Chapter Text
"Где я?"
Where am I?
Well, that's definitely not what you want to hear from your previously English-speaking, Brooklyn-born, hook-up last night.
James "call me Bucky, doll" Barnes sits upright on your bed. He's still topless, his pants are still unbuttoned, and he's still surrounded by the soiled sheets you promised yourself you'd clean this morning because you hadn't had the chance to when you were absolutely fucking breathless last night—
Right, you reel yourself from inside your head, Russian.
"Ты у меня дома," you say. You're in my home. It's been so long since you've last spoken Russian. You think you hadn't dipped your tongue enough and don't quite hit the right pitch for this sort of language but it'll have to do— and you also don't think that Bucky Barnes from Brooklyn would mind all too much anyways. "Ты на 53-й улице, между 8-й и 9-й авеню." 53rd Street, between 9th and 8th avenue.
The tenseness from his shoulders seem to drop and his intense gaze wander away from you to your room. The look in his eyes and the furrow of his brow makes you think he's alert and scanning, obsessively turning over every crevice of your rundown apartment with only his eyes. It also makes him look a little lost— which isn't supposed to happen to gruff and grounded men who told you last night that they don't— "can't,"— get drunk. Well, men did usually like to lie but you'd always thought someone with Captain America as their closest friend would think twice about it.
He still seems so tense and you don't like the look on his face— like he's half a flinch away from jumping out your window or decking you in the face with that metal arm of his before jumping out the window. He reels himself in like his muscles are an old set of large cable wires being wound together. If you'd been anything like that one blind attorney of Hell's Kitchen with an interesting set of vocabulary and phrases to describe his surroundings, you'd hear them creaking. You almost expect for the moment they'd snap under the pressure or spaz out to get you but it doesn't come.
Instead, Bucky Barnes looks at you with an expression you can't decipher. It's a bit in-between sad and murderous though you could never tell. You were bad enough at reading expressions that you'd much more like it if you could listen to how they speak to gauge their thoughts. Unfortunately, Bucky of this current morning is anything but chatty.
"Ты в порядке, Баки?" You okay, Bucky? You ask and you don't try to take another step forward. Something about prey animals and predator instincts and playing dead and staying really really still comes to the back of your mind so you're really just standing there in your oversized shirt and underwear with a towel around your neck. Your hair is still wet from the recent shower you took, did the documentaries say something about this too?
"Я не Баки," Bucky, or rather— I'm not Bucky, he had said— Not-Bucky murmurs lowly, pinning you with a furrow in his brows that you can easily tell is a glare.
"Ну… ладно." Well… alright. Yeah, no, aren't you pretty darn lucky to be decently fluent in Russian. "Ты в порядке, э-э… не Баки?"
Are you okay, er… Not-Bucky?
He seems to freeze up for a moment, a minuscule jolt in his shoulders that you might've had hallucinated, but he gives you a firmer look and he straightens his back.
"Да." Yes, he says, "Статус: стабилен. Ранений нет. Отклонений не обнаружено." Status: stable, it seems. No injuries. No deviations detected.
"Вот и хорошо." That's good, you tell him in your softest voice possible. The kind of voice you'd use with those students that liked to impress you in the library by pretending to read thick hardbound books. You almost give him the same smile you'd give those kids before you remember you aren’t supposed to show your teeth to predators.
You stop yourself. Maybe you shouldn't keep thinking of Not-Bucky as a predator animal?
You decide to throw him a closed lip smile, no teeth, just in case.
"Эм… извини, что я встала, ничего не сказав… наверное," you laugh and keep your hands in front of you, locked together loosely in front of your stomach. "Я принимала душ, вот и всё. Хочешь тоже принять душ?"
Uhm, sorry I got up without saying anything, I guess. I was just taking a shower, that’s all. Do you want to take one too?
You are met with a cold hard stare.
You wait because what else are you supposed to do?
There's about a 5 second long silence before Not-Bucky opens his mouth.
"Да."
"Ладно." Alright. Carefully, you approach the bedside, kneel down to the drawers, and grab a fresh towel. You hand it to him as slowly as possible.
"Вот." Here. You give him another closed lip smile. "Можешь пользоваться чем угодно в ванной — кроме зубной щётки." You can use anything in the bathroom— except for the toothbrush.
He nods silently and marches towards your bathroom. The heavy set of his feet falling, the steadiness of his shoulders— he was marching towards your bathroom. You hope the tenants downstairs don't mind the thud thud thud of Not-Bucky's steps. You suppose, if they had, they'd have brought it up last night when you were screaming into your pillows and your bed frame had been—
Focus, you tell yourself.
Not-Bucky gets out of the shower, fully clothed and looking all the more neater and smelling like your lavender scented shampoo. You don't mind the sight, you realize. A handsome man looking all domestic-like is your weakness but you're snapped out of your idle musings by his voice, deep, accented, a pitch lower than his register when you first met him, and— probably most importantly— Russian.
"Готов выполнять."
Ready to comply.
Uh oh, that's not good. You are not at all qualified to deal with this. The shower did nothing to wash off that rigidness in his posture and the grim look in his eyes and you aren’t fucking stupid. You know this voice. You know this man. You'd read about him more times than you'd have liked to. Once the whole HYDRA thing got out, New York Public Library was suddenly filled with an influx of new foreign files to sort through and your inbox with requests to translate texts between HYDRA heads and political leaders as well as decode never before seen crypts. It had probably been the most busiest time of your life and the most you've ever gotten paid but also the most you've ever had to sign a bunch of NDA's.
You can't help but chuckle at the absurdity of it all.
"Спокойно, не Баки, с тобой всё в порядке." At ease, Not-Bucky, you're alright.
But he doesn't ease, damn. "Эм… кажется, твои друзья уже давно пытаются с тобой связаться. Я всё время вижу, как на твоём телефоне появляются уведомления."
Uhm, I think your friends have been trying to contact you for a while now. I keep seeing notifications pop up on your phone.
As if on cue, the phone Bucky had hastily thrown aside pings from the floor. Not-Bucky only stares at it. Then, it rings— call incoming— but he doesn't move.
"Ты не собираешься ответить?"
Aren't you going to answer it?
"Они не мои друзья."
They're not my friends.
"Имеет смысл." Makes sense. You nod along, though not much makes sense at all right now. The ringing dies— Steve you read the contact. "Но всё равно…" All the same, you continue, "они могут волноваться за тебя. Эм… ты знаешь, как добраться домой?" They could be worried about you. Er, do you know your way home?
He pins you with the same grim stare before his eyes flicker back to the phone that started ringing again.
"Эм." Uhm. You scratch the back of your neck. Your hair is still wet and your blow-dryer had broken down weeks ago. The cold is getting to you. "ты хочешь домой?" Do you want to go home?
Not-Bucky doesn't answer.
"Ничего." That's fine. You smile. "мне правда не против, что ты остаёшься здесь, главное, чтобы тебя не напрягало, что я занимаюсь своими делами, конечно." I don't mind you staying here, honestly, so as long as you don't mind me going about my day, of course.
The ringing stops but it continues to ping with another flood of messages. Bucky? It says. Are you there? Are you alright? The sounds of the phone's notifications somehow make you more uneasy than Not-Bucky who was currently flexing his metal fingers. You can hear the clinking of each metal plate and the near silent whirs of the machinery powering it.
He doesn't move. He doesn't answer.
"Ладно." Right. You smack your lips awkwardly. "я начну убирать эти простыни."
I'm gonna start putting those sheets away.