Elevated

Bruce had yet to suggest that they use the huge radiation chamber that occupied the north-west corner of the lab. She knew on a surface level, that he had a very specific history with radioactive experiments. She also knew, that he was nervous about her being in the lab and meeting the result of those experiments. She’d been thinking for a week and a half, that they really needed to use the chamber, but she thought it probably wasn’t a good idea to suggest as much. If he was that nervous, she didn’t want to freak him out.

When she walked into work on a Wednesday with Luna and found him staring at the door of it, having obviously come in early, she pretended not to notice the hard line of his spine. She flipped the kettle and made him some tea instead. It took another two days.

“Nora?”

“Uh-huh,” The pen she’d been trying to spin, flipped off her hand and rolled under a desk. They both watched it go. Instead of picking up a new one, she turned her chair to face him.

Bruce did not look good. He was pale, his hair stuck up weird, and he had a pinched, anxious kind of look on his face, “We need to use the radiation chamber.”

Nora nodded, impressed that he managed to tell her as much when he’d spent the week dancing around the issue, “Okay,” she said, “I better send Luna somewhere.”

“Nora,” he started, sounding upset, “You don’t have to be in here. I can do it.”

“Bruce, I don’t want you to take this wrong, but you look really nervous.” Nora stood and picked up Luna’s leash, “I think we should probably do it together so we only have to do it once.”

He took off his glasses but didn’t clean them, he just held them with his arm sitting on the edge of his table, “I just- This kind of thing-“

“I know. It’s alright.”

He looked at her and must have seen the sincerity in her face because he nodded slowly and replaced his glasses.

“I’ll be right back,” She clipped Luna’s leash on and made for the vault door. She realized in the hallway that she actually had no idea what to do with Luna. It was extremely unlikely that a Tony Stark built chamber would leak deadly radiation, but she wasn’t willing to have her in the lab, just in case. She glanced at Foster’s empty lab. Jane and Darcy had both gone to Nevada for the week to take some sort of readings and Thor still wasn’t back.

She wandered to the elevator and pressed the button to call it. It took her two tries to get on, and she hit the button for the eighty-fourth floor when she finally did.

Nora had no idea what was on the eighty-fourth floor, and she was a little surprised when the button lit up. She hadn’t been sure FRIDAY would give her access to it. She did know, that a variety of superheroes hung out on eighty-four throughout the day. Superheroes that she sort of knew, and who mostly liked her dog. One of them would probably be willing to watch Luna. She would’ve liked to be able to text them and ask, but they weren’t that close.

So she rode the elevator six floors and stepped off into a plain whiteish hallway with a set of big double doors on the end, and a pair of smaller doors on either side. She gave the hallway a suspicious look, because really she could be anywhere, but decided to try her luck with the doors on the end. She was a little surprised again, when they swung open. She wondered how much of the tower she had access to, and if she could get away with running around and flinging random doors open to find out.

She was a little disappointed to find herself in a massive gym. Nora wasn’t really an exercise person, much less the kind of person inclined to lift any of the truly insane looking weights that occupied the space. She eyed it all with distaste.

“Luna!”

Nora let the leash drop automatically so the dog could run across the gym and press herself against Clint’s legs where he stood at the edge of a boxing ring of some sort. Clint bent to pet her. He was wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and looked mildly sweaty. Steve and Sam, who were standing in the ring, were both also wearing workout clothes and glistening with sweat.

“Hi.” Nora greeted, following after her dog. She tried not to let her eyes linger on any of the truly ridiculous muscle in front of her.

“Nora,” Sam greeted an expression of equal confusion to Steve’s on his face, “What’re you doing here?”

“Taking up bodybuilding?” Clint joked easily.

“I actually did not know this was a gym.” She eyed a machine of some sort that reminded her of a guillotine, “I’m a little disappointed. I thought it would be something cooler.”

A door behind the ring swung open. Bucky took two steps into the room and stopped dead, eyes locked on her. He had clearly just had his head under a sink. His hair was soaked and pushed back away from his face. His t-shirt was also drenched and clung to the muscle of his chest. Nora hadn’t ever seen him in just a t-shirt and the black metal of his hand continued all the way up under the hem of his sleeve. She looked at him for what she was sure was a half-beat too long before saying, “Hi Bucky.” Luna, predictably, shot off to greet him.

“Still disappointed?” Clint muttered under his breath beside her.

Nora turned automatically and swatted at him, a deep frown on her face. He raised both hands in surrender, a wide grin on his face. “I need a favour,” she said to the room at large, “Can one of you guys watch Luna today?”

“Bucky’ll do it.” Sam answered immediately. Bucky frowned at him from where he was crouched to pet Luna.

“Doesn’t she usually stay in the lab?” Steve asked, glancing from Sam to Bucky.

“Yeah, but we’re running an experiment and she can’t be there today.”

Clint looked interested, “What sort of experiment?”

Nora shrugged, “We’re gonna shoot off a bunch of radiation and see what it does to some Elset particles.” Three equally confused and one inscrutable face looked at her. She waved a hand, “It doesn’t matter. It should be fine, but if the lab cracks open and we get irradiated all to hell, I don’t want her in there.”

Steve looked alarmed, “Is that likely?”

“Not really.” Nora answered, “Bruce got Hulked once already, the odds of it happening twice would be astronomical.” She considered the math briefly, “Like, a thousandth of a percent.” Confusion became mild concern, “So can one of you watch her? Please?”

“Yes,” Bucky straightened up slowly. He didn’t look like he wanted to do it, but he still had a hand on Luna’s head so maybe he did.

“Awesome, thanks Bucky. I dunno exactly when we’ll be done, can I text you?”

He cleared his throat and the set of his body was deeply uncomfortable, “Don’t have a phone.”

Nora squinted at him. Then she flapped a hand in annoyance, “What was Stark giving me all that crap for about my phone when Bucky doesn’t even have one?”

Sam laughed, “You can text me, how about that?”

“Alright,” Nora pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped to make a new contact, “Go ahead.” Sam relayed his number and she tapped it in, “I’ll text you so you can call if there’s a problem. She should be fine, she doesn’t usually go anywhere and she loves Bucky so,” she trailed off and shoved her phone back in her pocket, “Okay, I gotta go fry some particles. Thanks again Bucky. Bye,” she gave them all an awkward kind of wave and turned to wander out the gym doors.

It was like the stairwell all over again.

She kept popping up in places he didn’t expect her to be, but at least he’d known she had access to several of the upper levels. He’d had no idea she had access to the gym. It was all wrong, stepping out expecting to see Clint and Steve and Sam, and seeing Nora instead. She was dressed the same as usual, wearing jeans and a soft-looking sweater of some kind, her glasses perched on her nose, but it was like his brain had trouble connecting her to the space. Made her seem brighter somehow, than the things around her.

He hadn’t even remembered to be embarrassed about his arm. It wasn’t until an hour later when he picked up Luna’s leash and went to his apartment to shower that he realized his entire arm was out where anyone could see it. And, he realized with distress, she definitely had. No wonder she had given him that strange look. He wondered if she’d be uncomfortable now.

The clawed thing that lived in his chest swelled up, gripping at the inside of his ribs.

The dog, Luna, pressed against his legs. He glanced down at her and she looked back, open adoration on her face. He patted her head and some of the sharp edges eased away. He crouched, then sat, pressing his back to the bathroom cabinet. Luna turned once and flopped, pressing the length of her side along his leg and resting her head on his thigh.

His breath came a little easier. The claws shrunk.

He sat on the floor for a long time anyways, petting Luna, before he got up to shower.

His afternoon went well. Better maybe, than it had in a long time. The same sneaking, anxious, shame clawed at him when he got dressed. He pulled on a hoodie that covered his arm and let him hide his hand in his pocket. Luna pressed against his jeans again and he felt a little soothed.

He went to the lounge and ate the waffles Clint was making. He listened to him talk about his favourite little diner and the elderly woman that worked there. Bucky watched Clint try to bribe the dog with bites of waffle, but she stayed at his feet. He enjoyed himself, even if he couldn’t quite manage a smile.

He walked Luna with Sam, to the same little coffee shop a few blocks away and didn’t feel like the crowd was going to sweep him away. He didn’t order anything. Sam chatted the whole way about his sister and Bucky remembered his own sister, who was long gone, and didn’t feel like he would crumble.

He watched a movie with Steve and mostly managed to pay attention. Luna sat on the couch with her head on his thigh. Steve sat on her other side and pet her absently while they watched.

Sometime after six while Steve was considering a handful of takeout menus, Sam wandered into the lounge, “Nora wants her dog back, I said you’d meet her at the lab.”

Bucky remembered, suddenly, that Sam had given Nora his phone number. He felt a hot wash of something he didn’t recognize as it rolled through him. She had asked, he thought, for his own.

He stood, grabbed the leash off the counter, and whistled for Luna to follow. It wasn’t until he was in the elevator and dropping the five floors to the lab, that he realized Sam had tricked him.

Bucky didn’t go to the lab if he could help it, and he definitely never went to the lab on his own. He clutched the leash in his hand a little tighter. It was too late to go back. As nervous as he was, he was more stubborn. He wasn’t going to let Sam push him into something and then fail. He grit his teeth and stepped through the elevator doors when they slid open. The lab on the right was still blocked off with huge lengths of white sheeting, and the one on the left was empty and dim. He strode to the huge vault door at the end of the hall, his left hand wedged in his pocket, and winced when it slid open.

“Hi Bucky. Hi Luna!” He let the leash drop the way he had seen Nora do before and the dog hurried over to flop at the woman’s feet and wag her tail. Nora knelt to pat her, smiling widely. She looked at Bucky and something in his stomach flopped over when her expression didn’t change, “How’d it go?”

“Fine,” He answered. He might’ve winced, but didn’t, at his own clipped answer. He didn’t want to do that. He wanted to be able to say something.

“That’s good. Our experiment went well too.” Nora yanked on her coat and pulled a purse over her shoulder, tucking Luna’s leash into the same hand, “Thanks again for watching her. I hope you didn’t agree just because Sam was trying to bully you into it.”

Bruce was already gone, he noticed, and she flipped a few switches on equipment he didn’t recognize on her way across the lab. He shook his head, cleared his throat, “No. I like her.”

The door opened with a whoosh as Nora approached it and he followed her through and down the hall, “That’s good cause she seriously loves you. She’d be devastated if you didn’t like dogs.” She hit the button to call the elevator. He could feel the change standing beside her. The way her body tensed up and her breathing slowed down. The elevator doors slid open and she didn’t move. Instead, she studied the inside and bit her lip, “Uh, you can go first. I might take a minute.”

Bucky stepped onto the elevator, and then stuck his right hand out to hold it open. Nora gave him a confused sort of look and he said, “I’ll go with you.” She fidgeted for one more second, then stepped onto the elevator beside him. Bucky pressed the button for the lobby.

“Thanks. I sort of felt like I was making progress for a minute there and then we got stuck and it all went out the window.” She fidgeted, watching the numbers count down, “Sam said you guys went to that coffee shop again?”

He frowned, “Yes.”

“What did you get?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?” She looked at him with surprise, “Do you just not like coffee?”

He cleared his throat again, surveyed the edge of the wall where it met the ceiling, “I like it.”

“Oh. Do you not know what to order then?”

That seemed like it was close to describing the problem so he nodded. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the options. He sort of even knew what he might like. There was just something in actually making the decision that he couldn’t seem to manage. He hadn’t had to make decisions for himself in so long, of any sort, that making frivolous ones now left him itchy in a way that was hard to describe. He had a similar problem when Steve asked what he wanted for dinner, or what movie they should watch. It was easier to let someone else make the choice.

Nora made a soft noise, like she was considering his answer. The elevator doors slid open revealing the lobby and she stepped out onto the tile. Bucky stepped forward and held the doors, then wasn’t sure why he had.

“I usually walk Luna down the street at noon. If you wanna come sometime we can try to figure out your order.” She was looking at him and there was that soft something in his chest again that he didn’t know what to name.

“Maybe,” He answered. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to go with her. He wasn’t sure he could.

She smiled at him anyways.