"Do you suppose we can find him?"
Bucky looked up from his chair. Ivy was sitting on the bed and biting her lip. The clear sky outside had faded into a dark blue, almost black. Bucky had found the color to be calming. Ivy had found it to be the color of death.
"Find him?"
"Oliver. Or Oliver's... body."
"We can give you closure, yes, but it may not be the way you want."
Ivy looked up wistfully and nodded.
"Thank you."
He looked unsettled.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Ivy asked softly.
A moment's hesitation.
"What did you find about James Buchanan Barnes?"
"What did I find out about you?"
"Yes."
"Well," Ivy said, propping herself up on her elbows as a thoughtful look crossed her face. "Not much. You were Captain America's best friend since childhood, and you were in a group called the Howling Commandos. At age twenty-nine, you were the only one to die out of that group. Er... supposedly."
The corners of Bucky's mouth quirked up just a little at this.
"You were a sergeant, I believe. You helped rescue your regiment, and then you fell off a train. You had shorter hair then," Ivy finished lamely.
"Is that all?"
"All I could find, sorry. We can go to the Smithsonian once we get back to DC, if you want. I'm sure it'll be much more thorough."
"Hm."
"I've got dibs on the bed, by the way."
"Okay. What are dibs?"
"Well, it's basically a way you can get what you want if someone else wants it. You can call dibs on food, a bed, a seat, a person, or even a wall. Pretty much anything."
"Why would one call dibs on a wall?"
"I don't know. It just seems like a rational option, I suppose."
Bucky chuckled. "Rational?"
"Duh."
"Well, it isn't my place to disagree with you."
Ivy furrowed her brow and tilted her head.
"What? Why not? If you think it's irrational, then you think it's irrational."
"Shouldn't I not talk back?"
"Excuse me, sir, I talk back to you all the time. Sorry about that, by the way. Now, I'm going to teach you how to be more fabulous. Like me!" Ivy said with a playful grin.
"Fabulous like you?" Bucky tried uncertainly. "I'm not entirely sure I understand the objective."
"I think that you need to get out more. Do they have Taco Bells in Russia?"
"Taco Bell? Do you want Taco Bell?" Bucky asked.
"'I can't have Taco Bell, I'm on an all-carb diet! God, Karen, you're so stupid!'"
"What?"
"Sorry, it just came to mind. Really, though, do they have Taco Bell?"
"No. I'm not sure. I haven't seen a Taco Bell."
"Oh. Well, I'm just glad you know what it is."
Bucky looked from his book to Ivy irritably.
"I am not blind. I have passed Taco Bells multiple times."
"Have you ever eaten there before?"
"I found no need."
Ivy gasped dramatically and pretended to faint. Needless to say, Bucky was terribly confused at her mood swing. She'd gone from being afraid of him to being upset by Oliver to a flamboyant character who couldn't seem to sit still.
"I really am hungry, though," Ivy said, her attitude taking on a more sober tone as she looked him in the eye. "Can you get something to eat?"
Oliver picked at his small portion of green beans, dry potato slices, and rubbery meat.
He and Katya hadn't spoken since their skirmish. Nathaniel mostly stayed by Blaire, handing her her inhaler whenever she needed it, and at least Laurie was polite enough not to look around every now and then and glare at everyone (unlike Oliver, Katya, and Nathaniel). Craig, on his part, graciously made small talk with everyone. The strange man in the corner simply kept pawing at the ground and pushing on the wall.
With a quick survey of the room, Oliver noted that everyone else (everyone but the strange man) had finished eating their food ravenously. Blaire was asleep with her head on Nathaniel's shoulder, Craig and Laurie were whispering silently to one another, and Katya was looking hollowly to her side.
"I do not..." Katya started with a laborious sigh, "I am not a princess, as I'm sure you have gathered."
Nathaniel chuckled. "Yeah, we gathered."
"What are you then?" Laurie asked curiously. "You sound important."
Katya laughed. The sound would have been sweet, had it not been so bitter. "That is a story for another day."
"If we survive that long."
All heads snapped towards the man in the corner, who had momentarily stopped his tortured writhing to look at them painfully.
Laurie's eyes hardened. "Of course we will. Don't be ridiculous."
"No. We won't."
"Shut up!" Nathaniel growled.
"You don't realize the gravity of the situation. We've been captured by Hydra."
"Hydra?" Oliver asked. "Wait, like the group on Twitter?"
"Yes, like the group on Twitter."
Uncharacteristically, Craig groaned.
"We're never getting free," Nathaniel said in horror.
"No, we're not."
"And how do you know this?" Katya snapped.
The man grimaced. "I do."
"We asked for an answer, not a 'to death do you part!'" Oliver sniped.
"Oliver," Laurie warned.
"How I know is none of your concern," the man said, ignoring Laurie altogether. His eyes narrowed sharply in Oliver's direction. He was twitching again.
With the nasty premonition that the man would soon turn to the wall and resume his deathly twisting again, Oliver cast his gaze to his small meal. His stomach rumbled, and he remembered his words to Katya only a few hours earlier: "Sorry, princess, but this isn't the Ritz." With that, he pursed his lips, and he lifted a spoonful of mashed potatoes to his mouth.
Ivy relished the taste of the shawarma which Bucky had thrown on the table after a half-hour's absence (he liked to throw things, she noted). She made a memo to visit the small shawarma booth in D.C. when she made it back.
Bucky was still looking outside at the sky; its color had turned from the dark blue now to a more calming black, or at least as black as the city lights of Moscow would allow. Standing suddenly, he stepped out of the room.
Ivy raised her eyebrow. She was of half a mind to follow him, and the other half just wanted to finish her food and go to sleep. Her internal debate was interrupted when he reentered the room a short while later.
"What's that?" Ivy asked curiously as he spread a large sheet of paper over the bed and gestured for Ivy to make room.
"A map of Russia, in case we get separated. We're going here," and with that, he pointed his metal index finger at a very, very remote spot which was very, very far away from Moscow.
"That's, um... that's in the middle of nowhere."
"I know. It's still where we're going."
"Ah, okay. I guess it is kinda clever for Hydra to stick their lead base where nobody would ever think to look."
"It's only one of their lead bases. It just so happens to be where..."
"Where?"
"Nothing. You should sleep."
"I'm not tired." In truth, Ivy was suffering from a terrible case of jet lag and wanted nothing more than to sleep.
"Alright," he replied. He was seemingly unconvinced, but Ivy decided to let it slide.
She padded to the edge of the bed and picked the remote off the bedpost. "I think I'm going to watch the news," she said absentmindedly. "I almost forgot that I'm a wanted felon."
The TV clicked to life, and the first picture on the screen was one of the plane Ivy and Bucky had amiably borrowed with yet another caption running beneath it. She glanced at Bucky.
"'Stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. plane makes unauthorized landing in Moscow, Russia. Ivy Bennett suspected.'"
"Do they honestly think I'm some criminal mastermind?" Ivy snapped in frustration, throwing a pillow at the screen. "Because I am really not. And I know what you're thinking, so don't even, friend."
"I won't."
"Okay, good. Did you get shawarma for yourself?"
"No."
"Well, you need to have something sooner or later. Last time you ate was breakfast at my house, and that was almost half a day ago. I don't think you even finished your cereal."
"No."
"Alright. First thing tomorrow, then, we'll get you food."
"I don't need food."
"Yeah, you do if you wanna function properly. And it's not that hard to bite, chew, and swallow."
"No. We need to leave as soon as we can to get to the base before they are able to utilize the twins."
"If you don't eat, you'll pass out, and that'll be more of a hindrance than anything. We can get takeout, but you are going to eat something."
"It wouldn't be wise," Bucky said. He felt the fight start to wane from himself out of instinct; his handlers would have labeled him uncooperative, then they would put him in his chair and back into ice. However, Ivy seemed as though she wouldn't go to such extreme measures. That didn't stop him from treading cautiously.
"I really don't care whether it's wise or not. You're eating."
After a long pause, he wordlessly sighed in defeat. He didn't need to do anything more, and with a firm nod, Ivy bade him good night, and she pulled the covers over herself. She was asleep without another thought.
I wasn't sure whether to have Bucky say "fabulous" or not, but whatever. YOLO.
Review, please!