for viuva.

[armeyets]

canon
graveyard meet cute

that au where nat is still alive
midnight texts | aprongate 2k21 | injuries | halloween | new year's eve | holiday party | pre-thunderbolts

other aus
pacific rim

Comments

[armeyets]

[ bucky accepts the cup of instant coffee with a grateful nod, and picks up the piping-hot mug, not minding the heat in his vibranium fingers. right. his old, old bones. the corner of his mouth quirks ruefully at the prospect of doing more math. he's never actually had to consider this angle of it, either, and never really wondered how old his body was after you stripped away all the caveats, the disclaimers, the slow-aging effects of the serum. he'd just taken it one day at a time. so he considers, and weighs over the question. ]

I was around my mid-twenties when I went into the river. And with the time that's passed since... mid-thirties, maybe? Could be higher end of thirties.

[ until now, there had never really been a reason to care about how his age lined up to anyone else. but he feels a strange vise clench in his chest as he asks, trying to sound light about it: ]

So. Too old for you?

[viuva]

[ yelena watches him mull over her question with the most puzzled look on her face. she's still adjusting to society as a whole and social cues so maybe it was not the move, to just ask him how old his bones feel. curse her ability to completely override the filter feature of her brain!!

but he answers it anyway, as ridiculous as her question is and she's pleasantly surprised. it's exactly as she thought. ]

Hmmmm.

[ she acts as if she's contemplating even if she knows what to say. but it would be cruel to even joke about that after he'd done her the favour of stitching her up the night before, and then letting her sleep in his bed. with him. ]

No. Not too old. You could be fifty and I would still like you. [ oops bomb dropped but she doesn't think too much of it, obviously because she keeps going— ] I don't care about age.

[armeyets]

[ and here's the strangest part of it all: despite being all of thirty-something, hundred-something, bucky's stomach still does a queasy little flip-flop at hearing yelena's words, like he's in goddamn high school all over again. i would still like you. it's stupid. it's like he's on the verge of scribbling on a piece of paper, do you like me, check yes if so ☑ and shoving the scrap across the kitchen counter to her.

he's killed dozens of people, fought in the war for earth, operated on almost every single continent (he still needs the antarctic—), and yet that one innocent, harmless little admission almost undoes him.

he hides that flicker of reaction behind burying his face in his coffee cup, taking a too-deep swig but then almost burning his tongue on it. he coughs. just barely averts choking on it entirely and spluttering. get it together, barnes!! ]

Well. Good. 'Cause I'm pretty fond of you, too.

[ get it together, barnes ]

i'm rusty gomen

[viuva]

[ there is a cheeky little grin that's plastered across her face, smugness rearing its pretty little head for a second before she's huffing a chuckle. there are many things that yelena belova knows, like feigning merriment but one of the few things she doesn't is how to mask genuine happiness. ]

Well! [ she is definitely echoing him ] I would certainly hope so, James.

[ one could say that she got her boisterous nature from one mr. shostakov, but she would sooner gut them than admit to such a thing.

she clinks her cup with his. is she celebrating the mutual kind of confession that just happened? hard to tell. ]

If you didn't, I am preeeetty sure you would have shanked me first thing this morning, no? Or maybe that is just a me thing.

ugh i reread this scene and it’s So Good

[armeyets]

Not just first thing this morning. If I didn’t like you, I would’ve shanked you last night, or any other time I caught you sneaking in on my balcony. [ it doesn’t sound like he’s chiding for it, though, just giving tit-for-that in their perpetual teasing byplay, as he waits for the oil to heat up and starts amiably frying up the bread-and-eggs for them. it’s just the truth. it’s not a good idea to sneak up on people like them. ]

But I try to minimise the shanking these days. Got enough of a body count behind me. [ a beat, then there’s a knowing and amused crinkle at the corner of his eyes, asking this particular question: ] How about you? How’s work? In general.

[ they both know yelena doesn’t exactly have a regular 9-to-5. any discussions of work between them is more like comparing notes on the best way to infiltrate a warehouse and comparing scars from jobs gone awry; the sorts of things which lead to the very injury which brought her to his doorstep last night. ]