the breakfast club [ avengers ]

quinque

"...none of your goddamn fucking business, princess".

"Why do you have to be such an asshole?" Natalia spat with a mixture of anger and mild hurt. Her eyebrows furrowed and her lips pursed, she flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned away from Barton- the same way that James had seen the popular girls do in the movies. Natalia reminded him a bit of both Sandy and Rizzo from Grease- she had the perfect-good-girl look of Sandy but the self-confidence and assurance of Rizzo; from what he'd seen anyway.

"Sorry, princess, that's just the way I am," Barton muttered. Bucky rolled his eyes. He too had heard Barton calling out in his sleep and had seen the way his features had scrunched up in fear, he had been as clear as a clean window pane. Bucky got it though, Barton obviously had a reputation based on his masculinity that needed upholding, and in all honesty- who was he to judge people on how they dealt with their emotions.

What surprised him was Natalia's reaction. Why was she so pissed off by Barton's comment? An hour or so ago, she had just let all of his jibes and insults pass over, ignoring him or making harsh comments back, but now- why did she even care? Why did she seem so hurt by his barbed reaction to her prying?

He found the people around him a bit terrifying but also utterly mesmerising and interesting; each one an enigma that he could never fully understand. Stark was obviously a major overachiever; probably getting A+s in all of his subjects, the boy seemed to have knowledge beyond his few years. Bucky had heard that the kid was the son of Howard and Maria Stark, a hotshot businessman and progressive Democratic senator. Anthony Stark was twitchy and nervous but Bucky sensed a quiet, simmering plethora of self-confidence.

Clinton Barton was an open book in comparison. A boy with anger, bereavement, confidence and a whole alphabet's worth of issues, that more than likely stemmed from his childhood; pushing him into the path of fragile and toxic masculinity- as clearly shown with the events that had just unfolded. Bucky had seen him around school sometimes; hanging around with Scott Lang and Kate Bishop and pretty much causing havoc in most lessons. Except, world studies; he actually seemed to care about that lesson. Whenever Bucky was waiting at the Principal's office, which was a lot of the time in all fairness, he always saw Barton at some point either speaking to Coulson or waiting for him too. There must have been a reason why he hadn't been kicked out yet. From what he knew, Barton wasn't paying the $17,000-a-year fee and was on some kind of scholarship or scheme or something- so why doesn't the Principal or governing bodies expel him and give the place to someone less troublesome and worthy? Bucky had heard some of the girls in his Science Class say.

The only person that he could even distantly empathise with and modestly understand was Natalia. Like him, she had obviously spent time in the Soviet Union, and perhaps other Warsaw Pact countries; but unlike him, it seemed that Natalia had taken to life in the capitalist west like a duck to water whereas he had found the change rather drastic and it seemed that it was his own personality and reputation that had hindered building any resemblance of a friendship since he turned up at Marvel High a couple of semesters ago.

Bucky found himself desperately missing the East some days.

He missed his old friend Helmut to some degree, the German had been an ass to him for most of his stay in the GDR but at least he was someone to talk to. And at least he recognised that Bucky was an actual person and not just an invisible being. He had enjoyed his time with the morally-questionable baron upon reflection; when Helmut wasn't in one of his frightening bad moods and was instead in one of his rebellious phases, they'd sneak out of their government provided apartment building and find new ways to get over the Wall into the West's symbolic beacon of freedom, West Berlin. They'd creep into nightclubs and bellow Don't You Want Me and 99 Luftballons in each other's faces at the tops of their lungs. And sometimes, on the nights when they were too tired to make the dangerous, landmine ridden passage to the Western side, they'd go to one of the warehouse raves that blasted techno so loud that it'd leave their ears ringing for next couple of days.