The World Keeps Changing

Chapter 3

The next two weeks continued in much the same hectic fashion, maintaining things as usual as well as conducting interviews for new kitchen staff. By that Friday I was aching for a day off, literally. My left leg was a constant, pulsing pain that radiated up through my back and across my hips. I kept telling myself it was a good thing the nerves were finally recovering, but it didn't feel that way. At least the cafeteria would be closed for the weekend, but there would be a large fundraiser Saturday night. Nothing Sunday though, and I was so ready.

The penthouse had come to feel like a little reprieve in my day whenever I needed to go up there. Most days I could come up quietly in the morning, do my setup for the day and leave. Often in those early hours I would only see Steve or Bucky, and maybe Sam if he was around. It seemed like the former service members of the Avengers were the only early risers of the group. Usually, it was Bucky I saw.

Sometimes, it reminded me a lot of having a cat. Whenever Bucky knew of my presence in the penthouse (and he somehow almost always did), he was just nearby, thinking who knows what in his quiet, broody-looking way, observing or sometimes reading. He seemed to have an affinity for sci-fi and fantasy. He was getting more talkative, at least when it was just us, and I could often draw him into some light conversation. Sometimes he would ask me about some pop culture reference Tony had made recently, and it would lead to a recommendation of some new piece of media material he should check out.

Usually, someone watching me while I worked, or just a man giving my movements that level of attention would have me on edge, but for some reason he didn't. He had just become a sort of quiet companion as I made my usual rounds. Maybe it was the simple fact he seemed genuinely interested in whatever I was doing, and the interest he seemed to have in cooking and my job generally. His eyes were always on me when I worked, but not on my curves. I never felt that tingle at the base of my neck that I was being mentally undressed, or that someone was staring at my butt. He watched my hands when I chopped vegetables, the way the egg whites flew in a tsunami wave inside the bowl as I whisked them for meringue, how I changed the kneading technique of dough based on how sticky it was, or the way I flipped a pancake without splatting and deflating it. He watched my movements as I multitasked through my daily prep, deciding what needed to happen when and how I overlapped my tasks to get it all done efficiently.

I was late in the penthouse kitchen today, we'd had yet another call-in and I had needed to help Javier set up for breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria, leaving me to make lunch service for the Avengers today instead of breakfast. Rhodey had come by to pull Tony away for an actual lunch out today, and that gave me a chance to talk Dr. Banner into also taking an actual lunch. I even managed to lure him out of the Lab to the commons.

The super soldiers were already in the common room, watching a movie. The two seemed determined to make up for lost time and had been getting every dollar out of Tony's Netflix subscription. Bruce grabbed a seat to join them.

Bucky was already looking up at the door when I came in and it wasn't long after that he migrated to his customary place at the counter to watch me, as he often did.

"What have you two been watching today?" I asked while I laid out lunch, grilled chicken, baked beans and apple cole slaw.

"The Terminator movies."

"Action movie day! What do you think?"

"I don't know," he answered quietly, "It's... hard to watch."

"I could see that." I agreed, looking in the drawer for a serving spoon for the coleslaw. "Especially the first Terminator, huh?"

I heard his chair and I looked up as I put the spoon in and picked up the bowl. He was standing now and looked troubled, his body tense, ready to bolt. I stopped and watched the subtle expressions playing over his face. Fleeting shadows behind his eyes of the emotions that still had a weighted blanket of mental damage and trauma thrown over them. "Bucky?" He just turned and left quickly.