( so that first bloodied night getting patched up in karen page's apartment had been... an interesting way to meet someone.
they've stayed in touch in the couple months since. at first it was her wanting to interview him, the notorious winter soldier, and get his take on the legendary events that brought back half a world, and yet left the avengers disassembled and gutted and defunct. he'd shied away from it. he doesn't do interviews. but then he'd looked her up and found her work on the punisher, years ago. and some pieces had tumbled into place and he'd realised this knack that karen has, of prying beneath the outer walls of armour of a person; of seeing through to the man underneath; of painting a more sympathetic picture. one that isn't just a murderer.
he was still skittish about it, but in the end, he'd accepted, and talked — in halting sequence, omitting much, asking for other redactions — about steve rogers. about the avengers. he'd simply refused to discuss wakanda at all; the country valued its privacy too much. he'd opened up a lot about brooklyn in the 1940s, about the howling commandos, about captain america's earliest days. and then somewhere along the way, the recorder had been turned off and then it had simply become coffee between two people who knew each other, and liked talking to each other. coffee had turned into drinks, the conversation just drawing out longer and longer, until it had finally ended.
their dynamic isn't entirely professional — how can it be, when they met with her hands slick with his blood? — but it's straddling a strange and undefinable boundary, too. he's not sure if they're friends yet. bucky doesn't really have friends these days, but his therapist had teased him about another contact showing up on his phone, and he's eyed karen's name in his phonebook too many times — but he can't easily get drunk enough to work up some liquid courage to call her again. so he doesn't. thinks about it, but doesn't do it.
so it's a late night and he's absentmindedly browsing tinder (sam made a profile for him without him realising, and then bucky had simply admitted defeat and decided to roll with it). he always noses around, sees what's out there, then eventually panics and force-quits the app and has to go for a walk. he's not ready. he's not sure he'll ever be ready. even when he matches with someone, the conversation tends to peter out, the more he has to lie and lie and lie about who he is or what he does. walking circles around that giant elephant in the room.
but then, one night, he sees a familiar face. and he stops, surprised. and laughs, swipes right, and messages her: )
she'd found him at the velvet-black entry of that alley, nothing but unresponsive bodies, a russian tongue and the hollow dripping of pipes left in his company. he didn't need to tell her anything, then, and even when he'd peeled off that shirt to fall to the floorboards of her apartment, revealing an ugly, glaring wound and most notably an arm that gave him away, she hadn't questioned him. that first night and every night that'd followed, karen had seen him as no more than a man with a story of all of the men he'd been before. a story she wanted to hear, but one she wanted to earn.
she understands better than anyone how the mainstream media can paint you red, how readily the public is willing to turn a blind eye to the truth beneath it all and accept someone was a monster. irredeemable, because then it didn't have to be faced. then there wasn't forgiveness. it's never what she wanted for herself when she started writing, when she took up odd jobs and worked up to the bulletin. she didn't want surface level, half-truths that fail to look at the human buried beneath the words.
she wanted the bones, the flesh, and all of the blood that hummed between.
typically she doesn't pay much mind to her phone, especially not at this hour, usually lost to the cushions of her couch or left atop the kitchen table with her keys. it vibrates gently beneath her notepad, and she's half inclined to ignore it, all the more so when a peak offers her some insight as to where the notification came from. while she may be able to argue that she'd had to download the app because of a lost bet, said bet hadn't included keeping it installed. she tells herself it's boredom, some inane form of entertainment, and whatever it is has her thumbing to open the message, amusement dancing in her hues as a smile takes full-bloom to her lips.
she snickers to herself, only because she can hear him saying those words, see that coy little expression that comes with it. )
We're really getting up there in the world, aren't we?
yeah. and of all the gin joints in all the world--
( he'd seen casablanca in theaters, too; it was one of the last movies he'd managed to catch stateside before he shipped out to england. thankfully, that particular pop culture reference hasn't aged out of relevance. )
is it more or less depressing to say that i don't actually look at this thing much? can't tell if that's better or worse
my track record with alleyways is better than apps right now, for what it's worth
don't really get all the etiquette of it, either. who texts first? are there rules on who texts first? how quickly are you supposed to reply to things? people seem to think you've fucked off forever if you just vanish for a few days. i don't get any of it
( they've made it this far, haven't they? underrated. )
You'd think it'd all come down to what you want, what the other person wants, and on and on it goes. It should be that way. Except everyone just dances around it because they have an idea what interest looks like.
( a second too late, bucky realises how blunt that sounds; how it's starting to nudge up against a line he hasn't crossed in too long to count. he's still not all that used to talking to people via text; the man prefers phonecalls. so, overthinking it, he pivots slightly and sends a quick followup: )
( karen likes to think she's different from the countless bodies on those apps, all reaching for something, but how can she be so sure? the question leaves lips folding in on one another, mindlessly chewing at the thumb of her free hand. can she be so sure she knows what want looks like? that it didn't just disguise itself as a different suitor every night?
he deters her before she can put thoughts to words, but she lingers on it, still. )
I got too comfortable. In my defense, I think I was just being fed beers to throw off my judgment.
What's your excuse? ( she's toying, mostly. he doesn't need a bet or a reason to delve into the good ol' human experience, but she didn't exactly peg him as the tinder type. )
a frie teammate said i needed to "get out more" and "blow off some steam" and "not be such a grumpy weirdo all the time". he made the profile without me realizing, wrote that i liked underwater basket weaving, and then i found out when my phone started going off
had to fix my profile and then, i dunno. figured there wasn't much to lose in at least keeping it around.
( enjoy underwater basketweaving or get out more, reader's choice. she'd gotten the impression when she'd found him in that alley that he was used to taking care of himself; preferred it, even. that's usually the sort that has the nudging friend insisting they find something 'more.' )
I have to say, I think the underwater basket weaving is a much more enticing introduction.
( it seems fitting, though. brooklyn and barebones. there's nothing of substance on her own, so she's mostly just giving him a hard time because she can. it's late and she slips into that natural banter easily, beer bottle idling on her thigh. )
Honestly I'm not even sure what I'd write if I were to try, so you got farther than me. Maybe I should be seeking advice from you rather than the other way around.
( they're nosing up along the edge of that boundary again. her last question feels warm, teasing, and he has to wonder if he's imagining that touch of flirtation; if his instincts are so long-rusted that he's seeing things that aren't there, or if he's reading this correctly. he hesitates for a moment, phone sitting on his chest and foot restlessly bouncing against the floor, before he goes ahead and commits.
because. why not. carpe diem, right? )
cute strawberry-blonde. working knowledge of the best dive bars in nyc. believes the pen is mightier than the sword.
and you can call me bucky, karen.
( it's a meaningful distinction, a piece of permission that matters, granting that intimacy. he still grouches about even sam not having earned the nickname yet, and they've fought by each others' sides over and over (although, really, he doth protest too much; the other man's earned it, even if bucky doesn't like to admit it). )
( while that device idles in waiting within her palm she finds herself wondering where he is, right now. what sort of room is holding him, what's keeping him company—if he's trying to slip away from the bodies that may be surrounding him or imagining them there. it's the smaller details that give another away, and what she'd give to see him right now, see if there's a flit at the edge of his lips, if there's any tells to indicate that he's feeling any bit the way she's feeling right now.
there's a lightness, there—she doesn't know if she trusts herself to hold it. if her hands can be gentle enough. )
Bucky it is.
( she hums, tongue itching to form the name, familiarize the muscle, but her empty apartment glares back. )
Are you sure you're as out of practice as you think? You've gotten the hidden spots out of me, places in the city no one else would know to find me in. That's tough to compete with.
I'm starting to think you have an unfair advantage here. What am I going to tell all of these other eligible bachelors? ( that would require messaging them back in the first place, karen. )
( tone has always been the hardest part, in this day and age. figuring out all the little quirks and tics and slang (and emojis??) and what they mean. but he likes to think he's maybe getting a handle on it. )
i mean, we've both got an unfair advantage in that we recognized each other
which means we can skip right past the shitty small-talk of "so who are you, what do you do for a living, where did you grow up"
( maybe she's reaching, and she finds herself wishing she could retract the words once they're already scripted across the screen. it's a sharp knife in the form of a question, a roundabout way of asking him what it is he wants. bold of her, given she doesn't have a means to answer it herself. she's toeing an edge she hasn't in quite some time and she fights the urge to bury her phone beneath the pillow beside her, to fire off another message to soften it. )
( so what do you want? so where do you think that leaves us?
in a way, he suspects they're both asking the same question and circling the same issue. bucky's still not entirely sure what the standards are for tinder specifically, if it's more for relationships or hookups — sam's knowing grin when he'd set up the account and teased him about it had maybe implied the latter — but.
what does he want?
—maybe just not to be alone for a night. )
two bored people with a free evening, from the looks of it.
( does she want company? without question, but could she rightfully invite him in when she wasn't sure where to put him? how he'd decorate the room with his presence, how he'd linger there even after he left. privacy was something she honored, it's why she gave such a curt tongue to matt when he slipped in unannounced, when he gave her no choice but to be 'on.'
is that what she wants, here with him? because the question wasn't as simple as whether she wanted something warm, but whether or not she wanted to be seen. )
Yeah. ( that coyness she so readily equips softens to something else, fingertips pressing to her brims. )
I'd like that, actually.
( and then, just a characteristic prod, because she can't help herself— ) Maybe avoid the alleys on your way.
( he hardly ever sleeps, so if the choice is between sitting with the anemic light of late-night television and infomercials, versus hanging out with karen page, it's an easy enough decision. something in his chest unclenches with nervous relief as he sees her answer, and he responds just as teasingly: )
i'll try my best but no promises
want me to bring something? you a wine, beer, or liquor kind of gal?
( she wasn't picky, even if she had her preferences. she'd spent enough nights at josies to get comfortable with the way different liquors felt saturating her tongue, the characteristic way they'd burn on the way down. only she wasn't chasing anything back, now. she's always got at least a partial six pack in the fridge and a bottle of something amber and promising tucked away, but she doesn't mind taking his lead. )
( he knows the way back to karen's place, remembers the address even if she'd never actually sent it to him. even now, bucky wouldn't invite her back to his; he doesn't like anyone knowing where he lives, and there's that shameful self-consciousness of how unlivable it is anyway, the way it looks like he just moved in a day ago, despite the fact that he's been sleeping there for months.
he's not used to this. socialising. going to someone's place — let alone a pretty woman's — for anything more than sheer necessity, having her clean up his wounds, keep him alive. the expectations and parameters are different. these last few decades, it's always been so much easier when it was just a mission: when he knows what he has to do and when and to whom. clearly-delineated expectations from his handlers.
this, though, is off the map. uncharted territory.
bucky brings a bottle of i.w. harper bourbon; it's not the most popular these days, but he recognises it from shelves in the 1940s (along with a wince at how much it costs now; it had, once upon a time, been the blue-collar workhorse whiskey amongst his friends and soldiers). he makes it up to the front door of her building, rings her apartment, and after she buzzes him in, he heads for her floor. leans against the doorjamb and raps his gloved knuckles against her door, bottle dangling from his other hand. nerves starting to climb up his throat. it's been a long time since he did anything like this. far too long. )
( karen wasn't typically one to fuss over making an impression. he'd already been within her apartment, leaned over one of her dining room chairs as she'd carefully dug that shell from where it'd burrowed itself. even if it hadn't garnered his attention at the time, the place was still in a sort of lived-in disarray, bits and pieces of her things left scattered as if half in thought from when she'd had to walk away. fix a coffee, a drink, sometimes even snatch her keys and tuck up her coat for a walk through the brisk streets.
still, the notion that he's on his way leaves her restless, fingertips finding the clasp at the tight wrap of her skirt, abandoning that half-nursed beer bottle on the coffee table, changing out of her typical work attire into something more comfortable, hair half and lazily pulled up into a loose clip, mostly to keep the strands from falling across her brows, but it leaves golden tendrils amiss.
he's already gotten somewhat of a read on her she's sure, and what sort of journalist would she be having all of her shit together, anyway? she at least tries to tidy up the various folders, articles, photographs scattered across her counters, her table, just about every viable surface to make it all a little more presentable. she should probably be concerned about attorney client privilege being easily violated with all she left out, but he's not coming here to help with a case. he's not coming here on work, for an interview. there's no list of questions she's got thumbed in one of her worn moleskins, there's just the two of them.
two bored people with a free evening.
she even lights a candle, center on the coffee table, lifting up scarves of basil and sage, a hint of vanilla underlying it all before that telltale buzzer sounds. she's close by when that rap sounds, the sound of locks clicking from their place, and when the door opens to him her hair rustles a little, opening it a step or two before she's leaning against it, teeth capturing at her lips to keep them from furling to something full bloom.
head nods to the side, a subtle gesture in invitation. )
( bucky's gaze drifts over her shoulder to glance over their surroundings. much like before, her place is cluttered, but— that just makes it homey, comfortable, lived-in. even the scented candle elevates the space and makes it even nicer, more sophisticated. jesus, he really needs to do something about his own apartment.
he flourishes the bottle. )
Does it get the stamp of approval? Might be cheating since I can't really get drunk easily, but I'll drink faster to stay even.
( a flash of a slightly strained smile. it had felt wrong not addressing it; he didn't want to get karen drunk while he stayed clear-headed and sober. and he doesn't really know how to greet her — they're past handshakes but not yet at a kiss to the cheek — so instead he just presses the bottle into her hands and follows the tip of her head into the room, continuing past her and then gazing around him with that watchful stare.
he'd taken it in last time, so now he automatically notes the small details that have changed in the interim. a houseplant that changed location; a stack of books that had shrunk; a new scattering of paperwork on the dining table like a patch of growing weeds. the hour is late enough that they're already past dinnertime, now into those strange hours where there's only a select few reasons to invite a man over, but his insomniac schedule's already so fucked that he can't really tell. his nights are measured out in so many lonely hours beyond the time when people have already turned in.
he's standing a little awkwardly in the center of the room, hands plunged into the pockets of his jacket. there's a rip in the hardy leather which she'll recognise; it matches the wound in his side, now long-since-healed over. )
( he gives a flare of that bottle and she catches the glint of it, like saturated honey, and she's left cradling it as he steps in behind her, the bitter new york air clinging to him and wafting in alongside that signature leather scent. she notes his steps receding behind her, further into the heart of that apartment, and she's trailing and ticking locks back into place on habit. upon his comment she's surveying the bottle, an artful raise of a brow as she reads it's title aloud; honestly, the notable attributes are that it's full and certainly not anything light. )
You know, I might venture to my being able to drink you under the table, but those bets having been boding for me too well as of late.
( not that she can say it hasn't worked out for her, now.
one of the windows is left cracked, flirting with the sheer curtains that tousle with each of the city's breaths let in. there's some sort of affirmation in the way he doesn't just make himself at home, recognizes he's somewhere that'd been put together long before she'd met him. there's no guidelines for any of this, fitting himself somewhere that wasn't his and her opening a door for him to see her written in hints around the apartment, but it's the endearing hesitancy that urges her to settle him a bit more.
steps pad quietly over towards the kitchen, pressing up onto her toes to pinch at the rims of two whiskey glasses as his question reaches her. ) Not really. ( it's muffled, given her back's to him, and when she twirls around again it's to set hollow glasses atop the island. she twists off the cap of that gifted bottle, pouring a hearty two-fingers worth for both of them before she draws nearer, one of the shares held out to him in offering, similar to the way he'd enticed it upon his entry. )
Sort of? ( her nose wrinkles a little, admittedly. ) Sometimes it seems feels like I always am. Hard to turn that off.
( a twitch at the corner of his mouth, something almost a smile that he hides behind the glass as he clinks it against hers in a cheers, and then takes a startlingly deep swig of the whiskey. savouring the burn, the warmth as it goes down his throat. even if he can't easily get hammered off it, he can at least enjoy the heat and the taste of it. )
So, uh... I might not have mentioned during the interview, but I've got one up on you here. The serum came with enhanced metabolism.
( four times faster than than normal, or thereabouts, or so the doctors claimed. bucky props his elbows against the other side of the island, his blue eyes watching karen as she drinks. he nudges a few piles of paperwork aside, moving them out of the way. if part of him desperately wants to read it just out of instinct, then he presses down the urge and doesn't give in to it. )
You do kinda seem like a workaholic.
( a pause, bucky realising how that might not have sounded the best. )
I don't mean that in a bad way. Most of the people I knew were, uh, extremely devoted to our work.
( sam was probably the best at juggling some kind of balance and maintaining a connection with his family, but the rest of them had been such lonely creatures. the team had been the family. steve. nat. wanda. people with a cause to fight for but nothing left to lose. he'd been the same, but now even the cause has been neatly sheared away from him, too, leaving him foundering. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
→ tinder.
they've stayed in touch in the couple months since. at first it was her wanting to interview him, the notorious winter soldier, and get his take on the legendary events that brought back half a world, and yet left the avengers disassembled and gutted and defunct. he'd shied away from it. he doesn't do interviews. but then he'd looked her up and found her work on the punisher, years ago. and some pieces had tumbled into place and he'd realised this knack that karen has, of prying beneath the outer walls of armour of a person; of seeing through to the man underneath; of painting a more sympathetic picture. one that isn't just a murderer.
he was still skittish about it, but in the end, he'd accepted, and talked — in halting sequence, omitting much, asking for other redactions — about steve rogers. about the avengers. he'd simply refused to discuss wakanda at all; the country valued its privacy too much. he'd opened up a lot about brooklyn in the 1940s, about the howling commandos, about captain america's earliest days. and then somewhere along the way, the recorder had been turned off and then it had simply become coffee between two people who knew each other, and liked talking to each other. coffee had turned into drinks, the conversation just drawing out longer and longer, until it had finally ended.
their dynamic isn't entirely professional — how can it be, when they met with her hands slick with his blood? — but it's straddling a strange and undefinable boundary, too. he's not sure if they're friends yet. bucky doesn't really have friends these days, but his therapist had teased him about another contact showing up on his phone, and he's eyed karen's name in his phonebook too many times — but he can't easily get drunk enough to work up some liquid courage to call her again. so he doesn't. thinks about it, but doesn't do it.
so it's a late night and he's absentmindedly browsing tinder (sam made a profile for him without him realising, and then bucky had simply admitted defeat and decided to roll with it). he always noses around, sees what's out there, then eventually panics and force-quits the app and has to go for a walk. he's not ready. he's not sure he'll ever be ready. even when he matches with someone, the conversation tends to peter out, the more he has to lie and lie and lie about who he is or what he does. walking circles around that giant elephant in the room.
but then, one night, he sees a familiar face. and he stops, surprised. and laughs, swipes right, and messages her: )
fancy seeing you here
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she'd found him at the velvet-black entry of that alley, nothing but unresponsive bodies, a russian tongue and the hollow dripping of pipes left in his company. he didn't need to tell her anything, then, and even when he'd peeled off that shirt to fall to the floorboards of her apartment, revealing an ugly, glaring wound and most notably an arm that gave him away, she hadn't questioned him. that first night and every night that'd followed, karen had seen him as no more than a man with a story of all of the men he'd been before. a story she wanted to hear, but one she wanted to earn.
she understands better than anyone how the mainstream media can paint you red, how readily the public is willing to turn a blind eye to the truth beneath it all and accept someone was a monster. irredeemable, because then it didn't have to be faced. then there wasn't forgiveness. it's never what she wanted for herself when she started writing, when she took up odd jobs and worked up to the bulletin. she didn't want surface level, half-truths that fail to look at the human buried beneath the words.
she wanted the bones, the flesh, and all of the blood that hummed between.
typically she doesn't pay much mind to her phone, especially not at this hour, usually lost to the cushions of her couch or left atop the kitchen table with her keys. it vibrates gently beneath her notepad, and she's half inclined to ignore it, all the more so when a peak offers her some insight as to where the notification came from. while she may be able to argue that she'd had to download the app because of a lost bet, said bet hadn't included keeping it installed. she tells herself it's boredom, some inane form of entertainment, and whatever it is has her thumbing to open the message, amusement dancing in her hues as a smile takes full-bloom to her lips.
she snickers to herself, only because she can hear him saying those words, see that coy little expression that comes with it. )
We're really getting up there in the world, aren't we?
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( he'd seen casablanca in theaters, too; it was one of the last movies he'd managed to catch stateside before he shipped out to england. thankfully, that particular pop culture reference hasn't aged out of relevance. )
is it more or less depressing to say that i don't actually look at this thing much? can't tell if that's better or worse
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Guess it depends what you're looking for. I wouldn't say this is the golden standard to meet someone nowadays, but...
I probably don't have the best judgment in that area. Then again, alleyways tend to surprise you.
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don't really get all the etiquette of it, either. who texts first? are there rules on who texts first? how quickly are you supposed to reply to things? people seem to think you've fucked off forever if you just vanish for a few days. i don't get any of it
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( they've made it this far, haven't they? underrated. )
You'd think it'd all come down to what you want, what the other person wants, and on and on it goes. It should be that way. Except everyone just dances around it because they have an idea what interest looks like.
Maybe none of us really know what we want.
no subject
so what do you want?
( a second too late, bucky realises how blunt that sounds; how it's starting to nudge up against a line he hasn't crossed in too long to count. he's still not all that used to talking to people via text; the man prefers phonecalls. so, overthinking it, he pivots slightly and sends a quick followup: )
or put it this way, how'd you lose the bet?
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he deters her before she can put thoughts to words, but she lingers on it, still. )
I got too comfortable. In my defense, I think I was just being fed beers to throw off my judgment.
What's your excuse? ( she's toying, mostly. he doesn't need a bet or a reason to delve into the good ol' human experience, but she didn't exactly peg him as the tinder type. )
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frieteammate said i needed to "get out more" and "blow off some steam" and "not be such a grumpy weirdo all the time". he made the profile without me realizing, wrote that i liked underwater basket weaving, and then i found out when my phone started going offhad to fix my profile and then, i dunno. figured there wasn't much to lose in at least keeping it around.
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( enjoy underwater basketweaving or get out more, reader's choice. she'd gotten the impression when she'd found him in that alley that he was used to taking care of himself; preferred it, even. that's usually the sort that has the nudging friend insisting they find something 'more.' )
I have to say, I think the underwater basket weaving is a much more enticing introduction.
no subject
( he's bemused, sprawled at a comfortable lounge on his sofa and half-smiling at the phone. )
your bio actually says less about you than mine did about me, which is pretty impressive. nothing about long walks on the beach? piña coladas?
(i don't know how this works, can you tell.)
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( it seems fitting, though. brooklyn and barebones. there's nothing of substance on her own, so she's mostly just giving him a hard time because she can. it's late and she slips into that natural banter easily, beer bottle idling on her thigh. )
Honestly I'm not even sure what I'd write if I were to try, so you got farther than me. Maybe I should be seeking advice from you rather than the other way around.
So tell me, James. What should my profile say?
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because. why not. carpe diem, right? )
cute strawberry-blonde. working knowledge of the best dive bars in nyc. believes the pen is mightier than the sword.
and you can call me bucky, karen.
( it's a meaningful distinction, a piece of permission that matters, granting that intimacy. he still grouches about even sam not having earned the nickname yet, and they've fought by each others' sides over and over (although, really, he doth protest too much; the other man's earned it, even if bucky doesn't like to admit it). )
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there's a lightness, there—she doesn't know if she trusts herself to hold it. if her hands can be gentle enough. )
Bucky it is.
( she hums, tongue itching to form the name, familiarize the muscle, but her empty apartment glares back. )
Are you sure you're as out of practice as you think? You've gotten the hidden spots out of me, places in the city no one else would know to find me in. That's tough to compete with.
I'm starting to think you have an unfair advantage here. What am I going to tell all of these other eligible bachelors? ( that would require messaging them back in the first place, karen. )
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i mean, we've both got an unfair advantage in that we recognized each other
which means we can skip right past the shitty small-talk of "so who are you, what do you do for a living, where did you grow up"
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( maybe she's reaching, and she finds herself wishing she could retract the words once they're already scripted across the screen. it's a sharp knife in the form of a question, a roundabout way of asking him what it is he wants. bold of her, given she doesn't have a means to answer it herself. she's toeing an edge she hasn't in quite some time and she fights the urge to bury her phone beneath the pillow beside her, to fire off another message to soften it. )
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so where do you think that leaves us?
in a way, he suspects they're both asking the same question and circling the same issue. bucky's still not entirely sure what the standards are for tinder specifically, if it's more for relationships or hookups — sam's knowing grin when he'd set up the account and teased him about it had maybe implied the latter — but.
what does he want?
—maybe just not to be alone for a night. )
two bored people with a free evening, from the looks of it.
you want any company, karen? it's okay if not.
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is that what she wants, here with him? because the question wasn't as simple as whether she wanted something warm, but whether or not she wanted to be seen. )
Yeah. ( that coyness she so readily equips softens to something else, fingertips pressing to her brims. )
I'd like that, actually.
( and then, just a characteristic prod, because she can't help herself— ) Maybe avoid the alleys on your way.
no subject
i'll try my best but no promises
want me to bring something? you a wine, beer, or liquor kind of gal?
no subject
( she wasn't picky, even if she had her preferences. she'd spent enough nights at josies to get comfortable with the way different liquors felt saturating her tongue, the characteristic way they'd burn on the way down. only she wasn't chasing anything back, now. she's always got at least a partial six pack in the fridge and a bottle of something amber and promising tucked away, but she doesn't mind taking his lead. )
Surprise me.
→ action.
( he knows the way back to karen's place, remembers the address even if she'd never actually sent it to him. even now, bucky wouldn't invite her back to his; he doesn't like anyone knowing where he lives, and there's that shameful self-consciousness of how unlivable it is anyway, the way it looks like he just moved in a day ago, despite the fact that he's been sleeping there for months.
he's not used to this. socialising. going to someone's place — let alone a pretty woman's — for anything more than sheer necessity, having her clean up his wounds, keep him alive. the expectations and parameters are different. these last few decades, it's always been so much easier when it was just a mission: when he knows what he has to do and when and to whom. clearly-delineated expectations from his handlers.
this, though, is off the map. uncharted territory.
bucky brings a bottle of i.w. harper bourbon; it's not the most popular these days, but he recognises it from shelves in the 1940s (along with a wince at how much it costs now; it had, once upon a time, been the blue-collar workhorse whiskey amongst his friends and soldiers). he makes it up to the front door of her building, rings her apartment, and after she buzzes him in, he heads for her floor. leans against the doorjamb and raps his gloved knuckles against her door, bottle dangling from his other hand. nerves starting to climb up his throat. it's been a long time since he did anything like this. far too long. )
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still, the notion that he's on his way leaves her restless, fingertips finding the clasp at the tight wrap of her skirt, abandoning that half-nursed beer bottle on the coffee table, changing out of her typical work attire into something more comfortable, hair half and lazily pulled up into a loose clip, mostly to keep the strands from falling across her brows, but it leaves golden tendrils amiss.
he's already gotten somewhat of a read on her she's sure, and what sort of journalist would she be having all of her shit together, anyway? she at least tries to tidy up the various folders, articles, photographs scattered across her counters, her table, just about every viable surface to make it all a little more presentable. she should probably be concerned about attorney client privilege being easily violated with all she left out, but he's not coming here to help with a case. he's not coming here on work, for an interview. there's no list of questions she's got thumbed in one of her worn moleskins, there's just the two of them.
two bored people with a free evening.
she even lights a candle, center on the coffee table, lifting up scarves of basil and sage, a hint of vanilla underlying it all before that telltale buzzer sounds. she's close by when that rap sounds, the sound of locks clicking from their place, and when the door opens to him her hair rustles a little, opening it a step or two before she's leaning against it, teeth capturing at her lips to keep them from furling to something full bloom.
head nods to the side, a subtle gesture in invitation. )
Glad to see you made it in one piece.
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( bucky's gaze drifts over her shoulder to glance over their surroundings. much like before, her place is cluttered, but— that just makes it homey, comfortable, lived-in. even the scented candle elevates the space and makes it even nicer, more sophisticated. jesus, he really needs to do something about his own apartment.
he flourishes the bottle. )
Does it get the stamp of approval? Might be cheating since I can't really get drunk easily, but I'll drink faster to stay even.
( a flash of a slightly strained smile. it had felt wrong not addressing it; he didn't want to get karen drunk while he stayed clear-headed and sober. and he doesn't really know how to greet her — they're past handshakes but not yet at a kiss to the cheek — so instead he just presses the bottle into her hands and follows the tip of her head into the room, continuing past her and then gazing around him with that watchful stare.
he'd taken it in last time, so now he automatically notes the small details that have changed in the interim. a houseplant that changed location; a stack of books that had shrunk; a new scattering of paperwork on the dining table like a patch of growing weeds. the hour is late enough that they're already past dinnertime, now into those strange hours where there's only a select few reasons to invite a man over, but his insomniac schedule's already so fucked that he can't really tell. his nights are measured out in so many lonely hours beyond the time when people have already turned in.
he's standing a little awkwardly in the center of the room, hands plunged into the pockets of his jacket. there's a rip in the hardy leather which she'll recognise; it matches the wound in his side, now long-since-healed over. )
Were you working?
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You know, I might venture to my being able to drink you under the table, but those bets having been boding for me too well as of late.
( not that she can say it hasn't worked out for her, now.
one of the windows is left cracked, flirting with the sheer curtains that tousle with each of the city's breaths let in. there's some sort of affirmation in the way he doesn't just make himself at home, recognizes he's somewhere that'd been put together long before she'd met him. there's no guidelines for any of this, fitting himself somewhere that wasn't his and her opening a door for him to see her written in hints around the apartment, but it's the endearing hesitancy that urges her to settle him a bit more.
steps pad quietly over towards the kitchen, pressing up onto her toes to pinch at the rims of two whiskey glasses as his question reaches her. ) Not really. ( it's muffled, given her back's to him, and when she twirls around again it's to set hollow glasses atop the island. she twists off the cap of that gifted bottle, pouring a hearty two-fingers worth for both of them before she draws nearer, one of the shares held out to him in offering, similar to the way he'd enticed it upon his entry. )
Sort of? ( her nose wrinkles a little, admittedly. ) Sometimes it seems feels like I always am. Hard to turn that off.
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So, uh... I might not have mentioned during the interview, but I've got one up on you here. The serum came with enhanced metabolism.
( four times faster than than normal, or thereabouts, or so the doctors claimed. bucky props his elbows against the other side of the island, his blue eyes watching karen as she drinks. he nudges a few piles of paperwork aside, moving them out of the way. if part of him desperately wants to read it just out of instinct, then he presses down the urge and doesn't give in to it. )
You do kinda seem like a workaholic.
( a pause, bucky realising how that might not have sounded the best. )
I don't mean that in a bad way. Most of the people I knew were, uh, extremely devoted to our work.
( sam was probably the best at juggling some kind of balance and maintaining a connection with his family, but the rest of them had been such lonely creatures. the team had been the family. steve. nat. wanda. people with a cause to fight for but nothing left to lose. he'd been the same, but now even the cause has been neatly sheared away from him, too, leaving him foundering. )
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