wheel, then looked at MJ, eyebrows lifted. "Next time, we probably need the faster car, huh?"
Then he braced himself and opened the car door to go face the music. "Yeah, alright, Sarge. Keep your shirt on. Maybe jumpin' on a moving car wasn't a good life choice, sir." It wasn't necessary to poke the proverbial bear, but the whole thing felt like an overreaction. James often railed against authority, and it felt immensely more personal with this guy. Go figure.
“You stopped, didn’t you?” Bucky countered, resisting the urge to grab him by the arm and lead the way. He glanced at MJ and didn’t look too thrilled at her either. Yeah, she was ’along for the ride’, but she still went with a guy stealing a car. Bucky wasn’t half as mad about that though.
“We can talk about shitty life choices later after Tony figures out what he wants to do with you.” Idiot. Was he ever this stupid? Yeah. Probably. He’d just done something really dumb back there, hadn’t he? He wasn’t one to talk.
Once the pair of them were out of the car, Natasha pushed her door open. She strode toward them and leaned against the side of the car. MJ felt way too tall and way too seen as she eked herself out of the passenger side. She didn't know where to put her hands, so she shoved them into the pocket of her jeans.
Natasha grinned. "You're both in the back. Hope you enjoy folding yourself into a pretzel."
MJ huffed an exasperated sigh.
James shot Bucky the sort of look that, coupled with a shrug, suggested that anything in his future involving consequences were pre-accepted. Do your worst, basically. He climbed into the back of the car and crammed his knees stubbornly against the seat in front of him.
He was vaguely aware of the instrumentation of the car and the front panels being some complicated mash of screens. It was foreign to him. Almost everything here was. Would it have killed them to let him seek out something familiar in New York? Fine, maybe the approach wasn’t the smartest, but asking for permission was a rare tactic in his book.
He’d let Natasha handle it from here. For now, he was just tired. Looking back at the car that was stolen, Bucky winced against the sun and at the damage on the side. He was going to hear about that from Tony- but it was better than the car getting totaled and people getting hurt, right?
Well, except for him.
He sighed and got into the car, adjusting the seat a bit and checking his mirrors before starting it up. Hotwiring it, technically. Because you know, idiot didn’t have keys.
When Natasha got back, Tony was waiting in the garage. He did not look happy. Arms over his chest, he waited for everyone to exit the vehicles before looking straight at the kids. His gaze turned to MJ first. “You, I’m kind of disappointed in. You.” He looked at Bucky. “Could have just asked.”
He wasn’t grinning. He was pissed off. “But you know, that’s not as fun as playing the bad boy. So guess what, Bad Boy? You get to show off what a car guy you are for the next couple of weeks.”
He looked at MJ. “And you are getting a driver's license. So the next time you need a ride, you can take yourself.”
This wasn’t wildly unlike being called in front of a superior and being read the laundry list of infractions; James had the whole routine down at this point in his life. Stand straight, eyes directed straight ahead, don’t flinch or blink, and wait for a break to speak.
“You want me to play mechanic?” He pulled at the corner of his mouth, mostly because that felt like an odd choice of punishment. “Yeah, y’know what? Fine by me. That garage is a ghost town anyway.”
"Why do I need to learn to drive? I live in Queens." MJ wasn't thrilled by the prospect, not least of all because people drove like maniacs in the city. Why not leave it to subways and buses? No one wanted to be out in that mess. She pulled out her MetroCard. "I have a pass."
“Great. Then you won’t mind washing these cars once a week until it’s done.” Tony grinned then looked to MJ. “And like it or not, you live here for the time being and we’re going to need more responsible drivers if road-rage over here is an example.”
On cue, Bucky pulled in with the dented car and Tony frowned. He rubbed his face and looked at Natasha. “Yeah. Not going to ask.” Tony was obviously tired and didn’t care as long as it was fixed. He turned to leave, shouting back over his shoulder to MJ.
“No arguments, case closed- oh!” He paused and turned around, looking right at Little Bucky. “And you need more friends. Go find James or something after this. No more joyrides until after it’s fixed and this place is sparkling.”
That was all. Big Bucky slammed the car door closed and watched after Tony and Natasha, turning to ‘himself’. “So what was the sentence?”
"Learn to drive." Natasha pointed at MJ, who huffed again. There might have been a mumbled this is stupid underneath that. Then she jerked a thumb toward the kid. "Fix the car. Wash the cars every week till it's done."
Natasha pressed forward to pull MJ out of the line-up. She knew there was an earful about to be unloaded, and she didn't actually want to be around for it. She also didn't want to embarrass the new guy any more than he already was. She smacked a hand on his shoulder as the pair walked by. "Nice to meet you, Jimmy. Hopefully, next time will be under less humorous circumstances."
James remained standing at attention. A knack for trouble didn’t totally overwrite the fact that he was a soldier with a soldier’s training. He wavered only slightly at being called ‘Jimmy’ again, but that earned a minimal sigh as realized that he was being left in the company of the other Bucky now.
“She your girlfriend or what?” He couldn’t help himself. The redheaded woman was a new face, and she clearly had a rapport with the other Bucky. He didn’t expect an answer, but at this point, it wasn’t as if the other man was going to calm down anyway.
Fix the car made sense. Learning to get a license? Yeah, he could see that. Honestly, he didn’t expect Tony to go so easy on the guy, but he wasn't going to question it. As mad as Bucky was, he figured Stark had probably done much worse at his age. No one was killed. The cars could be fixed. It was just a headache.
He rolled his eyes and stared the other guy down. He and Natasha hadn’t exactly put that name on it, but he knew what Jimmy was trying to do. “She is.” It was the simplest answer without leading to uncomfortable questions.
“And you’re lucky she found this funny or you’d be in a lot worse shape right now- what the hell were you thinking back there?! You could have gotten yourself killed or worse, killed a bunch of innocent people pulling that crap!”
“Oh, nah you don’t --” There was a quick squaring of shoulders. James’s expression darkened; he might be shorter, but he figured out how to claim his space in a room of other people -- people who were older, bigger. It didn’t matter. He knew what he had: a whole lot of scrappiness that hadn’t
failed him yet. “Someone decided to jump on the goddamn hood, and block my view. You wanna know what I was thinking? Oh, I dunno, maybe that it would be easier to drive without a human hood ornament. Get off your high horse, you’re just as bad.”
“Yeah, and would you have preferred to slam into the Stingray instead?” He glared. “It worked, didn’t it?” He was doubling down. As dumb as it had been, it got this guy to stop and that’s all he wanted.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t start this. Jumping in and stealing a goddamn car to take some girl on a joyride? Jesus, you’re lucky you weren’t pulled over by the cops. Do you think you’d be standing here talking to me right now if someone else spotted you? You don’t even have a goddamn ID here!”
"Woulda preferred a nice trip down to Brooklyn, see if the bridge is still standin', grab a hot dog for the road…" The time switched to an oozy sarcastic one, but that was a thin layer of paint over the truth.
"If I start anything, I finish it. Didn't ask for help. Didn't ask for a shadow that seems to think I haven't been frontline for years. Or did you forget what that's like?"
That gave Bucky pause, staring at the kid a moment, steely eyes bearing down. “I remember.”
But not quite the same. “But I also got a lot more life experience than you, kid. And I remember what it was like to be a hotshot who thought I was immortal.” And he remembered that it was that arrogance and sense of duty that led him to slip up and get ‘killed’.
The worst part was that he’d do it again in a heartbeat. As far as he was concerned, he was saving Steve’s life at the time by picking up that shield.
“You wanna take a girl out, next time ask her for dinner and a movie. You score a lot more points that way.” He was half-serious.
“Jesus, what age were you again when the war started?”
"Gee, if only I had a ride to go to the theater," James retorted, one arm gesturing at the old Mercury. But the fight was fizzling now even if he wasn't sure what game Bucky was up to. He turned his eyes upon the older man and narrowed them as if trying to discern how much his leg was being pulled.
“Fourteen, when it started. Sixteen when I got out there. Why?”
“Goddamn, you were just a kid.” Bucky felt sorry for the guy, remembering how eager Steve had been back then to join the war. Bucky, too, but it was Steve that was always the driving force in that one.
It was starting to make sense.
“I was twenty-two,” Bucky explained, calming down a little. “Still in college, but I signed up with the rest of them. That was the first time Steve tried to join.” He was a bit deflated now, his anger subsiding.
“I used to do dumb shit like this when I was younger- maybe not quite as dumb.” He looked back at the car. Back then, there was less on his mind but he still had this need to prove himself. Kinda why he and Steve got along.
What was he doing telling the kid this? Maybe trying to relate. It was weird.
“You ever get captured?” He asked it while staring at the car. He didn’t really want to give too much away.
James wrinkled his brow. He was expecting a familiar story, and none of that was clicking. College? College? That suggested completion of high school, which wasn’t a notch in James’s own educational history. “You knew Steve from outside the army?” He’d been under the impression that they had the same start, but now he was holding the end of a string only to find it didn’t connect where he thought. It put him off his footing.
“No more or less than Steve ever did, if you ask me. People play stories up -- I’m still standin’. Clearly, I was just as good at getting uncaptured.”
It was coming together now. How their very histories were different. Different birthdays, different birth years. This multiverse was strange to say the least. Bucky shook his head.
“I grew up with him. Used to save his ass every time some bully started beating him up.” Bucky loved that part. He was the one protecting goddamn Captain America back in the day. “My family kind of took him in after he lost his folks.”
Yeah. Right. He nodded at the getting captured part and uncaptured part. “Wish I was that good at it. My unit got captured by Hydra on the front lines. That’s before I even knew Steve got into the army. They wouldn’t take him before they jacked him up with that super-soldier serum.”
“Well, shit.” It wasn’t much of a response, but James was turning it all over in his mind. No wonder he’d been slapped with the whole you’re-just-a-kid routine. To someone who enlisted at twenty-two and seemed to have gone by the books, a ragtag teenager joining up because he’d been an aimless troublemaker needing a purpose probably didn’t give much room for understanding. Why was that making him so irritable and cagey?
Because, James’s mind supplied, no one here knows you and nothing’s familiar. Not even another Bucky Barnes. Well, not in the way he thought they understood each other.
Maybe this was the point to share in return, but the stubborn will was holding out. “Sorry to hear that,” James finally replied. It felt hollow in the wake of everything entrusted to him, but what was he supposed to do?
Bucky was delving into dangerous territory here. He stared at his other self then shook his head and forced a faint grin. “It’s okay. Captain America showed up and saved the day. After that, easy breezy, right?” He didn’t explain the arm. That was another time (maybe never for this kid).
A big part of him hoped this Bucky would never have to experience that part. Maybe there was some way to make sure it never happened, but Bucky wasn’t going to dwell for now.
“I’m not even going to pretend I understand what is going on here. But I don’t want to be that guy you’re always kicking in the shins. Next time you want a car, just ask. You can ask for a lot of stuff around here.” He paused, knowing that wasn’t what this was about.
“And there are a lot safer ways to find trouble if that’s what you need. Ways that don’t involve Stark ruining my shower time.”
“Easy breezy,” James echoed, although he replayed the scene in his mind of Bucky getting thrown bodily from a car and walking it off. “My life in a nutshell.”
He huffed out a breath, trying to lose some of the agitations, trying to forget that this conversation had started as more of a shouting match. “Sorry about the face. The first and the second time. Hope, if nothing else, it gets you some sympathy action with the redhead.” The offer of a safer form of trouble was left where it was without acknowledgment, but James dog-eared it in his mind. Just felt like a bad call after all of this to willfully admit that maybe some acceptable trouble would help. Lay low. At least for a few days. He could do that. He could try.
Trouble was, as different as they were, Bucky kind of knew it was unavoidable. He was a little shit sometimes growing up. It was Steve that gave him a reason to be responsible. And his younger siblings. He imagined had Rogers not been around, he could have ended up a lot like the kid in front of him.
Bucky scoffed. “We’ll see. Nat’s kind of used to seeing me banged up by now. I’m guessing she’ll be rolled over and asleep by the time I finally drag myself to bed. But she’ll definitely mock me about it in the morning”
He nodded. “Get a shower and start reading up on a few manuals. You’ve got a long day ahead of you tomorrow from what I hear.” He started to walk out, shaking his head and muttering something about getting too old for this shit.