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“Seriously, why do you insist on watching this? Isn’t it depressing to watch your team lose every game?” Bucky asks, as the Knights lose yet another game.
“They won the last game,” Dick reminds him. “They’re just…having a rough season. It’s fine. This isn’t Premier League football, it’s not like they’ll get demoted to minor league.”
Bucky rolls his eyes and stands up, gathering the empty bottles to drop them in the recycling bin. “Maybe they should, it might motivate them.” He returns from the kitchen and drops onto the couch, reaching for the remote. “Okay, we watched your shitty sports game, now we’re watching a shitty movie.”
“Hey!” Dick exclaims, but doesn’t try to argue. “Fine. We can watch your movie. What’s it this time, aliens or time travel?”
Bucky grins as he selects the movie. “Aliens, of course.”
It’s become a regular thing with them, watching Dick’s hockey team lose their game, then watching some low-budget science fiction movie. They’re at Bucky’s apartment for once, Dick being in Manhattan for some case or another. Bucky doesn’t bother asking, since Dick won’t tell him anyway. Not unless he needs help, which is pretty unlikely; Dick Grayson is an excellent detective, and Nightwing is an even better vigilante.
“Okay I expected bad, but this is worse,” Dick comments about 20 minutes into the movie.
Bucky isn't arguing. He hadn't expected much from the movie, either, but now he's not sure it can properly be called a movie and not a handful of actors reading off cue cards while some high schoolers add in CGI later. Actually, he's pretty sure a group of high schoolers would do a better job of things.
“I think my little brothers would've done a better job on this,” Dick comments as though reading his thoughts. “How did you even find this?”
It had been tossed about by Kamala and Miles during a training break, when they were talking about awful movies. Bucky had been under the impression they were talking about the kind of awful that were just cheesy. There'd been at least two Highlander movies mentioned, after all, plus Battlestar Galactica.
“Yeah, I'm not even going to pretend to defend this. I'm not sure if we should just turn it off or keep watching in the hopes there's a decent explosion.” Bucky frowns at the screen. “Who even chose the costumes for this? Did they really think tank tops and yoga pants were appropriate attire for fighting aliens on another planet?”
“Says the man who went to war wearing short-shorts,” Dick says with a laugh.
Bucky snorts. “It wasn't much less than the soldiers were wearing. And you're one to talk, at least I had long sleeves and leggings. You were traipsing about with bare arms and legs. How did you not freeze?”
Dick flops back into the couch cushions, pursing his lips into a pout. “I had a cape.”
“Was it warm?”
“Not really,” Dick admits, then smiles. “But it looked cool.”
Bucky laughs. “Okay, you got me there. I never got a cool looking cape.”
They make it another three minutes before admitting it's just too painful to continue watching, and switch to a cooking competition instead.
“This is making me hungry,” Dick comments after the tasting scene.
Bucky pulls out his phone. “We can order something,” he offers.
Dick looks over to what passes for Bucky’s kitchen - a fridge, coffeemaker, hotplate, and microwave - and frowns. “Is this a normal kitchen here? Seems a bit sad, especially when you live in Hell's Kitchen.”
“Hey, not all of us orphaned sidekicks got adopted by billionaires,” Bucky retorts, opening a delivery app. “Mediterranean sound good to you?”
Dick doesn't reply. Bucky turns to him, frowning at the way Dick’s jaw is clenched.
“Dick?”
Dick’s eyes dart to Bucky’s, and he blinks, shaking his head quickly as if to clear it. “Yeah, that sounds good. I could go for a gyro.”
Bucky wordlessly hands him the phone to add his order, then gets up to grab a couple more beers from the fridge. Dick hesitates before accepting.
“You can stay the night, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Bucky tells him.
“Not exactly, but thanks.” Dick opens the beer and takes a sip. “More like, I’m about one more drink from turning into a weepy mess.”
Bucky laughs. “Well I won’t tell anyone. And I doubt you’re as bad as some of my coworkers. Babies, the lot of them.”
“I wasn't, either,” Dick says quietly.
“Huh?” Bucky asks, distracted by sorting through the bag to find the container of baba ganoush while shooing Alpine away from the food.
“Adopted. Bruce never adopted me.” Dick’s hands tighten into fists and immediately release as he continues speaking. “He didn't even hesitate with Jason, you know. Or Tim. Maybe he was trying to avoid making the same mistake twice, and I'm glad for them, you know? But that didn't fix anything between Bruce and me.”
Bucky watches Dick stabbing at his gyro with a fork like he can kill the hurt and feels the impulse to hug him. Bucky knows what it's like, of course, to lose your parents young. But Bucky wasn't quite alone, he still had his sister, they had each other to learn on. He didn't realize Dick also had the despair of having no family connection, nothing concrete that he could point to and say with certainty, these are my brothers. It was tenuous, at best.
But Bucky can't put together any words that won't sound like pity. And that's definitely not what Dick needs right now.
“You know the story of how Cap recruited me?” He asks instead.
Dick scrunches his eyebrows. “I know the comic book story,” he says. “That said you were some kind of mascot or something.”
Bucky nods. “Yeah. That's true. Do you know what a mascot on a military base is? It's a legal definition,” he explains when Dick shakes his head. “Mostly for animals, usually a dog that a company declares is ‘theirs.’ Sometimes a cat that hangs around a warehouse. The company or battalion registers their pet as a mascot, and they get veterinary care and a budget line item for food.
“Well, I was a mascot for the base. Sure, I lived with the Colonel, but officially, on paper? I was the Army’s pet.”
Dick is staring at him, something close to horror on his face.
“I’m not trying to play, who had it worse,” Bucky continues. “But what you just told me? I don’t want you to think you’ve got to deal with any of that, alone.”
Silence falls over the apartment. Bucky holds Dick’s eyes for another beat before tearing a piece of pita to dip in the baba ganoush. He slides the container across the table and nudges at Dick’s arm. “You should try this. It’s really good.”
Dick frowns, but reaches for the pita anyway. “That’s fucked up, you know.”
“Yeah,” Bucky agrees easily. “But it was eighty years ago.” He leans back into the couch cushions, hand coming up to stroke Alpine’s fur when she settles in his lap. “Anyway, you never told me how the Batmobile handles.”
Dick accepts the change of subject easily. “I actually prefer my Wingcycle.”
Bucky snorts. “Is there anything you guys haven’t renamed to keep with your theme? It’s a motorcycle, Dick, I have the same model.”
“Mine’s customized, I even have the wings on the front,” Dick insists.
“That makes it worse, you know, not better,” Bucky chides him, a smirk pulling at his lips.
Dick huffs. “Whatever. We’ll see how you feel next time you’re stranded in Bludhaven and need a ride.”