"Hey Buck, what's that you're reading?" asked Steve, noticing a grin on his friend's face as he distributed coffee mugs to three of his fellow Avengers who were enjoying some much needed downtime in the common area of the Tower. Bucky was reading the screen of the tablet Tony had given him with interest. Steve was quite content not to become addicted to this era's conveniences but Bucky had always been a technophile. He took to all the latest advances with aplomb that had little to do with his time as the Winter Soldier.
"Email from Brianna." It was a little over a month since Lynch's abortive attempt at turning the teenager into a new weapon for Hydra and it was still the subject of much discussion on news outlets of all sizes. His trial was due to begin in a matter of days but his habit of embarking on zealous rants and confessions whenever a microphone, dictaphone or pen and paper were put in front of him had made it a foregone conclusion that he and his collaborators would never be free men and women again. His failure seemed to have robbed him of his sanity, such as it was. The Avengers had mercifully been able to keep his last victim anonymous. Brianna deserved to return to her life in peace. Even so, she had offered to testify if it became nessisary and had exchanged emails with Bucky in case they needed to get in contact.
"What did she say?" Natasha shifted from her catlike position to face Bucky. As a graduate of the Red Room, she had taken Brianna's similar ordeal to heart. Tony glanced up from his own tablet.
Bucky read out the whole email, an old fashioned habit Steve shared when it came to correspondence.
"'Dear Bucky,
I hope everything's going well for you guys. Just wanted to let you know I enrolled at the Xavier Institute this week. It's amazing to finally meet people like me. I never knew just how many abilities us Mutants could have. I can't wait to get started properly (total geek lol)' Lol?" Bucky frowned.
"Means 'laugh out loud', Elsa" Tony translated.
Bucky rolled his eyes "'...Anyway being here has made me appreciate just how much I owe you guys. I would have been dead or spent my life hurting others which feels a lot worse if it weren't for you. Mostly that makes me really grateful but I've gone through some tough moments when I think about it. It's okay, though, there's people I can talk to here if I need to and I'll avoid the news till the trial's over. He's not gonna win anyway.
I've thought about what we talked about and I don't think my mind's gonna change. I'd like to think I could do for someone else what you've done for me someday and being an Avenger seems like a good place to start. For now though, the textbooks await!
All the thanks in the world, Brianna'"
"Sweet kid" smiled Steve. Bucky suddenly burst into peals of laughter. "What?"
"Apparently Brianna's mom wants to say hi to Tony. See Stark, you're being appreciated!"
"What can I say, that family's got taste. Now come on, this place has almost every TV station known to man. Can we seriously not find anything we want to watch? You guys better come up with some ideas or I'm putting on Steve's old propaganda reels. Let's see him punch Hitler a few times."
"Please, just don't. How did you even find those?" Steve squirmed. Those films were a source of deep embarrassment to him and he found them physically uncomfortable to think about.
"The magic of the internet, Man With a Plan." Tony shot Steve his most self-satisfied grin. Bucky bit his lip to keep from sniggering.
"Come on, Buck, back me up here!" Steve pleaded.
"I'd actually quite like to see you punch Hitler" Bucky shrugged.
"Barnes, I swear if you ever had any respect for me you won't watch any of them!"
"Sorry, looks like Jason Bourne over there's on my side, Rogers."
Natasha piped up from her corner of the sofa "We could always look at Tony's baby pictures. Are you gonna ask how I got those?" She asked Tony sweetly.
"Pure sorcery? Okay, fine, no embarrassing stuff. Hey look, Die Hard's on."
"What's it about?" Steve enthusiastically latched on to the first idea that didn't involve his humiliation.
"And so your eduction continues" Tony pressed the button on the remote with gusto.
About twenty minutes into the film, Bucky again had a fit of the giggles, waving Steve to come and look at his screen. "Well isn't that cute." Steve beamed down at the tablet. Tony looked both annoyed and confused at having been left out of the joke. Natasha, meanwhile, grinned mischievously at her smartphone screen.
A.N. And we're done! Enjoyed writing this. Let me know if it was okay and I hope no one was too ooc. Thanks for dropping by and hope to write more soon :)