As it turned out, being assistant to an assistant in a corporate office was not the boring job Summer initially anticipated it to be. Mundane was a better fitting word, at least once the first week had passed and she had gotten the hang of it.
Rather than sit behind a desk doing who knows what all day, she was on her feet and out the door more times than she could count. Whether it was getting someone's lunch, dry cleaning, even shuttling things like small boxes and envelopes between Stark Tower and other businesses like a messenger girl, she spent more of her day in cabs than she did in Pepper Pott's office. And if there was one thing she had learned in that first week, it was that gel insoles for the heels she forced herself to wear were nothing short of gifts from the very heavens above.
It was near noon on her one-week anniversary of starting the new job that she handed her boss, Pepper's actual assistant, a bag containing her lunch as the woman somewhat angrily slammed her phone down into its cradle before looking up and snatching the bag and setting it down on her desk. "Thanks," she muttered, glancing at her computer and then saying without looking up, "Go take your break."
The assistant, whose name was Deanna, had been relatively nice enough, but she had an air about her of being constantly overworked and perpetually irritated, except for when Pepper was nearby, which was when she'd smile brightly and act perfectly cheerful. Summer had expected her demeanor to improve since she now had an assistant to ease the load, but no such luck yet.
"Okay," Summer replied, lingering in front of her desk. "Did you need anything else before I -"
"No," Deanna monotoned, picking up her phone and pushing the buttons harder than was necessary. "I'd hurry up and go if I were you. I'm gonna need you to take the phone for me when you get back."
She smiled. "Oh okay. Awesome." Deanna looked up at her slightly incredulously, but Summer shrugged and then headed off. Answering the phone meant sitting down, and sitting down somewhere other than in the backseat of a cab would be a nice change for that particular day.
She headed to the elevator, down through a corridor containing other little cubicles and a number of people she passed along the way. Some of them had Deanna's harried expression, others were just busy, and a few smiled and nodded as she walked past them. So far, most everybody had been a lot nicer than she'd expected, and she couldn't understand why Deanna seemed so miserable all the time. Maybe it was just the fact that Summer's employment history was less than lustrous, but this job was, so far, awesome.
Once she got to the elevator, she was smiling slightly to herself without even realizing it. Once she did realize it, after the elevator started its descent to the floor that the childcare room was located on, she didn't try to stop or hide it, because why should she? Yeah, she was still adjusting, and so was David, and she still missed the crap out of her home and hoped the scumbags that blew it up got Steve's shield to their faces soon, but the changes brought by the disaster had all been almost entirely good. She had a job now and wouldn't be scraping by on student loans and savings that were nearly gone. David had proven himself resilient and had surprised her by how well he'd taken to daycare - if he kept it up, maybe she could even get him into kindergarten soon.
And then, of course, there was the main reason why she walked with a bit more of a bounce in her step now than she ever had before. But he could wait until after she peeked in on her kid.
Once she got to the childcare room, the smiling middle-aged lady at the little pick-up window immediately informed her that all the kids in David's section were asleep for a nap.
She blinked. "A nap?"
"Yes ma'am," the woman smiled.
"He... doesn't take naps."
"Well," the woman shrugged, "sometimes when kids see other kids sleeping, it does the trick. They all fell asleep watching Finding Nemo."
Her eyebrows went even higher. He didn't even like that movie! "Wow. Okay, um... well, thank you," she said, frowning a little as she walked off towards the elevator once more, unsure of what to do with her hour break now that she had it to herself. She'd already eaten during her last errand - New York City street food was awesome, at least so far - so she couldn't kill an hour that way.
Only one thing left to do, then. Once the elevator doors closed in front of her, leaving her thankfully alone in the small space, she looked up at the ceiling and said quietly, "... JARVIS?"
"Yes, Ms. McAdams?"
"Would you happen to know where Bucky is?"
"He is currently deflecting punches on the thirty-second floor."
Her eyes widened a little. "Oh... uh..."
"There is a gym located on that floor, Miss. The punches appear to be friendly."
Oh. She smiled and shook her head at herself. "Right. Okay, thanks, Mister Robot Voice."
"I do prefer JARVIS, ma'am."
"You're an artificial intelligence - how can you prefer anything?" she asked, eyebrow raised.
"I would answer that question, but it would serve to inflate my designer's ego more than is currently necessary."
She grinned. "You're a sassy robot."
"I prefer 'sharp-witted intelligence'."
She chuckled, then looked down at herself as the elevator approached the thirty-second floor. She was wearing her black pencil skirt that had turned out to be a great investment, and a short-sleeved, somewhat dark blue blouse. Hoping that JARVIS wasn't watching and judging her, she undid the top button of the shirt and then checked her hair with her fingertips, finding it still safely done up at the back of her head with the face-framing pieces in the front still in place. She felt a little like a teenager dressing up as some professional corporate chick trying to climb the ladder, but her updo was just messy enough to be youthful and she was pleasantly surprised that she could actually pull off the professional look at all.
Once the doors opened, her heels clicked softly against the spotless floor just before the elevator as she looked around. The floor seemed split into two hallways, and she looked down each one before shrugging and heading down the one to her left, for no particular reason. She started to think that she'd chosen right when she heard slight clanking sounds coming from ahead, and when she finally reached the end of the long hall, she turned a corner and was then staring right into an enormous open space looking every bit like the extravagant gym one would find in a billionaire's skyscraper, if that was a thing. Apparently it was a thing.
And the gym happened to be crawling with Avengers and their pals. The first to notice her was Natasha, who was closest to the entrance and wrapping up her hands as she looked up and grinned. "Come to see the show?"
"What show?" Summer asked, glancing past Natasha and catching a glimpse of a metal gleam on the other side of the room. There was Bucky, who appeared to be stretching or something, and she recognized the golden head of Thor a few yards away from him - Thor, who was casually tossing his hammer up in the air and catching it, and who was dressed in a black tank that almost made her teeth chatter.
Suddenly snapping out of it, she looked back to Natasha and thought that she'd just missed her reply. "What?"
"I haven't answered yet. I was waiting for you to stop drooling first," she answered with a wry grin.
"Thor's wearing a tank top," Summer replied, as if that was all the explanation needed.
Natasha glanced over her shoulder and inclined her head slightly. "Yeah... it's somewhat distracting."
Finally, they agreed on something. Summer smiled and then asked, "So, what show?"
Natasha gestured to Bucky and explained, "He thinks he can hold his own against a god. Steve says yes, Sam and I say no."
Summer almost immediately sided with Steve's opinion, but... Thor did have a magic hammer. She paused, mentally weighing the hammer against Bucky's arm before deciding she had no idea what she was even thinking about and shrugging, "Well, this is gonna kill me."
"Why, because of all of the frustrated hormones?"
Summer glanced up and muttered, "Honestly, yes."
With another grin, Natasha said, "Good, come get a front row seat, then."
Bucky didn't notice her arrival as she walked closer, walking past rows and rows of exercise equipment before glancing to her right and doing a double take as her jaw nearly hit the floor. If she'd had time to think about it, she would have known that Steve wouldn't really find a whole lot of use in an average human being's gym, but since she hadn't thought of that, she stood in slight shock and stared up at him as he used a treadmill like a normal man would use a barbell.
"Hi," he smiled with a mild grimace, though not really breaking a sweat as he lifted the thing up and down.
"... Hi," she muttered back, smiling and shaking her head a little bit. Not far off was Sam, making do with the kind of weights that the rest of Earth had to settle for, muttering about showoffs and actively breaking a sweat. Then she glanced at Natasha, whose thoughts were for once almost completely readable on her face as she watched Steve's antics with a distinctly, and darkly, delighted expression. Then Summer looked away, reflexively wondering what in the world their nights together even involved, considering their various... er... strengths. Then she shook her head and refocused her attention on her own super soldier, who was still oblivious to her presence.
"I'd make a comment about super-soldier stamina," Natasha remarked, having moved on, "but you wouldn't understand yet."
"... When did this become common knowledge, by the way?" Summer asked, perching on a bench, glancing at Bucky and confirming that he still hadn't seen her.
Natasha smiled at her a bit similarly one would smile at a child who had asked a very silly question and replied, "Its not. In layman's terms, I am a very good judge of people."
"... Including whether people are getting any or not?" she asked, a little wide-eyed.
Natasha shrugged. "It's easier than you think, if you know what to look for." She glanced at Bucky and said, "His shoulders and eyebrows are the giveaways."
"His... what?"
"Tension. Steve used to look almost exactly the same," Natasha replied with a small grin before looking at Summer. "And as for you, it's the constant blushing."
"I don't think it's a constant thing, necessarily..."
Natasha gave her a look. She rolled her eyes in defeat.
"Well, fine, whatever. But that probably won't change after -"
The sound of of a somehow distinctly metal punch caught her off mid-sentence, and suddenly all eyes were on Bucky and the Asgardian royalty who had gamely let him throw the first punch. Thor blocked it with minimal effort, and apparently in the interest of fairness, his hammer sat innocently in the corner.
Looking at the two men, Summer got the distinct impression that neither one of them took the other particularly seriously. Bucky still thought it was weird that Asgard was actually a place and aliens a real thing, and Summer suspected that he thought Thor was a bit of a joke. Thor, on the other hand, surely held a high standard by which he could be impressed by a mortal's abilities, and he hadn't crossed paths with Bucky during his terrifying assassin days, so he didn't seem all that concerned either.
Which was why he was a little surprised when his own blow was deflected with ease a few seconds later. Summer bit her lip, unsure of exactly how far this was supposed to go - were they supposed to try to actually hurt each other? - and then she flinched in surprise when Thor threw a kick that Bucky sidestepped before surprising everybody watching by landing a backhanded strike to Thor's jaw with his right hand.
Even Thor looked surprised for a moment. Then he lunged forward, and Summer wasn't sure exactly what Bucky did, but it looked like some fancy gymnastics-y flip that resulted in him swinging behind Thor and landing his knee harshly to the middle of his back. It didn't look like it hurt Thor much, but it annoyed him, and from there, Summer watched with a slackened jaw as the two men progressively became more irritated with the other and showed it by hitting harder. And yet they seemed to be enjoying themselves at the same time.
"Well, well, who was right... again?" Summer heard Steve gloat from behind her, but Natasha waved him off.
"Wait more than two minutes before you claim victory, Rogers."
"I didn't say he'd beat Thor - I said he'd hold his own," Steve pointed out.
Summer tuned it all out, somewhat dazed by the sheer skill and almost viciousness of what she was watching. Thor literally tossed Bucky into the wall, leaving a human-shaped dent there, and he just got up from the floor as if it had been nothing and tried to tackle Thor in response.
And the fact that they were arguably the two most attractive men she'd ever seen might have contributed to her stupor, just a tad.
"Holy... crap..."
She only realized that she said it out loud when she heard Natasha chuckle next to her. "How's those hormones?"
She laughed, then flinched and hissed outside of her control when Bucky took a full Asgardian fist to his face. After his head whipped to the side and he staggered back, he opened his eyes and finally noticed Summer standing there watching. For one very brief second, she stared back and was caught between genuine concern for him and appreciation for how good he looked with his hair a mess and harmless rage in his eyes. Then a blur of silver caught her eye, and before she could realize that Mjolnir was flying directly at the man she was staring at, his metal arm shot up to cover his face, and the legendary hammer bounced off of the arm and went barreling into the wall instead. Tony Stark was gonna be pissed about his gym being partially demolished.
Bucky stared at the wall for a moment, as did Thor, and everyone seemed collectively surprised that the hammer had actually bounced off of his arm. But then the brief interlude was over, and it was back to ridiculously quick and intense hand to hand combat, though the hammer did make a reappearance from time to time.
Realizing the hilarious undertones of watching a millennia-old mythical figure wage mock battle with her almost century-old boyfriend, Summer continued to watch in rapt attention and eventually let her inner monologue find its way out again.
"Thor's like... Wreck-It Ralph and Fix-It Felix all in one..."
Cursing silently when she realized she'd said that out loud as well, she glanced at Natasha to find her eyeing her with slight confusion. Steve was equally clueless, but to her right, the still-seated Sam chuckled and replied, "Good one."
Well, at least one of them was a Disney fan.
She flinched again when it was Thor's turn to get pummeled into the wall, further damaging the room, and suddenly Summer was reminded of all of the footage from the invasion of New York that she'd seen over the last few years. Thor perched on top of a building, lighting the whole thing up with lightning, Thor on the very building she was currently standing in, battling his brother who vaguely resembled some weird kind of bug with his helmet on...
She glanced slightly nervously at Natasha, then asked quietly, "You, uh... you probably... met... and fought... Loki, right?"
"That's one way of putting it. Why?"
Summer opened her mouth, but then closed it, deciding that she didn't need the potential judgment that came with asking the question she'd nearly asked. She focused once more on Bucky, who nearly gave her a heart attack by actually head-butting Thor before throwing more punches, all while his metal arm whizzed and clicked and shifted plates to accommodate the force of the blows. But then Natasha broke her concentration and asked one more time, "Why?"
She stifled a groan and decided she really didn't care about the judgment thing. "Well, I know he was horrible and evil and psycho and all that, but... in the footage he looked really... ah... you, know, from a purely physical perspective -"
"What's your question?" Natasha asked, tone bored.
"Was it just the camera angle or something or was he really that attractive?"
Natasha's poker face gave away nothing for the few seconds that it took her to give an answer. "No."
That was not the answer she'd anticipated. "Really?"
"To be honest," Natasha explained, "the footage didn't do him justice."
"Oh." Well then.
Behind them, Steve groaned. "Ugh, Nat..."
"She said purely physical perspective," Natasha shrugged. "And purely physically, he was -"
"I really don't want to hear the rest of that sentence," Steve interrupted, prompting Natasha to grin.
"Hey, you want me to be honest, right?"
"Maybe not all the time," Steve admitted.
Summer stopped listening to them when a voice from the doorway made everyone stop and look there, including Bucky and Thor.
"And here I thought JARVIS was joking when he said you guys were destroying my gym. Least you could have done was invite me to the party."
Tony Stark's appearance suddenly reminded Summer that she was on a work break, and after fishing her phone from her pocket and checking how much longer she had, she glanced up to find Thor - sporting a nice little cut near his eyebrow and significantly messier but still glorious hair - smiling brightly at Tony and saying, "My apologies, Tony! The damage is my fault for underestimating my opponent."
He clapped Bucky on the shoulder then, and where a lesser man would have likely fallen over from the unintended force of it, Bucky didn't budge. He glanced up at Thor and nodded. "Yeah. Good fight."
"Indeed," Thor agreed. "I was wrong to assume that arm was the majority of your strength. You are quite skilled."
Bucky nodded, only seeming slightly awkward as he appeared to think for a minute before answering, "And you're... okay, I guess."
Thor laughed at that, clapping him again before he started heading away from the open area and towards Summer, whom his gaze instantly fixed upon. She looked him over as he came closer, noting a bruise on his cheekbone that was already looking rather ugly and what looked like a cut on the top of his forehead - probably from when he decided it was a good idea to headbutt the "god of thunder" - and as soon as he was close she reached out a hand to his cheek and said, "You should really put some ice on that."
He shrugged off her concern, taking her hand from his face and loosely holding it as he glanced at Steve and shared what Summer could only describe as a "bro-nod" before he turned back to her and asked, "Break?"
"Yep. Just in time to watch you and Thor beat each other up," she grinned.
He started to lead her away from the group, their hands still lightly entwined as he gave her a look and asked, "Enjoy watching?"
"Honestly, I could watch you beat up other beautiful men all day," she shrugged. "Is that weird?"
"Probably."
As they headed out of the gym, Tony called after them, "I'm sending you a bill, Buck-o!"
Summer laughed and Bucky rolled her eyes, walking them out into the hallway and towards the elevator. "Where we going?" she asked conversationally, noticing how the sounds of her heels hitting the floor with each step had drawn his eyes to her legs. "Back to our floor?"
He nodded. "When are you off?"
"Five," she replied. They stopped in front of the elevator, and she took the opportunity to scrutinize his bruised cheek again. "I'm going up with you and making you put ice on that."
"It'll heal in a day or two either way -"
"I don't care," she protested. "You can't argue with a mother about things like this."
He grinned a little, just as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. A few more minutes of lighthearted bickering followed until they reached the thirty-sixth floor, which was where she physically dragged him to a stool near the bar and made him sit as she went to the freezer. She grabbed the first thing she could find, which was a bag of mixed vegetables, and then marched back to where he sat. He eyed the bag like it was offensive as she held it out for him to take, so she sighed and pressed it to his cheekbone for him. He hissed a little at the coldness, but he got over it quickly, sighing in resignation as she watched his eyes scan over her.
His gaze stopped at her chest, and she didn't expect his fingers that rose up to brush against the opening of her blouse as he noted, "This was buttoned higher earlier."
The way she saw it, she could either be embarrassed at being caught, or she could own it and try to copy the sort of grins that Natasha was a master of. She settled for somewhere in the middle as his eyes flickered up to hers, smiling as she said, "Yeah... you caught me."
He nudged the fabric further apart, then let his fingers play with the next button as he looked up again and asked, "For me?"
She made a slight scoffing sound. "No, for all the cab drivers. Of course it's for you." When he pried open the next button, revealing a bit of the black lace of her bra, her grip on the frozen bag faltered a little and she looked around the room as she hissed, "Hey now - anyone could walk in here -"
He ignored her, leaning forward and away from the bag as he pressed a kiss to the very top of her chest, just above her cleavage, and she dropped the bag on the counter in defeat as she half-heartedly tried pushing him away with her hand that had shot into his hair. "I've got seriously twelve minutes until I have to get back to work!"
"You can do a lot with twelve minutes," he murmured against her skin, holding her by her hips and peppering little kisses along the tops of her breasts as she failed to stop him.
She groaned at his comment, silently cursing and also praising his recent slight spike in confidence. She was sure that it was thanks to his recently recovered memories, which surely involved some most likely amazing physical ones. He was making more comments like these and, rather than looking at her as if he was contemplating what he wanted to do to her, he had been looking at her like he knew exactly what he wanted to do to her.
And that was exactly what he did a moment later, peeking up at her and grinning faintly at her flustered smile as she muttered, "You're killing me here."
"Only fair," he shrugged, gesturing to her blouse.
"Hey, all I did was pop open a button. I didn't start kissing on you and giving you sex eyes ten minutes before you had to be somewhere."
"You can if you want. I won't stop you," he replied, bringing her closer once more and resuming the maddening kisses along the parts of her chest that were exposed.
"I don't... ugh," she muttered, closing her eyes at the little sparks caused by his persisting touch, "I don't know how to give sex eyes."
He chuckled and stopped to look up at her again. "Yeah you do. You were doing it down in the gym."
"... I was?" she asked skeptically.
"You do it all the time."
She did? Suddenly she was very concerned what this supposed look of hers actually looked like. Hopefully it wasn't just wide-eyed staring and drool dripping from the corner of her mouth. Oh man. This could be bad. "Uh..."
Then he stood up, and his lips were on hers before she had a chance to start overthinking. He backed her up against the kitchen counter and she succumbed helplessly to the way that he kissed her, barely noticing what his hands were doing with the front of her shirt until he broke away from her lips. Breathing a bit heavier than she had been before, she looked up at him and then glanced down, finding her blouse fixed and buttoned fully.
"The cab drivers might be disappointed," she joked.
"Good," he muttered before kissing her once more, just before he turned and began heading for his room.
She checked the time once more, biting her lip in frustration when she saw that she was all but out of time. She would have called after him that she'd make him pay later for making her drag herself back to work as a big ball of frustration, but the thing was, she couldn't make him pay yet in the way that she really wanted to.
But one day, hopefully sooner than she thought, she would. She mentally vowed this as Bucky shot her one more look before closing his door, the lingering hint of a crooked grin on his lips her hint that he was thinking along the same lines as she was.
She turned around and headed back to the elevator with a heavy sigh. "One fricking day."
"It's just... really... strange."
On the penthouse level of Stark Tower, sitting outside on the very same area that had once been one of the frontlines of the Battle of New York, sat two very old and yet still very young men, speaking of an experience that very few others in the world, if any, could relate to.
Steve nodded his agreement, looking out towards the city and the buildings that hadn't existed back when he first lived there. "Yeah, strange is one way of putting it."
Staring down at his feet dangling off into the steep drop beneath them, Bucky shook his head slightly and said, "It feels like it was yesterday, but at the same time. It doesn't. I can't... I don't know."
"Wrap your head around it?" Steve guessed. "Yeah. It'll take awhile. I'm not really sure it'll ever feel... right, exactly." Then he glanced over at Bucky and added, "I'm sorry. She lived a great life."
It was nearly impossible to convey in words how bizarre it was to suddenly remember, almost out of the blue, a woman that he'd loved enough to want to marry before the fall, and then almost immediately discover that she had died only a few years earlier at the age of 89. It was so disjointed and startling, and a week later, Bucky was still trying to process it all.
The nice thing was, however, he didn't have to convey it in words, because Steve understood.
"She made it big," Bucky eventually said.
"Oh yeah," Steve nodded. "I've seen some of her stuff. She got to do everything she wanted."
"I knew she would." Bucky then furrowed his brows a bit and added, "I think."
"You did. Always encouraged her to go after her dreams."
The nurse he'd loved had gone on to become an accomplished actress and singer, after the war was over. She wasn't some easily forgotten actress who'd only had one or two recognizable roles - she had left an impressive and distinguished mark on the world that she'd loved. "And she got married. Two kids, too."
Steve nodded. "She seemed real happy."
And Bucky was glad that she had been. He was happy that she'd gotten everything she'd wanted and more, that she hadn't given up and had worked hard to get the success that she'd achieved. It was just hard to accept when a part of him felt as if he should be able to tell her that himself, that he should be able to walk around the corner and show up to her apartment and take her out dancing to celebrate it all. Now, the closest he could get was her grave, and he didn't want to go there.
And it was all doubly difficult when he hadn't remembered a thing about her until just a week earlier.
"I looked her up when I... woke up," Steve said. "She started a foundation for vets and never stopped helping people after she left nursing. She gave an interview where she talked about you, how you inspired her and she wanted to honor your memory."
Bucky looked at Steve a little warily, a little wide-eyed just by a fraction, torn between the need to see this interview for himself and the fear of what it would do to him to see it.
"I'll send you the link," Steve said quietly. "You can watch it whenever you decide you're ready."
Bucky nodded, looking back to the skyline and letting his thoughts swirl around in his head before Steve's voice interrupted them.
"Now that you remember her, it's not gonna... cause problems, is it? It's just that it took me a long time to move on. I know what you're feeling."
Bucky sighed, taking a minute before answering his friend. "That's the thing. Now that I remember her, it's helped me... understand some things. With Summer."
"Yeah?"
He nodded, still staring ahead. "Yeah. It was hard to know when I couldn't remember, but..."
"You love her," Steve surmised. Bucky turned and looked at him curiously, and Steve just smiled a little and said, "Look, I was around the whole time you were hung up on Vivian. I remember the way you looked when you with her. And with Summer, it's like that, only... more."
And that was only further confirmation to what Bucky had already figured out. Then he felt a hand pat his upper arm, and he looked over to see Steve grinning. "I'm happy for you. Honestly, she's as close to perfect for you as it gets. You would have liked her back then just as much as you do now."
He thought on that for a moment, before asking quietly, "Do you think... for her... you think it's the same?"
"Bucky," Steve began, "look at what's happened to her this year. Look at all she's been through and how devoted to you she's been through it all. And look at the way she lights up when she sees you. She's an open book."
Looking back down, Bucky replied, "That's what I think most of the time, but sometimes I just wonder... why. Why she hasn't run yet."
"The answer to that isn't as complicated as you think."
Maybe not. Maybe Steve was right. Maybe Bucky wasn't the only one with feelings that ran as deeply as his did. But Summer, as much of an open book as she was, didn't have the kind of experience that Bucky had just remembered that he had. He had the feeling that they'd both been a bit clueless all along, and now that he was less clueless, it was a shift that would definitely take some getting used to.
After a few moments of silence, Bucky asked, "Can you send me that link?"
"Yep," Steve nodded, dragging his phone out of his pocket.
Afterwards, after Bucky's phone buzzed with the incoming text and he let it be for the moment, knowing he'd rather be alone to watch the interview, Steve took a moment or two before saying, "Don't take this the wrong way, because I wouldn't wish any of this on anyone, especially not you. I know how it hurts and how hard it is to accept. But until now, I don't think anyone else in the world could really understand what it was like to... wake up one day and still be young but find out the person you loved is... either gone or can't remember you."
"It sucks," Bucky muttered, some of the current century's vernacular starting to come natural to him.
"Yeah. But, on the bright side, we've both come out pretty lucky with dames, right?" Steve grinned, pulling him right back to the time that they were both supposed to still be living in.
"No offense," Bucky replied, "but I don't know if I'd call you lucky."
Steve chuckled. "Well, you know me. Can't ever go for the safe option."
That made Bucky almost snort. "Do those even exist anymore?"
"I don't know," Steve sighed. "Probably not. At least not for us."
And that was true on a number of levels. But it was what it was. And anyway, safety was overrated.
After awhile, as the sun started disappearing behind the buildings in the distance, Bucky gathered his legs up off the ledge and said, "By the way, your room isn't soundproof. Keep it down or I'm gonna have to switch rooms again."
"... Oh. Uh... sorry," Steve replied, instantly flustered.
"And there's a kid around now, too, and he's not deaf."
"Right. No, you're right."
Trying not to laugh at Steve's ever-more flushed face, Bucky added as he stood up, "Also, you might not understand her when she starts speaking Russian, but I do, and I'm trying very hard to forget what I heard."
Suddenly Steve's eyes widened and he turned around and asked, "What did she say? She never tells me no matter what I -"
"Don't ask me, because I am never repeating it," Bucky vowed with complete and utter seriousness, grimacing at the memory as he left Steve sitting there on the edge of the building, mildly embarrassed and considering learning Russian himself.
Of the things that Bucky was happy to get used to following Summer's moving in a hallway away from him, it was the casual, everyday sort of affectionate touches that they hadn't had before. Whether it was due to mutual awkwardness in the beginning or her initial desire to keep their relationship hidden from her son, they hadn't done much in the way of lounging together on a couch with Summer half-laying on him until now, at least not without caring who would see. Now, however, it was becoming part of his usual expectations for his evenings in the tower, and it was wonderfully soothing to his nerves.
That night, after dinner was over and the floor's other residents had all either wandered off to their own rooms or gone off to do who knows what else, he found himself on one of the couches, nestled comfortably into the corner of it while Summer sat curled into his left side with her bare feet propped up on the coffee table in front of the couch. He didn't know why she always seemed to choose that side to snuggle into, since it couldn't be all that comfortable in the practical sense, but she seemed to always end up there one way or another.
She was playing on her phone, and he was half-watching her son play a video game in front of the TV. Sam had something called a "Playstation 4", whatever that was, and David had taken to it like a fish to water. In fact, he was pretty sure that the kid hadn't moved an inch in the last hour.
A familiar sounding tune coming from Summer's phone stole his attention from the television, and he glanced over her shoulder to find her watching her watching on her sideways-facing phone a black and white video of what he quickly recognized as swing dancing. The song itself brought forth his recently-recovered memories back to the surface, and with a faint smile tugging at his lips, he asked quietly, "Why are you watching that?"
"No reason," came her reply, but he could hear the smile in her tone.
"Really?"
After a moment, she hit the pause button and then turned around to face him, indeed smiling as she said, "Okay - so I was thinking. And you need a hobby, right?"
"... Right," he said a little cautiously.
"And you remember how to dance now. At least a little. Right?"
Probably more than a little, even if he would be the very definition of rusty. "Right."
"Okay, so," she smiled, "I was thinking that we could try dancing. Not going out anywhere to do it - just doing it here, with you teaching me how. Which might be almost impossible, considering how bad I suck, but I've also never really tried before, so who knows?"
"... You really want to?" he asked in somewhat of surprise, though the ghost of a smile was still on his face.
"Yeah, why not?" she asked cheerfully. "It'll be fun. But only if you want to, of course."
He looked around the room then, several questions passing through his head before he settled on, "Where?"
She shrugged and then looked around. "Well, I guess we'd kinda need an open space, but... I could just move the furniture around in here."
Before he could formulate a response, she had jumped out of his arms and was on her feet, doing a quick sweep of the room before deciding to start with the coffee table. He watched with slight amusement and surprise as she started dragging it back, and she looked up and grinned halfway through, "If you want to help me here, Mister Super-Soldier, feel free."
He grinned back and then stood up, and in a few minutes, all of the furniture in the living room had been pushed aside to make a large, empty area in the center, all while David kept playing as if nothing was happening behind him. Summer giggled at the ease with which Bucky moved it all, and then once it was done, she gestured to Steve's record player and asked, "Does he have some records that'll work?"
"I think so," Bucky replied, walking over to the shelf that the record player sat on. Steve had left it there with his records in the section next to it, and as Bucky thumbed through them carefully, a few of the titles rang familiar. But before he plucked one from the shelf, he turned around and looked at Summer with a little bit of uncertainly and said, "It's probably gonna take awhile for me to... really remember what I'm doing."
"Oh, I know!" she said brightly. "And I have no clue how to even start learning to dance, so I think it'll be extra fun. But I also have a feeling that you're gonna be better than you think."
"Why?" he asked, genuinely curious.
She shrugged a little. "I don't really know. Just a feeling. You wanna watch a video first? Like a refresher?"
He considered that idea for a moment, but then decided to test his memory first and see how much would come back naturally with just the music. He could remember the steps now, remember dancing like it had been yesterday and yet from a different life at the same time. Maybe it would balance out in the end and his feet would remember the same way that his head did.
"Nah. Let's just try it out and see what happens."
She smiled at his decision, and then he turned back around to pick out a record. There was one that he definitely remembered dancing to in the old clubs he used to take girls to, so he picked that one and put it on while Summer turned down David's game to a more reasonable volume.
As the billowing, rhythmic brass and effortless jazz piano of the first song filled his ears, he stared at the record player for a moment, the intricate notes taking him back to times that were becoming increasingly clear the more that he successfully recalled them. He turned around and looked at the woman waiting a few feet away from him. For half a second, he almost expected to see vibrant red hair and a long green dress that he could suddenly remember in almost perfect detail. But then the image faded and instead, he saw dark hair, blue jeans, and a nervous grin.
The same twinge of sadness that he'd been feeling a lot lately struck once again, but it faded in the light of the present and what he was lucky enough to have within it. Keeping his eyes on hers, he stepped forward and closed the gap between them, reaching out and taking both of her hands in his before pulling her closer and taking a deep breath.
"Should I change into a dress?" she asked unexpectedly. "Even I know nobody swing dances in jeans."
"Or barefoot," he shrugged. "Doesn't matter for now."
She nodded, and then grinned and looked down at her feet as he shifted them a bit, trying to get a feel for the music and let his memories do the rest. He learned rather quickly that the less he thought and the more he just let it come naturally, the better the result.
They started off slow. Summer watched the steps he took intently, the grin never leaving her lips, while he slowly gained confidence the more that he moved and found that it did indeed come naturally. He smiled as he taught her a few of the basic steps, and though he could tell how silly she felt trying to copy him, she made a genuine effort, and after a few tries, they were able to speed it up a little.
The first time he spun her out and then drew her back in, he watched the smile bloom across her face with great satisfaction just before doing it again. He could feel a great difference between this and the time they'd danced on their first date - it had been pleasant and fun, but it had felt mostly foreign. There was nothing foreign about this, however, and it made it all the more enjoyable.
"Hey," she said after he'd twirled her around a couple of times, "you're not gonna start flipping me around without warning me, are you? Because I'd probably end up hurting us both somehow."
He chuckled and shook his head. "I'll go easy on you this time."
Her eyes flashed a little and she looked to be on the verge of a response when he instead made her giggle by spinning her out again and pulling her back in such a way that made her come to a stop with her back to his chest. Her eyes widened a bit in surprise and caught his amused gaze. With a wide grin, he placed a sweet kiss to her neck before turning her again back into the standard closed position.
During the time that they spent dancing and laughing in the living room, David had turned around to glance at them a few times. He would look at them both like they were aliens in the midst of an odd alien ritual before losing interest and turning back to his game, which Summer noticed once and found adorable. Bucky took advantage of her momentary distraction by letting go of her hands and grabbing her by her waist with both hands, picking her up and instantly making her start squealing protests.
"Gah, I'm not ready for the flipping yet! Don't flip me! Don't -"
"I'm not," he laughed, though a part of him wanted to do it anyway just to see her reaction. Instead, he simply picked her up and turned them in a circle before putting her down and taking her hands once more, spinning her to face him. "See?"
"Uh huh," she grinned back with slight distrust. "Sure. Look at how good you're doing. You're totally gonna flip me."
He grinned unashamedly. "Well, if you really want me to..."
"No!" she laughed, looking down at his feet again as she tried to keep up with him. "I've already almost tripped and fallen over just doing the easy stuff!"
"You'll catch on," he shrugged. And he really thought she would. If he could come back from all he'd been through and still be able to do this, then surely she could overcome her anxiety and get the hang of it, too.
He lost track of how long they danced, but it eventually came to an end when the mysterious game on the TV stopped holding David's attention and he threw an empty cup at his oblivious mother to signal that he wanted a snack. She didn't even scold him for it, instead slipping out of Bucky's arms and picking up the cup before running a hand through her hair and turning back to Bucky with a smile while breathing a bit heavily. "This is fun! I like it. I'm terrible, but it's still fun. Can we do this more? Maybe a couple times a week or something?"
He nodded without hesitation. "Yeah. Maybe not in this room, but..."
"Oh yeah, I'll figure out somewhere else we can go," she nodded, glancing down at David, who was now impatiently tugging at her shirt. She nodded at him and then looked back up again with a smile. "I think I'm gonna be kinda sore in the morning, actually."
About ten different retorts flew through his head, none of them exactly appropriate to say in front of her kid, but before he could even open his mouth, she had dashed off to the kitchen. He ended up snorting quietly at himself before running a hand through his own hair and glancing back towards the record player.
While Summer rummaged around in the kitchen, he let the record keep playing, eventually ending up near a huge window and looking out at the lit up city as the music played and tickled at his memories. It seemed fitting, listening to the music he remembered and staring out a city he did and did not remember at the same time. The past and present was overlapped and connected in a way that made no sense and could probably drive a mind insane if it focused too much on it, but somehow, in that moment, he felt calm. Calmer than he probably should, but he wasn't one to question such a feeling when it came over him.
He had been staring out the window for some minutes when he saw Summer's reflection slowly appear in the glass, followed by the gentle touch of her lips to his jaw as her hand came to rest on his shoulder. He turned slightly, turning towards her as she said quietly, "I'm gonna go get David ready for bed. See you after?"
He nodded, closing his eyes briefly when she kissed his lips and then returning her slight smile before she left him there once more, this time alone.
The music, the city, the memories, the present - it was all undeniably abnormal, but it was becoming his normal. Remembering the woman he'd loved all those years ago hadn't merely brought a sadness and a sense of grief, but it had given him another piece of himself that had unlocked more memories in the last week. They came in dreams or in conversations or from nothing at all, and though he feared that they'd stop and leave him at another brick wall that it would take months to scale, this was the first time that he had real hope that he may eventually get all of his memories back in time. Just like Steve had always told him.
And also like Steve had mentioned a few times, he finally understood why making new memories was possibly even better than getting back old ones. And that, he knew, was all thanks to the woman who would be knocking on his bedroom door in another hour or so.
He smiled to himself, and while he still didn't smile as easily or broadly as he once had, it no longer felt like the strange thing that it had been upon waking up to his new life.
On some level, Summer was aware that if a couple was attempting to control their physical urges and hold off on certain things until a yet-to-be determined time, it was probably not the greatest idea to end up in a bed together almost every night. But, as it was, that seemed to happen one way or another each night, and this one was no different.
With David happily snoozing in bed back in her own room, she found herself in Bucky's room, in his bed, under his sheets and giggling as she nearly fell off the bed after unwittingly revealing to him one of her most despised weaknesses: her severe ticklishness.
"Stop! Oh, God, stop!" she choked out through embarrassingly high-pitched laughs, ending up as a ball of sheets and giggles as she indeed took a tumble off the bed in a desperate effort to get away from her almost gleeful attacker. Once she hit the floor, she looked up with a goofy smile still plastered on her face and saw him following her, leaning over the edge of the bed with a grin on his face, and before she could get up and run away, his metal arm shot out and wrapped itself under her shoulders and pulled her back up to the bed like it was the easiest thing in the world.
He dropped her on his lap, and his arm thwarted her escape by locking around her waist and holding her close as she placed her hands on his shoulders and immediately started trying to squirm away. He laughed and quickly assured her, "I'm done, I'm done."
She paused but looked at him skeptically. "I don't trust you."
His smile flickered only momentarily before he said a bit more seriously, "No, I mean it. I'm done."
She studied him a moment before deciding to accept that, nodding and saying, "Okay, because I kind of hate being tickled. Just because I'm laughing doesn't mean I like it."
"Fair enough," he replied, right hand busying itself with straightening out her hair that had gotten a bit tangled during the assault. "So tell me what you do like."
While her cheeks returned to their nearly default state of being uncomfortably flushed, she smiled and looked down because after all of this time, his eye contact was still too much sometimes, somehow especially when it was playful. "You probably know the answers to that by now."
"Not as many as I'd like to," he murmured, gathering her hair into his hand and away from her neck so he could kiss her there.
"Well... there's one," she sighed, lacing her fingers through his hair and letting her eyes flutter shut for a moment as shivers shot down her spine at the touch. Then he hummed lowly against her skin and suddenly she was on her back, underneath him, laughing a little at the sudden change just before he grinned back and then kissed her soundly.
It always seemed to come back to this, she thought with the small part of her brain that still managed to function when he kissed her like that. Some nights were more frustrating than others, but each passing one would bring her one mental step closer to being ready for more. She wasn't sure how much longer she could hold out, and she thought Bucky deserved a medal for his own self-control. A medal and... other things.
He seemed to always stop himself just as he was on the cusp of getting carried away, and this time was no different. He broke away from their long kiss to lean his forehead near her temple, breathing deep to steady himself, and she pulled away by just an inch or two to look at him as her fingers continued their trek through his hair. He looked up at her when she did, and with a small smile on her face, she said quietly, "You seem... different."
"Different?" he asked, slight concern coloring his lazily desirous expression.
"Good different," she quickly clarified. "Like you're more... I don't know... here. More... you. Even though I didn't know you then, it just seems more like what I imagined, I guess." Then she paused and added a little cautiously, "Maybe a little happier."
"Happy" had never been an adjective she'd use to describe him before, and it still wasn't, exactly. But "happier" seemed to fit the bill quite well. She watched his brows furrow slightly at her word choice, as if he thought the word was as odd as she did, but then his features softened and he suddenly looked very contemplative, and similar to the way that he did whenever he was trying to gather his words to express something that wasn't particularly easy.
Whatever was going through his head, she didn't need to hear the words to know how enormous of a thing it was for him to have gotten a significant chunk of his memories back. She loved to see him like this, just a bit more self-possessed and confident, and it brought a happiness to her own mind to watch him make such progress. He'd come a long way from where he'd been when she had first found him, and for that matter, so had she.
She kissed him before she could find out what he'd been trying so hard to express, and she could tell how instantly relieved he was. He shifted to his side and she followed him there, hand on the stubble of his cheek as she pressed closer to him and then smiled into the kiss when his hand wandered to her leg and pulled it over his hip to give him the leverage to pull her on top of him as he rolled to his back.
From there, it was a familiar dance and struggle that she didn't think she'd ever get fully used to. Rather than being accustomed to it, she only grew more and more stunned and exquisitely frustrated by the way that he touched her, kissed her, and let his hands tease and explore both over and under her clothes that a growing part of her wished he'd just rip to shreds. As much as she wished for that, however, she couldn't be more grateful for the fact that she knew he wouldn't until the day came when they'd both decide that they were ready. His respect for her might have been one of the single most alluring things about him.
Between the heat of his kiss and the dizzying contrast of the warm flesh and cold metal of his hands currently running up her back underneath her shirt, she was almost too far gone already to register the numbers on the digital clock directly in front of her line of sight to the left when her eyes opened for a moment. But then she did a double take and groaned almost instantly, "Oh my gosh, it's late."
The hour didn't matter much to Bucky, who merely pulled her back down to him and kissed her enough to nearly make her forget what she'd been saying in the first place, but she had an early day the next morning. She waited until he stopped to take a breath and then smiled, "I have to wake up in like six hours."
He growled slightly in annoyance and kissed her again, but his arms around her loosened a bit in defeat. "Sorry," she said quietly, kissing him lightly one more time before pulling back to smile at him. "After tomorrow I've got two days off."
He nodded, and she pretended that she couldn't feel how frustrated she was as she slowly got off of him and moved her legs off of the bed. But as soon as her feet hit the floor, there was an arm around her waist again and lips at her ear as he said quietly, "You could sleep here."
"Yeah," she said a little shakily as he kissed under her ear, "except we'd just do this all night instead of sleeping."
"Not all night," he countered.
"Close enough," she chuckled, forcing herself to slip away from him and get to her feet. Then she glanced back at him sitting there with his ruffled hair and darkened eyes that were glued to her, and she almost gave in until she remembered the fact that she hadn't gotten a full night's sleep in days due to this very reason.
She grabbed her phone from his nightstand and then glanced at him one more time, finding him equal parts adorable and maddeningly sexy with his unhappy expression. She walked the few steps to him and leaned down to kiss him one more time, and he took the opportunity to try to pull her back into the bed, which made her giggle as she resisted.
"I've gotta go," she half whined, trying to pry his arm off of her waist.
"Not if you don't want to," he argued, lips an inch away from hers.
"Yes I do," she pointed out with a smile. "Now goodnight."
He made a noise of protest and then pulled her closer, kissing her while she giggled and half-heartedly tried to pull away. "Goodnight," she repeated, almost sing-song as she successfully pried his hands off and then managed to stand up for a full second before he pulled her back down and made her laugh again.
They went back and forth for another moment or two before Bucky finally conceded defeat, which she showed her appreciation for with one last kiss, more lingering than the others. Then she smiled after she pulled away, her tone slightly goofy as she pecked his cheek and said, "Now, for the last time, goodnight. I love you. I'll see you in the morning."
Still smiling, she stood up, and this time, he let her go without a hint of a protest. She didn't really register the sudden blankness that fell on his face, mistaking it instead for resignation at her leaving, and she gave him one more smile before leaving the room while she still could. All the while, she was completely unaware of the way in which he stared after her with a mixture of shock and slight confusion on his face.
After, she went to her room and went about her usual routine without a second thought, changing clothes, brushing her teeth, and putting her hair back in a ponytail before dragging herself off to bed, grimacing a little when she checked the time again and hoping she would fall asleep almost immediately upon hitting the bed.
Still blissfully oblivious, she turned off the light and crawled under the covers, sighing heavily and turning on her side as she closed her eyes resolutely, willing herself to go to sleep and make the most out of the five and a half hours she had before she had to get up.
It was just as she entered the state between sleep and wakefulness that what she said back in Bucky's room suddenly hit her with all of the force of a bucket of ice to her face.
Her eyes flew open and her jaw dropped as she suddenly sat up as if out of a dream, gasping almost comically noisy as she exclaimed as loudly as one could in a whisper meant to not awaken a child, "Oh my God!"
Fighting the urge to turn into a literal tomato and then die of embarrassment at her own weirdness and not-ideal, accidental proclamations of love that she wasn't even fully aware of, she then collapsed back on to the bed with a noisy, mortified groan. She covered her face with her hands and instantly knew she definitely wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight, because now she suddenly had a whole lot more to think about than she'd had a few minutes ago.
Letting her hands flop limply beside her head on the pillow, she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, wondering how she could keep thinking to herself that she didn't know if she was in love with him or not when the words had felt so natural coming out of her mouth that it had taken her about a full twenty minutes before she realized that she'd even said them.
Now Bucky's expression as she'd left his room made perfect sense.
She cringed and covered her face again. This is not how these things should go, or at least that's what she thought. He had to think that she was a complete and utter freak. Who else would just blurt out something like that like she was mentioning the state of the weather outside?
And now she had to figure out how to act around him the next day. Should she mention it, or just keep it to herself and act like she never said anything? What if she freaked him out and now he would pull away because it was too much too soon? Granted, it didn't feel even slightly too soon, but still...
And that was how she spent the rest of the night, overthinking and hovering on the edge of full-blown panic rather than sleeping, dreading the following day and all of the nightmarish scenarios she expected to result from her unexpected verbal confession of love.
She should have just stayed in his room like he'd suggested, because at least then, she probably would have been too busy doing other things to blurt out the words currently rattling around her brain like a waking nightmare.
She groaned and turned over face-first into her pillow, groaning pathetically and giving up all hope of ever even resembling a normal human being. Meanwhile, in his room, Bucky still sat in the exact same position that she'd left him in, still staring ahead and barely blinking, infinitely confused and for once overthinking nearly enough to rival Summer herself.
A/N: first and foremost, my deepest thanks to midnightwings96, who has lent her help to this and future dancing scenes and made them so much better than I originally had that it is ridiculous. Dancing is harder for me to write decently than fight scenes, and that's saying something, so extra thanks to her for being amazing :D also, my usual thanks and love to the readers, reviewers, and followers, you're all the best and your feedback continues to make my day. Eventually here soon-ish we're gonna catch up with my stash of chapters, and updates may come a little slower than they have been, but I'll try to keep up with the once-weekly thing once we get there. Anywho, I shall see you all next week, and thanks once again for continuing to be amazing :D