Taking the offered hand, Moon Knight sucked in a groan, joints popping and snapping as he stood. Part of the job. They punish their bodies as much as they punish others. Maybe more so. “No hospital,” he said, wobbling as he stood unassisted.

lostsouldier​  ;  james:

      His time in Tokyo has taken him to his roots — attempting his hand at espionage rather than the direct fires ( and misfires ) he’s fallen back on in recent times. He’s always had a knack for discretion, but he much prefers blowing things up, and with age and experience he’s grown tired of waiting for things to fall into place. Much of what he was attempting to do was of time sensitive nature, too, so sometimes setting up his rifle on a roof top and flashing his red laser point before pulling the trigger was the best way to get the job done. 

      Just … not when the Japanese mafia was involved. 

      So slow and steady it is. 

      He likes to think he may have found a friend in this, in his time here. He may be mistaken. There’s strong evidence to believe that Fujiko simply found tugging him along entertaining, that his reactions to her outgoing nature was funny. She was beautiful — sexy might have been the more appropriate word but Bucky wouldn’t use it, even to simply think about her, which he also attempts not to do. She’s one of the first people he flags at the function, along with his mark that he’s supposed to be stealing biometrics off of. 

      He completes his task about an hour into the night, then hangs around to maintain appearances. He racks up a decent amount of interest. He’s got the face and smile for it. It’s temperament that he’s lacking, though that’s simple enough to fake. He can’t leave, however, without checking in on his silver clad friend. Whenever he looks over, she seems to be occupied, though feels like he just misses her gaze when he turns his away. Until finally, there’s an opening for him. 

      She’s far too close, far too quickly, but then — he’d known she would do that, hadn’t he ? And he hadn’t stopped. 

      ‘ Mostly one, and a little of the other. ’ Because he doesn’t enjoy standing around like a brick, and instinct is a hell of a thing, his hand sheathed in thin, soft leather comes to the small of her back. ‘ I like your dress. ’

She doesn’t know James, not in the way she knows others around her. But he has a sort of old American World Charm to him that reminds her of black and white films. Respectable and Honorable. With big brown eyes, and a smile that was not easy gotten, but something still worth the work to own - and she does want to own him, at least for a little while. Pretty things like him always looking somehow better in trapped in her web and games. Like pearls on a string, or diamonds cut and placed in the right home, he would be a shiny new thing for her line up.

All that remained was the most important bit: the manner of how to trap him. And that was something Fujiko was still working on.

“Pleasure, then.” She takes his too-honest answer with grace, and slides both her hands up to adjust his collar. Something about her growing heated not by the compliment, but the touch of leather against bare skin. Long lashes fluttering as she laughs something charming. “Thank you. You should see what’s under it, if this is something you like.”

      She certainly is fun in the midst of monotonous and law-abiding work . . . despite how he borders on being uncomfortable almost every time that he’s around her. If that were truly the case, why had he approached her tonight ? For once . . . it was him who had made the first move. And he hadn’t even caught himself doing it.

      He wonders how much of her is a performance. For him. For those who might be watching and listening in. For herself. Her laugh is as elegant as the rest of her and he wonders when the last was that she’d laughed for real --- throwing her head back and clutching her sides and gasping for air until her cheeks hurt. He can’t actually imagine her in such an undone state . . . which is a pity. She likes her pearls and diamonds, he likes the smell of books, the licking flames of fire, and picking at scab wounds. 

@lostsouldier​​  ;  james:

🧜🏻‍♂️ a tattoo parlor  daviD

nightlife symbol starter  ;  for the addict

Another day, another coverup. This time, a blob of black ink growing over an intricate tattoo on his lower thigh. Covering a series of tattoos that were both religious and not, things intertwined with the gang life he was still working his way past. Fi’s connection to him still strong, but the rest of it a thing he preferred to look at in the rear view mirror.

It’s a painful process, and long, but it’s worth it. And with his head tilted back in the chair, and his eyes closed, the buzzing eventually becomes almost hypnotic. Putting him in a faraway place, were the murmurings of other artists and clients were inaudible. Voices from a far off distance away that he could ignore if he disassociated just right. 

The dinging of the shop bell, however, is one noise he just can’t ignore. Rightfully earned paranoia causing him to open his eyes and then just - squint and then sigh. “James.” And surprisingly, he doesn’t sound nearly as bothered as he probably should be, considering his pantlessness And the fact that this was really not the kind of place he pictured him in. Looking all out of sorts in a grungy place like David’s once frequent haunt. Leather jacket helping but everything else about him just… not. “Y’gunna keep fuckin’ starin’ or grab a fuckin’ seat?”

      Bucky has had an eventful day, travelling an hour out of town on his bike that now works wonderfully thanks to the excessive works he’s made David do on it. What he was doing out of town was nobody else’s business --- it may or may not have involved a dead drop --- but he had managed to find a place on the way back that sold bubble tea and is currently sporting a lime green drink with dark purple pearls.

“what’s hurting you?” | ( @lostsouldier​ )

          A question, or really several, are ready on her lips, each a bit of a sassy retort and deflection from his inquiry.

What makes you think there’s something hurting me? Projecting much? What’s it matter anyway?

But Bullet already knows the answers and knows that throwing these at James will not do what she would hope they would. She also recognizes that not so long ago, he had opened up to her, shown her things he had long refused to put on display, and she had agreed to do the same. Those pesky and harsh knee-jerk phrases are simply left over from her previous defense mechanisms in face of him being so closed off to her. He isn’t now and she shouldn’t be either.

The redhead draws in a long, loud breath and pushes it out as her eyes meet his.

“Dunno if it’s hurtin’ as much as it’s just… dread. I’m dreadin’ it.” She tucks her hair behind her ears and reaches for the wine glass she had put aside only a minute or so before, needing that little comfort before continuing. “My father’s gettin’ outta prison. Oh, uh, surprise, my father is— well, both of my parents are felons.” An awkward laugh and another heft sip of the white wine that had long lost its chill. “He’s comin’ here, against his better judgement, because he needs me. Well, needs to use me, and I…” Brows furrow and her gaze drops to the glass. “He’s my dad and no matter how much I cannot stand him and how much I don’t wanna help, as much as he doesn’t deserve it, especially from me, I know… I know I’m gonna do it.”  It’s the first time she’s admitted that aloud. “I’m a fuckin’ pushover for that sonuva bitch.”

( MEMES? MEMES. | always accepting! )

      He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t run a background check on her. It had been his paranoia at first, his disinclination to believe anything good could come his way. And then a deeper one once she’d revealed more about herself --- an effort to keep her safe. The fact that her parents were registered criminals had come up in his search . . . but that, and the rest of the search hadn’t revealed anything that required him to bring it up to her. And he likely would never bring it up --- especially when he preferred Bullet tell him on her own terms. He’s also not sure how well she’d take it. In his defence, he’s been in the business too long not to background check who he’s getting into bed with ( literally. ) 

      ‘ It’s different when it’s family. ’ The only reason he knows is because he knows how families and loved ones could be used against you. He’s someone ashamed to admit that he’s played the family card against people he’s needed to take down before. He’s also seen people head down irreversible paths because of what was at stake, because of who had asked them. He doesn’t want to see Bullet can stuck in that loop. 

                         STEVE FEELS HIS FACE TURN RED AT BUCKY’S WHISTLE. This is not the first time his friend sees him naked (it’s impossible to prevent when you live in a tiny shoebox together), but now Steve’s body looks very different (well… the serum didn’t make everything bigger, sadly), and Bucky shamelessly ogles him like a piece of meat. “I got some cigarettes in my duffel over there,” he says, nodding to where his things sat in a corner. “Also a pack of gum, so you can find a nurse to kiss afterward without her turning her nose up at your terrible breath.” He hesitates briefly, then drops his hands. Bucky is here to stay for another minute or five, and Steve doesn’t want to put the dirty clothes back on, nor does he want to don his clean uniform without washing up first. He turns to the bowl for a bit more privacy and wets the washcloth again.

                        "I think this is still a leftover from my time as a dancing monkey for Senator Brandt,“ he explains. "Can’t have the USO idiot bunk together with the real soldiers, after all.” He sounds a little bitter. “I hope that’s over now. They saw what I’m capable of. I can help. Save lives. That’s more important than selling war bonds.” Steve watches Bucky out of the corner of his eye, subtly checking him for obvious injuries, a funny movement that suggests he’s hurting somewhere, so he can drag his friend back to the doctors and demand they do a proper check-up. He pulled him off a table babbling deliriously and with feverish eyes. There’s no way he’s all healthy and okay now. “You can bunk with me if ya want to. If you, uh, don’t get problems with your CO for it, of course.”

      He smirks to himself over Steve’s decision to stop covering up, not that that tiny washcloth was helping much at all. They hadn’t had much privacy sharing a tiny apartment together, and Steve would soon learn once he started bunking, sleeping, and showering with the rest of the men in camps away from base that privacy was the stuff of lands far far away. 

      Bucky lurches into motion once directions are given to the cigarettes, digging them out of Steve’s bag and pocketing the pack of gum for later. ‘ Funny. No one’s ever complained about my breath before. ’ He pats around himself for his Zippo, finds it in a pocket and quickly lights up. He’d stopped smoking for a while back in Brooklyn, after moving in with Steve. The habit had come back in full force by the time his boots hit European soil. Now he’s craving for anything familiar, wants to flood his body with it in an effort to flush out anything and everything that had been put into it by Zola. What the hell does he know about the way drugs work ?

      ‘ I’d hang onto the luxury as long as I can if I were you, ’ he mumbles around the end of his cigarette, getting comfortable perched at the end of Steve’s cot, arm crossed loosely over his chest. There’s no obvious injuries to be found. Cuts and bruises from the actual capture had healed while he was on the exam table. Maybe it was how long he’d been on there fore. Maybe something else. There’d been one moment of waking consciousness where he’d noticed the dozens of needle marks on his arms, but there was nothing but smooth if a little dirty skin left now to tell the story. He’s fine. 

      ‘ Probably get more flack from the guys than him, ’ he admits, taking a heavy drag. ‘ But you outrank him so what the hell ? ’ He grins brightly at that, muscles pulling tight and feeling all kinds of wrong to make it happen, but make it happen he does. He’ll take the teacher’s pet jokes, the Caps’ girlfriend jokes, the Mr America jokes for a clean place to sleep. He’s not that prideful. 

      He turns around at the sound of her voice, unstartled thanks to a developed sixth sense that had alerted him to her staring at the back of his head for the past however long. He gets it. He’s not exactly dressed for the library . . . but if he didn’t have the large leather jacket on, he’d be flashing his shiny metal arm and that would sure draw more attention. If it helps any, he’s not that big beneath the jacket. 

after he was recaptured, the experimentation continued. it was only in the later decades when hydra saw what a useful weapon he was that the outlandish experimentation stopped in case it backfired and killed their weapon, but the effort to enhance him continued with a larger focus on maintaining the enhancements already implemented.

      Bucky believes it instantly. Not because he’s talking to a Stark, but because he’s talking to Tony. Plenty of people had a lot to say about the guy. Some to do with the fact that he walks in the precedent of his father. Some to the do with the name he was making for himself, all on his own. The people loved a bit of famous, rich people drama. 

      Bucky has to admit --- before they’d met at college, he’d been some what of a geek over Howard Stark. He isn’t ashamed to admit that he hasn’t missed a single Stark Expo since he’d started going as a kid. He’d admired from afar, trying not to let the rumours of what else Howard Stark was involved in take from his --- for want of a better word --- hero worship, though growing up and seeing more of the world has definitely pulled back the wool over his eyes. It’s why, perhaps, upon finding out that Tony was a Stark, he hadn’t been very impressed. All it took was one class together, however, and in the process of attempting to irritate the living hell out of Tony --- which had backfired spectacularly on Bucky --- he’d actually gotten to know the guy. 

      Which is why Bucky is now lying on Tony’s floor, feet propped up on the bed because he’d read somewhere that that would increase blood flow to the brain and therefore help him think more, which he needs, in order to memorise his cheat sheet of formulas before tomorrow’s quiz. It’s just making him dizzy at this point. He twists up, giving up for the moment, and to address Tony’s current personal turmoil. Where was Rhodey when you needed him.