Chapter Text
“So, how did everyone sleep last night?” John asks. There were no verbal answers, just subtle glares and tired expressions. “Tough crowd.”
The coffee maker pings and it’s almost like life comes back to Bucky’s eyes as he takes the entire pot. He sits down and drinks directly from the pot like it was a regular day to day thing. Upon seeing this, Ava makes a disgusted face.
“You do know that multiple people here enjoy coffee, right? What’re we supposed to do now that you’re drinking the whole thing?”
Bucky doesn’t spare her a glance and takes another sip. “You can make your own when I’m done.”
“Wow,” Ava chuckles and leans back in her seat. “After everything I did for you last night, that’s how you’re going to repay me?”
The vague words grab Bucky’s attention. Mid sip, he looks up and furrows his eyebrows. “What did you do for me?”
“I phased into your room and it was freezing cold, which didn’t make sense because everybody else’s rooms were normal temperatures. That’s when I realized that we all have personal thermostats and yours turned out to be broken. So, I fixed it. You’re welcome.”
So that’s what happened. Bucky should’ve figured that out on his own when his body had started shivering last night. It’s a little ironic that the Winter Soldier doesn’t really like the cold, but he just absolutely can’t stand it. Yes, his body can take extremely low temperatures thanks to the serum, but it messes with his head. It reminds him of the labs and cryo chambers at the HYDRA facility. On really bad days, just the mere thought of it can make him spiral. Clearly, the trigger from last night was just that.
From the lack of response, everyone else could put two and two together. And that made it all the more embarrassing for Bucky. He looks up and nods at Ava before placing his focus back on the coffee. Awkward silence, which everyone was starting to get used to, fills the kitchen area. Alexei takes this as an opportunity to lift everyone’s spirits. He pats Bob’s shoulder with such a force that dramatically sends the latter almost flying out of his seat.
“Alright, Bob. You and me. We will make breakfast!” He announces, not catching Bob’s terrified expression.
“Uh, are you sure about that? Not that I’m doubting you, maybe I am just a little, but you don’t look like the cooking type.”
“Bah! How hard could it be? Come, get up!”
Bob chuckles nervously and keeps his hands in a tight grip onto the chair. Cooking doesn’t appeal to him, and Alexei gives off the vibe that he’s not responsible in the kitchen. But boy was he strong when he was adamant about something. Bob’s shoulders instantly shoot up as he watches Alexei navigate the kitchen equipment. Interestingly, he couldn’t miss the slight eye twitch from John.
It took the fifth egg shell falling into the bowl for John to finally get up. He gets in the middle of Alexei and Bob and shoos them away.
“I don’t want to see you in this section of the kitchen, ever.”
Bob sits back down with a relieved sigh. Technically, the threat was towards Alexei and not him, but he’d rather never be expected to cook again. He wasn’t even going to have a second thought about John seemingly having an interest in cooking. But it certainly doesn’t go past Yelena who would hop onto something the moment it comes in front of her.
“What do you know about cooking?” She asks with a smirk on her face.
John glances at her and turns back to the eggs being whisked in the bowl. Cooking is a common skill, is it not? Most people know how, so there’s no point in asking him about it. Yelena asks again and it only makes John tense up even more. He lets the fork fall against the bowl with an ear piercing clang. “It’s not a big deal or anything, I just… my cooking used to impress my ex wife. She said she would look forward to it and it’s something I enjoyed. Like I said, it’s not a big deal, it doesn’t even matter anymore. But, I still kinda like cooking, so…”
He turns the stove on and continues cooking quietly. There are many things he wishes he could’ve done differently with Olivia. The divorce was his fault, and he can recognize that. But he can’t go back in time and now things are changing all over again. Picking up a spatula, John absentmindedly turns the eggs around in the pan. At the very least, cooking never changes. He knows the techniques and the tools required, and as long as there’s a recipe, it never goes wrong. As much as he doesn’t completely mind adapting to change, he absolutely revels in the things that are consistent.
Once everyone’s served a plate of scrambled eggs, John leans against the counter to gauge everybody’s reactions.
“Just eggs? Nothing more?” Ava asks, though she didn’t hesitate to take a bite.
“Don’t push your luck,” John replies, serving himself and sitting down. He only starts eating when he sees everyone else doing the same. The milliseconds of surprise wash over their faces as they notice that the eggs actually taste good. John can’t help but feel smug about it. He glances at Bucky who hasn’t said a word in a while. “What do you think, Bucky? Does it live up to your standards?”
Funny enough, Bucky actually likes the eggs. But giving John any sort of satisfaction was not on his list of to-do’s. He finishes off the rest of the coffee and spares a glance. “Could use less salt.”
John’s shoulders raise in disbelief. “Are you kidding? It’s an appropriate amount of salt. I would know if I put too much salt.” He takes a bite of the eggs and dramatically hums in response to it. “See? Not too much salt. It tastes perfect.”
“I’m pretty sure Barnes is just messing with you,” Yelena teases. Nonetheless, John continues mumbling to himself about how he’s never oversalted anything.
The rest of the morning is filled with silence once again, and this time, it was a little less awkward.
With no word from Mel or Valentina, and the fact that New York seemed to be calm, the team had nothing else to do but lounge about the tower. It’s only been a few days, but Bob had taken it upon himself to lurk around. He’s never been really talkative, preferring to talk to himself if things got too hectic, and that’s allowed him to be observant.
As boring as it has been for the past few days, he’s noticed at least one thing that’s interesting. Lost in his thoughts, Yelena sneaks up behind him and taps his shoulder, making him jump.
“Oh, don’t do that!” Bob says in a hushed whisper.
“You look creepy, standing there like that.”
“I don’t think Bucky ever sleeps,” Bob whispers, pointing to the man sitting on the couch, staring out the window. “He wakes up early, drinks a bunch of coffee, trains, and then stares. Well, he doesn’t always stare. Sometimes, he walks around. Anyway, I don’t think he sleeps.”
Yelena shifts her attention to Bucky and hums under her breath. “Yeah, I can see why you think that. Barnes does look like he’s one step away from death. But he probably needs less sleep than a normal person.”
That somewhat makes sense since the serum enhanced a lot of things. But everyone deserves to sleep! That’s what Bob thinks, anyway. Before the sudden jump from being alone to joining a team, Bob really enjoyed sleeping. To be fair, he was never in the right mindset and would, at times, use sleep as a way to escape. The longest he’s ever slept for was thirteen hours. It wasn’t even the best sleep that he’s had. Restless slumber for thirteen hours was more annoying than helpful.
“He’d still need to sleep at some point, right? Especially since he couldn’t sleep the first night. I can’t go without sleeping for a long time. I’d probably get mad at everybody.”
Yelena snorts at that. “Well, we’ve already seen some not so great sides of you, so I think we can handle you if you were irritable. As for Barnes, he seems to be the type to always be irritable. Maybe lack of sleep will make it worse. Better steer clear while you still can.”
Bob can’t help but chuckle at that, his shoulders shaking very slightly. But he pauses mid smile as the couch creaks. Both Yelena and Bob grimace at the sight of Bucky turning around. “I can hear you, you know.”
Yelena tugs Bob backwards, to which he lets out an “oomph” sound in protest, and drags him into the hallway. Once they’re out, Bob yanks his arm away, putting his hands up momentarily to show that he didn’t mean it maliciously.
“What was all that about?” He asks, fixing the sleeve.
“Well, that conversation was going nowhere and I had an idea that required us to leave. Don’t want Barnes to know, you know?” She doesn’t wait for him to respond and looks at him with the slightest hint of mischief in her eyes. If Bob had any siblings, he imagined this would be how it felt. “Since Barnes refuses to sleep, I say we make a bet out of it. I’ll bet that Barnes won’t fall asleep by the end of today, and you’ll bet the opposite. Winner gets $100.”
Bob narrows his eyes. “This just feels like you want me to give you $100.”
“You think so little of me, Bob! There are many hours in the day. Plus, you’ve already got ahead of me. There’s currently no more coffee for him to drink.” In the distance, both Yelena and Bob hear John slam the kitchen counter and spew a bunch of angry words over how there should’ve been multiple bags of coffee beans before they all moved in. “What do you say, Bob? Wanna do this bet with me?”
The day would continue to be too boring if Bob didn’t join. So, he nods and shakes Yelena’s hand as a way to seal the deal. He almost jumps out of his skin as Ava rounds the corner. “I heard we’re doing some bets. I’ll be on Yelena’s side.”
Before Bob can even process that, Alexei also comes up to take Yelena’s side. He was saying something about always supporting his daughter. At this point, Bob half expected John to show up too. When he didn’t, he came to the conclusion that he was extremely outnumbered for the bet.
“Okay, wait, this isn’t fair! If I lose, I lose out on $300!” Bob complains.
“That is how bets work,” Ava says, her tone nonchalant despite the amusement on her face.
And so, they all shook on it. Though, Bob still felt like it was unfair since it was 3 versus 1.
For the rest of the day, he keeps all of his attention on Bucky’s activities. He tries to pinpoint any signs of fatigue. Yawning, sluggish movements, you name it. But Bucky shows nothing, and Bob’s starting to worry about his wallet. He was even close to quitting a few times, but there was something about Yelena’s smug expression that urged him to stay strong. Bob even goes as far as asking Bucky for some training tips just so that he can keep his eyes on him. However, things were starting to look bleak as the night drew near.
Bob could see that he’s running out of time, and every time he makes eye contact with Yelena, she points to her watch with a look of glee. Again, he needs to stay strong.
And just as the clock strikes 11pm, an idea pops into his head. He rushes to John’s room, double checking to make sure the man was actually there. Bob nods to himself and knocks on the door. It swings open and John steps into the doorframe with his eyebrows pinched together.
“Can you believe it’s taken me all day to get Valentina on the phone? If she wants to play off that she’s in charge of us, she should be able to pick up the phone when one of us calls! Anyway, Mel is supposed to drop off coffee bean bags tomorrow. Can’t believe Bucky used up everything we had. Ridiculous.” John shakes his head with a sigh. “What’re you doing here?”
“Well, I was just thinking that maybe we can bond as a team,” Bob starts, internally wincing at John’s apathetic reaction. “Hear me out! We can all watch a movie on that big screen in the living room. Movies are one of my favorite things. It could make everything less awkward.”
There’s some truth to what Bob is saying, even though this was all just part of a plan. He’s always enjoyed watching movies. It’s a good distraction from overthinking, and maybe having other people to watch movies with other people wouldn’t be too bad. John eventually sighs as he mulls over the request.
“Fine, I guess that sounds fine. But what movie are we watching? Because I highly doubt everyone here has good taste.”
This is exactly how Bob wanted this conversation to go.
“You can pick! I’ll convince everyone else to join and you can focus on what movie you want to see. You can even pick your favorite if that’s something you want. Or anything is fine. I just want you to choose.”
John narrows his eyes and then shrugs. He walks off to the living room, his back turned and unaware of Bob silently celebrating. It also doesn’t take long for everyone else to join for the movie. Yelena shoots Bob a look, her eyebrow raised and this time, it was Bob who can look all smug.
“There’s only thirty minutes left of the bet. Do you think that’s enough time for Bob to win?” Ava asks Yelena quietly. All she gets is a shrug in return.
Bucky was sitting in the sole armchair, staring at the television screen as the movie started to play. Admittedly, he had a few suspicions of what the others were up to earlier. And his suspicions were only confirmed when Bob started observing him without any subtlety. Granted, he didn’t actually know exactly what was going on, but it was slightly amusing.
As the movie plays, the room remains quiet for the most part. It was mostly obvious that only John was engaged in the plot. Everyone else came to the mutual consensus that the movie was actually pretty boring. As 11:45pm rolls around, Bob notices something. Bucky was relaxing. He couldn’t help but smile to himself. That cash money might be his after all.
Now, here’s the thing. The difference between the living room and Bucky’s room was that this room was feeling particularly warm tonight. Combined with the extremely boring movie, all of the fatigue from the past weeks was piling up. To his own surprise, Bucky yawns. He certainly doesn’t like sleeping in the proximity of people he doesn’t completely like, but his brain and body were pleading for some rest.
The movie starts to become nothing more than background noise and Bucky lets himself slump into the armchair. The idea of getting a reasonable amount of hours of sleep starts to seem appealing, so Bucky can’t help but let his eyes close. He lets out a deep breath and lets the fatigue take over. There’s something genuinely nice about letting daily stress fade away with sleep, and he clearly almost forgot that.
The clock hits midnight and Bob stands up with the biggest smile since they got to the tower. “Yes! I win! See? He’s asleep.”
Yelena groans out loud and stretches her feet. “You are a tricky person, Bob. Very tricky. But, okay, you won.”
She leans over to rummage for the money and hands it to Bob, Ava doing the same. Meanwhile, John pauses the movie and watches the exchange.
“Wait, I’m confused. What just happened?” He asks.
“We made a bet about whether or not Bucky would fall asleep by the end of the day. Bob won,” Ava explains simply.
“Your movie was boring, Walker. It put me to sleep quick,” Bucky mumbles from the chair. He can practically feel John seething from the other side.
“Yeah, I figured that would happen. That movie was really boring. No offense, but I don’t understand the appeal. To each their own, of course,” Bob says, and it does nothing to make John feel better. He turns the movie off and trudges out.
“Are you choosing to sleep the night there, Barnes?” Yelena asks. She gets a nod in response and leaves it at that. When she looks over at Alexei patting for his wallet, she waves him off. “Oh, I paid for you. Here’s your wallet.”
Alexei smiles and takes it from her, but his smile instantly drops as he looks inside to see it completely empty. “Wait, where did all of it go? My money!”
Yelena smirks. “Well, I did need to pay Bob.”
“So did I,” Ava chimes in.
“And,” Yelena continues, “nobody said where the money had to come from.”
Bob happily pats Alexei’s shoulder and heads off to revel in the victory.