James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} comradebarnes) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} valarlogs,@ 2013-09-02 21:02:00 |
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What: Making an idiot of oneself in front of a crush
When: 9/1
Where: Not Bucky's usual gym
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
Bucky was in the middle of his marathon training, and that meant the gym every other day. Most people thought you had to just run, run, run. In reality, marathon training was slow and steady, intercut with cardio. Today was a cardio day, and he was headed to a gym that wasn’t his usual. But when your usual was closed for fumigation, you made do. He headed in and walked over to the elliptical machines, figuring he’d stretch nearby.
Natasha liked to spend a bit of time out of the limelight. There was a gym she went to when she wanted some quiet time. Or occasionally just the need to punch things that didn’t punch back, which is why she’d tied her hair back and was pummeling her fists into a punching bag. She’d always prided herself as being just as tough as her tv character, perhaps in part because she was so often just a sex pot or a movie star.
The dreams had only made that effort more important, and now that she was dreaming again, she had a lot of frustration to work out.
The layout of the place was a little weird, and to get to the machines, he had to walk through the free-weights and bag area. Bucky tried to avoid everyone, but he accidentally kicked a bag that had been on the floor. Picking it up, he looked at the tag and saw the name Natasha Romanoff. Given there was only one woman in the room, he’d have gone over even if he didn’t think he recognized her from the valarnet thing.
He waited until she was at a pause, then cleared his throat. “Excuse me. I accidentally kicked this on my way through; is this yours?”
She turned and looked at him. “Hmm? Yes, that is, thanks.” Something like recognition flashed in her eyes, but she recovered quickly. “You’re one of the new people on the net, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. I’m James, but everyone calls me Bucky.” He would have offered a hand, but hers were taped up. “It’s nice to meet you, Natasha.”
She nodded at him, and gave the bag another punch. “Nice to meet you, Bucky. That’s an odd nickname.”
“My middle name is Buchanan. So when I got in trouble, I got ‘James Buchanan Barnes!’ and someone started calling me Bucky, so it stuck.” He smiled a little. “Now the only people who call me James are my mother and sister.”
“That could be worse. Most people just call me Nat or Tasha.” Well only certain people called her Nat, but she’d allow it for Bucky. She smiled warmly at him, still trying to associate the differences in her dreams that seemed to be from the same time period - and he was only in one timeline. If she wanted to call it that.
“I’ll stick to Natasha, if that’s okay.” She was married, he knew that from the papers; it was probably better to not get too familiar with her. “Is this your usual gym?” He was curious; he still wouldn’t make a habit of coming here, if only because he was set in his ways, but still.
“Not really. It’s the one I go to to get away from it all. My usual one is flooded with other celebrities. It can get a bit tiresome.” She nodded at him, unreasonably happy to have him around. She couldn’t explain why - he wasn’t in her..well the dreams about New York and everything, like Clint.
“I just wondered. I usually go to the one over in La Habra, but they apparently are closed for fumigation.” Bucky made a face. “I’m training for a marathon, so I need to stay up to date on cardio, but I’ll skip the roaches.” He smiled a little bit.
“Roaches are good incentive. They could help you become fit enough to avoid the incoming nuclear apocalypse.”
That got a chuckle out of him. “Well, if they’d let me in.” Bucky smiled. “To be honest, I’d have thought you’d have a gym or workout room at home, if it isn’t rude to say.” Between her and her famous husband, after all, photographers probably drove them nuts. Or awkward fans.
“There’s something to be said about being around people.” Natasha caught the punching bag, and rested against it. “And usually I’m not as easily noticed. You must have a good eye.”
“Really?” Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Your hair is very bright. I’m just surprised, I guess.” He’d have seen that red two rooms away.
“Shh. Don’t destroy my fantasies, Bucky. Next time I’ll invest in a wig!”
He chuckled. “I’ll be sure to keep mum if I see you in a black wig or something.”
“I just hope I’m good enough an actress.” Still, Bucky had filled her head with a good idea - she could practice being incognito.
“I think you are.” Bucky said it without thinking of how stupid it might sound, and blushed faintly. “Sorry. Probably sounds silly.” He didn’t want to come off like a fanboy.
“That’s one person. It’s better than no person.” She winked at him.
“Oh, you’ve got a following.” Bucky said, hoping he didn’t look as stupid as he felt. “I mean. Even aside from the show.” What he meant was that her personal appeal transcended Black Widow. But that would have sounded creepy.
“You’re right, I do. It’s a little strange, until a little girl comes up to me and wants to be me. It’s one of the things that keeps me going in the industry.” She would have retired a long time ago otherwise.
“That’s really nice.” Bucky smiled. “And they could do worse.” He laughed a little nervously. “I work with kids myself, but they all mostly want to be sports stars or that kind of person. It’s a little sad. One little girl wants to be president, I do remember that.”
“Mm, I’ll make sure to vote for her. Da?”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate it.” Bucky smiled a little wider. “She’s only eight, but she’s one of the top cellists in the youth orchestra I work for. You’d think she’d go with that, but apparently it’s just a hobby.”
“Oh, the cello. I’m fond of that instrument in particular. It just emits such a soulful sound.” She closed her eyes at the thought of it. “Is she good?”
“Very, for her age.” Bucky was serious. “Eleanor is already through the Suzuki method book four, which is meant for early high school. She’s in third grade.”
“Hobbies sometimes turn into careers,” Natasha replied. “It’s what happened to me. But I hope she does what she loves and wants to do, not what others think she should do.”
“I hope she gets to. Her parents are from China, and they’re the stereotypical Asian couple. They want her to be a doctor or something.” Bucky shrugged. “I hope she has the will to turn them down. I think she does, but it’s anyone’s guess.” He smiled a little. “I was just lucky my parents encouraged me to play piano!”
"She's a little young yet, but stubborn is something you're born with. I'm sure she'll do fine." She sounded adorable. Natasha tilted her head. "As long as you find something you love."
“I agree.” Bucky had to ask. “Do you love acting?”
“I love it. Sometimes I think I can do something else. Or should do something else.” She started to unwrap her hands. “Like I could do more good in another field.”
“Oh?” He was curious in spite of himself. Part of him wanted to tell her to stop talking, if only because this was fairly personal. It seemed more meant for her husband than a random guy. “Like what?”
“I don’t know yet. Some of it is genuinely classified.” She grinned at him. “Maybe I could be a real spy. Or do something to help the needy.”
“I think you need a lot of training to be a real spy.” Bucky smiled a little. “And your husband would probably object. But getting involved with the poor would be great, I think.” She didn’t seem the type to just do it for the accolades, either.
She grinned at Bucky, knowing more than he did, at least for now. Of all the people from her variety of dreams, he was one of those she both most wanted, and least wanted to see. “He appreciates an active woman, which I’m sure you would too.”
“I can’t argue. My last girlfriend was a marathon runner - it’s how I got into it.” Bucky didn’t mind talking about Tatiana; they’d parted on an amicable note. Well. Amicable enough.
Nat nodded. “Leg man, then?” She couldn’t help it.
“Yeah.” Bucky grinned, looking down.
She laughed, then stretched out her leg in a mock pose. “Like what you see?”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds your husband could kick my ass.” It felt like she was flirting with him, which was both exciting and super weird.
Grinning, Nat nodded her head. “Probably, though you seem like you’d give him a run for his money.” Eventually, anyway.
“I could run faster than him, maybe?” Bucky had to laugh. He needed to probably not do this; he would absolutely have hit that if she let him, but he wasn’t a homewrecker. “Marathoning is actually a lot of fun. It’s really rewarding to do all the training, and your time keeps getting better and better if you do it right.”
Nat wasn't sure what she was doing either. There was a lot of conflicting feelings in her chest and certain other parts. She had to physically look at her ring to remind herself of her vows and what Thor meant to her.
She looked back at Bucky and smiled. "That might be something I could do. Marathoning for charity. It's not as though I don't train as though I really am a spy."
“Good idea.” He meant it. “You’d get good publicity, and it’s something new for you to try. Though I’m sure you’ve got projects after your show ends.” Bucky tried to think professionally. “I bet you do a lot of cardio training - you might need to build up your endurance, but I bet that wouldn’t be an issue.”
“I’ve got a movie, right now. Red Sonja meets Space. With a little less cheesecake.” She liked taking normally highly sexualized kind of women and turning them into something else, just like she had with the sexy spy.
“Just the right amount of cheesecake?” Bucky knew most women liked a little, but not as much as men.
“Or T&A. I always mix up the terms.” She rolled her eyes. “Or both.”
“Same difference.” Bucky shrugged. “Not enough and it’s boring; too much and it’s porn.”
“You should have seen the draft for a Black Widow movie. It was half softcore porn. After I saw that was when I wrestled control away!”
He remembered reading about that in the industry papers. Bucky still sometimes read Variety and all that, but it was less often than he used to. “Smart of you,” he said. “It’s always seemed mean, somehow, that guys don’t get subjected to the same pressure about looks. There’s a lot more unattractive male movie stars than there are unattractive females. Kind of a double standard.” He knew he was saying the right thing, yeah, but he did actually believe it. He liked women. He tried not to be the average jackass who treated them all like sex objects.
“It really is a double standard. The only thing to do is continue to fight back against that. Perhaps I need a bit more female gaze in my movie.” She grinned at him.
“Gaze, like, eye candy for the girls instead of the guys?” Bucky laughed. “It’d send a statement. Maybe your husband could make an appearance.” He knew the following Thor Odinson had. Not least of all his own ex-girlfriend hadn’t been able to stop talking about the guy. It worked out well, with Bucky’s crush on Natasha.
“Yes. You know how in a movie the camera will rest on the girl’s ass or tits?” Natasha tilted her head and gestured at her own body. “Sometimes it will rest on a man’s chest, or other areas a woman normally finds attractive. Female gaze and male gaze.” Not that she’d seen many movies lately with the latter.
Yeah, that was entirely unfair. Bucky kept his chill, though. “Ah. I didn’t know there was an industry term for it. But I bet you would get people talking with that kind of thing. High time we got a little equal opportunity.” He chuckled, mostly to hide his awkwardness and hope he wouldn’t blush.
“That’s something I’ll have to keep in mind. I’ve a man in mind for one role but I don’t think he’d appreciate running around in leather harnesses…though he’d appreciate the topless scenes.”
Bucky laughed. “There’s some of us that would. Appreciate doing the shirtless scenes, I mean.” He wasn’t insensible to the right kind of guy; he was probably about a 2 on the Kinsey scale. He’d just so far only met women who struck his fancy. And he wasn’t a harness kind of guy.
“I’ll keep that in mind, if you ever want to act,” she replied. She’d meant her own topless scenes, too.
“I just don’t think I’d be very good at it, unfortunately. You need a score, or a cameo for a pianist who gets shot mid-chord, then maybe, but actually talking on camera is probably beyond me.” He smiled a little shamefacedly, looking down. “I should probably leave you be, though.”
Nat chuckled. “That’s fair enough. You just have the jaw for it. Perhaps a square-jawed guard who suffers an unfortunate fate.”
“Maybe I could do that.” That might actually be fun. “I guess if you need to get a hold of me you can do it through that network.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find a man named Bucky,” She commented.
“True. There probably aren’t many of me.” Bucky smiled.
“I’d dare say you’re one of a kind,” she replied, barely keeping fondness out of her voice.
This was getting a little odd. Even if it was flattering. “I should probably get going, though. I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“I enjoyed the break, thank you. It’s a good thing to have a break, else you drive yourself into the ground.”
“Agreed.” Bucky made sure he had his stuff. “And if you find yourself curious about marathoning, just let me know. I’d be happy to give you the name of my coach.”
She took out a piece of paper and wrote her email address on it. “Just send it along. And thank you.”
“Okay.” He had Natasha Romanova (Odinson! his brain reminded him)’s email address. Holy crap. Bucky just smiled again, like an idiot, and waved. “It was really nice to meet you, Natasha.”
“And you too, Bucky.”