Work Text:
For so long, dinner used to be a solo affair for him: huge slices of pizza, maybe lasagna, maybe some other take-out shit that, if handled properly, wouldn't be dripping tomato sauce in front of the one good white dress shirt he owned.
Bucky never imagined that, mere months later, it'd morphed into this: a cacophony of clinking cutlery, overlapping voices, and the sound of a loud Russian laughing a little too hard at his own jokes. And best (or worst, depending on the day he looks at it) of all, it's starting to feel... normal. Domestic. Even safe.
If one also ignores the fact that five out of the six inhabitants used to kill professionally for a living, but are now actively saving the world from potential threats once or twice a week, among other things.
And the sixth? Might just be the most dangerous and powerful of them all.
While also being able to cook a very mean seafood pasta dish better than any of them.
And they're learning that tonight thanks to the meal rotation schedule Bucky had started strictly implementing this week - the one that's currently typed up in large fonts, laminated, and stuck to the fridge with a magnet shaped like Alpine's head. It covers tasks like "grocery run," "dinner prep/cook," and "after meal clean-up," and Bucky had made sure duos were assigned for every activity so no one could claim that they simply "forgot" to do it.
The first time he hung the schedule on the fridge, he'd committed the rookie mistake of doing so while it was unlaminated - because he thought he lived with verified adults. Apparently, that was giving the rest of them too much credit. And it didn't take long for Yelena to draw a horned demon on the space beside Bucky's name, and Alexei to draw a penis beside John's.
Bucky saw the defaced schedule, glared at the two grinning, unrepentant Russians in front of him, and told them, "It's not funny."
Ava had plucked the paper from his hand, slid a sly look at John's way, and chuckled. "Disagree. It's a little funny. Although I think Alexei gave Walker too much credit with how big and long he drew his--"
"Hey, so, fuck you." John flipped her off for good measure, too.
Bucky sighed.
Then he reprinted the schedule, had it laminated, and also installed a camera on top of the fridge just to see if anyone was going to mess with it again.
Thankfully, no one did.
And they all began to follow it without question - even if sometimes Alexei tried to negotiate his way out of duty here and there.
So, tonight's cooks? Were Bob and Yelena.
And Bob made an excellent shrimp scampi.
He'd fairly glowed as the team made sure to sing him praises, and they were genuine ones, too. Yelena - who easily admitted that the most she had contributed to making the meal was toasting the garlic bread and grating some Parmesan cheese - nudged his shoulder and smiled at him proudly throughout dinner. John - currently and indisputably the best cook of them all - took one bite of a shrimp and announced loudly, "Thank Jesus someone else in this tower knows how to cook properly."
"I can cook properly!" Alexei had replied, looking mildly offended.
"No, Alexei, a bottle of vodka for each of us is not dinner," Ava had told him in her driest tone.
"In Soviet Russia--"
"--it's still not considered dinner," Bucky had cut in.
Alexei pouted.
The rest of the meal carried the same energy. At one point, Alexei loudly recounted an espionage story that somehow ended with him stealing a goat. Bucky had asked more about the fate of the said goat, genuinely curious, for once. Meanwhile, Yelena had placed another healthy heaping of pasta into Bob's plate despite the latter's protests. Then Ava laughed at something John had told her, her expression bright and open.
Suddenly, Bob, who was sitting beside her, reached across her to grab the plate of grated cheese. In doing so, somehow, his arm came close to the side of her throat.
It was an ordinary movement. Harmless, really. Done without care or thought.
Still, Ava absolutely freezes in her seat.
Like her body's bracing for a hit that never comes.
Her flinch is small. Barely visible, really - and true enough, no one saw or noticed it.
Except Bucky.
He isn't even intentionally staring at her when he catches it, since he was busy listening to Alexei. And yet, even before his brain can finish processing the action and what it could mean, Ava's already recovering. She forces her shoulders to relax and turns to Alexei on her other side, who's now telling a story about a recent mission that definitely did not happen the way he's describing it - if John's exasperated comments were to be believed.
But Ava goes quiet.
She's still present during the meal, of course. But Bucky notices her withdrawing. She still nods and responds when spoken to, but otherwise, it's easy to believe she's not there with them.
He files it away for later. After all, the dinner table is not a good place to pry open wounds, and he knows better than to call attention to something she might prefer to be left unaddressed.
It doesn't take long for dinner to wind down. After the shrimp scampi plate had been scraped clean, John made a show of approaching the fridge and checking the schedule before proudly announcing, "Would you look at that. It's Grampa Barnes and Ghost Lady on wash duty tonight. Guess this means the rest of us are free."
“Oh?” Ava glances at him and carelessly says, "All right, fine."
John frowns, clearly disappointed she isn't giving him a sharper and snappier response.
Meanwhile, Bob stands and looks at Bucky and Ava. "I can help with the--"
"No, Bob," Ava tells him with a small smile. "You've done more than enough with making dinner, so the honorable Congressman and I will take care of the dishes. But, thank you for the offer."
Bucky nods. “What she said.”
Yelena claps Bob on the shoulder. "Come, Bob. I have this movie I've been dying for you to see--"
"No, no, Lena! TV is mine tonight--" says Alexei.
"Ha! Says who? Bucky hasn't made TV schedule yet, you know!"
And John groans, "My god, please don't let Grampa Barnes make that into a thing with us, too--"
And soon, the kitchen empties out, all the noise fading away until it's just the two of them in the area. Bucky busies himself with collecting the plates. Ava, meanwhile, turns on the tap and rolls up her sleeves. Well, his sleeves, to be honest, since she's fallen into the habit of "borrowing" his Henleys again.
He brings the plates to the sink, pauses, and comments, "You do realize we have a dishwasher?"
She slides a look his way. "Yeah, no. I don't trust how clean that thing is, especially once I found out you've been using it as your metal arm’s personal bath house."
Pause.
And Bucky could feel himself redden. "I don't--"
And then Ava laughs, sounding more like herself again. "Nah. I'm just pulling your leg. Or your arm." She reaches for the dishwashing liquid and adds some to the rapidly-filling sink. "I prefer washing dishes the old way, actually. Helps me relax. Plus, I'm not really in any hurry to join the circus back there." She inclines her head in the direction of the common room, just in time for Yelena to shout something unintelligible. "You know?"
Bucky spares a glance at the common room and shrugs. "I get that. They're definitely... a lot."
"Understatement of the century, Congressman Barnes." She reaches for one of the plates he’d set by her side and starts rinsing. "Though I have to say, you're getting pretty good at keeping us all in check, what with the schedule and all."
He looks at her. "You don't think it's too much?"
She squints. "Well--"
"Be honest."
Ava shrugs. "Fine. Personally, I think it's brilliant. We've pretty much been living on individual takeouts since we got here. I guess it's nice to enjoy home-cooked meals as a group every now and then, especially since some of us seem to be pretty good at it."
Bucky nods, appreciating the answer and agreeing with the rest of her statement. "Are you, by the way?"
"Am I what?"
"Pretty good at cooking."
Ava glances at the fridge, spots her name under "dinner prep/cook" exactly two nights from now, and tells him, "I hope you like your chicken boiled and unseasoned, Sergeant, because that's all you're going to wring out of me."
Bucky frowns and squints at the fridge. "Who are you paired with?"
She grins at him. "Alexei."
He exhales loudly. "God help us all."
And she laughs again. “Your fault for assigning us together, isn’t it?”
They soon fall into a comfortable rhythm, with her washing and rinsing, him drying and putting away the plates one by one. Even then, Bucky watches her out of the corner of his eye. Ava seems more at ease now, and he almost considers not bringing the topic up. Still, he's learned that some things are better shared - especially when it comes to their ragtag team of trauma-laden misfits.
Thank you, therapy.
He clears his throat. "Hey, so. I want to ask you something - but if I'm overstepping, then feel free to tell me off. All right?"
Her shoulder tenses, but her voice remains light as she comments, "Sounds serious."
"Kinda is," he replies. "But, again, no pressure. I just wanted to check up on you, that's all."
She shrugs. "Whatever. Hit me."
Bucky then swings the towel he's holding until it's perched on his shoulder. "Earlier, at dinner, when Bob reached for the cheese--"
Ava's hands freeze underwater.
Just for a moment.
And then she says, "What about it?"
It was now or never. "Couldn't help but notice that you flinched when he did that."
Silence.
Bucky considers repeating that she didn't have to answer - but then she sighs loudly and turns off the tap. "You saw that?"
"I tend to notice a lot of things," he replies with a careless shrug. "Kinda my thing."
Ava rests her palms on the edge of the sink, seemingly grounding herself.
After a few seconds, Bucky prompts, voice careful and neutral, "Is it Bob?"
She shakes her head. "No! Well-- no. I adore Bob. He's kind and sweet and tries so hard to be better. I have no reason to fear him, and I know that. I know he'll never willingly hurt me as long as he's... Bob."
He keeps silent, though a part of him already knows what this is leading to.
"It's just... earlier, when he... you know." Ava swallows. "That moment, it was like... I wasn't seeing him, exactly. I was seeing Sentry. And suddenly I'm back in our fight with him. When he had his hand around my throat."
Bucky exhales quietly. Sentry. Their fight with him had been brutal. The five of them went in armed with weapons and bravado, only to escape it like neutered dogs with their tails tucked between their legs.
And it seemed some of them carried wounds from that fight that burrowed deep into their skin.
“I keep telling myself I’m past it,” Ava continues. “That he’s Bob. That Sentry isn’t here. But tonight, when he leaned in like that, my brain just-- it reminded me how easily Sentry negated my power to phase. You know?"
She glances at Bucky; Ava must have seen something on his face that encourages her to carry on, voice deeper and quieter than usual, “I don’t believe I’ve ever felt that helpless before. In that moment, I couldn’t get away or disappear, no matter how much I wanted to. I couldn’t do the one thing my body automatically knows how to do when it’s scared. And all the while, I was thinking, fuck it, this is it. This is how I'm going to die, and I couldn’t even do a proper thing other than wait for it to happen.”
Bucky crosses his arms in front of him, still saying nothing.
"And honestly, the thought of dying isn't all that scary. I face it all the time, really, even before I started working for SHIELD or Valentina. But I never-- the thought of dying while actively scared and helpless is--" She looks down at her hands; Bucky automatically gives her the towel so she can dry them off. "I guess I just... never want to think about it, or be reminded of it, ever again. But then there’d be moments where I just... am."
"Does it happen often?" he asks. "The flashbacks?"
"No. Just when he's... a little too close for comfort, I guess." She shrugs. "Honestly, I thought I'd gotten better at controlling my responses. But if someone else noticed them, then I suppose I'm not doing a good job, after all."
"Hey," he says lightly. "Sometimes we just can't control how our bodies react to things."
"I know that," she snipes. "But... you wanted to know why, and that's my answer. And no, before you can come up with a helpful suggestion about separating us or having a schedule or something, I don't want it. I don't want Bob to know that this is even a thing with me. I don't want him to think it's his fault that I'm the tiniest bit afraid of Sentry, all right?" Here, she turns to fully face him. "And I trust you not to bring this up with anyone else, especially Bob."
Bucky nods solemnly at her. "I won't. Of course I won’t."
Ava studies him for a moment before turning to face the sink again. "Good. Great. Then let's finish up here before I embarrass myself any further in front of you."
"Embarrass yourself?" he repeats. "Why? Because you admitted you're afraid of someone literally powered by a thousand suns?"
She doesn't respond. Merely grabs and dunks another plate into the suds-filled sink.
"Being afraid of someone like that doesn't make you embarrassing, Ava. If anything, it just makes you smart."
Ava sighs. "Bucky--"
"Besides," he continues, "you really think you're the only one Sentry humbled that day? The only one dwelling on how absolutely shitty that fight went for us?"
He doesn’t look at her when he says it. Bucky does, however, carefully snatch the towel from her arm - just to give his hands something to do when his head wants to spiral.
“Fear doesn’t always show up when it’s convenient,” he adds quietly. “Sometimes it waits until you're alone. Until it's the middle of the night and you're comfortable, thinking you’re finally in a safe place.”
He swallows. “That’s usually how it gets me.”
The memories buried under his skin often erupt when he's on the floor, mere moments away from tuning the rest of the world out. Unlike Ava's, his flashbacks don't seem to have any trigger. One minute, he was dreaming about Louisiana or Brooklyn or a forgotten HYDRA facility in Russia, the next, he's back in that unfinished part of the Watchtower, with Sentry holding his vibranium arm. With Sentry casually plucking it off his shoulder like a feather. And then hitting him square in the face with his own fucking appendage, with a force strong enough to actually knock him the fuck out.
Come to think of it, if there's anyone in the team who should be embarrassed about how casually they were beaten up--
"You have nightmares about the fight, too," she says quietly.
And it isn't a question.
"You saw what happened," he tells her. "But my head likes to replay the tiniest details. How he heated the metal with his bare hand first. How easy it had been for him to take my arm off. How hard my own fucking arm felt when it whacked my head. And how--" Here, Bucky pauses, "--how helpless I was to stop any of it."
Silence fills the kitchen; not even the noises from the common room can seem to touch it.
"I'm sorry," Ava says. And then she huffs a sound that's almost a laugh as she adds, "But I'm even sorrier that I know exactly how you feel."
"Well, it was a pretty shitty day for everyone in New York," he comments, taking a plate from her hands to dry it.
She nudges his arm with her own. "Understatement of the fucking millennium, Congressman Barnes. I’m almost impressed how often you could come up with those."
Bucky glances at her and shrugs. “I dunno. Press seems to love them.”
“Not as much as they love your face, feels like.”
Eventually, she turns the faucet on again, and their washing routine continues.
He hadn't expected to share a bit of himself with Ava, but he doesn't find it in himself to regret it, either. That was the thing about burdens, even emotional ones - sharing them somehow makes them seem lighter.
It also makes the people carrying them feel less... alone.
When Bucky has finished storing the last dish away, he turns to find Ava looking at him rather strangely.
"What?" he asks.
"Nothing," she replies quickly. "It's just... I'm still getting used to this, you know."
He glances at the still-wet sink and asks, "Washing dishes?"
Ava rolls her eyes. "Being seen or noticed," she corrects him. "I thought it was intrusive at first, but now... I'm actually glad you caught it. Otherwise, I don't think I would have talked about it. With anyone.”
She pauses and crosses her arms in front of her. “So... thanks, I suppose. For checking up on me. And... for not thinking I'm crazy or weak or anything."
He nods, the corners of his mouth turning upwards, pleased that his concern wasn't misread. "You're welcome." Pause. "Though there is something you can do for me, in return."
She raises a brow at him. "What's that?"
"Maybe make something other than boiled chicken for dinner two nights from now?"
Ava raises both hands and starts walking to the door. "I make no promises. However, since you asked me so nicely, maybe Alexei and I will flavor the damn thing. With vodka. Or any other Russian delights he’ll have in mind by then."
Bucky places his hands on his hips and sighs. "Ava--"
“Have a good night, Congressman.”
And then she phases out of sight.
Later that evening, Bucky reprints the meal rotation schedule, this time with two key differences:
He puts his name alongside Ava's for cooking dinner two nights from today. Alexei, he assigns with Walker for tomorrow.
At least that way, he’s sure the team will eat well three nights in a row.