-~*~- taking requests -~*~-

Doing the groceries had always been a boring chore to you. They weren't fun, and supermarkets felt like overstimulating death traps, what with the harsh fluorescents and kitschy pop music being looped on the speakers.

Your hand brushed against the packets of instant ramen in stock, trying to decide whether or not to get beef, chicken, vegetable or prawn flavoured ones. There was a small voice in the back of your mind telling you eating ramen for the billionth time wasn't exactly healthy, but since when had you ever been a healthy person, really?

Picking up one of each and placing them in your basket, you turned to head down the aisle-

"Hiya there, pretty," a grating, sleazy voice suddenly interrupts your thought process, and you look up from the linoleum to come face to face with a guy who looks like he's seen better days.

The guy smiles, and you can clearly see his yellowed, neglected teeth, some of which were missing. Which, uh, ew.

"Yeah, you liked that, didn't you?" He says smugly, getting closer. In fact, he's seriously beginning to encroach on your personal space.

"-Can you not? Back off, dude, I'm not interested," You scowl, trying to inject a good amount of self-assuredness and confidence into your tone, but God, you can feel his breath on your face and it stinks of cigarettes and alcohol (who has alcohol at 11AM?!) and your heart is fucking running a marathon.

"Playing hard to get?" The guy snorts; an ugly sound that makes you grimace. "Of course you're interested, people are always interested in being shown a good time."

He's getting closer, and with a sort of dread-filled realisation, you feel your back hit the shelf behind you. He's backed you into the unit.

Before you can even do anything to try and shove him away, you feel his ice-cold hands shoved up your shirt and grabbing your hips to hold you in place, and your heart goes similarly icy with horror and disgust as he begins to lean in for a wet kiss.

This is it. This guy's gonna assault you in the middle of a fucking supermarket at 11 in the morning, and there's nothing you can do-

The weight of him pressing against you suddenly vanishes as if he's just been completely yanked off you like a ragdoll.

"Get the hell off them," you hear a different man say, a Brooklyn accent strong in his furious words.

Blinking, you take a moment to re-combobulate yourself and you try to see who just literally saved your ass and-...

...Is that the fucking Winter Soldier?!

"Oh, yeah? And who are you to say that?" The sleazy jerkwad spits at James Buchanan fucking Barnes, who apparently shops for his groceries at a damn mini-mart in the rougher end of Manhattan, what the fuck. "I got here first, you dickhead."

Bucky falters for a split second, and his eyes find your wide eyed gaze for a moment before he steps closer to you and grabs your hand. "They're my partner, you idiot. Safe to say I definitely got to them first."

Your stomach does a flip. Partner? What?

Your hand is suddenly squeezed lightly, as if to say 'play along', and you startle back into the present. "Um, yeah. This... He's my boyfriend. Yup."

You can practically feel Bucky staring at you in absolute disbelief at how crap your acting is, but there's no time to ponder it, because the sleaze is scoffing and beginning to slink away in defeat.

"Fine, whatever," he grumbles as he walks off, "they're ugly as sin anyways. I don't want 'em. Take your leftovers."

The words make Bucky stiffen beside you, and his lip curls in distaste before he seems to force it back down and turns to look at you.

"You okay?" He asks gruffly, "He didn't do nothin' to you, did he?"

It takes you a moment to even realise he'd said something, because you're too busy trying to get over the fact James Buchanan Barnes potentially just saved your life and is still talking to you.

But after a good minute where you've said nothing, the man arches an eyebrow expectantly, and you clock back in to reality.

"Uhm, yeah! No, uh, I'm fine," you reassure, "you got here before he could actually, uh, do anything. Which. Thank you, by the way. For helping me. I appreciate it."

Fuck, that came out way awkward.

Bucky shrugs, stuffing his metal hand into his pocket. "No problem. Couldn't just let you get assaulted and go on with my shopping, could I? Wouldn't be very... New Avengers...y."

Bucky cringes visibly at his own words, like he thinks being a 'New Avenger' is something to be embarrassed about.

"...Yeah, no, it wouldn't have looked very good," You hazard, not entirely sure how you're supposed to talk to the hundred-and-something war veteran. "But, uh, you didn't let me get assaulted, and that's what counts, right?"

Bucky smiles thinly, shaking his head. "Yeah, I guess so."

There's a really awkward silence between the two of you before Bucky suddenly starts talking again.

"Anyway!" He forcibly brightens up. "I gotta finish shopping for the shit Yelena and Bob want," he says, stepping towards the shelf to look at the instant pasta stuff. "Something about Kraft mac and cheese... Or something."

"Kraft mac and cheese?" You ask, raising an eyebrow. "The world's newest, mightiest heroes eat Kraft mac and cheese? What, can you not cook?"

Bucky grimaces. "The last time someone tried, it was Alexei, and he burned half his beard off. So... We just let Yelena make instant stuff or we order in. It's... It's not the greatest."

You snort, shaking your head. "Well," you say, grabbing a couple of the blue boxes and handing them to Bucky, "I can't exactly judge." You gesture to the instant noodles in your basket and smile ruefully.

Bucky takes the boxes, a little surprised, but he smiles after a bit. "You can't cook either, huh?"

"It's not exactly my forte, no," I grin sheepishly.

"Good to know me and my team aren't the only hopeless cooks in New York."

There's a silence afterwards, but it's not nearly as awkward as the last. In fact, it's quite a comfortable one as Bucky finishes grabbing a couple more mac and cheese boxes.

"Yeah... Well," he starts, beginning to step away. "You stay safe, yeah? Here-"

Bucky sticks his hand into his jean pocket and pulls out his wallet, opening it and sifting through the contents. After a while, he takes out this pale cream card with small writing on it, and passes it to you.

You grip it like it's precious, reading the printed text before my stomach does another funny flip. "Is this your business card?" You ask, stunned.

"No, it's my trash," he says, rolling his eyes. "Just... In case you need help again. Or something. Stay safe."

That's all he says before he's off again, disappearing round the corner like he'd never been there in the first place.

You stare at the card in your hand again, before reverently pocketing it.

The other members of the team would probably laugh about it if you told them.

Music had always been your therapy.

But on days where everyone was out of the tower, you took to your room and blasted your favourite songs on your speakers. Just to sit. Wallow a bit, maybe.

This is one of such days.

The tower was practically empty. Bucky was off doing political shit, John was on court mandated therapy, and the others had left to go out on a walk or something. Get Bob out of the building for once.

Nobody was here. Not a soul to damage to cochlears of.

You had your chance to blast your version of therapy.

Music. Lots and lots of music. Did you mention music?

So here you were, fiddling with the beat-up speaker in your room (it had been a purchase a few years back and now it was your child, on god) and deliberating on what music to put on first. Or do you put your playlist on shuffle?

These were very important deliberations!

Putting it on shuffle was always good. Every song in your playlist was awesome.

Eventually, the speaker turns on, does that stupid, cheap Bluetooth sound. You grab your phone, quickly pairing it up and opening up Spotify before scrolling through your playlists.

Eventually you pick one, hitting shuffle and smiling.

The first notes of Die With A Smile come playing through the crappy speakers, and you turn it up to full blast.

It's great. Better than great, because now you get to lean back and reap the benefits of some banging music, sit for a while, sing along as loud as you like, because who's here to tell you to stop?

Nobody! Absolutely no-one!

It goes on like this for an hour or so, probably. You're enthusiastically jamming out to Hot To Go with a huge grin on your face, dancing around, hair flying absolutely everywhere-

The door slams open, and you jump.

"Can you turn this shit off?" John scowls, cupping his hands over his mouth because he has to yell over the music. "It's all I can damn well hear on the whole floor!"

The sudden interruption sends you scrambling for your phone in a panic, and you fumble hastily with the buttons.

The music cuts out. It's dead silent for a moment.

"Jesus Christ," John huffs, rolling his eyes, "how loud do you have to have it? Are you trying to deafen yourself?"

You scowl back at him, clutching your phone close to your chest, which is rising and falling rapidly still. "Why are you even here?" You snap, "You're supposed to still be in court-mandated therapy, last I checked!"

John's lip ticks in annoyance. "Yeah, well. Turns out I got the date wrong. My therapy is tomorrow, not today. Wasted a whole trip's-worth of fuel for no reason."

You grumble under your breath, grabbing your speaker and switching it off frustratedly. You'd just started to feel better, too.

"You could learn a thing or two about politely asking people to turn music off," You seethe aggravatedly, "It's not like anyone was gonna hear it. You were all supposed to be out of the tower."

John watches as you chunner and put away the speaker, one eyebrow raising in mild surprise. "Why were you even blasting music so loud like that, anyway?" He questions.

You pause for a moment, letting reasons roll over themselves in your head.

Because it makes me feel less shitty.

Because I'm scared of therapy.

Because I'd rather die before venting or articulating my very complex feelings to anyone, John, duh!

"Because I do whatever I want, John, why does it matter to you?" Is what comes out of your mouth instead.

John raises his hands up in a placating manner. "Woah, Jesus. No need to get all bitchy on me. It was only a question."

The silence after that is uncomfortable, thick with tension and more awkward than a school function. Neither one of you speaks for a moment. John is just standing there in the doorway. You're still midway through trying to shove your speaker up onto a shelf.

"...here," John says, breaking the silence and stepping further into your room. He grabs the speaker for you and gently places it on top of the shelf you'd been struggling to reach. "I don't know why you're in such a mood-"

"Oh, wow, gee," you mutter, "so helpful."

"-but if something's bothering you," he plows on, ignoring you but sending a look your way regardless, "you should probably talk to someone about it."

"Talking to people is for people who aren't awkward fucks," you mumble, crossing your arms and turning away from him.

"Talking to people can help anyone," John says, his tone emphatic, "we don't need another explosive situation with the team. Look what happened to one of us when he'd been convinced he was alone and had nobody to talk to."

...he was right.

You knew it, he knew it.

The team really didn't need another situation where someone believed they were isolated enough to start acting out. You'd barely recovered from the situation with Bob as it stood.

"...yeah, whatever," you sigh, but your shoulders have loosened and the roiling pit in your stomach has stopped feeling so bottomless. "I'll... See about it."

John's lips turn upward in a barely-there smile. "Good. And if you're gonna listen to music," his soft smile turns into a more teasing one, "do it at a level that won't burst any eardrums."

He begins to leave, but not before playfully clouting your ear before you can do anything.

"John, what the fuck-" you scowl, going red-faced and following after him.

"What? I didn't do anything!" He says smugly as his frame disappears into the communal area.

This guy.

"John, I swear to fuck, I'm going to kill you," you say, skidding after him. "I'm gonna kill you dead!"

"Ooh, so scared-"