Elevated

Tony still wasn’t back on Monday, or Tuesday, so they spent several days trying to correct for the weird errors in their readings and mostly failing. Eventually, they were forced to concede that they really did need all the lab equipment to be working to get anywhere. Instead of taking readings and doing interesting calculations, Nora did data input and was extremely bored.

Bruce didn’t seem to mind when she wandered off to Jane’s lab for chunks of fifteen minutes at a time to chat with her and Darcy. She corrected three random calculation errors that Jane had scrawled on the window, obviously in the dead of night. The woman wasn’t usually prone to error, but Thor still wasn’t back and it really did make her bad at math.

On Wednesday she changed in the ridiculous nice bathroom of the lab and left a little early for her date. The guy in the plaid shirt apparently worked evenings, so they had agreed to meet for an early dinner at a little Italian place. Nora wore a jumpsuit because she couldn’t bring herself to wear a dress and expose her legs to the increasingly frigid New York air. She’d fought with her hair the entire day because she didn’t want to put it up and get a ponytail-bump.

Bruce wished her luck and she watched the first two elevators open and shut before she managed to get on the third. She had left Luna at home but she was so used to being dragged when the dog saw Bucky that she got on the elevator automatically anyways.

“Hi Clint, hi Bucky.” They were both dressed like they were going somewhere, in jeans and jackets. Nora had never seen the pair of them together before, and wondered briefly what the relationship dynamics were like between different pairs of heroes. Bruce and Stark, weirdly because Bruce was sweet and Stark was a psycho, were some sort of best friends. Steve and Bucky and Sam all seemed close too and she usually saw at least two of them together. Natasha and Wanda had gotten along but didn’t seem particularly close.

“Hey Nora,” Clint eyed her with interest and leant to inspect her outfit under her coat, “Nice outfit.” Bucky, predictably, said nothing. She wasn’t bothered.

“Thanks, I’ve got a date.” She tried to count square breaths, tapping her fingers in time to the beats.

“Really?” Clint asked.

His tone was weird enough that Nora forgot about her square breathing and her fear and was a little outraged instead, “I’m sorry, is that surprising for some reason?”

“No.” Clint said immediately, shifting like he knew he’d made a mistake, “Sorry. You’re very pretty.” Nora eyed him. He looked deeply uncomfortable and opened his mouth like he was going to try to explain, then shut it again. He looked at Bucky, who was looking back at him, “Sorry!” He raised his hands in surrender.

“Uh-huh,” Nora muttered. She turned back to the counting red numbers, “Oh right, Bucky, Sam said you liked walking Luna the other day.” She glanced at him and he turned very slowly to look at her instead of Clint, “If you wanna borrow her sometime you can. I usually go at noon but I’m sure she’d love an extra walk.”

“When do you talk to Sam?” Clint asked, the same weird tone in his voice.

“He texted me,” Nora rounded on him, “You got a problem, Barton?”

Clint’s hands shot up again, “No! Geeze I was just asking.”

Nora glared at him until the doors opened to the lobby and she stepped through into the open air. She took a deep breath and ran her hand over her hair. Both men crossed the lobby with her and out onto the street, pausing where she stopped to wave down a cab.

“Have fun on your date,” Clint said when one stopped and she opened the door.

Nora huffed, “Thanks. Bye Bucky.” And slid into the cab.

She did not, as it turned out, have fun.

The man in the plaid shirt who’s name she became determined to forget, asked her no questions, and talked about micro-brews the entire night. He got huffy when the Italian restaurant didn’t have any craft beer options and was a little bit mocking when she ordered a glass of wine. He also, apparently, didn’t like dogs.

It felt like a massive waste of an evening. She would have rather stayed at work to input data an extra three hours. Instead, she got ice cream on her way home and watched a movie on the couch with Luna. She wondered, as she put on her pajamas, if the jumpsuit which she had also worn on her date with the facial-hair guy, wasn’t cursed like the Coolidge machines in the lab. She decided to banish it to the back of her closet just in case.

When she got to work, Darcy and Jane were already there. It was a little unclear if they had gotten there early, or if they had been there all night. It didn’t matter, she wandered into the lab anyways.

“Hey!” Darcy crowed. She seemed over-caffeinated and manic, so probably they were still there from the day before, “How was your date?”

“Awful,” Nora answered, unclipping Luna’s leash so she could run and greet both women. Jane patted her head absently with her left hand while she continued scrawling numbers with the right, “He didn’t ask me a single question, just talked about beer all night.” Darcy made an irritated noise, “I think maybe I’m done with dating hipsters.”

Darcy surveyed her, “Maybe you should be looking for a scientist.”

“Ugh, I had a date with one of those recently too and he got all,” she waved her hand, “jealous.”

Jane turned, “Every scientist I dated back at Culver thought I was insane and made fun of my research.” She sounded furious. It was obviously still a sore spot.

Nora made a sympathetic noise, “Maybe I just need to be pickier. Usually if a guy asks I agree to a date cause I figured you need to play the odds? It’s clearly not working.”

Darcy shrugged, “It’s hard to know they suck before you go out though.”

It was a good point that left Nora feeling annoyed. She wandered to her own lab eventually and spent a while flicking on machines and making tea before Bruce arrived. They continued, in a slow, bored kind of way, to compile old data. Nora read a paper that was tenuously related to what they were trying to prove and frowned because her and Bruce had already disproven half the findings with their own numbers.

She made a break for the elevator at noon, Luna at her side.

“Oh shoot,” She hadn’t been remotely prepared to get on the first elevator but Luna dragged her in anyways, “Hi Bucky.”

She didn’t usually see him by himself, but he looked the same as always. He stood very straight until Luna got to him and then he crouched to pet her. His expression was neutral, and unreadable. He was wearing the same jeans and leather coat combination, and a pair of gloves.

“Nora.”

He didn’t usually greet her, but usually there was someone else with him who did, “How’s it going?”

“Fine.”

He looked like he was going somewhere but she asked anyways, “We’re going to the Spruce, you wanna come?” He sort of shifted and she was pretty sure he didn’t, but then he nodded. She really couldn’t tell if he liked her or not. She wondered if maybe, despite his ridiculous stature, he was shy. He seemed to have a hard time saying more than one word at a time.

That was fine, Nora thought. If he agreed to come he must not dislike her, and she didn’t mind his quiet. The elevator hit the lobby and they crossed it into the cool afternoon. She wished she’d thought to dress a little warmer, “Good call on the gloves,” She said absently, “You wanna walk her?” She offered him the leash.

He gave her an odd kind of look but took it. Again, he put himself on the outside of the sidewalk. Nora shoved her hands into her pockets and didn’t trip this time. “What did you and Clint get up to yesterday?”

He shrugged, which might have meant nothing in particular, or might have meant he didn’t think it was any of her business. She wondered if it was superhero stuff, but figured they probably didn’t just leave through the lobby for anyone to see.

“Bet it was more fun than my date.” She muttered a little absently. She didn’t think Bucky would want to hear about it, but she was still a little sour, “The guy talked about beer for like an hour.”

Bucky made an annoyed sort of sound, either because he felt that wasn’t appropriate on a date, or because he really didn’t want to hear about it.

The coffee shop patio came into view down the road, “Do you know what you want this time?”

“No.”

“Okay. Did you like the mocha better than the chai?” She tried to read his face and couldn’t.

Bucky chewed on the question for a second, “Yes.”

Nora hummed, “Alright. Do you want to wait outside with Luna?” Bucky nodded, so she slipped through the door while he took the same chair against the wall as before. She considered the drink menu carefully as she waited in line. When she emerged back into the New York air, Bucky stood immediately and met her near the wall by the door where they weren’t in the way of passing pedestrians.

Nora had decided pretty quickly that ordering a cold drink in autumn was insane, “I got an americano, and a mocha in case you hate it.” She handed him the cup and he took it. He had the same sort of look like he didn’t know what to do with it, but then took a sip. Again, she couldn’t tell if he liked it or not, “Better or worse than the mocha?”

“Worse.” He answered, then almost looked like he hadn’t meant to.

“Bummer.” She took the cup and handed him the mocha instead, turning back towards the tower, “That’s good data though.” She slid her phone from her pocket and opened a note, “Better or worse than the chai?”

Bucky seemed to think about it, “Worse.”

She tapped one-handed the three drinks in order. Bucky tugged gently at her sleeve and she glanced up, letting him lead her around a post-box, “Thanks. Do you have a sweet tooth?”

He shrugged which might have meant he didn’t really, or he didn’t know, or it wasn’t any of her business. Nora clicked her tongue.

Bucky and Clint were supposed to go to the diner Clint liked. It was near the tower and Clint had insisted it wouldn’t be busy. Bucky made it as far as the sidewalk, watched Nora get in a cab, and turned around.

He could’ve punched Clint for upsetting her. He seemed to think it was strange that she had a date. Bucky didn’t think it was strange. It made him feel a little sick, but he didn’t think it was strange. Maybe it was the memory of what she’d said in the elevator with Steve about Luna not liking one of her dates. Maybe he was worried her date would be the bad kind of person Luna didn’t like, not the bad kind of person she did.

He could’ve punched Sam too, but he was less sure why that was.

Nora, he thought, seemed to have the mistaken impression that he didn’t want to go for a walk with her. She had offered that he could take Luna, and not have to go with her. He wanted to walk with her. He’d spent a week thinking about it. He just didn’t seem to be able to manage it.

Until he did. He was sure it was the date that did it, he needed to see and make sure that she was fine. She was, but she was also annoyed that it hadn’t gone well. He was irritated for her, but he was something else too.

He liked walking with her, he found. She asked him questions that he could answer with a word and he didn’t feel like he’d choke on them. She ordered two drinks and took the one he liked less. She didn’t seem bothered that he couldn’t make a fucking decision. It almost made him feel like it was okay. Like it didn’t matter that he was frozen with crippling indecision, he could have a coffee anyways.

He touched her arm. Just a little. He didn’t want her to hurt herself again, and she hadn’t been paying attention. She didn’t mind. His hand felt hot.

The shame still lingered, from her comment about his gloves.