Elevated

Nora didn’t expect the lab to be full of superheroes when she got there in the morning, but she supposed she shouldn’t be that surprised either.

She was anyways. She hovered awkwardly just inside the doorway, Luna at her side, and surveyed the six of them. Luna tugged at the end of her leash, intent on running over to say hi to everyone, or at least Bucky. Nora held fast to the leash and pointed over her shoulder with a thumb, “Should I go?”

“It’s fine,” Tony announced. He had some sort of rock sitting on Bruce’s table and had the holo-screen up around it, bizarre looking readings spiraling out.

“Tony.” Steve said sternly, like it definitely wasn’t.

Nora’s phone rang. She fished for it absently while she surveyed the two men, “Right. How about I take this, and you guys can decide.” She unclipped Luna’s leash and she ran immediately to Bucky, who knelt to pat her. She glanced down at her phone, “Fuck.”

“Nora?” Bruce asked, surprise and concern in his voice.

She waved a hand and stepped out the huge vault door. After a moment’s indecision, she swiped to answer the call, “Hey.”

“Nora! How’s my girl?” the exuberant voice crowed.

Irritation was already sparking dangerously in her stomach. She tapped her foot and looked into Jane’s lab, cataloging the strange, cobbled equipment, “I’m fine. What’s up?”

“I’m just calling to check in,” The voice was defensive, “Can’t I call just to call?”

Nora gave a sort of hum that was maybe affirmative or maybe not. It was possible, she supposed, that her father could call just to check in. He never had, but it was possible.

“I heard you got promoted.”

Nora squinted at a complex row of equations on Jane’s window and tried to read it backwards, “Who told you that?”

“Dana,” He supplied.

Right, she had told her aunt Dana. Unlike her father, Dana did call just to ask how she was. She was also the only family that Nora felt the need to keep in touch with. Unfortunately, Dana felt the need to keep in touch with her brother.

“Look, Nora, I’m in a bit of a bind.”

There it was, Nora thought. The shoe, about to drop, “Hey, sorry, I’m at work and my boss just walked in.” She eyed the vault door. Nora wasn’t a very good liar, but she didn’t really care if her dad knew that she was lying either, “I gotta go.”

“Hey, Nor-“

“Sorry, Dad, bye.” She hung up. Then she set her phone to silent. It happened every few months, or when she published a paper, or got a new job, or a promotion, that her father would call. He would tell her about the bind that he was in with a broken water heater, or a broken radiator, or a flat tire, and then ask her for money. It was pretty silly of him to ask her, she thought, after he had lost all her tuition money gambling in some sketchy basement in Boston. She supposed he thought he could lie his way back in time to when she was naïve and believed him.

It was a pretty good way to ruin her day. The irritation lingered in a way the anxiety of the elevator didn’t. It was almost thirty years of hurts that stirred up and sat somewhere in her chest. She huffed and turned to stomp back through the vault door of the lab. Steve gave her a frown, but nobody else paid her any attention or told her to leave so she went and flopped into her office chair, tossing her phone onto the table facedown where she didn’t have to see if her dad called again.

“You okay?” Bruce asked, looking concerned.

“Yep,” Nora answered. He didn’t look convinced but she wasn’t really willing to go into it. She pulled up some micrometer readings on her tablet and tried to sift through them, ignoring the conversation happening a few feet to her right. She wasn’t super successful because the rock, it turned out, may have come from another dimension, or maybe an undiscovered galaxy, and both those things were extremely interesting. But neither Tony, nor Bruce seemed to have any idea what to make of it so eventually the conversation petered out as they decided to put it in a vault of some kind so that it didn’t blow anything up.

“Your dog,” Tony announced with sudden disdain, “Is not using the bed I bought her.”

Nora looked up. There was indeed a large square cushion beside her desk that she hadn’t known what to make of and didn’t think it was the time to ask. Luna was instead flopped across Bucky’s feet where he stood in front of the table nearest the door, “Well yeah, cause she loves Bucky. I’m sure she’ll like it when he’s gone.”

Tony surveyed Bucky like he thought that was weird, then looked back towards Nora, then shouted, “What the fuck is that?”

Nora frowned at him, “What?” But Tony was already striding across the room, forcing Sam to step back or be run over, and snatching up her phone. He waved it in her face, expression outraged. Nora reached for it, “Give me back my phone.”

“This is not a phone,” Tony snarled, “This is a travesty. You work in my tower and you use this piece of garbage?”

Everyone seemed to move a little all together; Luna shot up and circled out of Bucky’s way as he took two steps closer into the room. Steve moved several steps towards Bucky, with one hand sort of up. Sam took a step towards Tony’s back. Bruce looked alarmed, and Natasha stepped closer and put a hand on his arm.

Nora didn’t really see why they were all being weird, but maybe it had to do with the rock. She ignored them to snap at Tony, “Yeah. You want me to buy a Stark phone so you can spy on me? I don’t think so.” She reached over and snatched her very beat-up and very knock-off cell phone from his hand.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Silver. I’ve got better things to do,” He asserted loftily, “But I won’t stand for that thing in my lab.”

“Okay, buy me a new one then. And get us a new Coolidge machine while you’re at it.” She pointed at the piece of equipment where it still sat, broken and mocking her, “It’s still broken, I thought you went to MIT or something.”

Tony made an outraged noise, “You’re fired.”

“Tony!” Bruce shouted, equally outraged.

Nora laughed, “No I’m not.” She pointed at the rock, “That thing’s not going to blow up the lab is it? It’s freaking me out.”

Bucky had a bad moment. He could admit that. It was almost easier than admitting the good moments, which felt like progress, and being disappointed when they didn’t last.

He’d managed to make it to the lab. It wasn’t great, the memories were still there, twisting at the edge of his mind. But the last time had been okay. He had made it to Bruce’s lab, he had petted the dog, and the woman wasn’t afraid. He thought he could manage it again.

He did. He was both disappointed and on edge when he found Bruce was alone, and he couldn’t manage to take more than six steps into the room, but he was okay. He listened to Tony and Bruce discuss the rock and understood a little of what they said. Enough to know the rock was weird.

Then Nora walked in, her and the dog. He wasn’t happy when she left again, the look she gave to her phone was sharp and upset, but she left the dog. Luna ran straight to his legs and sat, pressing her warm side against him. He felt the same flood of warmth he always did, like he was a person again and not a ghost. He pet the dog, and watched the door out of the corner of his eye. He forgot to listen to Bruce and Tony. He was a little relieved when she came back, and a little not, because he thought she should be in her lab but she looked upset.

He wanted to open his mouth and ask why, but he couldn’t seem to choke it out. The clawing thing in his chest grew a little and hissed and he worried it was because he was there. She didn’t look at him.

Until she did. She looked right at him and said his name and he thought maybe he had never heard anyone say his name quite like that. He couldn’t tell what made it so different, coming from her lips, but he wanted to hear it again. To know for sure that the way the consonants curled around her tongue weren’t the same.

And then Tony had snapped at her.

It was automatic. An instinct of some kind that he didn’t know he had. Tony snapped, and Bucky stepped forward. He didn’t really know what he’d been going to do. He didn’t have a plan, just a roiling wave of something in his gut. He was, he thought, going to put himself between them. He just didn’t know what would happen when he got there. Everyone moved all at once, Steve and Sam and Natasha all recognizing instantly that he was out of control and moving into his way. The tension surged up, hot and unbearable, and he thought he might have to move Steve, and then it was over.

Nora had snapped right back at Tony.

It was enough to make him realize that she didn’t think Tony was a danger. She wasn’t frightened of him any more than she had been of Bucky. He thought maybe both of those things were a mistake, but it was enough. He was back in control of himself, watching them snap and argue, and he was okay.

He still wanted Tony to shut up and get the fuck away from her, but he wasn’t out of control anymore.

It had been a little bit like the time in the elevator, Bucky thought. When they’d gotten stuck. He really hadn’t wanted to get on with her, her spiraling fear was already pressing against him the second the elevator doors opened. But she held the door. So, he did. He hadn’t been able to refuse her, even though he knew he should.

When the elevator stopped and she started to cry, he knew she needed out. Needed to not be near him for a single second longer (he had thought). He had the door pried open before he knew what he was doing. He didn’t think she would want him to touch her, he’d done it once and he was scared he would break her for real, but she needed out. So he lifted her up through the gap in the door.

He’d done it all almost automatically. She wanted him on the elevator, so he got on. Then she wanted off, so he got her off.

He wondered, alone in his apartment, what it was about her that made him do it. It felt dangerous, responding to someone that way. What would he be willing to do, if she opened her mouth and ordered him to do it?