The Park, Sunday Morning

[shapethecentury]

This morning, Bucky had woken up feeling off, somehow. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, and in another way he felt like maybe he shouldn't even try to. Seemed like bad news. If he ignored it, it might go away.

Sure. That was smart.

It was still pretty early, in particular for a Sunday, but he was taking a walk. Just a long walk across town, trying to get his head back on straight. He wasn't sure it was helping – Fandom wasn't exactly Brooklyn, now was it? But he was doing his best. And he was making his way across the park.

Until he stopped. "Well I'll be damned."

Flamingos. He wasn't sure why he was so surprised, and he knew even less about why it made him crack a damn smile. But he definitely knew that he now wished he'd had something on him to feed them with. Figured he was going to be standing here watching them for a while.

(open! whether you want to talk to Buck or just do other park things)

Comments

[imafuturist]

Tony was barely paying enough attention to get from point A to point B between Extremis and tapping aggressively on his phone as he drew closer to finding a HYDRA base he could potentially exploit for intel. Ah, the problem with low-tech groups knowing it was actually a strength to stay that way sometimes.

That would probably by why he didn't notice the flamingos or Bucky until he nearly tripped over them.

"...when did we get flamingos?"

[shapethecentury]

"Dunno," Bucky replied, mostly keeping his amusement at Tony's lack of looking where he was going to himself. He sighed. "Sure are pretty, though, aren't they?"

In their own, kind of gangly and offbeat way.

[imafuturist]

He was distracted by important things! And needed more coffee if you wanted him to be particularly observant of nature.

"Well. They're better than pigeons, i guess."

[shapethecentury]

You were getting such side eye, Stark. Such side eye.

"Much better than pigeons, are you kidding me?"

[imafuturist]

"Being pink doesn't mean they won't be taking a dump on everything," Tony pointed out.

[shapethecentury]

Bucky sighed, exasperated. "Yeah, well, I've never had a flamingo get anyone sick or crap all over my porch, so cut me some slack, will you?"

He was trying to be an idealist for at least a second about one tiny aesthetic thing here, come on.

[imafuturist]

"Wait, you've gotten sick from pigeons? Did you try to touch one?" Tony just sounded horrified at the thought of it. They were worse than rats, okay? Way worse than rats.

[shapethecentury]

Bucky rolled his eyes. Guess Tony brought out the sass in him even worse than Steve did.

Now there was a feat.

"No, but my sister, Rebecca, when she was a kid ––" As if she wasn't one still. "–– she thought she could take one in as a pet."

[imafuturist]

At that Tony's expression certainly softened into something that was possibly fond. If you were looking for it. "I hope she learned a valuable lesson about it."

[shapethecentury]

"Yeah." He snorted. "That she wanted a real pet you didn't get off the street."

[imafuturist]

"I tried that with a dog when I was a kid," Tony admitted with a quick grin.

[shapethecentury]

"Yeah?" Bucky asked, sliding his hands into his pockets. He was staring o feel at least a little more grounded. "And how'd that work out?"

[imafuturist]

"I ended up trying to build one," he said with a distant sort of smile. "It was awful. Barely stood upright."

[shapethecentury]

Here was another round of that side-eye.

"Figures."

Which part of Tony's statement was that referring to, you might wonder? The answer was both. Definitely both.

[imafuturist]

"I was a kid!" Tony said to defend that slander against his engineering prowess.

[shapethecentury]

"You'd think making it stand upright would be the easiest part, though."

Okay, now he was teasing. Kind of.

[imafuturist]

Tony huffed out a laugh. "I couldn't get access to a soldering iron back then."

[shapethecentury]

Bucky raised his eyebrows. Often a sure sign he was about to be an ass.

"Then you clearly weren't resourceful enough if you let that stop you, Mr. Stark."

[imafuturist]

Tony just laughed because he'd survived worse than that. Barton for one. "I'm infinitely glad that six year old me didn't manage to get a hold of one. I'd be missing a finger or two if I had."

[shapethecentury]

"Dunno," Bucky replied, shrugging, "seems like a reasonable sacrifice at the altar of tomorrow."

James Barnes, closeted tech nerd.

[imafuturist]

Buck, no.

Tony grinned again. "I've done plenty of that, believe me. I'm a futurist, after all."

Yes, everyone knew. It was your goddamn username, Tony.

[shapethecentury]

Too bad Bucky wasn't meta enough for that.

"Oh yeah? And what does that entail, except not giving up your fingers in exchange for pets?"

[imafuturist]

"Giving up body parts is low on my to do list," Tony agreed. Then felt a little guilty considering who he was talking to. "I look to what we can accomplish as we look to the future."

He was such a disgusting optimist sometimes.

[shapethecentury]

Hey, it was low on Bucky's to-do list too! He just wasn't going to have a choice.

Dammit, Hydra.

"Sounds pretty swell when you put it like that," he replied, nodding, while his gaze flicked back to the flamingos. If briefly. "Me, I'm still trying to grasp future being here already."

[imafuturist]

Tony grinned again and shrugged. "Think of it as a sneak preview. There's..." He took a breath and watched the flamingos as well. "There's so much more we can accomplish."