January, 2016
"Sergeant Barnes, are you free?"
Bucky blinked at F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s accented voice over the speakers of the corridor he was walking down. He paused by the one-way window looking out over the facility. He'd been on his way to his suite, as Vision had invited him to play cards with some of the other Avengers tonight and he needed some decompression time before he'd be up for that.
"Uh… I guess, what's up?" he called, still self-conscious at speaking to the ceiling.
There was a pause. "Ms Stark has requested your presence in the air hangar, as you are closest. She demands that you do not laugh."
His eyebrows rose. "O… kay. Is it clear?"
"Yes, Sergeant Barnes."
Curious, Bucky headed for the exit, scanned his Manacles and waited for F.R.I.D.A.Y. to let him out. It was a short walk across the bitterly cold grounds toward the air hangar, which loomed large and gleaming. Bucky had rarely been in that building, save for when he helped the Avengers with their training sessions. He found one of the ground-level doorways and slipped inside, cautious despite F.R.I.D.A.Y's assurance. Inside the hangar, he glanced around. It was its usual cavernous, gleaming space, with a single Quinjet parked by the ground-to-ceiling windows. There was no sign of another person.
"Meg?" He called.
There was a clank from the Quinjet, followed by a muttered curse.
"Over here!"
"Are you okay?" He hurried over, peering through the cockpit, and then walked under the wing to find an open hatch into the engine. He almost walked past it until he spotted movement: an arm, followed by a head, as Meg pushed herself into view.
She was twisted at a strange angle inside the machinery of the Quinjet itself, her face red and flustered. "Hi," she said.
He stared. "Are you… what's happening?"
She blew out a breath and appeared to strain toward the ground for a moment, before sighing and giving up. "Listen. I'm a very good engineer, but I – I… might be a little bit stuck."
Suddenly he saw it: her strange angle, the sweat on her forehead, the handprints on the edge of the open hatch, as if someone had been unsuccessfully grasping the metal for a handhold.
"I said don't laugh!" she snapped, wrenching a hand free to point at him.
He held up both hands. "I wasn't."
"But you were going to," she glared.
"Okay, okay," he dusted his hands off and leaned up to get a look at where she was stuck. Her legs were out of sight, somewhere in the chaos of wires and machine parts inside the wing. She was practically upside down, only able to rest by putting her weight on her right shoulder and back on the bottom fuselage of the wing. "How do we get you out of this?"
She let out a sigh and pushed herself awkwardly so he could see her legs. She wore jeans, which were streaked with engine oil. "So I could technically get myself out if I broke this component" – she tapped what looked like a stack of metal pipes to Bucky, which were pressing down on her legs – "which slipped when I was installing it and trapped me. But I've spent all day fitting it and I really don't want to have to do it all again."
"Right." He cocked his head. "I think if you… here," He stood on the step stool just below the wing, putting his head and shoulders inside the hatch with her. "If you grab on to me, I can try to pull you out. Let me know if it hurts at all, though."
"It's not exactly comfortable," she grumbled as he reached in and managed to put one arm around her waist, and the other under her right arm. She looped her arms around his shoulders, grabbing handfuls of his shirt. "I've already detached my prosthetic, but I can't actually get it off."
"Good thinking. Okay, ready?"
She let out a hot breath by his ear, and he almost jumped. "Ready."
Keeping careful pressure where he held her, Bucky leaned back and pulled. Metal creaked and groaned, and Meg's hands tightened on him.
"Come on, I'm not going to break," she said crossly.
Sighing, Bucky braced his legs and pulled further back. For a second he was concerned he was going to dislocate her knees or worse, and he almost let go of her, but then there was another creak and she slithered free all at once.
She landed practically on top of his shoulders as she slipped out of the hatch, and Bucky hastily adjusted to balance her, one hand on her waist and the other on her ribcage, over his head. His ear was pressed to her stomach. She laughed somewhere by his other ear.
"Right," Bucky said. "I'll lift you down, I've got you."
Her hands landed on his shoulders and he carefully eased her out and down, his hair tangling against her clothes and her legs hitting his chest as they came out of the hatch – minus a prosthetic, he noticed. He held his breath as he lowered her the last few feet, and then all of a sudden she was on her own foot, clutching his arm to balance, clothes rumpled, and her red face looking up at him.
"Thanks," she breathed.
"Don't mention it." He gripped her arm to make sure she wouldn't fall over, then leaned back up into the hatch until he spotted her prosthetic leg. He carefully dislodged it and handed it down to her.
He hopped down from the step stool as Meg pulled on her leg, balancing easily. Her face was streaked with engine oil and her hair frizzed up at the back, and he couldn't help but smile.
Two years ago, he could never have imagined this Meg. He'd only known the Wyvern, with rage and fire in her eyes. Since then he'd seen Meg the engineer, the Avenger, the humanitarian, the comedian, the reader, the sister, the friend, the singer. He'd seen her laugh so hard she lost her breath, and plummet grinning through the air, and squint through a microscope, humming along to Frank Sinatra. More recently, even, he'd seen Natasha's video of Meg fighting cage fighters in China in front of a screaming audience.
Meg finished fixing her leg and looked up, and Bucky realized he was staring like an idiot.
"You look like the Quinjet tried to eat you," he said, at a loss for what to do now.
"Well it did," she said, peering up through the hatch. "At least that component looks like it's in one piece. Now the Quinjet won't try to blow up next time we fly it."
"Well there is that," he said lamely.
She tugged her shirt straight. "Now how can I buy your silence?" She peered at him. "I will never live it down if the others hear about this."
"No price," he murmured. "Your secret is safe with me."
She beamed at him. "But seriously, though. You want takeout for a month? I can make that happen."
He cocked his head. "A week."
She shook her head at him. "Someone's got to teach you how to bargain, Bucky Barnes."
February, 2016
"So," Doctor Raynor said one cold afternoon. "You and Ms Stark seem very close."
Bucky hesitated – it was only for a millisecond, but he knew that Raynor had seen it with her military instincts and razor-sharp psychoanalytical skills. He turned his gaze out the window, where he could see snow on the lawns. "Yes," he said. "I guess."
"You guess," she echoed thoughtfully, and her tone annoyed him so much that he looked back at her and said:
"What."
She tilted her head at him. "We've talked a lot about you making friends. Re-forming those bonds with Steve, interacting with others in the facility like Vision. You've talked a lot about Ms Stark, but we haven't really addressed that relationship in any of our sessions since she stopped trying to kill you."
A long minute of silence passed. Bucky held Raynor's gaze, determined not to blink.
Finally she let out a put-upon sigh. "Do I have to spell it out for you, James? You say you feel safest in her workshop. You spar, you share music, you share things with her that you hardly tell anyone else, you've got in-jokes. She's there in every one of your stories, even if it's just Meg said this, or Meg thought that-"
"We're friends," he cut her off, his brow lowering.
"And that's it, is it?" Raynor challenged.
"I really don't know what you want here, doc."
"Funny, I was about to say the same to you."
They stared at each other flatly for a moment.
Bucky drew in a long breath. "We're friends. Good friends. That's what it is, and that's all it can be-"
Raynor's eyebrow arched. "All it can-"
"No," he said. "That's it." She eyed him for a few seconds of tense silence, and he could practically hear her thoughts. "Don't, doc."
She sighed. "I'll let it go for today. But you and I have talked before about how you close off certain emotions. I encourage you to think about why you're refusing to acknowledge this."
"You know why," he said softly.
February, 2016
The American Natural History Museum, New York
At night, the two dinosaur skeletons in the lobby of the Natural History Museum loomed large, darkness clinging to their bones and moonlight casting their eerie shadows on the marble floor. Maggie's boots squeaked on the floor as she guided Bucky with one hand on his shoulder.
"Alright, where the hell are we," he said, and over his closed eyes, his brows rose when his voice echoed across the large space.
Maggie glanced at Steve, who had a hand on Bucky's other shoulder, and he nodded.
"Okay," she said. "You can open your eyes now."
Bucky's eyes opened and instantly widened, taking in the massive hall with its sweeping columns, arched roof, the signs for different halls and exhibits, and…
"That's a dinosaur," he said, nonplussed. He turned, glancing at each of them in turn: Maggie, Steve, Natasha, Vision, and Wanda. The others hadn't been able to come tonight. "What the hell?"
"We rented out the museum!" Maggie exclaimed. She swept her hands open. "No staff, no cameras, it's all ours for the next three hours."
Bucky stared at her, then turned to stare at Steve.
"It's true," Steve grinned.
"I floated the idea with the director of the museum last week, just because I was wondering if it was possible, and I guess he was grateful his exhibits didn't get blown up by aliens in 2012, because before I knew it we had an open invitation." Maggie shrugged one shoulder. "Consider it an early birthday present."
"That and the photostatic veil, of course," Natasha said, nodding at Bucky's face.
Because Bucky didn't look like himself right now. They had all known that taking Bucky out of the facility for this would be a risk, even with the museum completely empty, so Natasha had scrounged up one of the last ever photostatic veils; technology that could disguise his face and voice almost seamlessly. It was one of Natasha's favorite tools, and she'd been much aggrieved at the loss of them in the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Bucky stared around at the darkened museum lobby. His face was strange: they'd picked the face of one of the Avengers engineers, a young man named Todd Hartley. Todd was pale, with broad cheekbones, green eyes, and a wide smile. And though the face was strange on Bucky, Maggie could still read his expressions: the pull of shock around his eyes, closely followed by a twinkle of curiosity as he examined the dinosaur fossils again.
"You got me a museum for my birthday," Bucky breathed, and Maggie couldn't help but smile.
Steve laughed. "You only turn 99 once, pal."
"You won't get this reference, but I'm totally having a Night at the Museum moment."
Bucky glanced at Maggie with bemusement as they strolled through the Hall of Human Origins and into the Hall of Meteorites, leaving the immobile figurines of Australopithecus behind them. Natasha and Steve had gone to go get coffee, and Vision seemed entranced by the Hall of Human Origins, deep in conversation with Wanda. Maggie had had a strange image of the chain of evolution, from primate to Neanderthal to Homo Sapiens, and then to Vision, stepping proudly ahead of them all.
Maggie checked her brochure in the faint orange light in the Hall of Meterorites as Bucky made a careful circuit around the glass cases full of rocks, finally ending up at the Ahnighito meteorite in the centre. He'd been pretty quiet so far as they ambled through the museum, listening to the commentary from the others and silently reading the exhibit signs. Now he stood before the enormous hunk of interstellar iron and murmured:
"I remember seeing this in 1935 with Steve."
Maggie looked up from her brochure. Bucky's head was obscured by a hoodie, so she really only had his voice to go on. "So you like it? The museum idea?"
He turned, showing her his unfamiliar face. "Do I like it? Meg, save for when we fought Ultron, I've been stuck inside for two years. This is…" he looked around at the room full of rocks that had hurtled here from space. "This is amazing."
Maggie smiled and pushed her hands into the pockets of her long overcoat. "Steve said you liked museums." She paced toward him and circled the meteorite. She could hear Vision and Wanda making their way in. "I never really got the appeal of them, myself."
"The appeal of museums?"
"Yeah. My mom really liked them, and I tried to keep going after she died, but… I don't know." Vision and Wanda emerged in the doorway, eyes alighting on the arrays of pockmarked meteorites. Maggie shrugged. "I already know most of the stuff, and every time I'm in one I feel so stressed that I'm not going to be able to see all of it – museums are so big and difficult to get around" – she waved the brochure at Bucky – "and I always used to go through and read all the little sign things, which took forever, so I just… stuck to researching what I found interesting, in my own time."
Bucky eyed her for a few moments, and Maggie flushed.
"What."
He cocked his head. "I just… I think you might be overthinking this, Meg."
"Thinking is my specialty," she said archly as she stepped down from the meteorite dais, unfolding her brochure again.
"I know, I know," he laughed as he followed. "But here" – he reached out and took the brochure from her hands, then stuffed it into his back pocket – "forget about the map. Let's go this way." With a jerk of his head he led her into the next Hall; a dark, softly lit room labelled Mignone Hall of Gems and Minerals. Despite the low lighting the room glittered: hundreds of illuminated colorful gems clustered behind bulletproof glass displays, from shimmering obsidian to hundreds of sparkling diamonds.
"I remember this one," Bucky said, glancing around. He looked back at her. "So. What looks interesting?"
Maggie eyed the first display on the left and said: "I think we're supposed to start over here-" but pulled up short when Bucky gripped the sleeve of her coat.
"No, what looks interesting?" he prompted.
Frowning, Maggie let her eyes drift across the room, picking out azure blues and glowing yellows. Finally she pointed to a massive rectangular block of grey stone in the center of the room that swirled with opalescent greens, blues, and purples.
"Good choice," Bucky nodded, and they walked over together. They eyed the vibrant veins of the rock, and Maggie read the accompanying display; it was called the Singing Stone.
"It's not about trying to cram everything into your head, you're not going to be tested," Bucky said, his eyes turning from the rock to Maggie. "You're here to have fun."
"What's that?" she joked, and he smiled.
"You're good at having fun. You've got music and books and movies coming out of your ears. Just… take that approach to this museum. Go with what seems most interesting." He raised his eyebrows at her and then drifted over toward an enormous black rock, nine foot tall, which was split to reveal a purple geode interior that looked like a galaxy. The light reflecting off it put shimmers across Bucky's strange new face.
In this way they flitted about the Hall of Gems, calling softly look at this, or this one says…
It felt strange and new being in this public space with Bucky, even at night time. Maggie realized that she and Bucky had never really been out in the world together, unless you counted the Carnival she'd tried to kill him at, or him dragging her unconscious out of a ship in South Africa. Tonight, exploring the museum, felt more like real life.
With Bucky's lazy encouragement Maggie skipped the rest of the Hall of Gems when she got bored, and though it felt criminal to leave so much knowledge behind, she recognized that he was right. Tonight wasn't about absorbing every iota of information she could. It was about enjoying herself. Her mind felt a little quieter.
When Steve and Natasha had caught back up and they were all winding their way upstairs through the cosmic pathway which chronicled 13 billion years of the universe's evolution, Maggie dropped back a little to speak to Bucky again.
"You are… so much better at being a person than me."
He laughed, making Natasha look back, her ginger hair almost a halo in the soft light. "What?" Bucky asked.
"Look at you!" Maggie exclaimed, bumping her elbow into his and making his eyebrows rise. "You're… you're in therapy, you make friends, you can go to museums without freaking out, you cook, you emotionally self-regulate, you read, and… sometimes I think I just do a very convincing impression of being a person."
He shook his head as they wound up the cosmic pathway ramp toward the planetarium. "That's all it is, really. If I can do all those things… it's a way of proving to myself that I'm not what HYDRA programmed me to be."
They lapsed into silence, reading about the evolution of the galaxy since the Big Bang. Vision was discussing theories about the first life on earth with Steve. Maggie hadn't ever heard Steve be so patient with someone explaining advanced scientific theories to him; either he had a soft spot for Vision, or he found Maggie and Tony's exuberant style of explanations irritating.
Bucky had fallen behind again, his eyes on the scale model of the solar system which hung from the glass roof above them, merely dark orbs against the night sky. And Maggie didn't know why, maybe it was the sensation of being small in the face of the universe, or that Bucky didn't have his real face with his real eyes, but she said:
"You don't ever talk about your family."
He froze, his eyes on the faint blue orb of the earth over his head. She saw this throat bob. "You don't ever ask."
She twisted her hands in her pockets. "I tried, back when we first started to talk. Back in the post-it-note days," she said with a ghost of a smile. "Since then…" she sighed. "You don't ever wonder about them? The ones who are still alive?"
"I wonder about them every day," Bucky said, now peering at a description of how the moon had formed. "I know… that some are alive. That they had families of their own. But they're better off without me."
Maggie's brows came together. She couldn't imagine knowing Tony was out there in the world and not running to him. "That's for you to talk about with your therapist. But…" she swallowed. "I hope I'm not overstepping, but I've sort of kept tabs on a few of them." He glanced at her finally. "Ever since I first looked them up, I've just… checked in on them, from time to time. They're doing well. Your sister Shirley" – he flinched – "knows that you're alive. The CIA spoke to her when they figured out your identity, to check if she'd had any contact with you."
Bucky avoided her face again, eyes on a display about amoebas.
"I assume Steve already told you that, since I'm pretty sure he's been in touch with Shirley." She glanced over her shoulder at Steve – the others were a whole level above them now. "But… from what I can tell, your sister is on your side. Last Veteran's Day she gave a community speech about you. It sounded really nice." She had looked at the picture taken of the 85-year-old Shirley (Kemp was her last name these days), trying to pick out familiarity in her face.
"I know," Bucky said almost under his breath. His face was a hollow of shadows, under his hood. He looked at her with anguished eyes that weren't his, but that she could still see him in. "Just… can't you see it's better if I'm not in their lives, Meg? An interview with the CIA is enough."
She pressed her lips together. "I know. I'm sorry for pushing. I just… wanted to make sure you knew, I guess."
He smiled humorlessly and pressed on up the pathway, leaving her behind. "Trust me, I know."
"I'll back off." She followed him in silence for a full floor. Somewhere above them, Vision laughed.
Finally, Bucky sighed. "I'm not angry at you," he said, his back still to her. "It's just… hard, thinking about them. I remember…" his voice wavered. "I remember my three little sisters, barely out of school and sending me letters in the war. I blink, and two of them are gone, and the youngest lost me decades ago. Thank you for checking in on them, and their families, but I… can't be a part of that."
"Okay," she murmured, eyes on his back. "Thank you for telling me."
They walked on, the galaxy above them.
Natasha and Wanda had crept off to the Hall of Butterflies, even though Vision warned them the butterflies would all be asleep, so the rest of them wandered through the halls packed with dinosaur fossils. Their talk had strayed to work: Maggie told Bucky, Steve, and Vision what she'd been up to with the interns recently, and vented about the latest media whirlwinds: there'd been increasing conversations about the cost of superhero incidents and the need for regulation, silly rumors about prisons for superheroes, and conspiracy theories about the Hulk's disappearance.
Bucky even shared some of his own research that he'd been doing into his own past, as they walked past the weighty spines of a Stegosaurus. Steve seemed concerned, but Vision and Maggie listened neutrally as he told them about old missions, unfound victims, and survivors.
"When you were hunting for me," Bucky eventually said, with a glance at Maggie, "you… travelled."
She looked up from a display about dinosaur nesting patterns. "Yes?"
"Was it more useful that way?"
"What, than just trawling the online data? Yes, I suppose it was. I was able to visit locations and meet people, it gave me a better perspective."
"Why do you ask?" Steve prompted, his eyes on Bucky.
Bucky ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know, it's just… I keep hitting walls in my research. I keep trying to remember, but I can only do so much with photos. Even as helpful as you've been, Vision," he said, with a thankful glance at the android. Vision bowed his head. "Not everything is on the internet. It's… just something I've been thinking about."
"What, travelling? To find out information?" Maggie didn't know why, but dread curled in her stomach.
"It was just a thought," Bucky looked down in the face of Maggie and Steve's alarmed glances.
She took a breath. "I know, I know. I just… what exactly are you hoping to find out, Bucky?"
"I want…" he frowned. "I've been able to find peace here, to a certain extent. But I still have a lot of unanswered questions. I remember all my victims, more or less, but I still struggle for the circumstance: the when and where, and especially the why. I want to figure out who the Winter Soldier was. Because I can't just… I can't just leave him behind." Bucky glanced at Steve with something like guilt.
They walked underneath the jaws of a Megalodon fossil, and Maggie thought hard about what Bucky had said. She could almost see her own thoughtful reflection in the polished, dark marble floor.
"Anyway, it was just a thought," Bucky said in a small voice.
"It's okay," Steve said gamely. "I just want to make sure you're safe, Buck."
Maggie sighed. "I understand the need to… figure out who you are, by leaving your comfort zone." Heaven knew she'd done it herself in a very dramatic fashion. "Whatever you need to do, Bucky, we'll help you do it. You know that."
Vision nodded and Steve, after a reluctant second, reached out and clasped his friend's shoulder.
Bucky and Maggie were nearing the exit after a couple hours in the museum, waiting for the others to catch up; Steve had wanted to go back upstairs to finish a sketch of some fossil or other and Wanda had gone with him, curious to see him draw. Maggie suspected Wanda had an artistic inclination herself. Vision and Natasha were off to tell the guard at the entrance that they were leaving.
Bucky and Maggie paced down another marble hallway, the windows looking out onto the dark park outside.
They heard the smash sound at the same time, and took only a millisecond to glance at each other before they moved. Maggie was right behind Bucky as he shoved open a fire exit, and they both tumbled out into the night air, scanning their surroundings. Bucky spotted the source of the noise first, with his better night vision, and his sudden stillness drew Maggie's attention.
They were only dark shapes at first, but when her eyes adjusted to the lower light outside she saw them: a man on the ground with a thick coat and a grey beard, hunched over and scrambling away from the three figures looming over him. Three men, in nicer clothes, jeering and plucking the other man's things away from him; a blanket, a backpack. A mugging, Maggie realized. And the man on the ground looked as if he hadn't much to his name in the first place.
"Hey!" she shouted.
The three men paused and looked up, spotting her and Bucky's silhouettes. Maggie held herself tall and menacing, and she knew Bucky cast an intimidating portrait too. Her breath came out in a vapor cloud.
"Stop," Bucky said in a low, cold voice she barely recognized. "Now."
"Piss off!" one of them shouted, and the others stepped over the dew-wet grass toward the fallen man again.
Maggie and Bucky moved together. They'd barely broken into a run before they reached the men in the shadows. Maggie ducked under a violent swing from the first man, not looking up to see as Bucky grabbed the man's fist at the apex of his arc. She heard a fleshy crack followed by a scream, and then the thud as the man hit the ground.
Maggie was already onto the second man. She drove forward with her knee to his chest, knocking him onto his back in the grass. The man they'd been attacking gasped and scrambled away.
The man Maggie had knocked down kicked out at her. "Fucking bi-" his words broke off on Maggie's prosthetic heel, and he collapsed to the ground.
She whirled just as Bucky hit the last man under the chin, dazzling him, then pulled him right over his shoulder and onto the ground.
A few fast breaths passed as Maggie and Bucky assessed the consciousness of the three men.
Maggie pulled out her phone and started texting F.R.I.D.A.Y. "You okay?" she asked the man who'd been attacked. He'd pulled his thick coat around himself and was already snatching his belongings back toward himself. He looked desperate, and Maggie wondered how long he'd been living on the streets.
"Fucking hell," the man said in response to her question. Still on the ground, he peered at her. "You're bleeding."
She frowned, then looked down. "Ow."
Bucky looked over to see her balancing on her prosthetic leg as she examined her left foot. She'd stepped on a shard of glass from a broken bottle - that she assumed the attackers had brought with them - and it had sliced right through her shoe and into her heel.
"My one good leg," she complained.
Bucky stepped over one of the fallen men to support her elbow. "Don't touch it, we'll get you to the medbay." He looked down at the man. "Come with us, we'll get you checked out-"
"Nah, man, I'm good, I've got my people." He eyed Maggie. "You get her checked out. I'm good."
"Are you sure?" Maggie glanced around. "The cops will be here soon to pick these guys up. Did they take anything of yours?"
"Nah, they were just fixing for a fight. Which they got, I guess." He heaved himself upright. "Thanks, I guess." With a last nod, he walked off into the night.
Bucky and Maggie shared a glance, and then he helped her hop over to the car they'd parked in the curved road leading to the museum. The night noises began to creep back in as adrenaline faded: distant sirens, engines, the hiss and breath of the city.
Maggie sat on the edge of a carseat with her feet outside the vehicle, examining her heel. "I think it'll be fine if I take the glass out, it's not that deep."
"You're better off waiting for Doctor Cho," Bucky disagreed. He stood right by her but his eyes were constantly scanning their surroundings, both looking for the others and checking for further trouble. He still had that strange, unfamiliar face on. "You feel okay?"
"It hurts, but I've had worse." She eyed his watchful face. "I thought you'd be… you know, all angry and righteous and protective." He glanced down with a frown. "About fighting alongside a woman, I mean. 1930s values and all that."
He met her eyes. "Do you want that?"
"Not in the slightest."
He made a hand gesture as if to say well there you go.
And Maggie watched him, even as the museum doors opened to reveal a stressed-looking Steve, and thought: huh.
They broke many speed limits on the way back to the Facility, and Cho extracted the piece of glass from Maggie's foot to the chorus of much swearing. Maggie didn't live down the ribs about her grievous Avenging injury for a full week. Bucky, at least, did not joke about it. She knew that for him that night it had been the same as her: those men taunting that man had been just as important to stop as Ultron.
Despite the tussle at the end of the night, Maggie could see that Bucky had enjoyed his time at the museum - he seemed more comfortable in the facility, more open and willing to talk with the others.
Late February, 2016
"Meg."
"Yes?"
"Do you remember when you said you were 85% sure that you could get super soldiers drunk?"
"... Yes."
They had invited Steve. Steve's excuse was that he was busy planning future Avenger missions, but he promised to swing by when he could. Maggie's working theory was that he was still scared of the idea; sure, he'd first seen her work out the math on a napkin, but she'd done far more safety checks since then.
"His loss," Bucky had said as Maggie had inserted an IV line into the vein in his right elbow.
He lay back on a reclining chair that they had stolen out of Cho's medbay, and the IV stand (also stolen) erected beside him dripped down a solution that Maggie had specifically formulated to slow down his liver and kidney function. His right arm was bared up to his bicep so Maggie could easily monitor the IV. In his metal hand he held a beaker full to the brim of a suspiciously clear liquid; alcohol that she'd distilled in the workshop, specifically formulated to match and overwhelm his current metabolism levels.
Beakers, vials, tubes, and filtration systems were strewn across the surrounding workspaces, and the air reeked of pure alcohol. Weak winter sunlight filtered through the windows, illuminating the chaotic space and the cactus in the windowsill.
It had taken an awful lot of trust on Bucky's part to go through with this, Maggie knew; he'd been tense as she inserted the IV, but they had kept the mood light by joking about her mad science project, and by having F.R.I.D.A.Y. rotate through a playlist of songs they both enjoyed.
Bucky swirled the beaker of liquid three minutes after the IV had been inserted. Maggie calculated that as the point where his metabolism would be more or less similar to a regular human's. "Here goes nothing," he said, then lifted it to his mouth and took a sip. He went white. A second later he held his breath and took another sip, and his eyebrows pulled together in a disgusted expression. "Damn, you were right that it wouldn't taste good."
Maggie pressed her lips together to suppress a smile, perched on her work stool. "I can put some artificial flavouring in? A mixer will dilute the concentration, though."
He shook his head, apparently unable to wipe away his expression. "I drank plenty of swill in the war, I can… I can handle this." He took another drink and Maggie couldn't avoid laughing at the renewed expression of horror on his face.
"I can either make it taste good or I can make it work, I can't do both!"
"I know." He nodded at her. "What I was going to say before my life flashed before my eyes was, I don't want to drink alone. Drink with me."
She raised an eyebrow. "It's a better idea if I'm sober, to keep an eye on the equipment-"
"I'm a supersoldier, I'll survive," he said with a dismissive wave of the arm with the IV in it. "Come on. You know you want to."
"You are a terrible influence," she said archly. But she couldn't deny she was tempted by the offer, since this would be one of his only chances at intoxication, so she sighed, ran to the common room and stole a bottle of Natasha's vodka. Bucky's beaker was half finished by the time she returned.
"Salut," she said, clinking her full shot glass against his beaker. She downed the shot without a grimace, and set about pouring herself a new one. Bucky took another long drink stoically, followed by a shiver. He had another beaker waiting for him on the workbench - Maggie had calculated that depending on drinking speed, it would take at least one to get him toward drunk, and anything past two would be blackout territory.
"I think I'm starting to feel it," he said thoughtfully. "Or I'm dying."
"Good. So," she said, topping up another shot. "How long has it been since you last got drunk?"
He tipped his head back to think about it. "Would've been 1944. It took a while for Zola's serum to properly sink in, but I never really got properly drunk after it. So… in Italy, with my men. Cheap wine, I think." He shook his head. "Would've appreciated it more if I'd known it'd be the last time. Until now, anyway." He toasted her as he drank again, and grimaced.
She smiled and took another shot. "How about before the war? Steve says you liked a party, back in your day." She grinned.
"Steve says a lotta things he ought to keep his mouth shut about," Bucky said into his beaker. He tucked a few loose hairs behind his ear.
Maggie tutted. "Well if I'm not allowed to listen to him, I guess I'll have to listen to all the biographies and documentaries about you-"
"God, no," he complained.
"The movies, the interviews, the museum displays… it's funny, they all seem to say that you were the social life of Brooklyn - drinks, dancing, a different woman every week-"
"Now that is an exaggeration," he said, but she could see the hint of a smile on his face.
She feigned confusion. "You're saying the historical record has been… falsified?"
He rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright, yes, I was not always an antisocial recluse. Yes, I liked going out to the dancehall when I had more than two dollars to rub together. Sue me."
"This isn't a court of law, Bucky," she laughed. "And if anyone's going to judge you for sex, dance, and alcohol, it certainly won't be me." He almost choked on his next sip. "I'm trying to learn more about you, so spill. What were the dance halls like, a million years ago?"
Mollified, he relaxed back in his chair and had another drink. "It was fun," he admitted. "Wasn't the biggest neighborhood back then, so I was always running into people who knew me - usually at Prospect Hall, but there were some smaller ones around the place. Big bands and gramophones and all kinds of people. In winter they got so warm inside sometimes that I could sweat through my clothes while dancing and then go home freezing. They always played the newest songs, sometimes even before we heard them on the radio."
Maggie was intent on Bucky's face as he spoke, catching the way memory pulled his expressions in new ways. She wondered if she was glimpsing the Bucky Barnes of eighty years ago, young and eager to dance.
"On a good night you could dance every song with someone new, make friends with everyone in the room, order drinks they made up with whatever they had on hand - weren't a lot of fancy ingredients 'round our neighborhood - and walk out to find the sun rising." The corner of his mouth lifted.
"And on a bad night?"
"Steve would get in a fight and I'd have to drag him to his place and patch the kid up," he said fondly, and she laughed. "Seriously, Meg, you know him now, but he really was tiny, and sick all the time. Spent most of my days worrying he'd sneeze himself into an early grave."
"Combined with the way he throws himself at life, I'm not surprised you were stressed," she said, and took another shot. The vodka bottle was a quarter empty by now, and the tip of her nose had gone numb.
"Are you even tasting that?" Bucky stared at her, then the bottle. "Is that water?"
"I'm just stronger than you, Barnes, superserum or no." She gestured the bottle at him so he could smell it to verify the contents. Her eyes snagged on the new beaker in his hand. "Here, let me try your drink."
He eyed the drink, then her. "You sure about that?"
"I'm a big believer in quality control."
"Your funeral," he said as he handed the beaker into her grasping hand.
Maggie took a sip, and despite being determined not to let her straight face slip, the liquid seared her mouth dry and burned down her throat like mercury. She couldn't help but screw up her face as she fought for breath, grabbing her throat. Bucky took the beaker off her before she could spill it, laughing.
"Christ, it's poison!"
"I certainly hope not," he laughed.
Bucky went on telling stories about the times he remembered going out drinking before: with Steve back in Brooklyn, with his men in the war, then with the Howling Commandos. Maggie could see her distillation taking effect on him: he got looser, smiled more often, and even a slight Brooklyn drawl seeped back into his voice. She laughed at the right moments in his recallings, and teased in all the rest. She did her own fair share of drinking, feeling the steady burn in her stomach and the way her balance and focus slowly drained away.
"But never," he said loudly, nodding at the beaker, "have I drunk anything in my days as bad as this, doll."
"But it's working, right?" Half propped on her workbench, she blinked. "Hold on, what did you call me?"
The tips of his ears burned. "Nothing. Never mind."
"Doll," she repeated, laughing. Her stomach burned from the drink. "Where on earth did that come from?"
"Brooklyn, 1917," he said self consciously. "Really, I'm sorry, sometimes it just slips out. Clearly your booze is working."
"I'd say so, petal," she grinned, and he rolled his eyes.
They lapsed into silence as they both reached for their drinks, and Maggie closed her eyes to listen better to the song playing: it was an upbeat 1930s tune that Bucky had introduced her to months ago - Nat King Cole, she remembered. Her foot tapped along to the beat, and she let out a breath that felt like it had an alcohol content so high, it'd catch fire if there were any stray sparks in the workshop.
"You know how to dance?" Bucky asked out of nowhere.
Maggie's eyes opened. Bucky was leaning on the armrest of his chair, his hair now loose around his face and his eyes on her.
"Everyone knows how to dance."
He laughed. "Who knew you had such faith in humanity."
"Dancing's easy!" She jumped off her stool, careful not to overset her glass on the workbench, and pulled a few Saturday Night Fever seventies dance moves, her fingers pointing. "Just gotta do something like this-"
He was really laughing now, his head thrown back. "That is not dancing."
"Don't be such a dancing purist, we can't all be doing the Lindy Hop, old man-"
"Old man?" His brow arched. "I'll show you old man-" he slid off his chair and shot upright, making his whole IV stand topple to the ground with a crash.
"Bucky, my god-"
But Bucky ignored the line that had been pulled out of his arm and the sudden mess on the ground, even though he'd probably sober up quickly now. He stepped toward her, eyes on her face, and Maggie thought he was about to just grab her, but then he paused, one hand outstretched.
"May I?"
And it was so natural that Maggie said "Yes," without thinking about it.
Bucky took the last step toward her and took one of her hands in his. His other hand, the metal one, landed on her waist and made her laugh.
"Going to throw me up in the air?"
"What kind of dancing have you been watching?" he asked, leaning back a little to meet her gaze. His grey-blue eyes glinted.
"They do that in the old swing videos," she said defensively, trying to figure out where to put her other hand. She decided to place it on his shoulder, where she found the seam between metal and flesh just under his t-shirt.
"I'm gonna dance with you, not fight you," he stepped toward her, in time to Nat King Cole. "Which means you've gotta trust me," he said pointedly, and Maggie realized she'd been trying to take the lead. She let out a breath and stopped trying to take control of the dance.
Bucky stepped toward her and she went with him, only minorly bumping her chest into his, and with the slightest pressure of his hand on her waist she turned, trusting the minute shift of his body and the expression on his face. He was half a head taller than her so she had to tilt her head slightly to see his face, which felt new. When he was sure she wasn't about to trip over his feet he picked up the pace, stepping in, back, and to the side, bringing her with him.
The music swelled and skipped, and Bucky led them in a circuit around the workshop. Maggie had never danced like this before; she'd been to plenty of upper-class New York socialite events, but she'd never danced like this. She'd been too young to learn, before her mother died. And she loved dancing, but had never tried it like this; quick stepping, swaying, spinning. The dance was far from prim and proper, though. Bucky danced like the Brooklyn-born-and-raised working class boy he was, more passion and improvisation than practiced style. But his feet were light and he spun, catching her by the waist, leading her out by her hand. She'd been able to read him so well for so long now that it was easy to figure out what he'd do next.
The world spun a little out of focus around them, and Maggie's focal points became the ground under her dancing feet, the hand in hers, the sure metal palm on her waist, and Bucky's glinting eyes.
"This is kind of a foxtrot," he said, glancing down quickly before leading her in a flowing series of steps across the room, then picked up the pace again. They danced around one of her workbenches, hands clasped and Bucky's hair wild around his face. The song now was even faster, and Maggie threw her shoulders and hips into it, laughing when Bucky changed up the pace to surprise her. Bucky swung her around the corner of the bench with his metal hand pressed to the small of her back and she yelped at the sudden shift in equilibrium, but then she was back, hand on his shoulder and breathless with laughter. His eyes darted over her face.
She grinned. "Know any swing steps?"
"Oh boy," he said.
Steve strode through the open doors of Maggie's workshop and stopped dead.
The music and laughter floating down the corridor had been his first clue that things had gotten more merry than expected, but he didn't know if he ever could have predicted this.
Maggie and Bucky were hand in hand as they danced by one of her workbenches, swinging around each other, throwing their limbs about wildly and laughing so loud they almost drowned out the music. Both of their hair had come loose so they looked like a whirlwind of dark hair, pulling apart just to spring back together, almost chest to chest. Bucky looked lighter than Steve remembered seeing him since 1939, his eyes almost closing as he laughed at Maggie waving her free hand like an old jazz dancer. Maggie had gone red in the face from either dancing or laughing, Steve wasn't sure, her shoes squeaking on the floor.
There was a smashed IV stand on the ground, surrounded by a puddle of clear liquid.
"Well this isn't what I expected," Steve said.
Maggie and Bucky pulled apart, laughter fading as they both looked over in surprise to find Steve in the doorway. Maggie planted both hands on the workbench, panting for breath.
"Thought you were getting drunk?" Steve added, raising an eyebrow at Bucky.
"I am!" Bucky protested, but then cocked his head. "Well, I was."
"I can fix the thing," Maggie said, waving a hand at the IV stand, but Bucky shook his head.
"Nah, it did the trick. And hey, no hangover."
She pushed her hair off her forehead and blew out a breath. "I'll add that in for next time. And I'll… teach you how to moonwalk, or something."
"Michael Jackson," Bucky said knowingly.
Maggie looked around at her workshop. "I better clean this mess up."
"C'mon, pal, let's get some water in you," Steve said exasperatedly, reaching out to plant a hand on Bucky's shoulder.
"So what was that?"
Bucky glanced up from his second glass of water, leaning against the kitchen countertop. It had been about twenty minutes since Steve had entered the workshop, and Bucky was pretty sure he was sober again. Steve had hovered and fussed, almost a role reversal of some of their old nights in Brooklyn. "What?"
Steve jerked his head. "Back in there, with Maggie. What was I looking at?"
"Drunken idiocy," Bucky said tiredly. He went to sip his water again.
Steve looked at him very, very carefully.
Bucky frowned under the scrutiny. "What?"
Steve didn't seem convinced by his puzzlement, but appeared to drop it. Until he said:
"I just want you to be careful, Buck." Bucky's brows drew together. "There's… I'm really glad that you two are friends. But things are still complicated, and I want to make sure that you're… safe. Careful."
It was such a vague statement that Bucky wanted to push him on it, but he felt a tingle of fear at the idea of Steve getting any more specific than that. So he just looked back down into his glass and said:
"I'm always careful, punk."
Reviews
Browneyes (from chapter 62): Eep indeed ;)
Shorttrooper (from chapter 62): Sorry for missing your review in my rush! Your review was so kind, I can't thank you enough I'm so glad you are still enjoying Maggie's story, and my work. Hope you had a wonderful holidays!
EchoMoment: Glad you like Bucky knitting ;)
Eennio: Glad you liked the girls bonding, it was a lot of fun to write!
DBZFAN45: So glad you liked the scene with Maggie in a dress and that whole scene with Bucky, as well as the rest of the Avengers bonding :) I'm glad you liked the Hawkeye show, now we've got Multiverse of Madness next!
Shorttrooper: Thank you for another lovely review! We are on a very slow road to romance but it is indeed happening ;) So sorry to hear that work has been hard, I'm glad that this story is even helping a little bit. Stay safe and hope you enjoyed this chapter!