Elevated

Nora was furious. And for once, it had nothing to do with Tony Stark.

“No, Dana, I’m gonna take care of it.” She shoved up from her desk and grabbed her bag, then dropped it again in favour of grabbing her coat. She shoved her arms through the sleeves, trading her phone awkwardly from hand to hand, “Well he obviously didn’t take me seriously, but he’s about to.” She tapped her fingers on the desk as she listened, “No, cause then he’s just going to do it to the next person. I’m going to take care of it and if you still want to move next week, I swear I’ll help you find something. Okay. Bye.”

She hung up and made a strangled growling noise at the ceiling, shaking her fists. Then she shot off a very rapid text and grabbed her bag. “I’ve gotta go.” She announced.

“The landlord didn’t fix it?” Bruce asked. It was the closest to angry she’d ever heard him. He apparently had a soft spot for little old ladies with broken heaters.

“He did not.” Nora answered, “And he’s gonna regret it.” She swiveled and pointed at Peter who was looking a little alarmed at his workspace, “I need you to walk Luna, and finish banking the lanczos vectors.”

“Okay.” He answered. He liked Luna a lot. Nora didn’t think he would mind.

Her phone buzzed and she spared it a glance, then started towards the door. It whooshed open before she made it, “Bucky, I’ve gotta go see a lawyer about a fucking asshole landlord I can’t go to the Spruce.”

Bucky looked as alarmed as he ever did, “Where?”

“Hells Kitchen.” She paused in the doorway, “You wanna come?”

The radius of places they’d visited around the tower had slowly expanded, including a handful of restaurants (he did like the place her and Darcy had gone to), a few coffee shops (none as good as the Spruce), and a bakery (he liked turnovers a lot). She didn’t think he’d want to visit a lawyer’s office in the middle of a Wednesday, but he surprised her with a nod. Sometimes she thought he agreed to things just to spend time with her. She liked that a lot.

She took his hand and smiled, some of her anger forgotten, “There’s an Italian deli like a half a block from the office, we can get tiramisu.”

Bucky opened his mouth like he had something to say, then closed it. Nora figured it probably wasn’t important. They took the elevator down and he kissed her on the way. Then he flagged a cab which he was very good at, and they slid into the back. Nora gave the address of the deli because they were early, but she definitely couldn’t have managed to sit around the lab and wait.

The deli managed to be cramped, while not being busy at all. Nora ordered tiramisu and a half dozen Italian donuts which she got boxed up. They sat at a little table wedged in the back corner near a shelf of bread.

“Obviously this guy thinks he can just go around doing whatever he wants, and nobody will check him on it. Jokes on him, because I’ve got money and a lawyer that hates landlords as a rule.” Nora had dragged her chair around the table so they could sit side-by-side the way he liked and awkwardly offered him a spoonful of dessert. He took it, surveying the rest of the building. He hummed, either because he agreed with her mission or because the dessert was good.

Then Bucky’s mouth twitched down and he asked a little reluctantly, “Your dad?”

Nora scoffed, “He’s not going to help. I haven’t heard from him since we went for coffee and Dana hasn’t heard from him in weeks.” Bucky made an irritated sound, “Does that bug you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Nora shoved a spoonful of tiramisu in her mouth and watched a teenager weigh the candy options by the register.

“He should want to.”

Nora considered that, “Want to help?” Bucky nodded, “Yeah well. You get what you get.” She wasn’t really bothered by it anymore, but she liked that Bucky thought she deserved better, “What was your dad like?”

Bucky shrugged, “Military man in 1930.”

It was a vague sort of answer that managed to build a picture anyways. Nora frowned, “You weren’t very close?”

“No.” He didn’t seem inclined to say more, either because they were out and he was a little stressed, or because he didn’t think any more needed to be said.

“Huh.” Nora checked her phone. They had a little time still, but not much. She offered Bucky the last bite and he took it, then stood and tossed the container in the trash. She waved to the little Italian lady behind the counter on their way out and looped her arm through Bucky’s when they were back on the street. “Has Clint asked Darcy out yet?” Bucky snorted which she took as a no, “What the heck is that guy’s problem? Is he a giant chicken when you fight crime too?”

“No.” Bucky surveyed the street as they walked, his eyes lingering on the window of the shop they were passing, “Missions are easy.”

“Are you telling me,” Nora tugged his hand to steer him to the shop’s door. He picked up her intention and pulled open the door for her, “That beating up a dozen goons is easier than asking a girl on a date?”

“Yes.” He answered seriously, following her as she backtracked the way they’d come along the front window.

“That just cannot be true.” Nora remarked. The shop was cool, she understood why it had caught Bucky’s eye. It was packed with racks of vintage clothes, not as claustrophobia inducing as the deli had been, but close. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to, but she reached into the window to snag the jacket anyways. The young woman behind the counter, who had a half-dozen piercings in her face, watched but didn’t say anything, “I guess you didn’t really ask me out to start with, but you did kiss me in your kitchen. Was it that scary?”

He took the jacket when she unzipped it and held it out to him. She was positive he’d been eyeing it, but he still hesitated, looking at it for a long time before he unzipped his own coat and shrugged out of it, “Goons aren’t scary. That was.”

“Why?” The jacket was cut similarly to the leather one he always wore but Nora thought it might be better suited to the cold weather that had lingered into spring. It was a thick dark blue canvas with fleece on the inside and a folded collar. Nora didn’t think it likely that anyone could tell at a glance that he was from the same era as the coat, but it suited him anyways. She tugged his arm gently to put him in front of the mirror on the wall.

Bucky zipped the jacket, considering it in the mirror for a long time, “Could’a said no.” He answered finally.

Nora snorted, “As if.” She ran a hand over the seam that ran from shoulder to shoulder across his back, “I like it.”

He hummed.

“See anything else while we’re here?” It was the kind of thing Nora thought he might have trouble with. He’d admitted to not having purchased any of his current clothes and she knew decisions could still be hard for him. He didn’t have any trouble at all, it turned out.

Nora thought he must’ve had at least a little interest in his clothes because he seemed to know what he was looking for. He didn’t bother to ask about a changeroom, but he did try on a button-up and then a dark green sweater over his t-shirt. If the girl at the counter noticed his arm was made of metal, she didn’t comment.

Then his hand snagged on a skirt which he held up for her to see, looking incredibly serious. It was a dusty pink gingham, just about the opposite of the skirt she’d worn to Darcy’s party. Nora grinned, “I thought we were shopping for you.”

“We are.” He answered.

Apparently, Nora thought the idea of her telling him ‘no’ when he kissed her was ridiculous.

He wondered if that was an indication that she might not mind the other thing he had to tell her. He still couldn’t quite bring himself to do it, not standing in a shop that smelled a little like mothballs, but he thought about it. Not that he didn’t think about it all the time anyways.

He bought the jacket, the sweater, and the skirt. He figured he’d have to plan a date of some kind so he could get her to wear it. Nora smiled at him the rest of the way down the block to her lawyer’s office. He’d been worried about how upset she was when he walked into the lab at noon, but she wasn’t upset anymore. She told him on their way up the narrow staircase about how Peter had burned out some piece of equipment that morning and she had sent him on a mission to steal a new one from Shmidt and Fowler in R&D. Bucky found he was less annoyed with the kid for having once stuck him to a wall, if only because Nora liked him.

The office was weird. Bucky hadn’t spent much time with lawyers, but he was pretty sure they didn’t usually keep chickens in their waiting areas. The receptionist, who was blond, shot a panicked look at the chicken and greeted them brightly.

“Hi,” Nora glanced at the chicken and grinned, “Sorry, I don’t have a real appointment I don’t think. I texted Foggy, he said he could fit me in after lunch.”

Bucky was pretty sure Foggy wasn’t a real name, but he didn’t say so. The woman looked a little confused, but said, “Sure, what was your name?”

“Nora.”

The woman nodded and disappeared through a door on the right of her desk. Bucky frowned. He had a hard time believing Nora’s lawyer was very competent if he was working in a building with such shit soundproofing that Bucky could hear the entire conversation that followed. The receptionist, Karen, clearly didn’t like that Foggy had made an appointment via text, when they had other things they should be doing. Foggy asserted very seriously, that they needed to take a client who could actually pay them, and that Nora was that client. A third person asked mildly who Nora’s friend was. That was bizarre, because Karen hadn’t mentioned him.

Nora went to kneel by the chicken’s pen and clicked her tongue at it.

“Nora!” Foggy was a medium sort of person. He was medium height, medium build, with medium blond hair. He smiled widely and gave Nora a hug, which Bucky didn’t think he liked, but the man seemed extremely harmless. He tried not to scowl.

“Hi Foggy,” She offered him the box off doughnuts which he took, “For seeing me so quick.”

“Of course! Anything for an old friend,” He gestured them through the door he’d come from and glanced at Bucky as he passed. His grin faltered. He must not have been doing that well at not scowling, “Who’s this?”

“Bucky Barnes. Bucky this is Foggy, he dated my roommate in third year.” Nora grinned widely at the other man who occupied the room as she dropped into one of the threadbare chairs across the desk from him, “And this is Matt. He dated half my floor.”

Bucky thought he might not have noticed, except that the man clearly noticed him. His jaw twitched, even as he fixed a mild smile onto his face. He shifted, an extremely casual movement that cleared his legs of the desk and would allow him to jump across it if he had to. His eyes stayed fixed on some invisible point ahead of him, but he squared himself to Bucky regardless.

Foggy laughed, “Girls liked to think he was helpless.” He dropped into a rolling chair beside the desk and didn’t notice at all the way Bucky and Matt were sizing each other up, “Sorry, I know you somehow.” Bucky glanced at him, “You’re not-“

“Nope.” Nora supplied easily, “Different Bucky.” Her tone was joking.

“Oh,” Foggy replied, “So not the Bucky Barnes that caused a landmark shift in legal precedent for international pardons.”

“Nope.” She answered. Bucky was vaguely aware of the massive legal battle that had taken place when Steve brought him back to the tower, but he hadn’t actually been involved. He’d been locked in his apartment, trying to learn how to be a person again. By the time he was released from house arrest, he’d barely been managing to leave his apartment anyways.

“That’s not why you’re here?” Matt asked.

“Oh my god, you’re gonna be so mad.” Nora said, annoyance rising instantly. Both men frowned.

Bucky knew that the man with the glasses was not normal, but he didn’t seem to be a danger to Nora, and he was apparently still a lawyer. He lowered himself into the chair beside her and reached to put a hand on her knee. It was the sort of silent communication that happened sometimes between opposite forces on a mission. Bucky was saying, without saying anything, that he wasn’t starting a fight, but that he would if the man took half a wrong step in Nora’s direction. In return, the man pulled his chair a little closer to the desk, asserting that he wouldn’t be doing that.

Bucky wondered if Nora knew about the man and decided she probably didn’t. It was the kind of thing she would have warned him about before they made it through the door. He listened to her unwind the story about her aunt’s apartment, and the landlord that was trying to screw her over. Bucky had heard all the details strung together at various points over the last few weeks. He watched both men with interest as they grew steadily more irate at the predicament.

“We’ll have to file a petition with the housing board,” Matt said mildly. He tapped his fingers on the desk, “They’ll send an order.”

“We can probably get it expedited if I go up there.” Foggy agreed.

“Yeah, that’s great,” Nora said, “Except I told him if he didn’t get it done, he’d be hearing from my lawyer, and he still fucked around.”

Foggy’s eyebrows climbed upward, “Okay, what do you want us to do?”

“Well, I’ve got a big chunk of Norwegian cash with your name on it if you’ve got the time to talk to some of his other tenants. I seriously doubt he’s just out to get Dana.”

“Nora, I processed your house, you don’t still have settlement money,” Foggy laughed.

“Okay fine, it’s not Norwegian, but I’ve got money from the settlement money.” That was a weird sentence Bucky didn’t understand, “Do you feel like a trip to Boston?”

It was Matt’s turn to raise his eyebrows, “You seriously want to pay us to track down the other tenants this guy’s trying to screw over?”

Nora nodded, “I do.”

“That could turn into a big bill Nora.” Foggy warned.

“Uh-huh.” Nora nodded, “I hate it when people don’t take me seriously.”

“You should’ve gone to see him in person. I doubt he’d have blown you off with this guy standing beside you,” He gestured to Bucky, grinning.

Nora laughed and squeezed his hand.