Somehow, it wasn't that exciting of a Tuesday sitting on the marble floor of the bank while an armed robbery went on.
"I hate you so much," Ali muttered from her seat on the cold floor. "God, I could go for some chicken noodle soup right now." She sniffled.
"Remember to cover up when you sneeze," James Barnes drawled from opposite her. She wanted to punch him in his perfect beard and see if that pushed the follicles back into his skin. He caught her glare and smirked. She wished him dead with all twelve of her brain cells.
Ali and Barnie (as she called him in her head) worked at a mid-range paper company; Ali as a graphic designer in Marketing, and Barnie in IT. Both were really ironic jobs, but Ali paid most of her utilities and some of her student loans, so she begrudgingly went to work every week. She hated Barnie with all of her being – he was arrogant, cocky, and had seemingly made it his mission to sleep with all of his female coworkers: all 79 of them. Ali wasn't exactly a prude (her argument: define 'prude' to my face), but she deigned such predatory men beneath her, and frankly, the women who slept with them were kind of dumb.
At any rate, the two of them had run into each other at the bank before going to work, and were just about to get into an argument when five masked robbers had come in, taken them all hostage, and had them slide their phones across the floor.
"At least Steve isn't here," Barnie muttered, looking around at the robbers, keeping his eyes low. Steve was the dreamboat IT whiz that made Ali drool whenever he passed by. And pass by he did, frequently, as Ali uploaded viruses on her computer on a weekly basis just to get to say hi. He and Barnie were best friends. Ali resented this.
Steve was intense. He had once intervened when Nick Fury from HR had stared at her ass while she fished her olive out of the sink (because it hadn't been in there 10 seconds). Nick was mostly blind, and he was somewhere upwards of half a century old. He'd been waiting to get to the coffee machine, which she'd been blocking with flailing limbs. He had not been staring at her ass (well, maybe he had, but he was so blind she doubted he could see too well), but Steve had very threateningly told him to step away in a voice reminiscent of an old timey cop film. Another time, she saw him get into an altercation because someone had double parked Nebula from Customer Service's car for five minutes. While being intensely jealous of Nebula, Ali had decided to watch from the safety of her own vehicle. She could imagine that had he been there, Steve would probably try to punch his way through the armed zoo animals milling about.
Unconsciously, she concurred with Barnie, even chuckled. (Obviously, one of her brain cells was going to be severely reprimanded, but she couldn't stand to make any more personnel cuts.) Barnie stared at her as if she were an elephant with a trunk growing out its butt. She had never expressed the remotest bit of pleasure or approval at anything he said after their first meeting.
"Hey, so you do smile sometimes," he murmured, giving her a nudge that nearly pushed her over. Monkey came to check on her with a gun. She had to signal that she wasn't going to army crawl her skinny ass out of the bank, collecting footprints and capitalism on her blouse. Monkey left.
"I'm not a Nazi," she grumbled. Barnie shrugged easily.
"I've never seen you smile," he replied frankly.
"How misogynistic of you to assume that just because I don't smile in front of you, a man, I don't smile at all," she snapped back.
"Oh no, you smile for someone else, right?" Barnie replied slowly, with a victorious smirk. Ali wondered how much force was required to knock out healthy mature teeth. The left front tooth was her target, but she didn't want to risk cutting her hand. "He thinks you're cute, you know. But you're not exactly his type."
"I have no idea who you're talking about," Ali muttered, changing tactics. The nose. The nose was much easier to break.
"Steve," Barnie replied bluntly. "Steve's seeing Margaret from Management, you know."
Ali huffed. It was three octaves higher than she wanted. She cleared her throat, and huffed again. "Who said anything about Steve?"
Barnie gave her a bored look that clearly read: "You're shitting me, right?" He didn't have to say anything for it to be vocal.
"So he's cute, and he's got a really nice ass – I wasn't, I didn't-," she muttered.
Barnie interjected before she could continue stammering for the next thirteen minutes – he'd seen her do it, too. "Yeah, well it's none of my business," he sighed breezily. Ali flushed deep maroon, and continued stammering.
"Yeah, yeah, well, y'know what?" she stuttered furiously under her breath. "You're right – it is none of your business." He smirked at her, like she amused him, and turned away.
"He wants to know what porn you're downloading onto your computer for you to get so many viruses," Barnie added conversationally. Ali turned a bright red and kept herself company by imagining Barnie dying gruesome deaths.
It was 3 minutes, 34 seconds into their silence when disaster struck.
When Ali sneezed, it was like a freight train going full speed while laden down with a cargo of overfed flamingos. She was famous for it at work. Panda stomped over from behind and put a gun to her head.
"What the fuck was that?" he yelled at her. She wished she could respond – she really did, but she was petrified. Bucky could see it in her face.
She was going to sneeze, again.
Ali's eyes were slits and her mouth and nose were extended hideously as she tried to hold it in. Panda cocked the gun and repeated his question with more ferocity. He was very good at his job.
"She sneezed, man," Bucky finally said, sensing that he could be drenched in brains if he didn't. "That's how she sneezes."
"Yeah, well, make sure she doesn't do it so loud next time," Panda replied lamely, and returned to his post. Ali sneezed into her knees. When she emerged, her eyes were streaming and her nose was a faucet turned way on. She glared at him.
"I could have handled it," Ali grumbled angrily.
"Come on! I just saved your life," Barnie protested. She sniffled, and wiped at her streaming eyes. She only then realized the fate of her jeans. "Here," Barnie said, throwing a handkerchief at her. She mopped up, quiet for once.
"Thanks," she mumbled, just loud enough to make out.
"What for," he drawled, smirking again.
"For the handkerchief, and for, you know, maybe saving my life," she whispered back. She motioned as if to give the handkerchief back, and he told her to hold on to it, quickly, twice.
"Definitely saved your life," he corrected. Ali grumbled something under her breath. Barnie laughed softly.
"So," he said conversationally, "why do you hate me so much?"
Ali thought about it; Barnie watched idly as her face got progressively more pissed.
"You humiliate me every time we talk!" she hissed at him, and a montage of parties and strange work scenarios flashed by in both their minds. He thoughtfully frowned and nodded slowly in agreement.
Once, Ali had been so hungover that she washed her ready-made salad in the sink after pouring in her Italian dressing, and dropped her cherry tomato in the sink. Barnie had strolled up, and helped her pour on fish sauce. All day, she had smelled of rotting fish, especially since he accidentally spilled some on her skirt. Not to mention, Barnie had taken her cherry tomato as payment, after rinsing it off thoroughly.
"Wha-at," he drawled, as Ali's eyes devolved into slits of pure hatred.
Once, she'd accidentally double parked his car for five minutes to go back inside the company building and bring home some work for the weekend, and he'd had her car towed. He hadn't even given her a ride, and she'd had to suffer two hours of public transportation, only to find out that she had gotten on the wrong freaking bus. It dropped her off at a random suburb that looked way too high end for public transportation to even pass through, with a dead phone. She'd had to interrupt a rich family's dinner and ask them to call a cab.
Barnie had actually started to crack up. "It can't be that bad." Ali was making more brain cells, since 12 did not constitute sufficient brain power to kill someone telepathically.
The first time they met was at the company's annual Halloween party. Ali was (again,) a prude, so she didn't believe in unintelligent excuses to wear lingerie out into public. She had gone as Alice, from Wonderland, with a flouncy petticoat and everything. It had been glorious. She had gone to the bathroom, come back out with the back of her skirt tucked into her panties, and had a nice conversation with Barnie, thought he was charming, and walked away. He was the one person who could have stopped disaster. When she walked away, she saw that he was having a stroke or something laughing, wondered what had cracked him up so hard, and hated him for the remainder of their time as colleagues.
Presently, they were surprised by a reappearance from Panda. He had his gun cocked at Barnie, and asked in a low voice, "What's so funny, huh?"
Barnie couldn't talk, despite the gravitas of the situation.
"It was me," Ali interjected, her voice cracking from tension. She cleared her throat. "He – he was remembering the first time we met – I had my skirt tucked in my panties," she explained, feeling humiliated and wondering if this wasn't actually just a setup to further humiliate her. Barnie cracked up again, and actually started crying from mirth, the jackass. He moved to wipe his eye, when a gun went off.
It wasn't Panda, but it hit Barnie in the left shoulder, and blood splurted out, as if – no, well, because he'd been shot.
"Holy shit!" Ali screamed, her heart beating so fast if she'd gotten a paper cut, she would have bled out in 30 seconds, tops. "What the hell was that for?" Monkey looked as abashed as he could with a monkey mask on. Ali immediately took off her blouse (she had a tank top underneath) and wrapped it as tight as she could around Barnie's arm. He was breathing hard, and grabbed her shoulder while she did so, smearing blood on it. Both of them were suddenly sweating – Barnie probably from the pain and panic, Ali from holding onto a gunshot wound, for fuck's sake.
Panda looked around at Monkey, unimpressed.
"Dude," he echoed Ali, emphatically, "what the hell was that for?"
"I thought he was going for your gun!" Monkey protested in a high-pitched voice.
"He was laughing his ass off," Ali yelled, pressing down on Barnie's shoulder with even pressure. Monkey came running over at a jog, while Rabbit covered for both him and Panda.
"Yeah, he was laughing because this lady had her skirt in her panties when they first met," Panda explained, helpfully. Ali's 13 brain cells had gone into overdrive at this point, helping Barnie, so she didn't even really notice.
"Yeah, dick move," she muttered instead, glaring at Monkey.
"Yeah, dick move," Barnie mumbled in wholehearted agreement.
"Dick move," Panda agreed gravely. "What do you need, panties lady?"
Ali looked up from her first aid, surprised at her identifier, and briefly let go of Barnie's shoulder. He cried out and grabbed her forearm when a fresh wave of blood splashed both of them.
"Oops," she muttered, returning to saving Barnie's life. "He obviously needs first aid – from an actual medical practitioner. You're gonna have to call in an ambulance."
This time, Monkey cocked his gun at Ali's head. His hand was trembling slightly.
"O-or you could just let us go," Barnie suggested.
At that moment, Tiger and Falcon came back from the vault with two large trays on wheels, topped with bags of cash. "We need to go!" they yelled, hee hawing and yippee-ki-yaying and everything. Before they left, however, Monkey threw a bundle of cash that had fallen out and someone's iphone at Ali. She grabbed the cash, and was struck in the side with the phone.
She immediately called for an ambulance while someone from across the room called the cops. Barnie kept repeating something while she was on the phone.
"Get your ass back down and shut up – I'm saving your life here, asshole," she all but yelled at him, before giving the nice lady the address. When she hung up, Barnie repeated it.
"That's my phone," he said, his eyes glazed over with pain. She gave it to him, and he pocketed it.
The paramedics arrived sometime later, checked the wound, and loaded him onto their ambulance. Ali walked them out all the way there, fretfully, and didn't expect to hear from Barnie ever again – or at least not until next week. The paramedic made to close the ambulance door, but then swung it open again.
"He's asking for you," she said briskly. Ali fiddled with her thumbs. "Are you coming or not?" the lady asked, and Ali couldn't tell her that she'd left her phone inside, so she just got on. After an uncomfortable ambulance ride she stayed in the waiting room for the duration of Barnie's surgery. The adrenaline had worn off, and she was a shivering mess. It was even worse without her phone. The cops visited, asked for her account of the robbery (humiliating, all over again), and returned her phone. She almost cried, then.
After Barnie's surgery, she was admitted into his hospital room.
"Hey," she said gently. He looked like he loved pain medication, which he probably preferred to the alternative. "How's – how's your shoulder?" she asked.
"Hey," he agreed. "The doctors are optimistic. Thanks for saving my life."
"No problem," she squeaked, and cleared her throat. "No problem," she repeated quickly, in a normal voice. "I saw that they caught the robbers, on the news," she said conversationally.
"Great," Barnie said, with a dopey smile. "Hey, look – I just wanted to apologize for being a prick. I just think it's cute to see you riled up, but I probably took it too far. Sorry. Oh, also, sorry about that time I had your car towed – I really didn't know it was yours."
Wow. That pain medication must also double as a truth serum, or a better-person-maker-potion.
"It's – it's fine," she said graciously. "You're less of a prick than the guys who pointed guns at us." Barnie laughed. A nurse informed Ali that her time was nearly up.
"I guess I'll see you around, Barnes," she said, as she made to leave.
"It's Bucky," he called from behind. Ali looked around, and smiled.
"Oh, no," she said lightly, "it's Barnie, and the moment you're better, I will make your life hell."
"I'll look forward to it," Bucky replied with a smile.
Author's notes: This is an AU rendition of both of them, so they're a bit of out of character. I was watching a show with a similar setting at 3 in the morning and wrote half of this up in about half an hour. I might consider writing some more in this AU, so let me know if you'd like to see more! Thanks for reading!
Edit: Made an edit to include more familiar faces. :)