Chapter 13-Not the Problem

Third Person:

"You cleaned the house," Beni said.

"And you're upset," Bucky said, leaning against the frame of the kitchen door. "Talk to me."

Beni leaned forward, resting her elbow on her knee and putting her face in her hand. Her other hand was still rubbing her thigh. A few minutes passed and Beni still hadn't said anything. So he decided to do what any nice, smart ass friend would do.

He walked over and started giving her a back rub saying,

"Talking about it helps me. Wanna talk about it?"

She snorted her response and leaned into the touch, letting out a tired sigh.

"An asshole at work stabbed me with a needle and some weird junk in my blood so now I have to do some blood tests and hope 'bad' doesn't go to worse.' Thank you for cleaning the house by the way, it really does look nice."

"That's rough, buddy. And don't worry about either of the things, it kept me busy and you're gonna be fine."

"I sure hope so. Wow, you could make this a career," Beni said with a slight wince. Bucky chuckled slightly and started diving his metal elbow into her spine.

"You know," Beni said after a few minutes of silence, "We could make this a thing."

"Giving each other back rubs?"

Beni hummed a yes, nodding slightly. Bucky whistled.

"Christ, you are really tense."

"I've rubbed your back, you're not much better."

"Hardy har. So what was the crap that he put in your blood supposed to be?"

"Best guess? A serum we're working on."

Beni felt Bucky's hands tense slightly and raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything about it.

"What kind of serum?" He questioned.

"We're trying to perfect a formula that some other scientist in New York fucked up on. It's supposed to make people who have lost limbs and shit have their limbs back. But I would personally want a prosthetic over having an entire limb re-grown. And since we're using lizard DNA we don't know what the extra limb is gonna look like or feel like. It could end up just being dead weight. And even if it did get grown again you would have to go through months, maybe years of physical therapy to get the limb to its proper state of growth and strength. There's so many factors-can you go a little lower?- that can play into this. Like, a friend told me at work that New York was saved by a guy in spider tights when some people in the city got turned to lizards. The dude who made it had one arm and was working with lizards to put together the right formula. Stark wants us to create a formula that will work and not turn everyone into lizards. I get that he wants to help people, I really do. I'm just not sure this is the way to go, and if I could tell him all of this, I would. But we didn't exactly exchange phone numbers when I was interviewed."

"Well, I'm sure you'll be fine. If you can get up the stairs without falling then you can get passed this."

"When did you get a sense of humor?" Beni asked with a smirk.

"Shortly after I met you."

"You're welcome."

"I never said thank you."

"It was implied."

"Of course it was. What movie do you wanna watch today?"

"Eh, I don't know. You pick for me, Brownie-Top."

"That's a new one."

"What can I say, I'm full of new things. But In was totally being serious when I said you pick."

"Alright," Bucky stopped rubbing her back and walked over to the book shelf that had movies and CDs from artists he didn't recognize. "How about...Beauty and the Beast? I think that's the only Disney movie you haven't shown me."

"The fact that you didn't grow up on those movies is still baffling. Now put it in, I love this one."

After they watched the movie (Beni unsurprisingly sang to all the songs, much to Bucky's amusement) they went out for ice cream. If the movie didn't put Beni in a better mood than ice cream certainly would. So it wasn't long after the movie that they decided to walk to the small ice cream parlor a few blocks away from where they lived.

Currently Bucky and Beni sat across from each other in a booth next to a window, and Beni was giggling uncontrollably because Bucky was starring cross eyed at the ice cream on his nose. Beni was laughing and trying to eat at the same time, and it wasn't working out so well. So Bucky tried to help her by pushing the spoon into her face. She huffed, and as Bucky was getting them both a napkin, she loaded a large amount of ice cream on her spoon, aimed, and...

"Ha! Direct hit!"

"You're talking to a former sniper, you know," Bucky threatened.

"You are, too. Why do you think my aim is always dead on."

Bucky wiped the ice cream off of his nose and off of the spot in between his eyes that was Beni's doing.

"You were a sniper? An innocent girl like you?"

"One-I'm no where near innocent. Ad two-the best since Basic."

"Wanna test that theory?" Bucky challenged. She raised and eyebrow and smirked.

"You are so on. Maybe we can go to the range soon, there's one here a few miles away. Long enough to take the subway, at least."

"From now on, I'm your pack mule and you're my map."

"It's a deal, but don't start expecting me to talk in Spanish and sing the map song."

"What?"

"Nothing," Beni laughed, "Now shut up and eat your ice cream before I launch it at your face."

"Now that's something I understand."