A/N: This is technically a sequel to my story You Only Want to Socialize (But I Don't Think We Should). However, all you really need to know from that fic for this one is that Rumlow dressed the Winter Soldier up as a panther for a HYDRA Halloween party and got in trouble with Pierce.
"What are you gonna say you're thankful for?" Rollins asks.
"Booze." Rumlow straightens his tie one last time before turning away from the mirror. "Because there's no way I'm getting through this thing sober."
Rollins is lingering outside the door of Rumlow's bathroom, clutching a homemade pecan pie and shifting uncomfortably in his suit. Rumlow never sees the man in black tie unless there's no choice, and the discomfort radiating from his second in command does his heart good. Hey, if Rumlow's going to sit through at least four hours of miserable, mandated domesticity, he deserves a little sliver of entertainment.
And alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.
Rumlow isn't sure it's possible to live through the annual HYDRA Thanksgiving potluck sober. At least, not with one's sanity intact. Every year there's a table comprised of the few members below twenty-one and whoever's currently in Pierce's shithouse, and every year that table doesn't get any booze. The look on those poor bastards' faces would be truly heartrending if not for the schadenfreude. There's no sympathy for one's fellow man at the potluck. It's hard to feel compassion when your own soul is dying.
Something about the holidays brings out Pierce's Sadistic Grandpa side in full force. He has a perfectly good family to inflict seasonal cheer onto, but it seems that isn't enough. And so each Thanksgiving they're urged and sometimes manhandled into a dining hall and made to listen as every single member of the organization recites what they're thankful for. In a good year, this takes an hour. Generally, it's upwards of two.
"Come on." Rollins glances at his watch. "I'm double parked."
"Just a second." Rumlow brushes past him and into the kitchen. "I've gotta grab the cranberry sauce."
And there's the insult to add to the injury. This event isn't even catered. Instead, they had to deal with signup sheets and dozens of passive aggressive emails from Sitwell about volunteering. Rumlow grabs a can opener, pries back the lid on the cranberry sauce, and dumps it into a bowl. It lies there jiggling as he retrieves a knife.
"The fuck is that?" Rollins demands.
"You're the one who said I had no business in a kitchen." He slices the sauce into mostly even discs. "What did you want, a repeat of the deep fryer incident?"
"You could have at least got the kind with whole berries." Rollins shakes his head, face contorting with an entirely unnecessary level of disgust as he takes his keys from his suit coat. "Could you put less effort in?"
"We'll find out next year," Rumlow says, shoving the bowl at him. "Gimme your keys, I'm driving."
"Like hell. You're not screwing up my seat adjusting it for your scrawny little legs."
"Listen, you get to bail on this shit early to catch your flight home." Rumlow's hand darts out, returning with the keys clenched in his fist. He starts for the door before Rollins can retrieve them. "I don't have that luxury. So I'm not dealing with your sorry driving on top of the rest of today's agenda, got it?"
"Fine." Rollins trudges after him, the pie in one hand and the cranberry sauce in the other. "But only because if you held the food for the drive, it'd end up reeking of Axe."
"You hear the asset's out?" Rollins asks as the SUV rolls to a stop.
Rumlow takes the keys from the ignition, tossing them to the second in command. "Whose team?"
"Mercer's."
Unbuckling his seat belt, Rumlow pauses midway through opening the driver's door. "Mercer is here." She'd signed up to bring the yams.
"And presumably, so's the asset. They don't ship out until Saturday."
The Winter Soldier at a Thanksgiving dinner. The Winter Soldier, who hasn't eaten normal food in potentially decades. The Winter Soldier, who'd nearly gotten Rumlow demoted or slaughtered for the "Winter panther" Halloween incident.
At least being on Pierce's shit list means not being allowed close enough to the asset to deal with the inevitable puking fit from his first taste of green bean casserole.
"What are they gonna do with him, strip him down and use him as a table? Like that woman in Kyoto—"
That's as far as Rumlow gets before Rollins is driving an elbow into his ribs. "You swore you'd never bring up Kyoto again, you ass."
Rumlow manages a smirk even as the wind's knocked from him. Flushed and fuming isn't a bad look on Rollins. "No, I said I'd never bring up the subway car. The party was before the subway. After the vending machines, but before the subway."
This time, Rollins rams the bowl of cranberry sauce into his gut. "I hope your balls freeze off while you're walking home."
"I'll take a cab."
"You're too cheap."
"It's take a cab or ride the handlebars on Murphy's fixie. I'll take the cab."
"Twenty bucks says he shows up in an ascot." Rollins peels back the foil over the pie tin. The crust and filling remain undamaged in spite of the scuffle. It looks damn delicious. At least there's that to look forward to. That, and a drunken stupor.
"Bull. He'll be wearing a bowtie."
They spot the Soldier as soon as they're inside. Someone's put his hair in a low ponytail and dressed him in an obscenely expensive suit.
"Is that Hugo Boss?" Rumlow asks, gaping.
He can feel Rollins staring at him. "Why do you know that?"
Sitwell, it seems, is the designated Winter-sitter for the evening. He has the asset's right hand and he's drawing an X across the back of it in marker. No alcohol for the Soldier tonight, then. It only makes sense, but it's still a damn shame. On the off chance it had any effect, this would have been the best Thanksgiving potluck ever. Or they'd all be killed. Even that way, they'd be out of their misery.
"You two." Sitwell beckons them. "Come here."
Rumlow braces himself for a ten minute lecture on where to deposit their dishes. "Soldier," he says, and the Soldier stops blinking at the back of his hand. Maybe part of the asset's ruined mind remembers the Halloween party and the plastic jack-o-lantern bucket he'd been so enamored with, because something like a smile flits across his face when he raises his head. "Doing all right?"
"It's Thanksgiving," the Soldier recites. His tone indicates he has no idea what Thanksgiving means, and going by his eyes he's drugged to the gills.
"Technically, it's not Thanksgiving until tomorrow," Rollins says.
Rumlow's never seen the Soldier look heartbroken before. It's terrifying.
"Ignore him," Sitwell snaps, though it does little in the way of heading off the Soldier's existential crisis. "Rollins. Shut up and give me your hands before you do any more damage."
"Why do you need my hands?" Rollins asks and Sitwell doesn't bother to wait for him to extend them, scrawling Xs on his skin while he's still holding the pie tin.
"Welcome to the kids' table," Sitwell says. The man manages to make smiling look sour. "You too, Rumlow."
"What?" Rumlow steps back, out of range of Sitwell's Sharpie. No. Hell no. "Why?"
"Tell them why, Soldier." Sitwell's smirking now. What Rumlow wouldn't give to force feed him his own teeth.
The Soldier looks far less self-confident at this recitation. "I was a cat."
"Panther, damn it." Rumlow watches the Soldier's face fall again and gives not the slightest amount of a shit. The annual HYDRA Thanksgiving potluck's miserable enough without enforced sobriety.
"You tried to dress him up too," Rollins snaps. Rumlow's never seen him look so crestfallen before, and Rumlow's seen him on the field with his guts spilling out. "Why aren't you in the dog house?"
"Because I didn't get caught," Sitwell says. "Rumlow. Are you going to give me your hands or am I going to have to report your insubordination?"
Rumlow does not give Sitwell the satisfaction of hearing any of the thousands of obscenities running through his mind. Instead, he shoves the bowl of cranberry sauce at the Soldier and extends his hands. He can almost feel the steam shooting out of his ears.
"Worst Thanksgiving ever," Rollins mutters.
From behind them, there's a voice that's entirely too familiar and entirely too chipper. "Boss! Rollins! Happy Thanksgiving!"
Rumlow pulls his hands free and turns. There's Murphy, carrying some sort of covered dish. He's in a beige suit coat with pink slacks and damn it all, that's an ascot around his neck.
"You son of a bitch, Murphy," he mutters.
"What'd you bring?" Murphy asks, bounding to them. He's grinning like an idiot. "I've got tofu turkey."
"You son of a bitch, Murphy," Rollins says.
"It's good!" Murphy protests.
"It's not good." Rumlow resists the urge to tear the casserole dish from his hands and fling it into the wall. What sort of sick freak is excited for the Thanksgiving potluck? How did Murphy pass the psych eval?
"But it's got this stuffing with leeks and apples and sa—hey Soldier! How are you?"
The Soldier glances up from the cranberry sauce shivering in the bowl. "It's...Thanksgiving?"
"Yeah, it is!" Murphy hasn't even noticed that Sitwell's marking up his hands, still beaming like the village idiot. "You like cranberry sauce, huh?"
The Soldier doesn't answer, poking at a slice of the stuff with a metal finger. Abruptly, he lifts the slice and takes a bite from it like it's a big, gelatinous, purple potato chip. His eyes look as if fireworks are going off inside his skull. This must be the first hint of sugar he's had in decades.
"Hey!" Sitwell's half as red as the cranberry sauce, which does a little to brighten Rumlow's mood. "Would you people stop trying to spoil his appetite? Spit it out, Soldier."
"I swallowed," the Soldier says. Worry replaces the near-contentment on his face, hands lingering at his lips. "Do you want me to induce—"
"No, damn it. Just—just don't eat anything else until we're at the table. Got it?"
Rumlow doesn't hear the Soldier's slurred reply because of the shouting behind him. "Are you kidding me? What the hell?"
He turns to find Anders storming toward them. She's carrying a casserole dish of her own, dressed in a long, lavender gown that trails out behind her.
His jaw drops. "Is that Alexander McQueen?"
"Why do you know that?" Rollins asks.
"You're damn right it's McQueen." Anders has her hair swept up. There's gloss sparkling on her lips. She's never looked more murderous. "This is my first work function in a dress—you think I was going to look anything less than stunning?"
"You wore a dress on Halloween," Murphy says.
"That was a costume. Now shut the hell up and explain to me why we're stuck at the teetotaler's table."
"Because of our fearless leader," Rollins says, and the look Anders shoots Rumlow would put even the Soldier's murderous glares to shame. "Because of Halloween."
Anders clenches her fingers around the casserole dish and Rumlow half-expects to have steaming foodstuffs thrown in his face. "Damn it, Rumlow."
"All of you wanted to dress him up too!" he snaps. "You think Pierce would have taken it any better if we'd made him Napoleon Bonaparte instead of a panther?"
"Yes!" she hisses. "Because it would have been clever!"
"Cheer up, Julie," Murphy tries. Sitwell has yet to approach her with the Sharpie. Probably he's afraid of losing his own hands. "At least the food will be good. You've got that oyster stuffing, right? I made tofu turkey!"
She punches him in the sternum without even glancing his way. "You son of a bitch, Izzy."
"Our table goes last," Rumlow moans, head buried in his hands. "You realize that? We're the last to get food. All the dark meat's gonna be gone."
"I bet there's gonna be enough tofu for all of us," Murphy says. He barely dodges the spoon Rumlow launches at his head.
Murphy and Rollins sit on one side of the table, and Rumlow and Anders on the other. It's just their team and a handful of interns who look about fourteen years old. The Soldier is sitting at the main table, at Pierce's right hand. Everyone at that table save for the Soldier has a glass of wine. Rumlow feels a twinge of satisfaction when Pierce lets the Soldier sip from his glass and receives a frown in return. Whatever ludicrously expensive vintage they're drinking apparently doesn't hold a candle to a can of Ocean Spray sauce.
"You'll like it," Murphy insists. "The stuffing's really good, it's my abuela's recipe. Well, except I switched out the turkey broth for vegetable...and I had to recreate it from memory since she stopped talking to me six years ago, but—"
"Murphy," says Rumlow. "We will stop talking to you if you bring up your shitty fake bird again."
"At least you'll get to eat something." Rollins glances at his watch. "I'll have to leave for the airport before they even start serving."
"So you'll be halfway to Oklahoma while we're listening to Sophie explain why she's thankful for all five of her cats. Boo fucking hoo." Rumlow stares at his fork. Maybe if he jams it into his throat he'll be rushed to a hospital and get to miss out on all this crap.
"Six cats," Anders says. "She just adopted a stray."
Rumlow has the fork halfway to his jugular when he decides it isn't worth the effort. Pierce would probably tape the event and force him to sit through every second of the recording, monitored, even if he did get himself hospitalized.
He's just lowering the fork as Pierce stands to begin the commencement speech.
Ordinarily, Rumlow can at least make it through this portion of the festivities without praying for death. Sure, it's long-winded and self-important and inevitably includes pointless anecdotes about Pierce's nieces and nephews, but Pierce isn't only his boss: he's the one who decides if Rumlow lives or dies. So usually, Rumlow can sit through half an hour's worth of drivel on "building a better world" and "necessary sacrifice."
But usually, he's had a few glasses of wine well before that point. He can't possibly be expected to focus now. Rumlow manages perhaps ten minutes before he drops a hand below the table, freeing his emergency back-up from under his pant leg.
"Is that a fucking flask?" Anders hisses.
Rumlow, who is swallowing vodka like it's air, doesn't answer. One hundred proof never tasted so good.
Anders kicks him under the table. "You'd better be sharing, boss."
He pauses to come up for air. "Not enough."
Now she's driving her heel into his foot and Rumlow can't hold back a wince. "It's the season of giving. Don't make me tell Mom."
"Mom" is Rollins. They nicknamed Rumlow Team Dad a year ago, and of course the second in command's nickname followed suit. "Not my fault you didn't think ahead."
He's sliding the flask into his suit coat when Rollins takes note. "Brock. Don't hold out on the children."
Rumlow rests a hand over his pocket, shielding the vodka from theft. "Order only comes from pain."
"You don't need all that." Rollins crosses his arms. "Two beers is all it takes to make you an octopus. One good shot puts you out on the floor."
"Like Doctor Emmett Brown in Back to the Future Part III," Murphy adds.
"Murphy," says Rollins. "Shut up."
"...my warmest gratitude to you all, for your years of dedicated service," Pierce is saying. "And on that note, to begin our yearly tradition of giving thanks, I'd like to turn things over to our most committed soldier."
And then he extends the microphone to the Winter Soldier.
Rumlow's already feeling a little lightheaded from the shock of chugging vodka. For a second, he thinks he's hallucinating before he hears Murphy's whisper behind him. "They're not."
"Must be coached," Rollins mutters, and yeah, Pierce would get a kick out of making the Winter Soldier praise him and the organization like a trained monkey.
"What do you want to bet he says 'God bless us, everyone'?" Anders mutters. "Serious missed opportunity if he doesn't."
The Winter Soldier's jaw tenses as if he's about to open his mouth. It makes sense: the only things anyone hands him besides weapons are food or bite guards. But his lips stay together and his hand carefully wraps around the microphone.
"This is your first Thanksgiving with us, isn't it?" Pierce asks. His voice carries easily even without the amplification.
Everyone leans forward in their seats. It occurs to Rumlow that half the room's probably never heard the Soldier's voice before, and likely never will again. He doesn't exactly socialize.
"I don't know," the Soldier says, barely audible.
Pierce has a smile that's paternal in a dark-eyed, predatory sort of way. "But you do know what you're thankful for, don't you?"
The Soldier hesitates, staring almost cross-eyed at the microphone as though it can provide whatever answers his drugged mind is failing to recall. "Cranberry sauce?"
Rumlow chokes. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Rollins gaping.
"And what else?" Pierce doesn't look infuriated, not yet. He has the sort of indulgent grin grandparents give to children who've forgotten the story they were telling midway through. He taps the metal hand and recognition floods through the Soldier's features.
"My arm," he says. "And—HYDRA. For giving me my arm. And saving my life. And...the world. I'm thankful for HYDRA for saving the world and for letting me help."
He trails off there. If there's more that he's meant to say, he doesn't get a chance; most of the room is delivering a standing ovation within a second, and the rest quickly follow suit. The Soldier only stares at Pierce. Rumlow watches as the tension ratchets in the asset's shoulders, easing once he seems to realize that punishment will not follow his words.
"And we're so thankful for all your help," Pierce says. "Now, hand the microphone to Agent Sitwell and we'll continue counterclockwise around the table."
"All right, listen," Rumlow tells the rest of his team once he can breathe again. "This thing takes long enough without everyone reciting a damn grocery list of gratitude. I can't force you to only list one thing, but I want you to know you'll hurt my feelings if you keep going. And also I'll make your lives hell."
"But Boss," Murphy says, "then how am I gonna say I'm thankful for you?"
Rumlow reclines as much as he can in his seat. "Better make me the one, then."
"Share that flask and I'll consider it," Anders says.
Rollins hangs around for a full hour, slipping out when one of the engineers is over-sharing about her efforts to conceive and her thankfulness for IVF. "If they ask, I'm thankful for my mother's cooking."
"I'll say you're thankful for my flawless leadership." Rumlow takes another swig of vodka.
"Share with the kids," Rollins orders, shoving Rumlow's shoulder before he walks away.
Rumlow does offer his flask around when Sophie starts with the stories about her cats. The newest one's named Mr. Grey, and Rumlow's not heartless enough to make his team suffer through that without a little alcohol.
Anders drains half the flask in one go. Murphy doesn't take any. He seems to be enjoying himself. Clearly, Murphy's seriously disturbed.
Rumlow's never been big on Thanksgiving. They didn't have fancy meals for it when he was growing up, and he'd spend most of the day out of the house if at all possible. His father was big on the football games and he was a mean enough drunk without watching his teams lose. Now that Rumlow's providing for himself, he's still lacking cooking skills beyond the basic and then there was the deep fryer incident...as far as Rumlow's concerned, the real meaning of Thanksgiving is a reminder to start Christmas shopping. What's the use in getting so worked up about it?
They're at the two hour and ten minute mark before they finally, finally reach his table. Murphy is the first to take the microphone.
"I'm thankful," he begins, "to Disney World for redesigning Star Tours so I have an excuse to take my dad back there for Christmas this year. And," he continues, not even flinching when Rumlow kicks him under the table at that word, "for the STRIKE team."
Anders is next. "I'm thankful for MAGIC DC," she says. Rumlow makes a note to look up what that is and see if they take donations. "And for my parents and my boyfriend. And for the STRIKE team." Then she hands the microphone to Brock.
He looks at her, then Murphy, and then the space that Jack occupied. The Soldier's watching them from across the room, his stare blankly curious. Rumlow's head is a little fuzzy from the vodka and if anyone ever dares bring this up again, he'll blame his words on that. "I'm thankful for my family."
When the main table gets up to fill their plates, the Soldier meanders over. There are three jiggling discs of jellied cranberry on his plate and Rumlow smirks. "You like that, Soldier?"
"It's good," says the Soldier. Then he pauses, staring at the plate and deliberating. "Not as good as this." He points to something that almost looks like meat.
Murphy's laugh is loud and triumphant. "I told you! I told you it's good!"
Rumlow considers telling him to shut up. He considers pointing out that the Soldier's used to eating flavorless sludge, so tofu's probably familiar to his palate. But in the end, he lets Murphy have his moment. After all, it's the season of giving.
A/N: Anders is a character who's appeared in six of my previous fics: International House of Stockholm, All Mine (You Have to Be), And All The Good You've Done (Will Soon Be Swept Away), Some Plans Are Stupid, You Only Want to Socialize (But I Don't Think We Should), and The Better to Hug You With. She is the invention of Archive of Our Own author bofurrific, first appearing in her fic Brock Rumlow doesn't need transphobic pieces of shit on his team. She appears here as always with bofurrific's permission.
If you're curious as to what she looks like, bofurrific has described her as resembling German songwriter Kim Petras. The Alexander McQueen gown she wears in this story is similar to the one Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton wore to the BAFTA Brits to Watch gala in 2014.
MAGIC DC stands for Metro Area Gender Identity Connection of Washington DC. It's a support group for transsexual, genderqueer, and gender identity questioning people in the DC area.
Mercer is a character created by Archive of Our Own author stoatsandwich.
Hugo Boss designed the SS uniform in World War II. So I put the Winter Soldier in a Hugo Boss suit because I'm evil.
Star Tours is a Star Wars-based ride at Disney World and other Disney theme parks. If you're wondering why someone named Murphy refers to his grandmother as abuela, he's Irish on his father's side and Cuban on his mother's. My face claim for him would be actor Diego Luna.