"I won't eat it all," he promises. In fact she'll have to nudge him into eating it if he finds that she's enjoying it a lot.
"Anyway, my phone doesn't have a camera." He's fairly adept at memorising things even when he doesn't make a conscious effort to, and he's using a phone with clicky buttons so she won't have to worry about him snapping a shot. Even if she might snap one of him putting on the hat at some point.
Bucky is so painfully oblivious to what Nat's talking about that he wrinkles his nose and scoffs when she points out the obvious.
"No she doesn't." And no, that's not an invitation to ask her outright or put him on the spot or anything so embarrassing like that. "You know you guys keep trying to hook me up... I appreciate the help, but I'm okay."
Well, even on a good day he's pretty far from okay, but when it comes to going out with somebody a third of his age... "I either have to lie about everything or we talk about Nazis on the second date. If I have to have company I'd rather just-- have dinner with you. When you're not off saving the world."
One of her brows arches with interest when he says that his phone doesn't have a camera, though she doesn't comment on it immediately. She can't even remember the last time she saw a phone without a camera. Maybe he's trying to work his way through the progression of mobile phone technology. It's understandable - technology has developed at a breakneck pace in the past twenty years especially. The only thing disappointing about it would be if she missed out on him trying a bag phone.
"I'm not trying to hook you up," she promises him as one shoulder lifts in a shrug. "Just pointing it out. You're a good looking guy. People are going to look even if you don't look back." Dating is complicated even when you don't factor in his unique history. Natasha's not sure she'll ever settle in for a traditional relationship herself. "I get it." There's too much work to do. And it's too hard to explain the way she was raised, the people she considers family and why. "We can talk about Nazis if you want to talk about Nazis as long as you're okay with me taking a few shots at the KGB while we're at it."
There's a momentary pause as the waitress delivers their drinks. Natasha thanks her with a smile before looking back at Bucky. "You're in luck, Barnes. I don't have anything scheduled outside the city for a few weeks. We may have to branch out from just dinner, though." There's a glimmer of mischief in her eyes as she suggest, "like getting you into a ball pit."
Such high praise. He'd be more uncomfortable and flustered if he didn't think she was also kind of teasing him. He doesn't see what everyone else sees when he looks in the mirror. Just the scars. The arm. The Soldier. Nobody would even look at him twice if he was just another veteran amputee sitting on the sidewalk asking for change. Sometimes he thinks he's just one bad day away from ruining someone else's life. He can't do that to anyone. Not yet and, maybe, not ever.
"I'm not sure it's ever a good time to talk about Nazis. Or the KGB. Also, it'll just feel like therapy." And he already has a therapist who from time to time asks him questions about Nazis. Does he want to entertain even more questions about Nazis when he's not squirming and writhing on a couch trying to get an impatient shrink to sign off on him? Only if he actually wants to talk, maybe, but like Natasha, most of the time he'd rather deflect.
A ball pit though, is a perfectly acceptable form of therapy, and he lifts his head a bit as he pulls his drink in closer to himself and manages a small little smile. If he got thrown into a ball pit rather than on a couch he'd have answered any and all questions about the Nazis and probably gotten that signature a lot quicker. He's over a hundred years old; let him have this.
"Is there even a ball pit nearby?" Well, you know, for adults, so he doesn't get too claustrophobic. Or geriatrics, as the case might be. "We could do dinner and a ball pit." Like that won't put him hours past his bedtime. "I mean, if you're not gonna throw up everywhere..."
"If your therapist has said 'fuck the KGB' in Russian, they're a lot more fun than the one I was assigned when I defected to SHIELD." Despite Clint and Fury gambling on her, the big wigs understandably had some questions about a Russian agent that had been active since childhood. At the time it had seemed thorough. Natasha appreciated thorough. But after they exposed HYDRA, she wondered if they were just hoping to score an opportunity to place an undercover operative at the highest level. Some ghosts never really went away. From her response, it's at least clear that she's not planning to force the issue. She's happy to keep it light, but she's not going to shy away from it if something comes up.
For a moment, she's all cat that ate the canary. The effect is ruined with a look of indignation when he insinuates that she might throw up. "Watch it, Barnes, or I really will push you in," she cautions as the same half smile returns to her lips. "I called in a favor. There's an athletics complex in Brooklyn that does birthday events. They have a huge foam pit. And a bunch of different courses throughout the complex. Plus, it's after hours, so there won't be anyone else there. We can take a cab ride over after dinner if you want."
"You know I don't think she has but she might have given me the 'go fuck yourself' stare once or twice..." He's good at reading stares. She's definitely entertained more than one death threat dealing with him. So, he's difficult, and unconventional. He doesn't blame her for his being a pain in the ass.
"Today?" He stops obscenely tonguing his bottle and perks up. "Yeah I'm- I mean if you're up for it." They'd only planned on dinner so if she had other ideas for how to spend the night, he wasn't going to keep her from them.
"Is a ball pit one of the weirder or tamer requests you've had for a night out?" He's not necessarily nosy but he was thinking it would be interesting to find out what weird shit she gets up to. Surely the quirky billionaires, god-alien warriors and semi-retired archers in her life have some weird requests.
"What have you been doing to your therapist?" Natasha asks, her tone amused enough to make it clear that she's not really expecting an answer. Or even a real answer. Though she does appreciate the mental image of what a therapist's 'go fuck yourself' stare must look like. There's a pause after he perks up before she responds. She's not one to stomp on anyone else's fun. But sometimes she just has to ask. "I'm all yours tonight. What was that with the bottle, though?" she asks curiously. Sticking her tongue out, she points at the neck of the bottle. "Do you want a straw?"
His question about the sliding scale of weird in her social life is worth consideration, and she takes a thoughtful sip of her own soda as she mulls it over. "I made Thor come to an antique store with me once because it's funny to watch him react to Midgardian inventions. He broke about $500 worth of china by accident. Other than that, it's pretty normal shenanigans, you know? Drinking, house parties, karaoke. Movie nights are a big favorite. When your work day sometimes includes 'retrieve stolen alien tech from man with intergalactic squid attached to his chest' you just want a beer and a pool table in a shitty bar."
"Nothing. Why do you think I'm doing anything? She's the one pushing my buttons," Bucky protests. Although maybe the fact that he refuses to do anything she would consider 'taking this seriously' and 'appreciating second chances' is also pressing her buttons.
"Pretty sure she's regretting being stuck with me." Nobody would willingly choose to work with him, and if they did they're about as crazy as he is. At least, he's convinced himself of that. He doesn't think he's beyond help - he just thinks this whole checkbox exercise is a waste of time and she knows it, too.
"What? Oh. What-- no. Sorry." He's picked up some bad habits, mostly from spending a stretch of time in Wakanda with just the one arm and using his teeth a lot where he needs a little help. Safe to say nobody's batted anything out of his mouth or told him to stop that and use his metal hand like a normal person. Although now she is making him feel a little self-conscious about it...
"I didn't pick you for a beer and a pool table in a shitty bar kind of gal," he teases good-naturedly with a small smile. "Sounds like my kind of night, actually. Maybe I'm just old, want a book and a quiet corner to be by myself. ​Doing too much to unwind doesn't sound like unwinding." Not to mention the effort required to be social.
"You get recognised anywhere or can you still go incognito?" Luckily he's managed to avoid most of the attention - that brief blip Zemo fucked him over aside - but he imagines she's a little more recognisable these days.
Natasha arches a brow pointedly when he insists that the therapist is the one pushing his buttons and that she got stuck with him. It's very 'doth protest too much.' "Therapy can be hard anyway, but it's even more challenging when it's mandated. There is a bit more choice in it on the therapist's side, though. She wouldn't be there if she didn't think it was worth her time."
When he apologizes, one shoulder lifts in a dismissive shrug as she takes another sip of her own drink. "I was just curious."
Her mouth curls in a half smile at the teasing note in his voice. "Nothing wrong with a book and a quiet corner. Shitty bars have the same appeal. The people don't tend to care who you are or what you're doing." Which was more or less the same way she approaches being incognito. "A lot of people's perception depends on context. People are more likely to recognize me if I'm dressed up, or in my tac suit. If I keep it low key, it's a lot easier to blend in."
"Yeah? I guess... yeah." He's not sure Dr. Raynor wanted to be saddled with him, but. Maybe Natasha's right. If she really thought he was a lost cause she'd just pass him along to the next shrink like a hot potato and be done with him. In a way, he hasn't made much of a breakthrough because she feels like just another handler. He's had so many over the years that he's inclined to just follow her instructions instead of putting in the effort to establish this relationship and open up to her. But she's been patient enough to stick with him up to now, so. Maybe he should give her more credit.
The first round of tacos arrive and while Bucky doesn't regret ordering, quite literally, one of everything, there are a lot of tacos on their table. He has to take the hat off the table to fit the last plate and then he's left holding the hat gingerly in his hands.
"Nobody used to care, you know? You would think that nobody cares, these days. There's a lot more people and they're all too busy on their phones or whatever." He can't help that centenarian disdain creeping into his voice. It's annoying to say the least when people are so glued to their screens that they lose their spatial awareness. And then there's the fact that they are surrounded by tables of people using their phones right now - what's the point of even going out together if everyone at the table is on their phones talking to someone else?
"But I can't get in and out of some places without somebody taking a photo. And if you're someone like Steve, forget about it."
The table is absolutely laden with tacos, and Natasha is eying them with a look of mingled dismay and amusement. She's probably good for 4, maybe 6 if she commits herself to laying flat on the sidewalk outside for a while before they make their way over to the ball pit. He's got his work cut out for him. Maybe she'll have to commit herself to trying a bite of each instead of just sticking to one taco.
Her head tips so she can look up at him, thoughtful, as she listens to his admittedly very 'old man yells at cloud' description of what people are doing. "You know, it's interesting - we've pretty much always had portable distractions, right? Newspapers, music. It's just that the invention of the mobile phone lets people be distracted by and from their lives at the same time. So it's not that nobody cares, necessarily. They care a lot. But their own bubbles have become insular so that you have to really stick out to pop it." Her mouth curls in a half smile when he mentions Steve. "Doesn't help that he's completely hopeless trying to blend into a crowd. Where do you usually get recognized?"
"Yeah, well, he's too blond," Bucky scoffs, the way idiot friends tend to mock each other for the dumbest things. "The pizza places we visited when we were kids, old familiar parts of downtown that didn't get wrecked - just the usual haunts." Many parts of New York that were there when they were young. At first Steve had hit up the old spots to help Bucky remember the old times, to help him transition back to some semblance of normalcy, even though sometimes it felt like Steve's normal and not his own. Not that he's complaining - Steve's gone above and beyond when it comes to helping him. But the grumpy old men had been living in a bubble of their own too, even when it did involve Steve showing Bucky how to use a modern phone, and even Steve got progressively worn down as people kept trying to burst it, testing his patience.
The sheer amount of tacos doesn't seem to faze Bucky too much - apart from the fact that he doesn't know where to start, and he can't see which one's the cactus. He's probably even looking forward to cake afterwards. It seems to make sense to start chipping away at their order from the tacos closest to him though, so he pops the hat on to free his hands and tugs the closest little basket of tacos towards himself. There's no elegant way to eat tacos unless you're the lady sitting across from him, so he's just going to tilt his head a bit and take a bite without dropping the hat.
"See. I'm wearing the hat." Does he look stupid? He probably looks stupid, but. One could argue that's not too different from what he normally looks like.
Her mouth tics to the side like she's trying not to laugh when he describes Steve as 'too blond.' That kind of teasing humor has a familiar pattern to it. It's no wonder that the three of them don't hang out often. Even though she's pretty sure that Steve kind of likes being roasted, she's not quite as sure that he'd enjoy it coming from two angles at the same time. "That makes sense. I know there's some statues and plaques kicking around those parts of the city." There's one particular statue of Captain America that Natasha loves, tucked away in some little park in Brooklyn. It looks nothing like him and locals keep putting funny hats on it. She's pretty sure it's the only one that doesn't make Steve turn purple with embarrassment when he sees it. Again: the roasting.
Her mouth widens into a grin when she sees him put the hat on, but she lifts a taco and takes a large bite before answering. It effectively shatters any notion he might have about elegantly eating tacos: there's no grace to it. She picks a piece of shredded lettuce off her lower lip and wipes it off on a napkin, seemingly unconcerned by the utter lack of dignity involved in that bite. "It looks good on you. You should consider adding it as an accessory for your tac gear." After all, nothing says 'stealth' like 'festooned birthday hat.'
"Tch, yeah. It might give people something glittery to aim at." Would he wear something ridiculous to a mission? Probably only if it involved infiltrating some kind of themed party and finding a quiet moment alone to shank his target in the toilet, but who's he kidding? The Soldier would have agreed to anything no matter how ludicrous the demand might be.
The taco he did end up eating has some kind of seafood with eggplant relish, which he's enjoying enough to have some relish get on his right hand, but he can't see anything like cactus in there - well he's not expecting a green prickly thing, it's probably skinned and cooked, nor does he know what it would taste like, but he imagines it's still visually distinct enough to be recognisable - so he's just sampling the goods and working his way across the table in a somewhat methodical fashion.
"Hnh - you've got some-- sauce-- yeah," he gestures at the corner of his own lips mirrored from hers, unable to hide the small chuckle she elicits from him. He doesn't have that many friends to begin with, so he can appreciate that there are no formalities or pretences between them and they can just-- talk frankly and be messy around each other.
"You should try this one. It's some... blackened fish with eggplant thing," he offers his basket over. Yes, the Wilsons are training him on cajun cuisine, so he's familiar with those kinds of flavours. Skipping over the one that looks like ground beef purely because he knows it won't be the cactus, he moves onto one basket with fillings he doesn't recognise next.
"So what do you do on your own birthdays? Especially when you don't have to humour grumpy old centenarians?" They're not much of a big deal to him, all the more so when he's missed so many by now. But maybe she does something special for herself. Or maybe Barton's enough of a gentleman to make her have a slightly different day from all the others?
When he gestures to show her where she got the sauce, she uses the pad of her thumb to wipe it off and then licks it off her thumb. Waste not. "Thanks," she says as she takes another bite - of a more reasonable size. Not that it deters her from leaning in with interest when he describes the one that he just bit, and she sets the one she's been working on down to claim one from his basket. "Wouldn't have figured you for a blackened fish guy," she comments as she tries a bite of it, then nods her head as she swallows. "Though I can see why. That's good."
She considers his question about birthdays, taking a sip from her drink to buy herself a moment to think, her eyes skimming his face. It's not that she dislikes her birthday so much as she tries to avoid anyone making a big deal out of it. "Maybe I like humoring grumpy old centenarians. I think after you regularly allow more than one in your life you have to consider the possibility," she points out with a smile. One shoulder lifts in a shrug before she continues. "It depends on the year. Usually a nice dinner. Or I'll wrangle people to do something fun like paintball without telling them why. What are you thinking about doing for your next birthday?"
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"Anyway, my phone doesn't have a camera." He's fairly adept at memorising things even when he doesn't make a conscious effort to, and he's using a phone with clicky buttons so she won't have to worry about him snapping a shot. Even if she might snap one of him putting on the hat at some point.
Bucky is so painfully oblivious to what Nat's talking about that he wrinkles his nose and scoffs when she points out the obvious.
"No she doesn't." And no, that's not an invitation to ask her outright or put him on the spot or anything so embarrassing like that. "You know you guys keep trying to hook me up... I appreciate the help, but I'm okay."
Well, even on a good day he's pretty far from okay, but when it comes to going out with somebody a third of his age... "I either have to lie about everything or we talk about Nazis on the second date. If I have to have company I'd rather just-- have dinner with you. When you're not off saving the world."
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"I'm not trying to hook you up," she promises him as one shoulder lifts in a shrug. "Just pointing it out. You're a good looking guy. People are going to look even if you don't look back." Dating is complicated even when you don't factor in his unique history. Natasha's not sure she'll ever settle in for a traditional relationship herself. "I get it." There's too much work to do. And it's too hard to explain the way she was raised, the people she considers family and why. "We can talk about Nazis if you want to talk about Nazis as long as you're okay with me taking a few shots at the KGB while we're at it."
There's a momentary pause as the waitress delivers their drinks. Natasha thanks her with a smile before looking back at Bucky. "You're in luck, Barnes. I don't have anything scheduled outside the city for a few weeks. We may have to branch out from just dinner, though." There's a glimmer of mischief in her eyes as she suggest, "like getting you into a ball pit."
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"I'm not sure it's ever a good time to talk about Nazis. Or the KGB. Also, it'll just feel like therapy." And he already has a therapist who from time to time asks him questions about Nazis. Does he want to entertain even more questions about Nazis when he's not squirming and writhing on a couch trying to get an impatient shrink to sign off on him? Only if he actually wants to talk, maybe, but like Natasha, most of the time he'd rather deflect.
A ball pit though, is a perfectly acceptable form of therapy, and he lifts his head a bit as he pulls his drink in closer to himself and manages a small little smile. If he got thrown into a ball pit rather than on a couch he'd have answered any and all questions about the Nazis and probably gotten that signature a lot quicker. He's over a hundred years old; let him have this.
"Is there even a ball pit nearby?" Well, you know, for adults, so he doesn't get too claustrophobic. Or geriatrics, as the case might be. "We could do dinner and a ball pit." Like that won't put him hours past his bedtime. "I mean, if you're not gonna throw up everywhere..."
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For a moment, she's all cat that ate the canary. The effect is ruined with a look of indignation when he insinuates that she might throw up. "Watch it, Barnes, or I really will push you in," she cautions as the same half smile returns to her lips. "I called in a favor. There's an athletics complex in Brooklyn that does birthday events. They have a huge foam pit. And a bunch of different courses throughout the complex. Plus, it's after hours, so there won't be anyone else there. We can take a cab ride over after dinner if you want."
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"Today?" He stops obscenely tonguing his bottle and perks up. "Yeah I'm- I mean if you're up for it." They'd only planned on dinner so if she had other ideas for how to spend the night, he wasn't going to keep her from them.
"Is a ball pit one of the weirder or tamer requests you've had for a night out?" He's not necessarily nosy but he was thinking it would be interesting to find out what weird shit she gets up to. Surely the quirky billionaires, god-alien warriors and semi-retired archers in her life have some weird requests.
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His question about the sliding scale of weird in her social life is worth consideration, and she takes a thoughtful sip of her own soda as she mulls it over. "I made Thor come to an antique store with me once because it's funny to watch him react to Midgardian inventions. He broke about $500 worth of china by accident. Other than that, it's pretty normal shenanigans, you know? Drinking, house parties, karaoke. Movie nights are a big favorite. When your work day sometimes includes 'retrieve stolen alien tech from man with intergalactic squid attached to his chest' you just want a beer and a pool table in a shitty bar."
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"Pretty sure she's regretting being stuck with me." Nobody would willingly choose to work with him, and if they did they're about as crazy as he is. At least, he's convinced himself of that. He doesn't think he's beyond help - he just thinks this whole checkbox exercise is a waste of time and she knows it, too.
"What? Oh. What-- no. Sorry." He's picked up some bad habits, mostly from spending a stretch of time in Wakanda with just the one arm and using his teeth a lot where he needs a little help. Safe to say nobody's batted anything out of his mouth or told him to stop that and use his metal hand like a normal person. Although now she is making him feel a little self-conscious about it...
"I didn't pick you for a beer and a pool table in a shitty bar kind of gal," he teases good-naturedly with a small smile. "Sounds like my kind of night, actually. Maybe I'm just old, want a book and a quiet corner to be by myself. ​Doing too much to unwind doesn't sound like unwinding." Not to mention the effort required to be social.
"You get recognised anywhere or can you still go incognito?" Luckily he's managed to avoid most of the attention - that brief blip Zemo fucked him over aside - but he imagines she's a little more recognisable these days.
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When he apologizes, one shoulder lifts in a dismissive shrug as she takes another sip of her own drink. "I was just curious."
Her mouth curls in a half smile at the teasing note in his voice. "Nothing wrong with a book and a quiet corner. Shitty bars have the same appeal. The people don't tend to care who you are or what you're doing." Which was more or less the same way she approaches being incognito. "A lot of people's perception depends on context. People are more likely to recognize me if I'm dressed up, or in my tac suit. If I keep it low key, it's a lot easier to blend in."
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The first round of tacos arrive and while Bucky doesn't regret ordering, quite literally, one of everything, there are a lot of tacos on their table. He has to take the hat off the table to fit the last plate and then he's left holding the hat gingerly in his hands.
"Nobody used to care, you know? You would think that nobody cares, these days. There's a lot more people and they're all too busy on their phones or whatever." He can't help that centenarian disdain creeping into his voice. It's annoying to say the least when people are so glued to their screens that they lose their spatial awareness. And then there's the fact that they are surrounded by tables of people using their phones right now - what's the point of even going out together if everyone at the table is on their phones talking to someone else?
"But I can't get in and out of some places without somebody taking a photo. And if you're someone like Steve, forget about it."
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Her head tips so she can look up at him, thoughtful, as she listens to his admittedly very 'old man yells at cloud' description of what people are doing. "You know, it's interesting - we've pretty much always had portable distractions, right? Newspapers, music. It's just that the invention of the mobile phone lets people be distracted by and from their lives at the same time. So it's not that nobody cares, necessarily. They care a lot. But their own bubbles have become insular so that you have to really stick out to pop it." Her mouth curls in a half smile when he mentions Steve. "Doesn't help that he's completely hopeless trying to blend into a crowd. Where do you usually get recognized?"
sorry I've had a crazy month
The sheer amount of tacos doesn't seem to faze Bucky too much - apart from the fact that he doesn't know where to start, and he can't see which one's the cactus. He's probably even looking forward to cake afterwards. It seems to make sense to start chipping away at their order from the tacos closest to him though, so he pops the hat on to free his hands and tugs the closest little basket of tacos towards himself. There's no elegant way to eat tacos unless you're the lady sitting across from him, so he's just going to tilt his head a bit and take a bite without dropping the hat.
"See. I'm wearing the hat." Does he look stupid? He probably looks stupid, but. One could argue that's not too different from what he normally looks like.
no worries! i've totally been there
Her mouth widens into a grin when she sees him put the hat on, but she lifts a taco and takes a large bite before answering. It effectively shatters any notion he might have about elegantly eating tacos: there's no grace to it. She picks a piece of shredded lettuce off her lower lip and wipes it off on a napkin, seemingly unconcerned by the utter lack of dignity involved in that bite. "It looks good on you. You should consider adding it as an accessory for your tac gear." After all, nothing says 'stealth' like 'festooned birthday hat.'
no subject
The taco he did end up eating has some kind of seafood with eggplant relish, which he's enjoying enough to have some relish get on his right hand, but he can't see anything like cactus in there - well he's not expecting a green prickly thing, it's probably skinned and cooked, nor does he know what it would taste like, but he imagines it's still visually distinct enough to be recognisable - so he's just sampling the goods and working his way across the table in a somewhat methodical fashion.
"Hnh - you've got some-- sauce-- yeah," he gestures at the corner of his own lips mirrored from hers, unable to hide the small chuckle she elicits from him. He doesn't have that many friends to begin with, so he can appreciate that there are no formalities or pretences between them and they can just-- talk frankly and be messy around each other.
"You should try this one. It's some... blackened fish with eggplant thing," he offers his basket over. Yes, the Wilsons are training him on cajun cuisine, so he's familiar with those kinds of flavours. Skipping over the one that looks like ground beef purely because he knows it won't be the cactus, he moves onto one basket with fillings he doesn't recognise next.
"So what do you do on your own birthdays? Especially when you don't have to humour grumpy old centenarians?" They're not much of a big deal to him, all the more so when he's missed so many by now. But maybe she does something special for herself. Or maybe Barton's enough of a gentleman to make her have a slightly different day from all the others?
no subject
She considers his question about birthdays, taking a sip from her drink to buy herself a moment to think, her eyes skimming his face. It's not that she dislikes her birthday so much as she tries to avoid anyone making a big deal out of it. "Maybe I like humoring grumpy old centenarians. I think after you regularly allow more than one in your life you have to consider the possibility," she points out with a smile. One shoulder lifts in a shrug before she continues. "It depends on the year. Usually a nice dinner. Or I'll wrangle people to do something fun like paintball without telling them why. What are you thinking about doing for your next birthday?"