Chapter 2
“What the fuck Barnes, how did you even find that job?” Clint asks, shaking his head. “I gotta tell Pietro about this because this is some next level weird job shit. When Steve was going on an on about your weird job I thought you finally managed to end up a professional furry or something.”
Bucky gives Clint a weird look, unsure where he got the idea that there were professional furries. Hell, if that was a thing he’d probably run into it at some point. He discovered that clown kink was a thing and now nothing in his life was stable. “I found the job at that art thing Steve did a couple weeks ago. And the guy seems nice, he’s snarky and makes funny pop culture references,” Bucky says. He had to wonder why he hired Bucky to do the job that he was doing but he wasn’t about to question it given the nice pay cheques and the fact that he didn’t have to pay for anything anymore. His boss had inquired about the vegan buying meat lovers pizza though, which had led to a weird explanation of Steve and his health issues. Bucky wasn’t about to give up bacon if he didn’t have to.
Thankfully his boss didn’t seem to mind, though he did question why Bucky was so selfless. Humans were selfish dicks, he had said, so why was Bucky so nice? He didn’t have much of an explanation for that honestly. Personally he just thought it was easier to spend large sums of money on other people rather than himself. And sneaking around Steve to plan with Sam was kind of fun and it almost made Wilson tolerable.
“You found a job that pays you to spend money at an art thing?” Clint asks, incredulous.
Bucky shrugs, “yeah.” He didn’t know what other information Clint wanted, though his squinting suggested he did indeed want more info.
“Did Steve at least sell something?” Clint asks when it becomes clear that Bucky wasn’t going to elaborate.
“I think so,” he says. He wasn’t sure actually, which was just showed how great of a friend he is…
“Well I guess I’d forget if my friend sold his art stuff at a show if I made thirty grand too,” Clint says. “Is your boss willing to take another employee because I’m poor as fuck and I could use an absurd amount of money. You aren’t spending it right anyways, where the hell is your sports car?” Clint asks, throwing a hand up in outrage.
“Uh, unlike you I’m smart enough to plan for the event of me not being involved in this job anymore so no sports cars for me. I figured I’d save for retirement or something,” he says. That seemed like a good investment to him.
Clint squints at him, “what the fuck is wrong with you?”
*
Tony sits at his desk dealing with numbers and remembering why he used to do so many drugs. God, he hated numbers. At least these kinds of numbers, they were boring and did nothing for him mentally. His inventions were new and interesting and fun, but this shit was just horrible. So when his phone alerts him to an email from Bucky he’s grateful for it.
To: AES
From: Bucky
This is completely unrelated to the job but it’s so weird that I had to share it with someone. So I ordered pizza and this creepy ass guy shows up to my apartment with my food and tells me that someone died in my apartment. Some skilled Googling confirmed that someone did in fact die in here ten years ago and I guess the creepy pizza guy knew the dead dude. But I feel like telling people that someone died in their apartment should be a basic ‘do not do’ in the customer service world. That seems fair right; don’t tell the customers that someone died in their apartment? I did not give him a tip!
He stares at the email for a long moment, not sure how to react before he bursts out laughing. Oh man this one was interesting. Guess he and Natasha picked well this time. Well, mostly him a little bit of Natasha. She could have twelve percent of the credit for digging this one up.
To: Bucky
From: AES
Dude that was good, I haven’t laughed that hard in awhile and you couldn’t have timed it better. I was doing paperwork and that always makes me want to fling myself off the roof. Sorry about the creepy pizza guy though. Love that your revenge was not tipping him. Got any more fun stories for me?
PS- you’re supposed to tip the pizza people?
-AS
Natasha raises an eyebrow at him as she walks in, “you aren’t doing paperwork, are you? No one looks that happy doing paperwork.”
Tony sticks his tongue out at her like an absolutely mature adult, “Bucky sent me an email. Its only reasonable that I checked it, he could be like… stuck in a tree or something.” From the sounds of it it wasn’t entirely out of the question. Bucky seemed to live one very interesting life.
“Stuck in a tree, really Stark?” Natasha asks, “at least come up with something better than that. Aren’t you a genius or something?”
“I resent that. Now come read this email because it’s hilarious,” he tells her, handing his phone over to her. She takes it with an eye roll and reads the screen, bursting into laugher when she gets through it.
“Nice going Stark, you really know how to pick ‘em,” she says, handing his phone back.
“Excuse you, you helped,” he says indignantly.
“You did the picking, I did the talking. Isn’t that what you said the other day?” she asks, head tilted to the side.
“But-” he starts but Natasha cuts him off.
“No buts, eat your own words and get that poor guy a new apartment. Preferably one that no one has died in. and get your damn paperwork done before Pepper chews my ass and I have to come back here and chew your ass,” she tells him, waving a hand at his paperwork. He frowns at it as she goes, wondering when the hell he started working for his assistant’s assistant. Well, technically his business partner’s assistant but it was the principal of the thing.
To: AES
From: Bucky
One time I went to a protest and got arrested trying to drag my tiny asthmatic best friend out of the damn melee before he got killed or something. Except the cop looked real fuckin confused when he couldn’t find my left arm. He actually accused me of hiding the damn thing like I could spontaneously hide an entire limb right as I was getting tackled to the ground. He let me go after that but I think that’s only because he didn’t know how to arrest someone with only one wrist to cuff. It was hilarious after the fact but boy was I annoyed when it happened.
Also one time a twelve year old told me I looked like a living meme, which was obviously the greatest day of my life. Oh, and I met the Wakandan prince once. It nearly ended in my death.
PS- fuck yeah you tip the pizza people; you’re a god damn billionaire, tip everyone you can you damn dirty animal!
Tony doubles over his desk laughing because Bucky had one hell of a sense of humor and he wasn’t afraid to somewhat insult Tony. Most of his employees so-to-speak were terrified to treat him like a normal human. This guy? Apparently not.
*
Due to his working very weird jobs Bucky sort of got good at feeling people out. So after his employer- the AES person or whatever- reacted well to his random stories of shit that’s happened to him he starts sending regular updates of what was going on in his life. Clint told him once that he was the kind of person that you could leave alone for five minutes and when you came back he’d have an entire adventure to tell you. Sending off periodic updates of his life to some dude who was probably ninety years old and hurting for human contact he was starting to see why Clint would say that.
To: Bucky
From: AES
You seriously hopped on a fucking chunk of ice and rode down a river only to get rescued by the fire department?”
-AS
Bucky snickers at that memory. He had been sixteen and he hated riding the bus, and the river went right by his school at the time. It made sense in the way that only sounded good to a particularly stupid teenage boy but in his defense Steve agreed to it so he wasn’t alone. He tells AES that yeah, that was a real thing and if he looked up the newspaper that day there was a picture of him waving to the fire department while Steve glared on in the background. He quickly gets a response of the photo with an admission of disbelief, which was normal when he was telling his stories. Most people thought he was a pathological liar until they hung out with him long enough to know that no, he wasn’t lying; his life was just one bizarre event after another.
To: AES
From: Bucky
Once a few buddies and I got real drunk on a camping trip in Utah and we made friends with this raccoon that was looking for food. I mean it was hungry and we had buns, we just wanted to feed the little guy. Well he stuck around long enough to know that we were way too drunk to move, got his family and fucking robbed us for all we were worth. Every time I see a raccoon now I flip them off.
That had been when Clint, Pietro, and Wanda found out that he didn’t lie about things constantly. They were pretty upset that no one ever believed that story and Bucky told them to think about how it would feel if their entire life was that story. Bucky didn’t have a single believable tale considering going to McDonalds usually ended up an adventure to tell.
To: Bucky
From: AES
Holy shit you got robbed by raccoons that’s so funny. You are like a living meme, and absolutely the most interesting employee I’ve ever had and there are rumors that one of my assistants works for the KGB. To be fair she is terrifying.
-AS
That damn redhead that talked to him! Bucky could see it and he lets his employer know it too. And then tells him to get someone with better people skills to approach potential money spenders so they don’t run away before the get hired for a sweet gig.
By the time he gets home he’s sent off AES four more random stories, including the time Clint left him alone in the airport for a few minutes to kiss Pietro off to Romania only to come back to find him attempting to escape a conversation with a naked old man. When Sam found out about that he told Steve to stop being grateful that Bucky put up with him because clearly Bucky was the one that was more trouble than he was worth. Security at the airport seemed inclined to agree but it was hardly Bucky’s fault the old man decided to wear his birthday suit and strike up a conversation with him. And it was rude to walk away. AES seemed to find that one particularly funny.
His apartment, at least, is not as ratty looking with his new things courtesy of his new employer though there was a bit of a damper on that considering he knew someone died here. But he at least had a sweet new TV to distract him from the dead guy. AES responds to him just as someone knocks on the door and Bucky sighs, vowing to curse Sam to hell if that was him. He opens the door two find two panicked looking guys holding some weird looking suit. “We’re hiding from the cops can you please let us in?” the skinnier one says and his Latino companion smacks him.
“Why would you tell him that?” he asks.
“How else were we going to get it?” the skinny one replies.
“Man, I had a whole backstory for us, it totally would have worked because-”
“Yeah okay,” Bucky says, stepping aside to let the two guys in. “So what’s that?” he asks, nodding to their suit thing.
“Uh… the thing we stole. We don’t really know what it does or what it is but it was behind like twelve feet of concrete in Pym Technologies so we figure it’s important,” the skinny guy says.
His companion waits a few beats and gives the skinny guy a look. “You are such a rude guest, you didn’t even introduce us. I’m Luis, this is Scott-” he starts but Scott cuts him off.
“Don’t give him our names, what the hell!” Scott says.
“Oh, like our names are original or memorable at all. A Latino guy named Luis and a white guy named Scott; we’ve described half of the state. He doesn’t even know that those are our real names, they could be code names or acronyms or something, he doesn’t know. For all he knows-” Luis probably would have went on but Scott cuts him off.
“Those are our real names,” he points out.
“Well now he knows that for sure thanks to you. Honestly I have no idea how I got labeled the dumb one out of the two of us because you are some next level-“ Bucky tunes him out and goes to answer the email from AES.
*
To: AES
From: Bucky
Hey, I’m harboring a couple criminals in my apartment and they have some weird Pym Technologies suit thing, want it? These particular criminals are dumb enough that they didn’t notice that I walked off with their stolen goods.
Tony blinks at the screen for a moment, examining the pictures that Bucky sent. He buzzes for Natasha and tells her to go find Bucky out of curiosity more than anything.
“I will have you know that I am not your errand boy,” Natasha tells him when she gets back, “and I want the profits from that thing.”
“If it’s worth anything,” Tony says though he could already see that there were parts of it that were worth something. And that helmet was a fucking awful design.
“Half the profits, Stark,” Natasha says as she leaves. Tony looks at the suit and frowns a little, wondering how the hell the employee he was supposed to pay for ended up giving him a gift. Bucky really was something entirely new to him and he was rather enjoying it.