Half an hour later, two Avengers arrived on foot (because even if Steve was sure he could hold his drink, he wasn't sure what would happen if a cop breathalysed him if he had his bike) at a bar with a sizeable crowd, and a live band. It was noisy enough that they wouldn't be noticed easily, the band had holders on their microphone stands for beer, which Steve took as a good sign.
"Go find a seat." Steve said to Bucky, he started making his way to the bar. It took a while. He kept a hand on his wallet. Only about a third of people in the bar seemed to know what the band were currently singing. Steve didn't.
By the time he got back to Bucky, the band seemed to have noticed that they at least needed to start with ones every idiot knew.
Bucky wasn't singing, but he looked like he was thinking about it. Until he noticed Steve and went back to looking at his hands.
"And I'm sure he'll treat me better
Than my darling sporting Jenny!" Steve sang, louder than he needed to, more to show Bucky up than anything else.
Bucky just took a draft of his beer.
"I'm not drunk enough for this yet."
"Don't hold your breath. You might never get there." The bar was too noisy for there to be any serious risk of their being overheard.
"What?"
"I can't get drunk. Stands to reason you can't either."
Bucky frowned at him. "That means you really tried. That means straight-laced, good little Stevie Rogers, Captain America, tried to get drunk." Bucky kept frowning at him. "I want to know when that was."
Steve sighed. "End of January, '45."
Steve saw rather than heard Bucky's response. "Ah."
Steve looked back to the band and joined in again. "No nay never no more!"
.
After about three beers, Bucky was either drunk enough or relaxed enough to start singing. He started to look like Bucky again. The slower songs started coming. Steve remembered Bucky liking Fields of Athenry even as a kid. Steve clearly didn't have the tolerance for drink he'd had in the '40s. He couldn't get through Peggy Gordon without getting a lump in his throat. Bucky did though.
The guy with the banjo pulled a girl half his age up on to the stage, introducing her as his daughter. She looked less comfortable than her father did, until she started singing. Then she came alive, she seemed to forget it was even possible that she could mess up. She sighed and gestured as though she was talking over drinks, didn't even seem to notice the laughs any more. But she'd only been singing for a minute or so before another woman drew Steve's eye. That one was by the bar, creeping slowly to the right. Again and again moving away from a broad shouldered man in a letterman jacket, who was again and again closing the space.
Bucky noticed him staring. "What?"
"I'll be right back." Steve stood up and started to move through the jostling crowd.
"No, really, I'm fine."
"Hey, I'm only trying to buy a pretty girl a drink. What's so wrong with that?" The guy in the letterman jacket was slurring.
"I'll buy my own drink, thanks."
"Look, I'm trying to pay you a compliment here. It's just a drink. You got a guy here with you tonight?"
"No, my friend'll be back in a minute."
"I'll buy her one too. I can-"
"Hey." Steve said as he got to the girl. "Do you want to come and sit with us for a bit?" He saw her draw breath, wondering if he was any better than the other guy.
"Hey, back off." The guy in the jacket said. "We were having a conversation. Get your nose out bucko."
"She's been backing away from you for the past two minutes." Steve said flatly.
"What is your problem dude!" The man stepped up closer. Steve could smell something stronger than beer on his breath. "I was here first. You wanna take this outside? You wanna?"
"I'm not afraid to, but if you've got any sense, you'll just go sit down."
"It's like that? I'm not afraid of you, pal."
Steve felt a hand on his shoulder. "This guy bothering you?" Bucky was standing right behind him, dangling both their drinks from his metal hand. "Do I need to finish my beer real quick?" Steve looked back to the guy in the jacket, saw him weighing up his odds against both of them.
He backed away.
Steve sighed. "I had him right where I wanted him."
"Some things never change." Bucky said, handing Steve his beer back. "We just lost our table."
Steve shrugged and looked at the girl. "You okay?"
She nodded. "Thanks."
"Was your friend real, or just to get rid of him?"
"No, she's real."
"Do you want to wait with us?"
"Thanks." She turned her back to the bar. Bucky stood on her other side. They must have looked like bodyguards. "Um," She started shyly. "if you don't mind telling me, is that a Stark hand?"
Bucky shook his sleeve. "Wasn't trying to make it obvious."
"But it is."
"Yeah." Bucky said. He still sounded quite calm. "Yeah, I'm one of the first group."
"Can I ask, how… is it?"
Bucky pulled a face. "It's… better than not having a hand."
"I'm sorry." She said. "Oh! Nina!" She waved suddenly. Another girl, dark where she was fair, turned and looked at the three of them. She started to fight her way over. "Everything okay?"
"I'm sorry Annie, I need to go."
"I'll come with you."
Nina took in Steve and Bucky. "You sure? You look like you're having a good time."
"Oh. No, its – sorry, not that I wasn't happy with you guys, but, Nina, I'll come with you. Thank you for everything, you two."
The girls started to fight their way out of the bar.
"Can we go too?" Bucky asked after a minute. "This feels like a powder keg."
"Okay."
.
Once they were out in the cold night, Steve said "You did really well tonight, Bucky."
Bucky tried to cuff him. "Shut up."
.
"You two don't look too bad for the morning after St Paddy's." Barton said.
"Super metabolism." Steve said. "Can't get drunk, can't get a hangover. What are we doing here anyway?"
"Fury's bringing named handler number two in." Natasha said.
Bucky stood up and started looking for somewhere to hide. "Vent shaft's there." Barton said.
"He hasn't told us who he's bringing, he just wants us all here at nine." Natasha continued.
They waited. Stark made coffee, barefoot and clearly not quite awake.
It was five past nine before they heard the elevator move.
"Hey, can you get Jarvis to show us CCTV from in there?" Barton asked
"I could," Stark replied, "or we could let Fury be a drama queen and keep his element of surprise." Steve slipped a full cup of coffee in to the vent shaft, then shut it again.
The lift doors opened. All of the Avengers were standing, waiting.
Steve felt his jaw drop.
"Oh my god." Tony said softly.
"Coulson!" Barton bellowed, dashing forwards. Before anyone else had caught up, Barton had charged Agent Phil Coulson and driven him back in to the wall. "You asshole! You absolute prizewinning asshole!"
Coulson looked winded. Barton straightened up and grabbed for Coulson's head, realised there wasn't much hair there, and grabbed him by the ears.
"I thought you were dead. You let me think you were dead. For two years, Coulson! Two years!"
"Clint-"
"You let me think you were dead! You let me think I killed you!"
"Clint, let him go." Natasha said gently. Her eyes were brimming. "It's good to see you, Coulson." Coulson gave a tiny nod, which was probably all he could manage with Barton hanging on to his ears.
Barton took a couple of deep breaths, let go of Coulson's ears and took half a step back. Then he punched Coulson in the stomach.
"Barton-"
"Agent Barton, that's enough." Fury said. "After a very long conversation with Senator Cheney, I convinced him that The Avengers would be happy with Agent Coulson knowing who and where they all were."
"What clearance level was this?" Natasha asked.
"Seven." Fury replied.
"Seven?" Natasha repeated. "I didn't think there was one between six and head staff."
"I mean, it makes perfect SHIELD sense." Stark said. "If you don't think secrets of a higher level exist, why would you look for them."
"So when you told us Agent Coulson was down…" Steve said, looking squarely at Fury.
"It wasn't that big of a lie when I told it, Rogers." Fury said calmly. "When I told you that, Coulson was unconscious and not going to regain consciousness. SHIELD medics got a little cagey about declaring someone dead after they managed to revive you. What they managed to do during and after the battle of New York was remarkable, then a decision was made that Coulson would remain dead. I'm sure you can imagine how a man like him gets enemies."
"And they can't kill you if you're dead." Steve said.
"Wait, who made that decision?" Stark said.
"I did." Fury said.
Barton gut punched him. "And no exemptions for those of us who'd been Coulson's for decades. You just wanted us as Avengers, you didn't care where we'd come from, what we'd come through."
"Enough of that, Barton." Steve said.
Fury straightened up. "For what it's worth Barton, I'm sorry for how that must have affected you." Barton gave Fury a venomous look. "I'll leave you to talk this out amongst yourselves, take the vote and so on. I'll trust someone to drop me a line either way."
Fury left.
For a long moment everyone just stood there. Then Barton threw himself at Coulson again. But this time he hugged him. Coulson took a second to recover, then hugged Barton back.
"I'm sorry, Clint."
Steve padded away, back to the sofas. Everyone except Natasha did too. Barton was still calling Coulson unrepeatable things.
"They have a history?" Sam asked quietly.
"Yeah." Steve said. "I don't know a lot about it, but Coulson was Barton's only handler. He brought him in to SHIELD, then both of them turned Romanoff."
Sam frowned and flicked his eyes to the vent. Steve shushed him softly.
