Back To The Day Job
“What the hell happened to you?” Sam asks the moment he spots her walking into the same room of the old wastewater treatment plant where he talked to Karli.
Y/n pushes herself up to sit up on a table to his right. She can spot the shield placed on the table he’s leaning on. On the floor next to his feet, however, are his wings—or what remains of them at least—in a bag. They’re broken and beaten. While she doesn’t know what happened between him, Bucky and Walker, she can venture a guess that it did not end well.
“Well—” she’s promptly cut off.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Bucky asks with far more alarm as he makes his way in from the same door as her. He rushes to her side, assessing the damage. Concern etched on his face. She gets it because she feels the same for him and Sam. But… seeing as she’s a grown-up who understands how feelings work; she can also acknowledge her worry for Bucky is far more irrational, and therefore must be stem from a much different place.
“I could ask you both the same thing,” she says.
“We both aren’t fucking super-spy ninjas who, apparently have trained with the Dora Milaje,” Sam quips back. “Besides, you can already guess what happened to us.” He looks down at the shield next to him.
She cocks her brow and smiles a bit, both actions make her wince. She’s got a cut on his lip and temple. While her previous gash on the cheek has healed, she’s wearing a couple of new ones. She also had a dislocated shoulder, three broken ribs, and a nasty scar on her leg but they don’t need to know about that. She’ll heal… Far quicker than any human can.
“Karli,” she answers easily.
“Karli did that to you?” Bucky asks, clearly not buying it.
“No… five of her Soldiers did—”
“—for fuck’s sake!” Bucky cuts her off again. “And you say I’m the one who runs into fights without thinking?”
“Is this the part where I say, you should see the other guy?” She knows she’s being petulant but the worry in his eyes is doing things to her and she’d rather not go down that road for someone who’s probably not interested. She’s had enough rejections for a lifetime, what with the last man she loved choosing to go back in time for his ex instead of staying… for her.
“Yeah well, I don’t really care about the other guy, do I?” Bucky spits out, angry.
And fuck Bucky Barnes. Man’s gotta stop making her fall for him if he doesn’t even intend to fucking have the courtesy to reciprocate.
“I’ll heal—” she tries but is promptly cut off by Bucky.
“That’s not the poi—”
“Can we change the subject now?” She looks over at Sam, silently pleading at him for an out.
And Sam being the great friend he is, obliges. “Yeah, sure. What did you mean when you said you don’t have your powers anymore?”
Ah, out of the frying pan into the goddamn doghouse.
Bucky finally takes a few steps away—still frustrated—and leans on the table opposite to Sam while being diagonal to Y/n. They’ve all changed back into their normal clothes. Bucky’s back in his bomber jacket, a simple t-shirt, and pants. All of which are black, as per usual. While Sam’s wearing his brown corduroy jacket, blue jeans, and a wine color t-shirt, same as they were before they suited up. Y/n however is still in her fighting ensemble, having been too busy being looked over by the paramedics to have any time to change.
“Exactly what I said,” she replies, her eyes staring at her feet.
This is far from an easy conversation for her. She’d rather talk about the merits and demerits of the damned accords again.
“They were working back when…” Bucky pauses, glancing in Sam’s direction before adding, “you had that tussle with Walker.”
Honestly, she’s really had enough of James Buchanan Barnes’s assault on her very cold, very fragile heart. She’s losing her mind over here. Why does he have to go and be so damn considerate?
“You can call it a panic attack,” she supplies, in a small voice. “It was a panic attack,” she says looking at Sam and after a pause adds, “That’s kinda what I mean.” Both men look at her curiously. She breathes in heavily, gathering up all the courage she has, “I can’t use my powers without losing control… without having a panic attack. I—I… Every time I use my power, I get thrown back to the last time I did…”
The words hang in the air, for everyone to mull over. They all know what she means but just to clarify Sam asks, “The battle with Thanos?”
Both of them know that isn’t why she’s having a hard time talking about it. Both of them know it’s the man in a suit of armor whose absence has left her all raw and beaten. But none of them voice it.
She nods before pausing, and declaring, “I’ve got PTSD.”
“Fuck Y/n, why didn’t you say something?” Sam asks. His brows are furrowed and he seems… disheartened and so very concerned. She’s always liked Sam. From the moment they knocked on his window after having been bombed by Hydra back at Steve’s old army base. He’s always been scarily good at reading a room. He’s an intuitive little bitch. He can read the emotions of the people around him pretty damn well while also being tough enough to kick their ass. The best part is, he’s perceptive enough to know exactly when to talk and when to fight. Which is why she never worried about him going against Karli alone. Which is also why she has been trying her best to keep herself as calm and as cold as possible; to avoid the look of pure agony in his eyes. She doesn’t know what to do with it.
And, don’t even get her started on how avidly she’s avoiding looking at Bucky now.
“I did. I said I didn’t want to come,” she defends pointlessly. She’s just being testy for the fuck of it. She doesn’t really know how to act otherwise right now.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” He exhales heavily. His voice is back to a much softer tone when he adds, “If we’d known you couldn’t use your powers, we wouldn’t have—”
“—I was a perfectly capable agent for S.H.I.E.L.D. for over 15 years without using my powers,” she cuts him off. “I haven’t suddenly turned into some fucking damsel in distress now,” she spits back at him. She recognizes that she’s trying to antagonize him into stopping him from caring but she can’t really stop herself. Knowing better doesn’t always translate to doing better.
“I watched you Al Pachino your way out of a hail of bullets. You’re the damsel causing the damn distress! I am not saying you’re weak; I’m saying that if I knew that my friend was going through something I wouldn’t have dragged her into a fucking fight,” he says exasperated, almost at his wit’s end.
She doesn’t actually want to piss him off. She knows where he’s coming from. But she hasn’t been a very open person with people outside of Tony, Peggy, and (to an extent) Nat, so this is all pretty damn new to her. So she concedes, sighing she says, “I’m fine Sam. Well, not fine… but I’m in therapy. I’m functioning. Alright?” She hopes her tone conveys her understanding as well as her guilt.
When she sees Sam nod in response she asks, “Now… What’s happening with the Flag Smashers?”
“The GRC is conducting raids to try and find Karli, but so far they’ve only found her followers. They’ve searched this camp, and just like the last camp, nothing. She’s gone. We’ll never find her,” Sam spits out, anger present in every movement of his hand.
Torres walks into the room, “Hey, you got your sleeve back,” he says pointing to Bucky. And then he turns at her and almost stumbles, “And you’re… here. You’re Static… and you’re here.”
She can’t help but smile at how adorable the kid looks. “So it seems,” she says easily.
“Sorry,” he stops in his tracks, fidgeting a bit, “I’m just a—I’m a big fan. You’re… awesome”
Her smile grows. “Means more than you think. Thanks, Torres.”
“You know my name,” he remarks almost to himself.
She thinks he’s too cute.
Bucky, however, seems to disagree. He grumbles audibly before pushing himself off the table and beginning to walk away.
“Are you off to take care of Zemo?” Sam asks pointedly, sitting down on the table behind him.
Bucky turns to look at them, there’s so much anger radiating off of him, Y/n doesn’t know what to do with it. He says nothing, turns around, and walks out the exit he came from.
“All right, good to know you survived,” Torres calls out behind him.
“What’s our next steps, Torres?” Sam asks.
Torres turns back to look at him as he says, “Captain America killing a foreign national in public, it’s kinda like a big deal. Like international incident big. Folks, uh, higher up on the payroll are all over it now. So, unfortunately…”
“They’re taking jurisdiction,” Sam finishes.
Torres snaps his fingers and lets out a soft, “Yeah.” He spots the bag on the floor. He takes a step towards them, leaning down, he asks, "What happened to these?” He pulls the bag along with the wings inside them onto the table.
“So is there anything we can do?” Sam asks, avoiding his question completely.
“Not really,” Torres replies, absentmindedly. He’s too engrossed in assessing the wings. “As you can see, they’ve cordoned off the whole camp, and Karli’s a ghost. After what went down, she is laying extra low. Like, under-underground.”
“And that’s why it makes sense for us to get involved. The longer we let her regroup, the harder it’s gonna be to find her,” Sam says looking at him.
“She’s got people helping her from all over the world, on all platforms. She’s really, really good at this thing,” Torres explains.
“Yeah,” Sam breathes out.
“How’d these break?” Torres asks again, caressing the wings.
She knows that look in his eyes. She can spot it from a mile away now, that’s how well she knows that look. A part of her wants to crush it because that’s the only way to make sure the kid survives… But another part of her knows, you don’t walk into this line of work without being absolutely, annoyingly stubborn. So the most she can do is send out a prayer, hoping that whenever he chooses to follow in Sam’s footsteps, he’s well prepared.
Sam, though, just sighs in response.
“Anyway, all we can do now is sit tight and just chill,” Torres supplies. “Sometimes, there’s nothing to do until there’s something to do.”
Sam says as he gets up off the table, “That’s bizarrely wise.”
Both Torres and Y/n chuckle in unison “Well, I’m a bizarrely wise man, Sam,” he replies with a smile.
“Well,” she chimes in, “Guess you won’t be needing the muscle anymore, Boss,” Y/n tells Sam, jumping off the table. She puts her hands into her jacket pockets.
“You can call whenever you need, you know that, right?” He asks, his eyes filled with worry.
“I know, Bossman,” she replies with ease and a smile. “I appreciate it.”
“Where will you go?” He asks.
She begins walking backwards towards the exit, “Back to my day job.” She shrugs.
“Which is?” Sam asks, cocking his brow.
“Babysitting.” She exits from the same door as Bucky did.
So she does go back to her life. It’s routine, mundane, and while she absolutely loves it… After having tasted the thrill of the Superhero shindig again, a part of her can’t help but miss it. She’s had an on and off affair with domesticity all her (very long) life. But maybe the hero gig will always be her old lady.
And maybe that’s the exact reason why a sense of pure excitement runs up her spine when she gets a call a couple of days later and a familiar name pops up on the screen.
“Hello?” She says picking up.
“Hi,” comes the short reply.
After a few seconds of silence, she says, “Are you gonna tell me who this is, or—”
“Oh fuck, sorry. It’s Bucky—James… James Bucky Barnes,” he manages to fumble out.
Y/n can’t help but chuckle. “I’m just fucking with you, James. I know it’s you.”
“Oh,” he replies sheepishly. “Um, are you busy?”
She’s currently dressed in white wide-leg jeans, a white sweatshirt with a denim jacket. She’s leaning on her bike, her precious Triumph Thunderbird Storm as it stands parked in front of the Midtown School of Science and Technology, waiting.
“Yes,” she replies, honestly.
“Oh. Sor—”
She cuts him off, “But for the pretty boy who spun me around on the dance floor I could always make time.”
Look, she’s a smooth motherfucker, okay? She’s always been a smooth motherfucker. But she isn’t flirting to be smooth. She just has a very bad, very annoying habit of getting flirty every time she’s nervous. Now, you would think that sounds awesome. You would be absolutely wrong. Cause right now, she’s flirting with a man with whom she’s pretty sure she doesn’t have a shot.
She’s regretting the words while they’re spilling out but they are far too true for her to take back. Especially when she can practically hear the man on the other side of the phone blush.
“… I feel special,” comes the reply.
“Glad I didn’t miss my target.” Smooth-motherfucker! But she’s gotta reel it back, “I’m presuming nothing’s on fire, seeing as you’re not screaming… So, is this a personal call, James?”
“Um. Well no. Ugh but… Yeah, kind of, I guess,” he stutters.
“You sure?” She asks bemused.
“It’s a bit of both actually. Um, I was thinking about going to see Sam once. I’ve got something I wanna drop off and… I don’t know. I think this whole thing kinda beat him down. So…” he drifts off.
“You want to check up on your partner,” she summarizes with a smile.
“No…” he’s met with silence from her end. So he concedes, sighing, “Fine, yes. You happy?”
“Very,” she replies slyly.
“Will you come along?” His voice is soft.
“Would you like me to?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Seemed pretty pissed the last time we talked.”
“Not at you; at the situation,” he defends. “Not at you,” he reiterates after a short pause.
There’s a comfortable silence that falls between the two.
Until it’s broken by a bell ringing in the background and children spilling out of the gate. One of them makes a beeline straight to her.
“Hey, Miss. Stark! You ready to go?”
“Just give me a sec, peanut,” she tells the kid. She pushes herself off the motorcycle, speaking into the phone, “Unfortunately, my day job’s calling. But I’ll pick you up at the airport and we can drive over to Sam’s together. Does that work for you? ”
“Yeah. Yeah, it does.” Bucky sounds… confused.
“Alright. I’ll see you later, Sarge,” she says as she swings her leg, straddling the bike.
“See you later, sweetheart.”
Motherfucker.
She hangs up with a smile gracing her face and pockets the phone. She hands one of the helmets hanging off the handles, over to the boy while putting the other one on herself.
“Who was that?” he asks.
“None of your business,” she tells him, locking her helmet in place.
“I was just being polite. I know it was Sergeant Barnes,” he says with a smile, as mimics her actions.
She checks the clasp on his helmet and says, “Well, Pete, you should consider changing your name to Nosy Parker, instead.” She pulls the visor on his helmet down.
He gets on the bike, holding onto her shoulders. “Your references are so old, you know that?”
She inserts the key into the ignition and starts the motorcycle. She revs up the engine twice before she says, “I never should’ve introduced you to Harley.”
Peter just chuckles in response as they both speed off… safely.