Elevated

Nora spent the rest of the day being useless.

She made four separate errors in her math, knocked the calibration off the radioscope, spilled the rest of her coffee on one of Tony’s half-finished repulsor casings, and lost her tablet pen entirely when it flipped out of her hand and ended up somewhere inside of the machining station.

Tony didn’t say a word. Bruce kept cutting concerned looks at her across the lab.

Four-o-clock kept looming closer and she wasn’t ready at all. The idea of facing her dad at all, much less for an entire dinner, was killing her. She was sure she’d never be able to get in the elevator. As it was, the clock ticked over to four and she couldn’t make herself get off the couch.

The elevator doors slid open and Luna took off like a shot. It took Nora a second to drag her eyes from the clock to the elevator, “Hi Bucky. What are you doing here?”

He was standing in the elevator doors so it couldn’t go anywhere, patting Luna but looking at Nora. He didn’t say anything, but Nora didn’t know what question to ask to help him tell her. He shot a glance at Tony who was staring openly at him from the kitchenette, frowned, and stepped into the lab. The doors slid shut as he crossed the lab to crouch for the second time that day in front of her. He tapped her knee gently with his knuckle, “Okay, Nora?”

He was looking at her with his too-blue eyes and Nora knew that he was worried. She sniffed, “I’m having trouble. I don’t- this dinner-”

Bucky nodded once, “I’ll go with you.”

Surprise jumped through her, followed immediately by something warm. Bucky didn’t like people, and he didn’t like leaving the tower, but he was offering to go somewhere and sit with her and her dad anyways, “You don’t have to do that. It’s going to suck.”

He nodded again, “I’ll go.”

Nora bit her lip. She really didn’t want to go. She’d much rather take Bucky and go almost anywhere else. But her dad was apparently persistent enough to fly to New York, so she didn’t think he was about to leave her alone. It was better to face it now. She nodded. Bucky stood up and offered her a hand to help her up. She took it and found she felt a little better.

“Bruce can you watch Luna for a while? She doesn’t really like my dad and I don’t think I can take her to a restaurant anyways.”

Bruce took his glasses off and cleaned them the way he did when he was stressed, “Sure. Good luck Nora.”

“Thanks,” it was a bit of an odd sentiment for a meeting with one’s parent, but she thought it was appropriate. She also thought she might need it. She grabbed her coat and yanked it on, then followed Bucky across the lab. Tony watched her the whole way, frowning. In the elevator she slipped her arm through Bucky’s and really tried to breathe. It didn’t work very well, she was stressed and it made her extra nervous about the small space. He put his other hand over hers and she felt better.

Her dad was indeed waiting on the steps of the tower again. He saw her coming from his vantage leaning against one of the railings and bounced over, then sort of frowned at Bucky, “Hey Nora. Thought it would just be the two of us.”

Nora made a noise that might have been affirmative, or not, but didn’t open space for the conversation to continue, “It’s a little early for dinner but there’s a coffee place nearby.”

“Sure, could always go for one. Lead the way.”

At noon when Nora and Bucky went to the Spruce, they would descend the tower stairs and turn right. Nora turned left instead. Bucky looked at her, unreadable but probably confused. He tugged his arm back and nudged her to his other side so he could be on the outside of the sidewalk. Nora slipped her arm back around his. Her dad walked on her other side and chattered about New York. When he got in, what he had seen, where he was saying, how wonderful it was at Christmastime.

The Manor was only a block away from the tower. It didn’t have an outdoor patio and they tended to burn the milk in their lattes. Nora didn’t like it and never went. She could only see coffee with her dad going poorly and didn’t want the memory anywhere near her and Bucky’s place. Her dad stepped through the door and Bucky snagged it to hold for her. Nora took a bracing breath before she crossed the threshold.

Inside the building she said to Bucky, “Do you wanna pick a spot?”

He didn’t let go of her right away but then nodded, surveying the space. He went to a booth in the corner and slid into the bench that faced the shop. Nora let her dad order, then ordered two black coffees. It was fast and she listened to the chatter of her dad as she fixed one with sugar, and the other sugar and cream.

Bucky slid out of the booth to let her in. She wasn’t sure if that was one of his old-manners things or not, but it didn’t really matter. She sat and he slid in beside her. She gave him the mug with just sugar first and let him sip it, then offered him the other to try. He slid the one without cream back towards her.

If her dad noticed the exchange at all, he didn’t say anything. He’d moved on to a long story about Dana’s new apartment that wasn’t news to Nora because she’d talked to Dana the week before. She listened to her dad and felt an anxious buzz in her chest.

“How’s work Nor?” He asked eventually.

Nora picked up her mug, “It’s fine dad. I know you don’t like hearing about the lab. How’s Darrel?” Darrel was her dad’s best friend, who was awful, and who he immediately launched into a story about. Beside her, Bucky sat a little straighter. Nora glanced at him and noticed the little frown twisting at his mouth.

She really thought that with Bucky sitting there, he wasn’t going to do it. He’d managed to make it a whole fifteen minutes, telling elaborate stories she knew were only half true. She thought he might be forced to let it go. But he didn’t.

“Hey Nor, I’m actually in a bit of a spot.”

There it was. She felt it all over, the hot wash of irritation and shame. She picked up her mug to hide her frown.

“See, I made a couple bad investments and they’ve sent it to collections. They’re trying to lean on the house.” Her dad was frowning deeply. He looked sorry, like he’d made a small mistake and was trying to ask for help fixing it.

Nora put down her mug. She considered herself a pretty smart person, but it had taken her a long time to realize her dad was full of shit. Now that she had, there just wasn’t any going back. Her heart twisted. He’d gotten her with the house before. She had grown up there. It was still decorated with her mom’s things, “What kind of investments dad?”

He blinked at her then shrugged, reaching for a lie and finding it, “I don’t know exactly. The broker talked me into it, you know I don’t have your eye for these things.”

“Uh-huh. So, you didn’t lose a bunch of money at Carl’s place two weeks ago?” Her dad’s mug where it had been making its way to his mouth, dropped with a thud. He stared, “Dana told me. You know Carl goes to her when you fuck up, right? She wanted to pay him. Because he was threatening the house.”

Carl was another friend of her dad’s who was awful and who she learned when she was sixteen was actually his bookie. He had once told Nora that if her dad didn’t pay, he was going to break his fingers. Nora had paid. Dana hadn’t been specific, but Nora was almost sure his threatening the house meant he planned to burn it down. She didn’t see how it would help him get his money, but he had never been very smart.

Bucky was very still beside her. Nora continued, “We’ve been here before dad. You lose money, I feel guilty, and I bail you out. It’s not happening again.” Her voice came out a little wobbly. She poked Bucky’s leg and he took the hint and slid from the booth, “I don’t have anything else to give you. Don’t come to my work, don’t text me, and don’t call. I don’t want to hear from you again.” She reached for Bucky as she slid from the booth and he took her hand. Her dad, for once, was quiet as she left.

Nora made it all the way back to the tower and into the elevator before she started to cry. This time when she turned and buried her face in Bucky’s coat, he wrapped his arms around her.

Bucky continued to fret for the rest of the week.

It had been a bittersweet kind of thing, going to the coffee shop with Nora and her dad. He wasn’t sure that he’d be able to manage it, going somewhere new and sitting for a while, but he had. He’d done it for Nora and only been a little stressed. As much as she seemed to be holding his arm to keep herself calm, it had done the same for him. He thought he could probably manage to go somewhere else with her. Maybe Clint’s diner, but maybe not.

He still felt awful it had gone so poorly. Nora told him a lot of things. She talked about Luna and her work. She talked about her friends. She talked about how much she liked Bruce, and how crazy Tony made her (he thought maybe she liked him anyways). She told him about movies she watched and books she read. But she had never told him about her father.

He had known in a passing kind of way that there was something difficult between them that made her unhappy when the man called. He just hadn’t realized it was quite so bad. He wondered how long Nora had been responsible for cleaning up her father’s messes.

The man hadn’t even asked about her life. He didn’t want to hear about Nora’s friends, or her work. Bucky couldn’t imagine not wanting to hear about her job. She loved it so much. Her face lit up when she talked about it. It made her so-

But then, Bucky didn’t ask about her life either. He frowned, setting down the weights he’d been lifting. He scanned the textured rubber of the floor. Nora told him all kinds of things, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever managed to ask her an entire question. She asked him questions every day. All carefully phrased so he could answer with a word. He wanted to be able to ask her something. Anything really.

How did she rank all the coffees they’d tried? Why did she pick Norway for her schooling? What was her favourite thing to eat? Did she want to steal the jet and run away with him?

He made a frustrated noise. He didn’t know how to start with any of that.

“Alright, Bucky?” Clint surveyed him from a few benches over. He had his hands tucked into the hem of his shirt.

Bucky squinted at him. He supposed he better start practicing if he wanted to be able to ask Nora much of anything, “D’you text Nora?”

Clint flinched.