Elevated

Nora stayed at Bucky’s a while longer.

They ate leftover pizza and watched half a dozen movies. They showered together and she felt filthier getting out than she had going in. She slept again in his bed with his arm around her stomach, and almost didn’t notice when he jerked awake in the middle of the night and rolled out of bed to pace into the living room.

He wasn’t gone very long but when he slid back under the covers, he didn’t pull her into him like he had earlier that night. Nora rolled to stretch against his side instead, pressing a kiss to his cheek. She stroked a hand through his hair until some of the tension in his body leaked away.

In the morning, sitting on his kitchen island again in a new shirt that had him eyeing her legs and finding excuses to grip her thigh, she said, “Bucky, I’ve gotta go home.”

He was spooning sugar into a mug of coffee and frowned deeply, “Why?”

“Well,” she started, “I’ve got no clothes for one thing.” It was half a lie. She had jeans and a sweater, she just didn’t have any underwear.

Bucky eyed her form in his shirt in a way that made her blush, “That’s fine.”

She laughed, “Yeah for here, but I’d like to go to work tomorrow.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it. He had a sip of his drink, his eyebrows knit together in displeasure.

“What?” She asked. It was an open question, the kind she didn’t usually expect an answer to, but he’d continued to be downright mean with his demands that she verbalize what she wanted and it felt like revenge.

“S’not safe.” He said firmly.

Nora was pretty sure it was. Steve had stopped by the day before to tell them the men who’d taken her were some sort of strange splinter group and were ‘contained’ whatever that meant. Then he’d left extremely quickly upon realizing she was wearing Bucky’s shirt.

She didn’t think the problem was that she was likely to get kidnapped a second time. She did wonder if it was statistically more or less likely to happen again given that they hadn’t been looking for her in the first place. Regardless, she thought it was more to do with his guilt over not having stopped it in the first place.

“I can’t stay in the tower forever Bucky.” That was true, though she was more than willing to spend more time in his apartment, “I’ve gotta go home sometime.”

He chewed on that. He obviously didn’t like it, but he didn’t say anything.

“You can come with me if you want.” Nora didn’t want to permit either of their anxiety to keep her stuck there, but she also wasn’t quite ready to be out of his presence. A little because she was still frightened, but mostly because she hadn’t managed to get her mouth around his cock yet and wanted to know how it tasted. She’d have done it already, but he wasn’t going to let her until she said the words out loud and she wasn’t quite that brave.

“Alright.” He wasn’t quite happy, but he was much less annoyed.

“I feel like I should warn you,” Nora started, lifting her own mug. She watched Bucky’s expression twist, “We’ve gotta make a stop on the way.”

Bucky snorted when she told him where.

She would have sworn up and down that she wasn’t being mocking. She was positive there was something about it that was a problem, she just didn’t know what it was. It was super weird was part of it.

There was something about Bucky, even with his metal arm all the way covered by his leather jacket and gloves, that just didn’t belong in a grocery store. Nora wondered if anyone else could tell, or if it was just her. He didn’t look all that different from any of the other customers. He was giant and muscular and beautiful, but mechanically he was just a man.

She just couldn’t reconcile it in her brain. She hadn’t wanted to let him carry the basket but of course that wouldn’t do. He’d looked at her like she was insane and taken it anyways. She held his other hand and watched him out of the corner of her eye.

He did seem okay, no matter how strange Nora found the sight. He was tense, now that she’d seen him completely unwound it was obvious, but he wasn’t quite standing straight. He watched everyone who passed with the same analytical eye, but it didn’t linger on anyone.

She knew the main problem when she stopped in the cereal aisle and asked him, “Preference?” He let his gaze sweep over the full aisle of bright boxes, frowned, and scoffed. Nora thought that might be something like, ’Why the fuck are there four hundred kinds?’ Which was fair. She tossed a box of Fruit Loops into the basket.

She knew he had trouble making choices and the whole place was full of frivolous ones. Removing even the decisions about what one might get ingredients for in the first place. Nora herself wasn’t quite sure what she was after, but they’d been ordering takeout for two and a half days and she felt like she needed to cook something. She flung things into the basket with a half-formed idea, intent on being out of the building and back in her apartment as quickly as possible.

Bucky’s phone rang in the checkout line. It took them both a second. Nora had never heard it ring before, but she caught on a second before him and poked his coat pocket, “That’s you.”

He glowered at the device when he pulled it out. Nora wondered when he answered it if he’d ever talked on the phone before. It seemed like a ridiculous thing for him to do.

“Yeah. Yes.” There was a long pause then, “Butt out.” And he hung up.

“Who was it?” She asked.

“Steve.”

He didn’t seem inclined to say more but she asked anyway, “Was he afraid he lost you?” He made an annoyed sound that felt affirmative, “What, did he think we ran off to Italy together or something?”

Bucky didn’t say anything, but he smiled and tugged on her hand to kiss her cheek right in the middle of the store for anyone to see.

Bucky liked Nora’s apartment. It was full of things. The kind of things that would have reminded him of her even if he didn’t know where they belonged. Scientific papers and notes strewn across the living room. Pens where they had no business being like she’d flung them off by accident then picked them up to put on the nearest surface and forgotten. There were postcards on the fridge from places he knew she’d been. He could see at a glance, four of the little spiral hair ties she favoured.

He did not like the huge bank of windows. The tower was similarly designed but the ninety-seventh floor was so high up he could pretend it didn’t bother him. Nora’s apartment was only four stories from the ground, close enough to see the people milling about in the park across the street. Knowing they were mirrored helped a little, but still left him feeling itchy.

He couldn’t quite manage to turn his back and pulled one of the tall stools at the island around to the side to sit. Nora watched him do it from her spot near the fridge, looking confused, then she glanced towards the windows and frowned. He felt a flip of something like shame that didn’t stick when Nora started to complain about not being able to nap in the living room because of them.

She’d put half the groceries away and left half on the counter. She retrieved an armload of things from the pantry and scattered them in a heap on the counter before rifling through drawers and cupboards for the tools she needed.

“How are your knife skills?” Nora asked.

Bucky was pretty sure she wasn’t asking about his ability to use them in a fight, which was excellent, but his ability to cut the vegetables on the counter. He shrugged. He wasn’t in the habit of cooking and hadn’t been eighty years ago either.

Nora surveyed him, “Wanna find out?”

“Alright.” He shoved up from his spot and moved to stand beside her. She slid a cutting board and knife in front of him and set a zucchini on it.

“I feel like you’ve got an advantage here,” she said when he picked up the knife in his right hand. She tapped his metal left, “You can chop as fast as you want and you don’t have to worry about cutting yourself. I’m terrible, I’ve had to go for stitches twice.”

It was such an odd thing to consider. That there might be any sort of positives to his least favourite part of himself. It stuck somewhere near his ribs.

Nora frowned, “Tomato’s both times.” She pointed at the vegetable in front of him, “Small chunks,” then spun away to start a pan on the stove and measure a series of ingredients into a mixing bowl.

He got a sense of her problem immediately, which was that the knife in his hand wasn’t particularly sharp. It was a recipe for disaster with Nora’s already clumsy nature. He could fix that, he thought, and filed away the issue for the next time.

It turned out that his knife skills were extremely good. He cut a series of vegetables very quickly, and Nora was delighted. He turned them over to her and she spent a while alternating her attention between three different burners on the stove. He wanted to be helpful, so he started washing dishes. He managed not to break anything.

The ingredients turned into some sort of pasta dish he'd never had but which was delicious. Then from the oven she pulled the lemon bars she’d made because she thought he’d like them.

Bucky thought he probably would like them. They smelled delicious and he’d really enjoyed the lemon pie she’d made weeks before. It was just one good thing too many.

Standing in her kitchen helping her make something and then sitting to eat it together while she told him a rapid series of stories about Greenland had filled him with an intense warmth that was as unfamiliar as it was nice. The idea that she would go out of her way to do anything just because it might make him happy had the feeling spilling over. He picked her up and carted her across the room, grinning at her shrieking laugh, intent on finding out what her bed was like.