Chapter 6
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A shout of, "Look out," got Bucky to snap his head up from his phone where he'd been reading a rather lengthy text from Sam about a new mission that had come up just the day before, to see men waving him and others away from the section of sidewalk he'd been about to wander through for no readily obvious reason.
Then he followed their gazes upward to see an oversized refrigerator dangling precariously a few stories off the ground.
An ominous twang got him to focus on the cable holding the appliance in the air, the wires near the crimp point for the eye hook snapping under the combination of weight and tension. People had gathered about, keeping an almost reasonable distance from the disaster about to happen. Bucky, however, judged most of them to be too close, the fridge would probably explode to some degree and send metal shards flying about in every direction when it hit the ground regardless of the straps currently holding the various compartments and doors shut.
He tucked his phone away and rushed forward as the cable gave up the ghost with a series of almost musical metallic pings and sent the giant cube of death plummeting towards the sidewalk and the hapless crew who had been valiantly trying to lower it back down before disaster happened.
He didn't take the time to think about what he was about to attempt and instead let his body do the work to catch the damn thing and arrest its fall. He knew he wouldn't be able to support the weight for long and didn't exactly have a lot of time to plan so just simply reacted. He got underneath the behemoth, arms up in an effort to grab the bottom edges of the width since it would be better suited to his shoulder span. He had a half-second to wish he'd worn his gloves to at least lessen the impact on his real hand, but then the fridge was there, the lip on the underside smacking into his palms, the right one, as expected, protesting at the edge of metal connecting forcefully with his thankfully enhanced flesh. He grunted, permitting both knees and elbows to act as springs and not stop the falling appliance but slow it enough for a more controlled and marginally less destructive fall.
He didn't wait to have a secure grip and simply permitted gravity to do its job. He shifted so that the fridge would now fall in a somewhat controlled manner onto its side and hit the ground with only a comparatively slight squeal of stainless steel to concrete.
At the same time, the cable had whipped back up towards the block and tackle mounted on the roof of the building. The men who'd been holding onto their end all fell backward onto the street at the sudden release of tension. Bucky, certain the fridge would not be moving, shifted in preparation to grab the metal cable to keep it from hitting anyone on the ground as he knew it would whip wildly about once it had slid past the pulley.
Luckily the crimp itself had not fallen off and jammed up against the top of the pulley, preventing the entire wire from falling down amongst those watching, and recording, on the sidewalk below. Confident the wire would remain in place, for now, he walked over to those who'd been trying to lift, then hurriedly lower the appliance, to make certain none of them had been injured either when they'd fallen or by stray bits of metal splintering off the cable.
"Everyone okay?"
He got nods all around as they alternately stared at him and then to the mostly undamaged fridge. They all wore khaki carpenter pants and matching tees or polos with the name Urban Refurb which suggested they worked for the same company.
"Thanks for the save, man."
"No, problem," Bucky responded, just glad he'd had the dumb luck to be there when needed and had been of some assistance.
Now that the excitement had ended, the crowd began to filter away, phones that had plainly been recording the events tucked back into pockets and purses. He suspected he'd be on the internet within a few hours at most and sighed heavily. All his efforts at trying to live quietly in this corner of Brooklyn seemed to be all for naught.
The man who'd spoken gave his team some direction, which included getting the wire down safely, before focusing back on Bucky, who had failed to take advantage of the distraction to make an escape. He still had trouble just talking to ordinary people, his hindbrain assuming the worst in pretty much all interactions so he steeled himself for what would be coming next.
Of course, it wasn't anything like what he had expected.
"You want a job?"
Bucky blinked. "Uh…" he managed, probably sounding like a total idiot.
The man waved him over towards the truck the refrigerator had arrived in and out of the way. "Let me start that again. I'm Brett Collins, I'm the general contractor for Urban Refurb." He held out his hand to be shaken which Bucky did with all due care.
"Bucky."
Brett chuckled. "I know. You are kind of famous."
Bucky sighed softly, remembering when Ni had said almost the exact same words. "So I keep getting told."
Brett grinned. "Still not used to being a hometown hero, huh?"
As far as Bucky was concerned he didn't yet qualify as a hero no matter how often Nienna argued otherwise. Plus, he wanted people to see him not the persona they seemed to think he took on when saving the day even if only in a comparatively minor way. "All I did was keep that fridge from hitting the ground too hard. You'll still need to replace it for the owner."
"All you did… It took five of us to lift that damn thing with the pulley, and you caught it like it weighed nothing."
"Not true," Bucky tried to argue.
"So you're saying you weren't going to try to catch that damn truck before the new Captain America showed up?"
Bucky blinked. There hadn't been any civilians around for that part of the fight, but that didn't mean there hadn't been security cameras that had captured the moment for posterity. Video that had clearly made its way out to the population at large, who would then use it to blackmail him. "You do realize there was a fair chance I was going to fail at that, right?"
Brett's look turned serious. "Nah, you're not the kind that likes to fail. They might have been shaken up a bit but the people inside would have walked away."
Bucky said nothing since that's the same conclusion he'd come to that night before Sam had shown up and saved him the trouble. "None of which has anything to do with a job offer."
"How do you figure that? You can lift more than the rest of my crew, which would free them up to work on other projects. And, I suspect, you would have noticed the cable was frayed before we had that monstrosity of a fridge up five stories."
Bucky couldn't answer that as he had not been there, but it was at least possible. "I don't have a contractor's license."
"Don't need one. You'd be part of the furnishings crew. You'd be assisting in getting the bigger pieces into the locations and not be involved with the actual installs." Brett seemed to realize Bucky was on the fence, after all, he was still listening to the offer and hadn't just walked away to go about his day. "Look, we do high-end refurbs, some of which end up on those shows people are so fond of watching. The pay is… higher than you'd expect for what is essentially an entry-level job."
"I have other commitments," Bucky reminded, Sam's text sitting there on his phone waiting for him to respond.
Brett literally hand waved it. "We can work around it. Working with Captain America should come first anyway. A job like this takes months even if everything goes to plan, though if you are willing to do demo as well, you'll see more pay."
Bucky wanted to say no. To not be involved with people who would ultimately judge him and potentially end up in the line of fire should he piss off the wrong person and yet… He had been looking for a day job, something outside his small circle of friends, and the set routine he followed pretty much daily. At some point, he had to take that leap of faith and trust. Had to learn how to live in this world. Make friends, work with people. Figure out who he wanted to be.
Recluse might seem safer, but he had the potential of an extremely long life ahead of him and he really needed to decide if he wanted to spend it living in a cave or out in the world.
"My other work schedule is not regular," he warned, giving Brett one last chance to rescind his offer.
"We'll manage. Hell, if I could convince you to, I'd have you assist today."
Bucky knew any decision he made right now would change the course of his life in at least some small way. "But… paperwork?"
"Day laborer until the I-9s and such get filled out. I keep paperwork on hand for just this situation." Brett's entire demeanor brightened, clearly hoping he'd talked Bucky into coming to work for him at least part-time.
"Give me five minutes and I'll be able to give you an answer about today."
Brett nodded. "And after today?" he prompted.
"Part-time and local only. We'll see how it goes from there."
Brett clapped his hands together in excitement. "Excellent."
"You cannot use my name to get clients, I'm just another grunt worker," Bucky said, making it clear that the company could not profit off his involvement.
"Done, we'll draw up a special clause to the employment contract to cover it."
That satisfied Bucky for the time being. "Let me make that call."
Brett nodded vigorously. "I'll grab the paperwork just in case, hell, I should probably pay you for what you did, and it'll let me get the basic info I need for the formal job offer."
Bucky shook his head in amusement. He couldn't recall the last time some literal stranger had been this enthusiastic to meet him. He stepped away, pulling his phone out of his pocket to reread the original text from Sam only to see two more that were nearly as long waiting for him.
The potential mission seemed to be GRC related, some problem at one of the new/old borders in Europe that treaty negotiations had been stalled on. One of the countries in question had requested Sam, though not necessarily under his guise of Captain America to assist and hopefully break the stalemate with his ability to see all sides of an issue. Sam wanted Bucky to come along in case tensions rose, as he would be better at seeing the potential problems or any misdirection going on.
A few quick texts and they had a leave date set for late tomorrow, as the discussion was being tabled for at least forty-eight hours to permit all sides to calm down and hopefully permit cooler heads to prevail.
Bucky assured Sam he'd be at the airport with his go-bag at the appointed time, then walked back over to Brett who'd been waiting patiently for a final answer on helping out today.
"Well?"
"You can have me today and tomorrow morning, after that I have to fly out of the country."
Brett practically glowed. He held out his hand to be shaken. "I'll take it."
Bucky shook his hand suddenly wondering just what he'd gotten himself into.
. . . . .
Ni had come prepared. A gym bag over one shoulder, lifting gloves on her hands that had a limited amount of padding and that focused on her palms instead of knuckles. Wearing what he had observed to be typical workout wear for a woman her age. However, they weren't at some fancy place that catered to the weekend warrior who ran on a treadmill and then lifted some weights in a half-assed manner. Or worse, muscle heads who thought they'd impress the stick-thin women with their overuse of steroids to create musculature that shouldn't exist.
No, this was the place he frequented since his apartment was too small to hold workout equipment of any stripe. Just a local boxing gym a couple of walking blocks over from his place. They had a steam room and weight room as well as all the traditional boxing equipment you could ask for including three separate rings.
None of the regulars were dressed anything like Ni, which she had obviously observed as she appeared uncomfortable as she looked over the place.
"Morning, Ni."
"Morning." She glanced about again, unable to not notice the eyes gazing back, though none showed more than some curiosity at the newcomer. Bucky had experienced the same looks until they became familiar and comfortable in his presence. Guests were permitted to members if pre-arranged, which he had done. Though if she didn't balk at his training plan she'd end up spending a lot of time here. The kind of training she needed could more easily be done in this type of environment compared to those huge chain gyms. This was not something he'd be able to do at a Planet Fitness. Admittedly a dojo would work as well, but only to a point.
But that was in the future. Right now he needed to discover what he was working with.
"Bucky…"
"It's fine. I had you wear your usual for a reason." He cocked his head. "Trust me?"
That made her realize just how tense she'd become. He once again wondered what exactly had occurred to cause her to leave Manhattan for Brooklyn.
She rolled her shoulders in an effort to relax a bit and nodded. "Yes."
He waved towards one of the benches. "Toss your bag over there, keep the water bottle if you brought one."
She gave him a derogatory look and pulled it out of the bright green gym bag and set it down next to his. It thumped solidly on the ancient wood floors and made him wonder what else she had inside it. "Okay, so what first?"
Bucky picked up the tablet he set aside and tapped it awake. "We're going to see what you're made of, doll."
One eyebrow rose on her forehead. "And what does that entail, exactly?" she asked suspiciously.
He snickered and flipped the tablet around so she could see what he had planned. "Just a skill assessment. Need some idea of what you can do before I can plan how to train you."
"Oh," she responded, sounding disappointed.
"You didn't really think I'd have you doing spin kicks on day one, did you?"
"What? No. I just… I just don't want to waste your time, is all." She glanced about at the various pieces of equipment around them. "I'm never going to be super soldier material."
He shook his head. "And I don't expect you to be." He debated the merits of giving her his reasoning on beginning her training this way but saw her body posture with slumped shoulders and hands gripping each other tightly enough to make the knuckles white. He put the pieces together and figured out real quick she didn't want to disappoint him. Didn't want him to discover that she might not be able to learn enough to do either of them any good.
He gave her a real once over. Yes, she was a scrawny thing and would probably never be able to bulk up the way an average male could without serious chemical help, but that had never been the goal. She would never be able to go punch for punch with someone who outweighed her by a hundred pounds. His goal would be to give her the tools she needed to survive until help could arrive, even if it meant nothing more than running away.
Bucky had a plan. He just needed to give her the confidence that it would work. Not instantly, but if she were even half of what he suspected within a few weeks she would have the basics down and up her survival chances by a factor of five.
He moved forward and set a hand on her shoulder. She gazed up at him with an almost wounded look in her eyes. "This is step one, Ni, give it a chance, okay?"
She nodded. "Okay."
He gestured with his chin towards the weight bench. "Have a seat and we'll get started."
She did as asked and he picked up a pair of five-pound weights that he placed in her hands. "Wow, I clearly haven't made a great impression on you."
He snorted. "Proper position, and show me some curls with a four-count. One up three down, set of ten."
She rolled her eyes but did as asked. Her seated position was excellent and her control impeccable. Her up was fast, her down nice and slow, proving she had been taught correctly by that previous trainer she'd mentioned. She completed the set easily and he swapped the fives out for twenties without getting so much as an eyebrow raise from her and had her do the same length set. At seven she began to struggle but completed the set with no real trouble.
Then he switched the weights for thirty-fives.
She frowned slightly, but after shifting and resettling into the proper position she did her best, but only managed two complete reps before being unable to lift them again. Instead, she set them on the floor next to her feet. "Urf, sorry."
"Don't be." He made a note then set the tablet aside. "Lie down on the bench if you would."
She did so as he explained what she would be doing this time. When he picked up the thirty-fives she stared at him as if he'd gone insane, but didn't argue. This time she managed three before being unable to push them upright. On the third try she'd made it halfway before getting stuck and he'd quickly moved in to assist, if only minimally. His hands under hers and adding support as she forced them up and then aided her control as she brought them back down.
When the weights had been placed back on the floor she grumbled, "That sucked." She sat up and reached for her water bottle taking a good long drink from it.
He shook his head. "You did fine, promise."
She glared up at him in clear disbelief. "Says the man who can lift a car."
"That has got to be one of the least impressive things about me."
She snorted. "Hate to say this but I agree with that."
"You ready for the next test?"
She nodded and they got back to work.
By the time he'd gotten all the numbers he needed he'd found himself impressed with not only her physical strength but her determination. She'd figured out exactly what he was doing with his apparent torture of her not too long after the benchpresses and afterward had given her all. Challenging herself beyond what even he had intended. No, she did not have the strength of a body-builder, but he hadn't expected her to either. She was also far from weak and as was typical for women, her lower body strength outstripped her upper body by a fair margin.
Bucky had tested pretty much every muscle group and had a fair idea of her potential. Now he had to gauge her flexibility. Some moves might need to be modified since her training was beginning at such a late age. Not that he considered her old by any stretch of the imagination but there was a reason you began training in dance or sports or martial arts as a child. The body and mind were far more flexible at that age and that permitted one to learn at a rate that could not be surpassed once one got into their twenties.
He suspected that he would have minimal trouble learning anything he threw at her.
She had finished her water and he'd waved to the back of the gym where she could get a refill and hit the head if she needed to. She returned a few minutes later, grabbed a towel out of her bag, and wiped off some of the excess sweat. He looked her over attempting to assess whether or not she could handle more today. "Do you need to get back for work or anything?"
She shook her head. "No. I am yours for as long as you want me."
He did not react to her choice of words as he would happily keep her around for an excessively long time to come. "How about a couple more hours for today and I should be able to work up a training plan for you to look at." He narrowed his eyes. "Just to be upfront, when I'm training I won't be going easy on you because we are friends. If we continue this I intend to train you to survive pretty much any situation and I can't do that if I'm being nice. And I don't want you mad at me for doing what I need to do to reach that point. So, if you want out, or a different trainer let me know right now. I know a few of the guys here and they'd do a good job."
Nienna took a couple of minutes while sipping her water to seriously think about what he'd said before speaking. "Provided once we're not here, not training, everything goes back to normal. I like you Bucky, and don't want either of us to walk out of here holding a grudge."
"Agreed. This is going to be work, doll."
She grinned. "Bring it on."
. . . . .
Bucky: do you have to go into the office this week
Ni: no, thank god. Traffic is gonna be horrible this week
Bucky: cool. I'll book you a flight
Ni: ! to where?
Bucky: does it matter, you'll get to see me ;)
Ni: I'll have to bring work, not going into the office does not mean I don't have to work. I have mouths to feed
Bucky: understood. Now go pack
Ni: for how long?
Bucky: for a week
.
The sound of the truck crunching it's way up the unpaved drive caused Bucky to turn his head at the wrong moment, the ball just flung at him impacted the metal shoulder with a distinctive twang of Vibranium and fell to the ground, undamaged, but the metal had done its job and absorbed the kinetic energy preventing it from bouncing even a short distance away.
Sam pulled up shaking his head. "You forget how to do that Jedi mind trick of yours?"
"What Jedi mind trick?" Bucky questioned as he looked past Sam to Ni, who sat there with wide eyes and looking seriously stunned.
"The one where you catch stuff that you shouldn't be able to. That Jedi mind trick," Sam explained, his look turning sour as if whatever set-up he'd planned had been ruined by Bucky refusing to even notice the bait.
Bucky just shook his head. "Heightened reaction time is all."
"Sure, Buck, that's why you got nailed with the ball."
"It wasn't a battle situation," Ni stated, "He knows he's safe so…" she trailed off with a shrug of her shoulders.
Bucky nodded in agreement. "What she said."
Sam swiveled his head from one to the other. "You two are no fun."
"Not at all. Now, go park and turn her loose."
Sam laughed. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
He drove the truck to the spot Sarah had designated as parking and turned off the engine. He exited the driver's side, reached into the space behind the seats, and came out with a rolling suitcase that he set on the uneven ground. Nienna came around the front with a second smaller bag and a messenger bag that most likely held her tech on her shoulder. The duffle bag appeared to be bulky so he suspected it held even more tech as opposed to clothes.
"Gimme those." Sam held out his hand for her bags. "I'll take them inside."
She clutched the straps in what almost appeared to be terror. "No. I will not have Captain America playing bellhop for me."
Sam scowled. "I told you to call me Sam. And you're our guest, Sarah would damage me if I didn't treat you as such. Now hand it over."
Ni glanced over at Bucky, so he gave her a nod which seemed to convince her to just go with it for now. Still, she reluctantly handed over the bags, which Sam flung over his shoulder with a grunt, which all but confirmed the tech in the larger one. "Thank you," she managed, her voice oddly faint.
"Go say 'hi' to your boy toy," Sam mock ordered as he trundled away with all her bags.
She remained frozen in place so Bucky walked to her. "How was your flight?"
Her response was to punch him in the shoulder, the right one, solidly enough that he grunted in surprise. "Why didn't you warn me Captain fu-" she caught the kids moving closer and quickly modified her word choice, "-udging America was picking me up at the airport?"
It took Bucky a second to comprehend her reaction. "It's just Sam," he reminded her.
"To you, he's just Sam. To me, he's a freaking Avenger. You know one of those heroes who saved this planet from Thanos." She went eerily still, her face going oddly pale in the bright sunlit they stood in.
"Ni, are you okay? What's wrong?" Bucky set his hands on her shoulders in case she fainted or something. Maybe the humidity in Louisiana was too much for her New York born and bred system.
"I… I think I just realized I'm hanging out with superheroes," she mumbled, staring up at him with a stunned look on her face. "How the hell did that happen?"
This time Bucky did catch the ball that came whizzing at them. It hadn't been thrown hard, but still would not have been pleasant for Ni to take to the face had he not sensed it coming. He turned his head to glare at the boys, who both realized they had made an error in judgment.
Cass elbowed AJ. "I told you he'd catch it this time."
Before Bucky could verbally admonish them AJ asked, "Is she your girlfriend?"
Bucky didn't quite know how to answer that question and he paused just long enough for Ni to collect herself and come up with an appropriate response.
"Well, I am a girl and his friend so technically, yes, I am his girlfriend."
Considering Bucky had given a nearly identical answer not all that long ago he didn't ask for elaboration even though part of him really wanted to. "Cass, AJ, this is my friend Nienna." He made certain to put emphasis on the Nye so that they would be saying her name correctly from the get-go.
AJ's grinned. "Oh, this is the lady my mom keeps saying you need to invite over. She's pretty." Then he remembered his manners and stuck out his hand to be shaken and introduced himself, with Cass following suit a moment later.
Ni shook each of their hands with a professional demeanor. "Nice to meet both of you." She turned to Bucky. "Sarah is…"
"Sam's sister. Their parents left them the house so Sam hangs out here when not in DC or working," Bucky explained efficiently.
It took mere seconds for Ni to work through the familial connection and when she reached the endpoint she snickered. "Uncle Sam? Really? Isn't that a touch too spot on?"
Bucky shrugged, hiding the smile. "It's always a fallback option should the government get pissy about the whole 'Captain America' thing."
She huffed out a breath. "Well, then they shouldn't have tried to usurp the title with a cheap knockoff."
Both Cass and AJ roared with laughter at that. "I like her," Cass stated, "don't screw this up."
Ni chuckled, while Bucky did everything in his power to not blush like a schoolgirl. "I'll do my best," he assured them. He tossed the ball lightly in his hand causing both boys to straighten in obvious anticipation. "Go long."
They took off at a run, Bucky letting them get across the yard before he heaved the ball upwards in a high arc that they both tracked, trying to anticipate where the ball would come down. Some jostling occurred as they each fought for the right to catch the plummeting sphere with Cass coming out the winner this time.
"How much higher would it have gone with your left hand?" Ni asked as he set his hand on her back and urged her towards the house now that the boys had been temporarily distracted.
"Why would I throw it with my left?"
"You are not going to try and make me believe you're not ambidextrous, are you?"
He shook his head. "I'm actually right-handed, but you're correct that I've been trained to do most things with either hand." He paused at the foot of the stairs. "What made you realize that?" He truly wondered what he'd done to give that away.
"You've been teaching me to fight with either side, safe to presume you know how to do the same." She settled down on the steps fanning herself with a hand. Not that moving the thick humid air faster would make her any cooler.
"Huh." He didn't know why he kept forgetting how damn smart she was, though maybe it was a tech-smart versus real-world smart divide. Most people would not have even noticed that he could and did fight either-handed given he favored his right in most normal activities. In a life or death situation, you used every advantage you had. If you wielded a knife just as effectively with your off-hand as your dominant you would have an advantage over your adversary whether it was an enemy on the battlefield or a mugger down a dark alley. So, yeah, he'd been teaching her every single trick he knew in an effort to ensure she'd be sticking around in his life for a while.
"C'mon, let's get you inside before you melt." He helped her to her feet and escorted her inside. "Sam?"
"Kitchen," Sam called back.
Ni trailed after Bucky towards the back of the house where they found Sam preparing a tray of drinks and snacks. Bucky watched as her eyes roved over everything, taking in the potential of the room. Just as he'd been teaching her. She'd turned out to be a quick study and while tempted to quiz her on what she'd spotted when it came to weapons and exits he refrained, not wanting Sam to wonder why he'd been training her to do such things.
No need for Sam to worry unduly. Plus, there'd been no obvious attempts on her life since they'd installed the security system. At least none that she'd told him about.
"Hungry?" Sam asked, watching the two of them with interest.
Her focus swiftly snapped to Sam. "I can be. Thirsty too."
Sam poured her a glass of the ubiquitous sweet tea everyone in the south seemed to live on and handed it to her. She took a sip then drank half of it down quickly, proving that it tasted as good as always. Bucky looked over the offerings on the table. Cold cuts, bread, cheeses, and condiments that could easily be turned into sandwiches. He could smell something cooking in the oven, his nose picking up chicken, rice, and spices, which meant a casserole of some kind.
"That dinner I smell?" Bucky asked.
Sam nodded.
"Whose recipe?"
Sam frowned. "Are you suggesting my cooking is bad?"
Bucky shook his head. "No, I'm saying Sarah's is better."
Ni snickered as she plucked a slice of cheese from the plate and took a bite.
Sam sighed. "Can't argue with that. She's testing some new recipes and we get to be the guinea pigs."
"Oh horrors," Bucky replied, clearly not horror-struck by the thought of testing Sarah's cooking. He slid an empty plate towards Ni in obvious encouragement to eat something more substantial than a slice of cheese. "Help yourself, we don't stand on ceremony around here."
Her eyebrows went up at the we. "Is Sarah a chef?"
Both men stared at her. "Uh, no?" Sam finally answered. "Why would you think that?"
"The whole testing of recipes," Ni stated, sounding confused. "That's kind of a chef thing to do."
The men glanced at each other as if unsure how the conversation had ended up there. Finally, Sam said, "If you eat a sandwich I'll tell you."
Ni grumbled but proceeded to assemble a sandwich to appease her host.
"We have a fishing business, Sarah runs it, but money's tight so she has a side job selling meals to locals. It's kind of off the books, so we don't exactly advertise it, you know?"
"Ah," Ni said with a nod. "A leftover from the Snap years I bet." She took a bite of her sandwich before Sam could insist she eat the food too.
Sam nodded. "There's plenty of people who still rely on her for meals so…" He shrugged. "She keeps doing it even though she doesn't really need to anymore."
She swallowed and drank some tea before responding. "Let me guess it's mostly people who counted on her then versus new… customers."
Sam's eyebrows bounced upwards. "Yeah, how did you know?"
"We had to do a lot of that in New York too," she explained. "Those of us who relied on one another to survive still do to a degree. All those people came back, but the supply chain still hasn't fully recovered. The world didn't instantly fix itself when everyone reappeared. Made it harder in some ways." She shook her head. "And I did not mean to make this the most depressing lunch ever. Sorry."
Sam shook his head. "Don't be. You are not the first person to tell me some version of that. And… you're not wrong. It may have been nine months since we got back, but the world is still seriously screwed up." He looked over at Bucky. "We've been working with the GRC to mediate issues with treaties and border disputes and a half dozen other problems that have cropped up since everyone was brought back."
Bucky was only slightly surprised Sam had brought up what would probably be considered classified information with Nienna, not that he'd gone into any details, but even the press had not been made aware of a lot of the infighting behind the scenes. The Flag Smashers may have put a great big public target on the issues being faced, but the GRC and most governments had done everything in their power to bury it.
It hadn't worked. The sheer number of people involved with the movement kept it in the spotlight since Karli and the others had essentially become martyrs to the cause. The ordinary humans left behind took the power that had been bequeathed to them and used it. Group meetings and flyers, and interviews and websites, and on and on and on. They had toned down the aggressiveness to a degree, but the current leaders made certain to keep their goals in the news pretty much nightly.
They'd met more than a few of them during negotiations going on through the GRC.
"Are you a Flag Smasher?" Bucky asked, wondering why he hadn't before.
"Does it matter?" she retorted.
He had to take a moment to think about that. It shouldn't, he knew that, but he apparently had some deep-seated concerns that it would. "Honestly, I don't know." He suddenly realized that the people he'd been meeting through her could be part of the group and he never would have known it as none of them had mentioned anything about the group or its political leanings.
Ni didn't seem upset by his answer. "For the record, I'm not, but I do agree with some of their… tenets? Beliefs? One world seems far safer than a bunch of arguing countries who have no means of defending the whole. You'd think losing half the life on the planet would have changed those who'd been Snapped away, but clearly not."
Sam began assembling a sandwich for himself as he spoke, "No shit. How did you handle the change?"
Ni shook her head. "You don't want to hear my whinging about the Snap years."
"Actually I do." He waved towards the dining table."Sit please."
She grumbled a bit more, then carried her plate and drink to the table, Sam joined her a couple of minutes later with his own food in hand. "Bucky, eat something. I can hear your stomach rumbling from here."
Bucky growled softly but quickly worked on making a few sandwiches for himself. He'd forgotten to eat breakfast as usual without someone to nag at him to do so.
"I was living in Manhattan at the time, working on a government project that I can't really talk about."
Sam nodded in encouragement for her to continue.
"When it happened… we had no clue what was going on. People just disappearing; falling to dust and leaving the rest of us wondering when we would do the same. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life." She took a bite of her lunch while pondering what to say next.
Bucky knew her well enough to see how hard talking about those days still was and suspected she hadn't told anyone this particular rendition except maybe her therapist. "No rush, Ni. And if you can't, we'll understand."
She swallowed, sipped the tea then sat back in the chair, shoulders a touch slumped. She ran a hand through her hair. "It was a week before we knew about the battle in Wakanda and Thanos. By then the bodies had begun to really pile up."
"Bodies?"
"Car accidents, planes, boats, helicopters, you name it, all suddenly without anyone in the proverbial driver's seat. Vehicles blocking roads and tunnels, people trapped inside. Children, babies left alone. The elderly who needed constant care were abandoned. Yeah, we began rescue efforts almost immediately but in the middle of a busy weekday, the city has millions of people. Even with half suddenly gone there was just too much real estate to search efficiently. It was horrible. Then reality really hit."
Bucky had finished his pile of sandwiches and brought them over to the table, taking the seat next to Ni, because why not? Maybe his presence could grant her some modicum of comfort as she told her harrowing tale.
"And what reality was that?"
"By the time we were into June the food supply had begun to dry up. Grocery stores weren't receiving deliveries because there was no one really to deliver them. Warehouses full of food just sitting there going to waste. Restaurants with full coolers and freezers, the food going bad where it had been stored. Some places tried to stay open, some just gave away the food to anyone who could carry it instead of watching it rot. Hoarders would steal all they could then try to sell it for exorbitant prices. I know of two who ended up quite dead when others disagreed violently with their prices." She ducked her head, unable to meet either of their eyes when she spoke again. "I got desperate and broke into a few clearly abandoned apartments and took what I needed." She lifted her head, shoulders coming back up in preparation to defend her actions. "I felt horrible skulking away with other people's property, but at the time there weren't a whole lot of options."
"Ni, I am not going to judge you," Sam assured her.
She gave him a thin smile. "By the time winter came around some things had gotten better. Numbness had set in, I guess. The government had pulled together and begun giving us direction and advice I guess you'd say. The food supply chain had been broken. Crops, farm animals, etc. had vanished the same as the people. Weirdly though anything that had been harvested hadn't. So there were stockpiles of corn and wheat, and beef and chicken just sitting there rotting essentially.
"A group of us in the buildings on our block knew it was going to get worse before it got better and decided to work together. We literally went from door to door, stripping anything of use from places that had been abandoned and pooling the resources. Hell, we found kids who'd been living alone for months, scrounging food where they could…" she trailed off her voice oddly faint. "We took care of them. Set them up in apartments with all of the adults taking turns with them. Then the first big storm hit and we figured out exactly how much trouble we were in."
"Power issues?" Bucky suggested. He heard about the various grids failing during that first year from dozens of people, but none of the stories had been quite so… personal to him.
"Fuck yes." She glanced about guiltily realizing the boys could be nearby. "We'd had brownouts during the summer, but that's fairly normal. "God, you have no idea how terrible it was to break into people's apartments just to turn the power off so we could conserve it. The number of fires that broke out just from stoves being left on kept what was left of the fire departments insanely busy that first week. And that was assuming they could even get there with the roads still blocked. I'm honestly shocked most of the island didn't just burn to the ground."
"But you fixed that, right?" Bucky wanted her to move past those months, the pain in her voice a living thing that made him want to pull her close and hold tight until she knew she was safe again.
She nodded. "A friend of a friend gave some bigwig my name when they were having issues at ConEd. Back then bartering trumped money, so we made a deal for a six-month contract and I got to work on the control system they now use."
"So you, meaning everyone, went back to a bartering system?" Sam asked, his curiosity real.
"Yes. It made sense. Trade toilet paper for flour. Stuff like that. Clothes and such weren't an issue, we had department stores and warehouses full of them, we took what we needed for almost a year."
"Then the government finally got its act together," Bucky guessed.
"Nailed it in one. Too little too late in some ways, but in other ways, it was a relief to have someone make the big decisions again. At the local level, the bartering continued, but people who went back to work now got paid in money again. It was at least another six months before the infrastructure was even close to pre-Snap levels. We began to believe we might actually survive this mass extinction as a race."
She spent a few minutes eating and drinking with neither of the men prompting her to continue.
"You guys… I envy you in some ways."
"Why?"
"You were Snapped. For you, it was the blink of an eye. For the rest of us…" She shook her head. "Being Snapped would have been easier."
Sam turned to Bucky. "You weren't kidding were you?"
"Nope. I've talked to a lot of people about that first year and they all say how horrible it was, but can't articulate the details. She can."
"A lot of us don't like to talk about it. The things we had to do to survive… We did things we're not proud of out of necessity. We had to come together, work together, or none of us would have been here when you all magically returned."
"You believe that, truly believe that," Sam said, not doubting her sincerity.
"I do. The GRC, all those government officials, came back and refused to see what we had built during those years. Little wonder the Flag Smashers movement is so popular. We all worked together as a community, both local and global, and they want us to go back to the way it was." She shook her head in obvious dismay. "Idiots."
"How would you like to tell them that yourself? In person."
Nienna went still. "Are you serious?"
"Very. I… we," he corrected, including Bucky in his statement, "weren't here, and while my speech made an impact, it wasn't enough. I want to give those who lived through it a voice, but as Bucky said, not many can or are willing to. You are… a known quantity and I think your words will have some real impact."
"Known. You make it sound like I'm important or something."
"Your program kept the grids up in how many countries?" Bucky asked mostly rhetorically. "You, they'll listen to."
She shook her head. "I'm nobody to the GRC."
"Exactly," Sam said, which only seemed to confuse her further. "You quite literally have nothing to gain by coming forward. You weren't displaced, you had a job, you, from what little I know, did well during those years."
"You make it sound like it was simple and easy," she all but growled at him.
"That's not my intent. I heard every word you said," Sam assured her.
"I'm sure the GRC has heard hundreds of stories just like mine," she commented with a vague wave of her hand.
"Yeah, they have," Bucky responded, "but we need them to listen."
Sam nodded in agreement. "Exactly. They have blinders on and I'm looking for people who can help me remove them."
She cast a glance over at Bucky. "And you think I can do that?"
"Yeah, we do," Bucky told her. "I know you're unhappy with how things have been going since the Blip, this could be your chance to tell someone who has the power to change the situation."
She ran a hand across her face, clear frustration written on her features. "I don't think it'll work, but I'll help any way I can."
Based on the look on her face, Bucky had thought she would be yet another to say 'no' to their request. "What made you decide to say yes?"
She shot him a look that clearly marked him as an imbecile. "Captain America just asked for my help, how can I say no?"
Sam chuckled. "Been there," he informed her. "For the record, you can change your mind."
She shook her head. "No. The longer we wait to convince them they're being idiots, the less likely any real change will happen. This world needs to work together if we want to survive, not fall back into the petty bickering from prior to the Snap." She blew out a breath as if realizing her voice had been rising, if only slightly on every word. "What we had before didn't work. What we have now doesn't work. We need to find something that does before the next space tyrant shows up to wipe us off the face of our little planet." She met the eyes of each of the men in turn then said, "End of lecture."
"Damn, you're good at that," Sam pointed out. "I'll get the wheels turning and contact you when a date has been set, okay?"
"That works. Don't take this the wrong way, but I need a drink."
Bucky snorted and got to his feet, headed for the fridge to see if the beer stash from last time was still there. Sadly, it was not.
"Top cabinet." Sam pointed at the location and Bucky opened it to find a bottle of whiskey within.
"Ni?"
"Two fingers if you would." Then to Sam, "Sorry. Yes, I can talk about it, but that doesn't mean there's no impact. My therapist is going to question my sanity for being willing to do this."
Sam glanced over at Bucky, who poured the requested amount and then returned the bottle to its home out of the reach of the two children living in the house. "Don't apologize, I doubt anyone on either side of this got through it unscathed. There's more than enough trauma to go around, my intent is to keep from creating more."
"And that's a good thing, Sam." She accepted the drink from Bucky as he headed back to his seat. She took a small sip, to gauge the burn most likely, before downing half in an easy swallow. She set the glass down with a murmur of appreciation for the alcohol. "Something needs to change or…" She trailed off, not meeting anyone's eyes.
"Or what, Ni?" Bucky asked, wondering what insights she might have.
She lifted her head. "Or someone will. You think the Flag Smashers are the only ones unhappy with the current status quo? They're simply the most visible at the moment."
"Is there something you need to tell us?" Sam questioned. "In an official capacity, that is?"
She shrugged. "If you mean a specific plot or the like. No, but I hear things. I suspect we're reaching a tipping point. People both Snapped and not are unhappy and it'll be those government officials they take their ire out on when it spills over."
Sam met my eyes with serious concern in them. We actually knew a lot more than Ni about how bad things were getting out there thanks to the work we'd been doing with the GRC and the US government in general.
"The ants still outnumber the grasshoppers," Ni added, causing Sam to chuckle.
"What?" Bucky asked. "Am I supposed to understand that reference?"
Ni's unhappy expression brightened. "You haven't seen A Bug's Life?"
He blinked at her. "Uh, no?"
She finished off her drink and grinned. "Sam, can I abuse your TV?"
He nodded. "Let me call in the boys, they'll have fun watching it too."
"Plus they're probably hungry by now." Bucky wondered just what he had gotten himself into this time, but he would not complain about an afternoon of movies with his favorite people in the world.