fossilised | It's AU time

“I can do the ADA upgrades myself,” Thor said with a definitive nod. He and his buddies did a lot of contracting work on the side when they weren’t at the firehouse on call. It was better than a gym membership and they had a little income on the side. Thor had always been a natural builder. He followed in their father’s footsteps there, as his family owned a large natural building company in Tromsø called ODIN. They did most woodwork in the more traditional sense, but Thor had never shied away from other forms of construction either.

Putting in a ramp would be easy. Lowering all of the countertops would be less so. Loren would have to hire some help now too, but considering all of the mess Manhattan was in, he figured that finding cheap labor would be easy now.

“Though… Telling our parents ought to be something we do together if you do not wish to tell them alone. Mother will be on a plane to America as soon as the international flights restrictions are lifted. I can not protect you from that, brother.”

Loren would not be hiring any help, his stubborn pride would not allow it, he would struggle on alone as he had always done. The shop was his, and if he had to have reduced hours in order to continue keeping it that way, then that's what he would do, but he wouldn't have additional people in there with him. He hadn't considered how he might cope doing the more physical things like stocking the shelves, or taking deliveries, or even cleaning the shop on a night.

"What use are you if you cannot even do this simple thing for me," Loren groused, he did not want to tell either of his parents that news. He didn't want Freja to come all the way to America to fuss over him, even if a tiny part of him actually wanted that more than anything.

"Fine, give me your phone, at least I'll do this while the drugs make it likely I will forget the conversation tomorrow."

Thor was going to regret this. His phone still wasn’t working properly as there were no active cell towers that weren’t military based in the city thanks to the EMP that took the grid down, but landlines were working just fine and Thor used the phone in Loren’s room to dial home. Yes, he agreed to the charges, yes, he’d accept a small hold while the other party was tried—

He was not expecting his mother to begin screaming at him the moment her end was connected, though. Evidently he ought to have attempted to call her days ago and let her know that her sons were all right. What was he thinking making her wait until New Years Eve? Didn’t he know how worried she’d been?

Thor actually dropped the phone, and when he scrambled to pick it up again, she was still yelling at him. It was terrifically terrifying and he stared at Loren with big, wide blue eyes as if begging for help.

Loren felt an ache in his chest when he heard his mother's voice, even tinny and through the phone screaming at Thor. He missed her, he was probably the epitome of what people considered a mother's boy and he would never apologise for it. She had always been the sole rock of affection in his life, and he would love her always for it.

He sighed at Thor's dramatics and reached out to take the phone from him, putting it to his own ear and slipping into smooth Norwegian.

"Mother, cease shouting, it makes it difficult to hold a conversation with you. Thor apologises for not contacting you before, the telephone system in New York has been unreliable and he cannot be blamed for that. But he is fine, hale and healthy as ever, most likely a hero from rescuing those who had become trapped during the incidents. And I have news of my own, Mother, I am engaged to Anthony."

Though she might never have met him, she had been the only one to whom Loren had confided that he had been in a relationship at all, telling her about his mechanic over letters and telephone calls for more than a year now. Hopefully this good news of both of them would soften her.

Edited 2017-04-20 11:43 (UTC)

Freja’s entire demeanor changed at the news and though she was a frightening woman when angered, she was intensely loving and proud of her sons in all that they did. That Thor was heroic was a given. Her son was strong and good hearted. He might not be clever, but he was an asset to humanity as a whole and how many mothers could say that about their children?

Loren’s news, however, made her happier still. “It is about time that man did right by you,” she said, since she was a mother first before all else and her boys ought to have the world handed to them on a platter if they demanded it. “And I am pleased that you agreed. You’ll bring him to Norway this summer. Your excuses are no longer valid. I must meet this man.”

She was making it harder for her son to tell her the true purpose of his call, but she could not stop herself brimming with an eager pride.

“I hope to convince you to have children. I miss babies and your father tells me he is much too old to have a toddler dashing about.”

He had never discussed the possibility of children with Anthony, but he was not the most paternal of people and he did not think that Anthony was either. Perhaps it was something that lay in their future, but he certainly would not be giving any promises to his mother. That he was getting married was enough, and it sent warmth through him to have her approval.

But he could see Thor sat off to one side, and he could not ignore or pretend that there was no other reason for his call. At least he wouldn't have to see the way her face crumpled, or if there was pity there where he would hate to see it.

"I do not know if I will be able to fly by this summer, I have much that needs doing here." He didn't know how long he had to be in hospital, and then there would be physical therapy and learning to use the chair, all the adaptions to his home and work... "I am in the hospital. Please do not panic, the danger has passed and I will be f-- I will live. The convention centre I had travelled to for the day in Manhatten did not escape the carnage that I know you have heard about, and I sustained injuries to my stomach and spine." He hated this, he hated it with every fibre of his being. "I will not walk again."

“You’ll get a second opinion,” Freja said immediately. “I don’t trust American doctors. There will be something to be done, and if there is not, we will have a European doctor attest to the fact.” Her voice was stern for that little speech before she sighed and seemed to verbally hug her youngest. “Loren, I’ll be out to see you as soon as we are allowed. I know you have your brother and your fiancé to help you through this difficult time, but I trust myself more than I trust either of them.”

Her husband did not need her to stay and though he would wish to come with her, she would tell him to stay behind. Her youngest and her husband did not always see eye to eye and Loren spent much of his life living in jealousy of Thor. During his convalescence, she only wanted Loren to concentrate on being healthy and not on being certain that Olaf saw him in the best light.

“Have they yet discovered who did the attacks, Loren? The news has been mostly speculation but I feel something more will come.” Call it’s a mother’s sense or woman’s intuition. Freja did not believe in the supernatural or precognition but she often knew when something was about to happen.

She believed that to be simply because she was well informed and logical, however.

"American doctors are perfectly legitimate, mother," replied Loren, with a small sigh. Though he loved her, and he appreciated that she was concerned and immediately looking out for him, he hated that her first thought was that this must be fixed for it would be unthinkable for him to be in a chair for the rest of his life. It prickled, and he was dangerously close to taking offence even from her, not a thing that happened often. "The doctor that operated on me saved my life, and I will not be poked and prodded for no reason."

He wasn't going to tell her not to come, however, even he knew that would be wasted breath. It seemed that Anthony may have to run the gamut of his mother before either of them had anticipated it being necessary.

"I do not wish to think ahead to attacks that may not come again, not until I have looked into these ones properly. Anthony is bringing me a laptop so that I may work, and Thor will be altering my shop to allow me to continue working."

Just putting that out there so that she knew he would not be amenable to any strong suggestions that he should move back to Norway.

Though Loren tended not to listen fully, Freja would have understood if her son grew angry with her. She was not trying to force health upon him, she just did not trust the doctors he had. Then again, one might argue that no one should ever take a first opinion. Checking and double checking, getting new eyes on the topic, were all important.

His mother held her tongue about her son’s loyality and where he would want to stay. For now. She would very likely press Anthony Stark to move her son home, subtly. She might be loud and fierce in her anger but her subterfuge was anything but.

Listening to the information that Loren had gleaned, she told him she loved him and asked him to put Thor back on the phone. She was less angry this time but she did threaten him mildly to take care of his brother. Thor sighed. “He will be well cared for until his stubbornness kicks in,” he added, glancing at Loren in hopes that his brother would not flare up at him. “I will keep you informed, Ma. I promise.”

Loren contented himself with a glare when his nature was brought up, but the rigours of being awake even such a short time and the morphine were sending him back to a slumber that he couldn't fight. He missed the end of Thor's conversation, deeply asleep by the time the phone was hung up. He missed Anthony returning from the cafeteria and being told that Mrs. Odinson was on her way to America just as soon as she could get a flight out, and he missed Anthony falling asleep beside him some time later.

Across town it had been two days since Bucky returned home and had that serious conversation with Steve, since he had promised to do something about his PTSD and not ignore it any more, and things had been... better. It was amazing how fast the world was moving on, fixing things, and forcing life to go back to normal. The subways had finally been repaired enough for a basic service to resume, and Steve had been frantically called in because apparently the tattoo studio was rammed with young and rich people who wanted tattoos to 'remind themselves that every day was precious' or in 'memory of this tragedy', when none of them had even been anywhere near it. Simply appropriating it for their own sense of self worth.

It would be getting fairly late when his boss poked her head in the room where he would be doing a consultation with a twenty year old girl who wanted a shooting star with the words 'never 4get' in cursive underneath, and who was resisting any advice to maybe get the lettering done a bit thinner, or that 'forget' was usually not spelled '4get'.

"Steve? You've got six more before I can let you go home, you okay with that? Your next one is a real dish, shame he's come here."

She wasn't under any illusions of the sort of people her parlour attracted. Handsome, but usually vapid and annoying.

Steve was exhausted. He hadn’t wanted to come in, mostly because Bucky was so adamant about it, but he found that he didn’t fear the subway like he thought he might and the strange quiet of military occupied streets didn’t bother him as much as he thought it might. New York had never looked worse…or felt safer.

When Mickey poked her head in, Steve sighed. He smiled at the girl across from him and mentioned that her session had been over ten minutes ago. “I’ll have to charge you for another hour of consultation if we don’t wrap this up.” He ultimately let her take her badly spelled and typeset tattoo out to the main room for the ‘artists’ to trace and then ink on her about three minutes later.

Steve shook out his hands, spun his chair around twice, and set out a fresh set of papers. His pencils were sharpened and he stood up with an ache in his legs to poke his head out from the curtain and smile towards the row of seats.

“Happy New Year, you can come in now. I’m Steve Rogers…”

Bucky still wasn't good about leaving the house, but something about knowing he could if he felt it was truly necessary had given him a bit more backbone about it. Besides, the streets and the subway were quiet, easier for him to navigate, which was how he found himself actually sat in the waiting room of Steve's tattoo parlour.

Despite the slight nervous creases around his eyes, his smile was genuine as he stood up and followed Steve into the room.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Rogers," he murmured, hint of a tease in his voice. "I'm James Barnes, and I'm here for an initial consultation? I have some scar tissue that I want covering up, and there's only one artist I'd trust to do it."

He was serious about this whole moving on crap, and he could barely bear to look at himself in the mirror some days with the scars and the stump. Maybe if he concealed what he could with art then it would become beautiful to him again. Assuming they could even tattoo over the scars safely.

Steve just blinked up at Bucky before his face lit up and he squeezed the offered hand too tightly. In his blue collared shirt and neatly parted hair, Steve looked more like the IT guy than the resident artist of the shop, but his office was certainly more like a studio than even his studio at home. He made sure to tie the curtains closed behind Bucky, not that it would really keep anyone out, but he double knotted it just the same.

“That so? Can I see what I’m working with?”

He didn’t mind being a little cheeky here at all, the corners of his lips tilting up as he offered Bucky a seat and got him a glass of ice water with lemon and limes in it. How refreshing1 Nevermind that it was still freezing out. Mickey was particular about her client experience.

Bucky stared at the glass of water and then up at Steve with a raised eyebrow as if to ask what sort of place this was, before he just grabbed the front of that blue collared shirt and pulled him down to kiss him, briefly but passionately.

"What the hell is this supposed to be, Steve? Do your normal clients really want lemon and lime water? Seriously?"

He might be trying to pull Steve down onto his lap in an entirely unprofessional way, not even coming close to taking off his hoodie, shirt, or prosthetic.

"Yeah, seriously. I'm usually not part of the experience in this way, though," Steve said, not even slightly annoyed as he dropped into Bucky's lap with the smallest semblance of possibly attempting to discourage such behavior. "I'll have to charge you extra, you know?"

Maybe they shouldn't waste time making out when they had spent New Years Eve and New Years Day and the day after that pretty much naked and trying to race each other through a massive box of condoms, but sex and a relationship of this caliber was new to Steve and despite his physical ailments, he had a lot of stamina.

He did, however, manage to get Bucky's shirt undone after a small struggle at least.

"Tell me what you want and we'll make it happen, Buck."

The feel of Steve in his lap was a good one, a perfect weight, and he might be contemplating if he could both convince his boyfriend and be quick enough to take him right here in the tattoo parlour because having him there, smelling and feeling like he did, was making it hard to keep his hand to himself.

"I don't care."

It was a low mumble as he dipped his head to kiss at Steve's neck and jawline, not caring about if his shirt was taken off, or if the prosthetic was pulled away from him. Steve had pretty effectively smashed any nerves he might have about being bare in front of him by now.

"All I know at the moment is blood and death, and you. You're-- everything good about my world, I want you to take that and put it on my skin. You're the artist, whatever you design is cool. Hell, I'll even let them ink me blind without ever seeing it, that's how much I trust you."

There was a part of Steve that itched to have his vision realized. Her could do amazing things on Bucky's skin to mask the scars and make them beautiful. He found the scars themselves hauntingly beautiful too, but he understood why Bucky wanted them gone. "I need your input. It's less about trust and more about collaboration," Steve said as he tried to stand -- or sit -- his ground while Bucky felt him up.

He let the arm drop with a clatter and lightly massaged the area that the prosthetic chafed. He'd gotten Bucky into a regimine of using lotion like the Internet said after long wears and of using powder before he put it on. It was helping, slowly and surely.

"I can't just put my face across your shoulder. And I know you don't want anything too patriotic... Buck." Steve laughed and sat back on his knees, grinning down at the voracious man. "I promise that I'll make you orgasm twice after work. But first, let me get started on this for you. And then you can stay and silently judge everyone else I'm going to work on. How's that?"

Bucky couldn't help but snort as he imagined how terrible that tattoo would come out if Steve did all the worst things he could think of. But he still didn't let Steve off his lap, even with the hated prosthetic dropped to the floor and gentle fingers began massaging the areas where strap marks could still be seen.

"Steve, baby. If you wanted to put your face on the background of the American flag, while you shot bald eagles from your eyes and the words to the star spangled banner curled around my entire body, I'd let you do it. I might not have sex with you for a month, but I'd still let you do it."

He started to slip his hand into Steve's pants.

"I definitely want to collaborate with you, though. I'm so down for collaborating right here and right now."

Letting out a hot and heavy breath, mixed partially with a laugh, Steve put his hand to Bucky's wrist. "Is this how you plan to pay for my time?" He let his lips curl before his fingers released the man and pressed forward against his palm. "Because as much as I would like that, Mickey takes a little bit off the top of all of my private clients. And I want you to stay all mine."

Taking his libido was difficult but not impossible. Steve was capable of regulating himself and capable of resisting, even if he didn't want to.

"But to be honest, what you want isn't possible to sketch out in an hour. I'll need more one on one time. Can I pen you in for an appointment tonight?" Steve wasn't sure how long he was going to let Bucky fondle him, because he hadn't pulled his hand back yet. He was hard and needy and--- there were people lined up just past the curtain.

"Yeah, sorry. Your boss is probably a nice lady and all, but I have this thing for patriotic blond guys in bald eagle sweaters, nothing else does it for me."

He took the fact that Steve had released his wrist and pushed his hips forwards as permission to continue, so he gave into his desires and gripped his boyfriend to start jerking him off, voice a low growl in his ear.

"Jesus, Steve, you're so damn irresistible that I can't keep my hands off you. Makes me want to bend you over that desk right now and who gives a crap about the people waiting?"

But he wasn't that much of an asshole, he'd just give his boyfriend a hand job as fast as he could, not wanting to actually cost Steve his job or get him into trouble.

"But I'm not wearing my sweater," Steve protested, though it hardly mattered. He was forced to be as quiet as possible with his heart racing in a sort of restless, exhilarating fear as he pressed his face against Bucky's neck.

Thankfully, it didn't take too long to make a mess of Bucky's palm and even more thankfully, there were alcohol swabs on the desk to clean him up with after.

"So is this going to be a new thing?" Steve was seated across the work desk from Bucky some Fifteen minutes after he arrived, still breathing a little funny. Steve always had a sort of rasp he couldn't shake for a little while after strenuous activity. "Are you going to visit me for afternoon delights regularly?"

Steve couldn't help but blush at that. He was ridiculously giddy, both from the experience and from knowing that Bucky had braved his fears to come here.

Bucky fucking loved knowing that he could reduce his boyfriend to that quivering state in short order, and he couldn't help but watch his flushed cheeks and think about how goddamn sexy he was and how it was a crime against the world that he had still been single when Bucky came around.

"I don't know, Steve, this sounds like it could be some big work and need a lot of consultation time, but-- I'm kinda using all my disposable income for the month to pay for this one slot, so maybe not that regularly."

He would love to, but he knew that he had a limited amount of capability for going out still, and that had to be used economically.

"Besides, I might be kinda busy soon... the VA called this morning. Said they want me to come in for some sort of assessment, see what kind of help they think they can and should offer me."

Eyebrows raised, Steve leaned forward across the desk and spread his fingers across the paper he had not yet marked up. "Jeez, are you kidding me?! They told us it would be at least six weeks before they could fit you in--" Bucky had some powerful friends. He had the sort of security clearance that probably made parts of the brass a little worried.

Or maybe they were just afraid of the things Bucky did during the Great New York Scare.

"That's just fantastic, Buck. It's so fantastic. I'm right behind you. Anything you need, you got," Steve promised sincerely. "Even if that just includes free, late night sessions for your tattoo," Steve grinned.

He wasn't going to be charging Bucky for this.

"We should celebrate. I'm thinking that meatbun place we pass going back home? They're ballshaped."

It was the security clearance. His actions in the Great New York Scare had already been buried by Dum-Dum and some handy friends who knew how to wipe security tapes, nobody would ever suspect James Barnes of any wrongdoing there. But he had been in a high security covert ops team, a POW for a long time, and then disappeared off the grid when he made it back stateside... of course they wanted eyes on him again.

Bucky snorted and leaned over the desk to kiss Steve sweetly on the lips.

"Is it weird that when you say home, I think of your place?"

He had barely been back to his own since they started dating, only to change and shower every so often, and that one night when Becca had stayed over. It felt like his place was just storage, and that was pretty dumb.

"But yeah, I think I can go for those ball shaped treats."

"Our place. I was serious. I don't care if it's too soon. I really don't. Sometimes you just know when it's real and when it's right and I do know. I think I might have always. You just-- it clicked for me," Steve said, serious despite that kiss. Maybe because of that kiss. Maybe because of the man sitting with his shirt open across from him, with that fake arm on the floor, forgotten and unneeded.

He trusted Bucky. Even if he shot him.

Thankfully, that was just in the left shoulder and he didn't need it. He wasn't even wearing the sling. It didn't do a lot of good. The bullet had not hit bone or even any of the really important parts of the muscle or tendon. It had been clean through and yeah, it hurt, but that's what the medication was for.

As long as he didn't lift his arm over his head, he was fine.

Besides, he couldn't and didn't blame Bucky for any of it. That wasn't really Bucky. That was the man that still lived in the arrid rocky climate of the Middle East.

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