Elevated

Nora used to like the holidays. She used to go skating and sledding. She’d tour around the suburbs and look at Christmas lights. She would have a big Christmas Eve dinner and open presents in the morning. But that was all before her mom died. All the way back when she was a kid living in Boston. Back when her dad didn’t have his shit together, but Nora thought he did.

She missed it. But she couldn’t bring herself to do any of it on her own, and she certainly wasn’t calling her father.

Instead, she’d started her own tradition, the second she started her undergrad and was out of her father’s apartment. She spent Christmas Eve listening to carols and making pie. On Christmas day, she’d walk Luna, watch a half-dozen Hallmark movies and eat the pie. It was a little lonely, but she didn’t mind.

This year she did something different. The pie thing got out of control pretty quickly. She had to make Tony pumpkin, and she wanted to make Bruce strawberry rhubarb, but Bucky didn’t know what he liked. There definitely wasn’t time to find a bakery and work their way through flavours until they found his favourite, so Nora had to improvise.

She made a trip to ask Jane and Darcy their favourites (Blueberry and coconut cream). She found Thor when she went to get Luna (He’d never had pie). She asked Clint when she saw him in the lobby (Lemon meringue). She asked Wanda when she saw her in the elevator (Cherry). She texted Sam (Pecan) and made him ask Steve (Apple). She couldn’t find Natasha, and didn’t know how to get in touch with her.

Eight pies was way too many to make.

She did it anyways.

It took all of Christmas Eve from the time she started at eight, to the time she went to bed. Her apartment was sweltering when she finished, despite having opened the windows sometime around dinner. They took up the entire fridge, and she had to throw away half her condiments to make it happen. It was okay, a lot of them were expired anyways.

Tony had told her dinner was at six so she carefully layered them all into a tote bin at five. It was heavy and awkward, but she managed to get herself, the pies, and Luna all into a cab. When she got to the tower she was pretty thoroughly annoyed by the whole process. She managed to get herself to the elevator anyways and hit the button for the penthouse.

She hadn’t been to the penthouse before. She wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the place Tony Stark lived. Chaos, probably. It wasn’t. It was nice. There was a bar at one side, and a huge conversation pit of comfortable couches in the middle. There was a dining area and kitchen with huge appliances and marble counters. Massive windows overlooked the city and opened out onto a balcony strung with lights.

“Silver,” Tony greeted, striding over to her from the bar, “I thought I told you to bring pie.” Luna, the traitor, wagged her tail and sat for him to pet her.

“Calm down, you’ll get your pie.” She shrugged out of her coat and tossed it onto the metal suit that was, for some reason, in his living room, “Hi everybody.” She greeted over his outraged noise.

Most of the team was there and greeted her with a smattering of hellos. Darcy came to hug her. Pepper Potts gave her a wave from near the kitchen. She didn’t see Bucky or Steve, but Sam was there already.

“Hey Thor, can you stick this in the kitchen for me?”

He lurched up from the couch immediately, smiling widely, gave her a hug and then carted off the tote with an ease that made her wonder why she hadn’t thought to text a superhero for help earlier. She would bet money that Bucky and Thor both would have made the trip to the lobby.

Tony gave her a suspicious look, “The fuck did you bring?”

“Oh my god Stark, I brought pie!” He opened his mouth like he was going to argue, but then the elevator opened and Steve stepped out. Nora took the opportunity to duck them and follow Thor to the kitchen. He was looking curiously at the tote, “It’s dessert.” She supplied, “Hi Ms. Potts.”

The woman gave her a smile and said, “Please, call me Pepper.” She shot a look at Tony who was arguing with Steve about something, “Tony’s been complaining about you.” It sounded bad, but she was still smiling.

“I was pretty worried I broke him the other day. I got him a cookie and he didn’t know how to cope.” Pepper laughed.

It was interesting to see them all together. They bounced off each other the way Nora thought a family might. They chatted and argued and laughed. They paired together and split apart and moved around continuously. Nora noticed that while Wanda and Natasha weren’t very close, both seemed close with Clint. Sam was close with Steve, but also Natasha, and didn’t really seem to know what to do with Thor. Thor chatted loudly with everybody. The clock ticked towards dinnertime and Nora didn’t see him, so she texted Bucky.

She had texted him three times. Once to tell him that she saw Clint in a purple tracksuit sprinting down the road and to ask what the hell was up with that. Once to send a picture of Luna in her favourite armchair in Nora’s apartment. And once to ask if he liked pie. The first two he didn’t respond to, but she hadn’t really expected him to either. It was a bit like the stories she told him when they walked for coffee. He liked to listen to them, but he didn’t have a lot to say in return. The last one he replied and said yes. That was a relief. She would’ve hated to make eight pies and then find out he was more of a cake person.

Are you coming to Tony’s?

It was the sort of question that could be answered with one word, so she thought he might answer, but he didn’t. She tried not to be too upset and found herself failing. There was a weird twist in her stomach that she didn’t really know what to make of. She was never upset when he didn’t answer her.

She supposed it was because she thought she would see him. Finding out she wouldn’t was making her sad.

Her phone rang. She felt a swoop of something like joy, that crashed immediately into fiery disappointment. “Fuck.” She muttered with venom, hitting silence.

“Okay, Nora?” Sam asked, shooting her phone a concerned look.

“Yep,” She answered, then turned to shout at Tony by the bar, “Hey Stark, make me a drink.”

“I’m sorry,” He answered, “Who is whose boss here?”

“Alright, how about if you make me a drink, I’ll give you your Christmas present.”

Tony eyed her with growing suspicion, but he did mix her a drink. He set the glass on the bar with a firm click and glared at her while she went to the tub and took out two boxes, “There’s a matching one for Bruce.” She said, passing Bruce his and then trading Tony for the drink the way one might swap blackmail material for money.

Bruce laughed, “Thanks Nora.” He held his #1 boss mug aloft for everyone to see.

“What the fuck,” Tony muttered opening his matching mug, “World’s second worst boss?” his outrage ballooned, “Not even worst?”

Nora sipped her drink. It was very good, “No. My research head in Norway once smashed my laptop with a brick because the calibration on our hetra-scope fell off.”

“Who the fuck is this boss, Nora?” Clint asked from the couch. His expression was angry.

“I’m not allowed to say.” Nora answered, pretending not to see Tony pouring his martini into his mug.

“Why not?”

She waved a hand, “It was part of the settlement.”

“What settlement?” Bruce asked, brows furrowed.

Nora glanced from him to Clint, then Sam and Darcy who were also looking at her with interest, “You guys didn’t think I just took all that abusive crap did you? I threatened to sue the pants off the department.”

“Seriously?” Sam asked, a slow grin fighting onto his face.

“Oh, yeah. Had to pay for school somehow.”

Bucky wanted to go. He had even thought he’d be able to manage it.

Things were going well. He enjoyed spending time with the team, even though Tony was irritating and loud, and Natasha still made him nervous, and Sam was still giving him shit every time he got in the elevator at noon. He wanted to go and sit, have dinner, listen to them chatter. He thought it might feel like being a part of something.

But something happened when the holiday got close. He couldn’t really tell what had changed. Maybe it was something in the warm memories he had from before that made him ache. Or how they blended with the horrible ones that jumped to the front of his mind and cut him to ribbons. He hadn’t slept, not even a little, for two days. Despite not being able to sleep, the memories still played behind his eyelids.

He felt shaken. Torn open in a way he hadn’t in a while. After so many good days it was hard to take. Like all the good made the bad worse somehow.

Steve had spent hours trying to convince him to go, just for a little while. He said nobody would mind if Bucky stayed for ten minutes then left. That the team would be glad to see him even for a little while. Maybe that was true, but Bucky didn’t think so. He was slipping. The way that put Natasha and Steve and Sam on edge. His presence would ruin their ability to relax. It wasn’t to mention what might happen if he slipped altogether.

He told Steve firmly, “No.” and sat down on his couch. Then he ignored him until he left.

He was horrifically tired. His eyes burned and something scratched at the inside of his skull. He felt sick. He closed his eyes and tried not to let the memories press too close. It got late, and he stayed right where he was.

Someone knocked.

That was weird. Steve knocked, but not like that, and Sam didn’t. Nobody else came to his apartment. He eyed the door. He wasn’t sure he was going to answer it, but then he stood up anyways. He was really glad he did.

Nora was eyeing the hallway with interest when he opened the door. She looked different than normal. She had done something with her hair and it fell in long waves. She still wore her glasses, but her makeup underneath them was soft and shimmery. She was wearing a skirt and stockings and he forgot suddenly about the memory he’d been fighting with, at the long line of her legs. He was sure he’d be caught out when his eyes snagged on her thigh at the hem, but Luna saved him, pressing against his legs and distracting him enough that he managed to tear his gaze away. He didn’t crouch to pet her. He couldn’t give himself that vantage point and hope to be respectful.

“Hi Bucky.”

“Nora,” He hadn’t spoken more than three words in almost as many days and it came out gravely.

“Sorry to just show up, I wasn’t sure if you got my text.” She looked nervous. She had a plate in one hand and a small bag in the other.

His heart twisted painfully. He was sure she was seeing the thing in him that said he was slipping. He was scaring her. He’d forgotten about the phone. It was somewhere in his kitchen and he hadn’t looked at it for days. He should have, should have spared her seeing him, “Didn’t.” He grit out anyways.

“Oh,” She looked almost relieved, a little grin settling onto her mouth, “I figured you were avoiding the hubbub when you didn’t show up at Tony’s.”

His heart twisted a little further. He hadn’t known she’d be there. He really wished he had managed to go.

“But I made like eight pies and I didn’t want you to miss out. You wouldn’t believe how fast they were going.” She held the plate out to him, which he realized belatedly, was indeed eight slices of apparently different pies, “Oh and I brought your Christmas present.” She waved the little bag in her hand.

Bucky stared. His heart seemed to unwind itself, then tried to crawl out his mouth instead. She wasn’t seeing it. The thing that slipped. It seemed to settle and he felt a little more like his feet were on solid ground. She tilted her head and he realized she was waiting for him to do something. He didn’t think he could manage to speak so he stepped backwards instead, opened the door a little wider and made space.

Nora stepped into his apartment like it was a normal thing to do, “Oh, thanks.” She put the plate and the bag both on the kitchen island and looked around curiously.

Luna circled him as he let the door fall shut and followed her. He edged around the counter to stand opposite Nora as she sat on one of the barstools. Embarrassment washed through him at the look of the apartment. It was furnished when he arrived, but it was emptier now. He’d taken down the paintings to see the walls and broken a few pieces of furniture which had never been replaced.

“Did you pick out this furniture?” She was looking at the couch which was a light grey colour.

“No.”

She frowned, “Yeah, it seems all wrong for you. I don’t know why but I pictured you with something warmer.” He didn’t really know what that meant but he liked it anyways. He felt warmer. “Anyways, Merry Christmas.” She poked the bag towards him but said, “You don’t have to open it now if you don’t want to, I know sometimes people feel weird about that.”

He found he really wanted to. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had given him a gift and he was intensely curious. He took the bag very slowly. He knew it wasn’t going to explode, but sort of felt like it might anyways. Luna pressed against his legs and looked up at him adoringly. He managed to reach into the bag.

“I made it so if you find the mistakes, no you didn’t.”

She was looking at him but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the hat. It was a beanie, knit in near rows in a soft navy yarn. He could remember, suddenly, that his mother had knit. All his hats and scarves and socks until he went away to fight in a war. The beanie was the same, he thought, even as it wasn’t the same at all. He turned it over in his hands. The warm thing in his chest ballooned up, almost unbearably. He didn’t know how to say what he felt.

Nora didn’t mind, “I don’t know how you’ve been rocking the same outfit since October. It’s like you don’t even feel the cold.”

He did. He hated it. It reminded him of being put under. He just wasn’t really sure what to do about it and his comfort had never been important. “Thank-you.” It didn’t seem like enough. It didn’t remotely express the feeling washing over him.

Nora beamed anyways, “You’re welcome. So, I feel like I have to explain this pie situation,” She pointed at the plate and didn’t notice when he kept staring at her, “Tony said I could come to team dinner if I made pumpkin, but I thought I’d make a couple cause I wanted to make Bruce’s favourite and yours.” Electricity zinged through him, “But you didn’t know, so I asked everybody else I thought would be there and made all their favourites. It was crazy that there’s no crossover, like statistically wild, but it’s a pretty good sample size. I thought we could rank them, but it’s late now so you can eat them on your own time and let me know later.”

It was late, but Bucky didn’t want her to go. He didn’t think he could open his mouth and say as much, he’d probably do something dumb like ask her never to go home, so he opened the drawer behind him and took out two forks instead. He offered one to Nora. She took it smiling, “Okay.” Then she pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen, bringing up a list, “I already made our data sheet and everything.”

It took a long time. It didn’t have to. Bucky hadn’t eaten anything all day, he was pretty sure he could’ve finished the plate in five minutes. It took an hour. He’d take a bite and Nora would too. He would tell her if it was better or worse than the previous slice, and she would argue with him. That was new, she’d never argued with him about the coffee, but she was making her own ranking and it wasn’t the same as his.

She told him in between slices about the dinner he’d missed. How Thor had challenged Clint to some sort of game and broken a lamp. The story Sam had told her about his nephews learning to fish. The dessert Natasha had brought that was delicious, and how she refused to tell anyone where it was from.

It was almost enough to make him sad he hadn’t made it. He couldn’t manage to be when it had Nora in his kitchen instead.