Bucky keeps his gun trained on the guy, now he’s managed to throw him far enough away to use the damn thing. He shakes his head impatiently, flicking sweaty hair away from his eyes, blowing impatiently at the strands that won’t shift.
“There’s your problem, right there,” he’s told, the man’s palms held high and facing him like surrender, like some kind of weird blessing. His voice is all soft Southern vowels pulled somehow tight and angry and out of place, like he’d sound better singing. It reminds him of the archer, and Bucky has to flex his fingers around the weapon in an effort not to lower it.
“I’ve got no problems, buddy,” he says, first time he’s spoken, and he’s met with a snort.
“I don’t even know you and I know that’s a lie.” He steps closer and Bucky makes no movement – he’s watched enough of this century’s television to know that taking the safety off is always used like a threat, here, but Bucky’s not stupid enough to pull his gun on anything he’s not willing to shoot at. The man stops, in any case, like the stillness tells him more than it doesn’t.
“Look, I don’t want to fight you,” he says. “You’ve got the look of a man only killing’d keep down, and I don’t do shit like that any more.”
Stand down, Steve says in his ear. They’re friendlies.
Really,really, overly friendly, Sam adds.
Redwing? an unfamiliar voice says, high with excitement, Can I take him apart? Can I pet him?
When Bucky lowers his weapon the guy releases tension that looked enough a part of him that his smile is a gut-punch surprise.
“Eliot,” he says, holding out a hand.
“What’s my problem?” Bucky asks him, squinting, suspicious, as he holsters his gun.
Eliot shrugs and drops his hand, mutters, “it’s like another goddamn Parker, I swear. Here.” He fumbles something from around his wrist – a loop of elastic that’s wrapped in black cotton. Bucky takes it, regards it, absently pushes his hair behind his ear.
“That and conditioner, man,” Eliot tells him. “I swear it’ll change your life.”
please please someone write me 10k of hacker!Nana.
Heeheehee, YAHS.
Not 10k, but hope you like it:
There was one thing Hardison never told anyone. Not Nate, not Sophie, not Parker or Elliot. Hardison had a teacher. The way Parker had Archie, Hardison had her. She used to work for NASA, wrote out the flight codes by hand. She helped launch the shuttle that put Armstrong on the Moon. And she taught him everything. At ten he was writing his own computer codes in spiral notebooks during math classes he could have passed in his sleep, taking them home and showing them to her.
“Look, Nana! This one draws butterflies on the screen.”
“That’s good, Alec. But you switched from COBALT to C++ in the middle here. That’s not gonna do you any good baby. Here’s how you fix it…”
Her pension from the government helped pay for all of Nana’s kids, but when she got sick, it wouldn’t quite cover her medicine or doctor. She wasn’t going to short the kids any, and Alec knew that. He also knew that they’d look at her first if he took money out of an account linked to her job. He knew this because she told him, because she knew how his mind worked. That’s how he wound up hacking an overseas bank that had lent money to her old boss, the one who denied her request for government healthcare. And if he left behind some breadcrumbs for the authorities to find that led to that jerk, well, there are worse things to do on Prom night.
YAAAAAAAHHHHHHS!!!!
OH MY GOD NANA IS ONE OF NASA’S HUMAN CALCULATORS. (Maybe even Katherine Johnson?)
THIS WAS SHORT BUT OH SO SATISFYING. SERIOUSLY, WHEN I REALIZED WHAT WAS HAPPENING, I KICKED MY FEET AND WHOOPED.
current emotion: one of those pieces of vase art of achilles wrapped up in a blanket and mourning patroclus, because i too am gay, wrapped in a blanket, and easily provoked into fighting
Kimchi and Justice 