Chapter Text
BUCKY
— Airport in Kingston, Jamaica: Morning, 05 May 2012 —
The worst thing about being all the way down in Jamaica after a shitload of aliens attacked New York City is that all of the flights to New York City have been canceled.
Bucky can’t imagine why no one wants to go there. The threat has passed, the airports are all still standing, and people have places to be, damnit.
People like him. People who have seen long-lost dead pals come back to life on the screen and who can’t afford to let any grass grow under their feet or those pals will find new ways to risk their lives before they can get a proper scolding in for dying in the first place.
We can still swim.
“We’re not swimming,” Bucky mutters, and then smiles his most charming smile to the ticket lady. “Not when we can fly,” he adds. “So how close can you get us— Me. Just the one ticket, thanks. To however close you can get me to New York City. As soon as I can get there.”
She types into her terminal for a moment and then gives him a brittle smile. “I can get you to Albany International, sir. Flying out this afternoon.”
“We’ll take it.” Bucky hands over the least bloodstained of his local cash. “Sorry, I’ll take it. Used to traveling with friends. Don’t ever really buy tickets for just one.”
It’s a lie, a horrible lie, but he is far from a horrible liar. That is to say, he’s horrible, but an excellent liar.
Most of the time. You are not doing so well right now.
Well I’m agitated right now. And you ate that target so fast my stomach’s hurting.
It’ll be a fun flight with an upset gut, surrounded by “delicious” snacks and forced to eat chocolate or else be downright famished on the other end of this journey.
He can’t afford to be famished—neither of them can. They’ll need to be at the top of their game, fully fed and at least decently rested.
I will help you sleep on the plane.
Thanks, love. I’ll make sure you get a snack partway in, just wake me up for it.
How will you know which of the passengers are evil enough to snack on if you are asleep on the flight?
A snack made out of chocolate and caramel.
Oh. I will try not to be disappointed.
You just ate!
He exchanges identification for change and accepts his ticket with another smile. It pays to be polite to customer service people. They have shitty jobs dealing with shitty people, and karma dictates that bad fucking things happen to the people who act the worst toward them.
Sometimes, he’s karma. And Venom is the bad fucking thing that happens.
He’s been treated like shit, a non-entity with no rights or feelings. It sucks. He won’t stand to see it happen to others. But even if he’s not making the world a better place one entitled asshole at a time, he’s still as nice as possible just in case there’s another agent of karma out there with an eye on him.
It pays to be paranoid. They really are out to get him.
VENOM
— Airport in Kingston, Jamaica: Mid-morning, 05 May 2012 —
They are going to see the Pal! So soon, only hours from now, they will see the Pal. They will go up to the Pal and they will hug the Pal so tightly, hold him so close, breathe in his smells and soak up his heat and taste him—just a bit. Just a nibble for flavor.
We’re not eating Steve. Not even a nibble.
Of course not. Just gumming at him a little. Licking his face, maybe.
The Pal will taste… Oh, they don’t even know. What will the Pal taste like? The Pal has been dead for so long. Will it be like licking a freezer-burned tater tot? Or will it be like scarfing down freshly fried up hashbrowns smothered in gravy with sloppy fried eggs on the side and biscuits so steamy hot and moist inside with butter that’s—
Oh my god, stop. Please.
They pick up a faint hint of unease from their host, a combination of hunger and nausea, none of which seems to relate in any way to the entirely proper state of his stomach. Bucky’s stomach is pleasantly full with room to spare, churning away at their pastry breakfast with healthy diligence.
Stopping, they say, even though there is no logical reason to do so.
It must be nerves. They have eaten several more snacks and even whole HYDRA buffets as quickly as they ate the banker with the alligator handbag, and it never bothered Bucky’s stomach before.
All the same, they rein in their recollections of the last scrumptious full breakfast they had, without even getting to the crunchy bacon or the cheesy grits or the pile of glistening mixed fruit.
You said you were stopping, Bucky complains.
He has them there. They send along a contrite feeling and poke gently at his stomach, searching for anything that might have been amiss with the box of chocolate croissants he devoured before dawn. All seems to be incredibly in order.
Are you excited to see the Pal? Is that why you are feeling bad?
It doesn’t make any sense for this to be the case, but even after all their years together, Bucky’s body and mind can still do surprising things. And it is not every day the Pal returns.
What if he doesn’t approve of us, V?
We are amazing. And we will eat anyone who says otherwise. What is there not to approve of?
Venom shifts around until they can form a pair of eyes along the back of Bucky’s gloved hand. Sure enough, there is worry on Bucky’s face.
We eat the dregs of society so that the others may flourish. We make a lot of money and travel to exciting places. We are nice to people others are not nice to.
Yeah, are you listening to yourself? We travel the world killing and eating people for money. Not a whole lot of people out there would approve. What if Steve doesn’t approve?
They blink and sink back into Bucky’s skin.
He is the Pal. He will approve.
But something about Bucky’s unease is now pricking their thoughts, too. If the Pal doesn’t approve, will they disappoint the Pal and continue doing what they do? Will they stop eating well and begin to starve for the Pal’s sake?
What would they do about Larry if they had to shut down their company? Larry wants to end HYDRA as much as they do. They cannot let Larry down after so many years. Especially not when one of his offshoots has taken up the cause.
We need to spend some time planning this, Bucky finally says. Our flight isn’t for a few hours yet, so we’ve got time. And we’ll have the flight itself as well. But we need a plan.
Well Bucky is the one who makes their plans. Bucky will handle that and they will tuck themselves away between folds of intestine and send soothing signals all through Bucky’s gut to help him calm down.
And instead of thinking about the Pal as a delectable breakfast buffet, they will think of all the other things they know about the Pal.
Earnest and well-meaning. Stubborn and protective. Stupid enough to crash a plane with bombs in it. Everything points to a Pal that is a good match for their host, a Pal they can love as deeply as they love their host, once the Pal has been properly introduced.
Maybe the Pal will be so pleased to see them that he doesn’t mind the changes that have happened since Bucky last saw him. Maybe the Pal will join them in their company, or at least in the hunt for HYDRA.
They were HYDRA bombs on the plane that killed him, after all. The Pal hated HYDRA. The Pal… hated HYDRA. Oh no. What if the Pal is upset with Bucky for being HYDRA’s Soldier for so long? But Bucky didn’t have any choices. He was a test subject being torture-tested the whole time. He didn’t even have a name or know how to eat.
Venom decides the Pal will not hold that against Bucky. Anyone who did could not be the Pal.
Sweetheart? I think I’ve got it.
What have you got? they ask, giving Bucky’s stomach a gentle prod to see if it feels better yet. Getting there.
We’re going to join the Avengers.
What are the Avengers?
Wow, you really didn’t pay attention to the newscast, huh? Only saw Steve and the Other Guy.
It was not porn. I have you to pay attention to boring things for me. What are the Avengers?
It’s this team of freaks like us that kicked Chitauri ass yesterday. They let the Other Guy join. They’ll probably let us join, too.
Why are we joining their company when we have our own? Why aren’t we just going to see the Pal? We can say hi to the Other Guy while we are there.
The Pal is Captain America. They’re going to be swarming him with press and security. We’ll be lucky to get close if we just show up.
But he is the Pal. Our Pal.
Right, but he doesn’t know I’m alive any more than we knew he survived. How’s he going to know it’s us?
So we join the Avengers and then he knows it is us?
I figure if we try sneaking around New York to get close to him, we’ll run into issues, and we’ll be sneaking.
We are good at sneaking.
Right, but this is the Pal. I want to be aboveboard, you know? Honest. No sneaking.
We can get close to him by sneaking, but we do not want to sneak. But we want to get close so we will join the Avengers just to get close. And that is not a kind of sneaking?
…It’s an okay kind of sneaking?
Why is it better?
Because we might end up really wanting to join the Avengers. They’ve got the Other Guy on the roster, and Steve. How bad could the rest of them be?
The rest of them are not freaks, Venom grumbles.
We don’t know that. They could be. They fought off the Chitauri with just their little group. Seems like that would take a team of freaks.
Doesn’t the red-headed one work with the S.H.I.E.L.D. assholes?
Maybe she switched agencies again. She started off Red Room.
What if they get in our way? We have a style.
Look, if we join the Avengers and work with them, then they won’t be getting in the way of our operations. They’ll be helping, instead.
We will still get to eat the bad guys, though.
…Probably? We can try to add a clause in our contract stipulating a certain number of heads per enemy engagement, minimum. Larry can help us with the wording.
Well as long as we can eat the bad guys, they can help us catch them.
Right. So we get off the plane in Philadelphia during the layover and skip the rest of the flight to Albany. We pack up some proper gear at the apartment, say hello to our offshoot, then we ride up to New York, and we head for Stark Tower.
What if the Avengers do not want us?
Why wouldn’t they want us? You said it yourself, we’re amazing.
What if they do not?
Then we’re in New York, we have a bag packed with the gear we’ll need, we book a hotel and find another way to get to Steve. Added bonus, we’ll try to get him to come to Philly with us and leave the Avengers.
If we cannot join them, we will steal him away from them?
Yes. He’ll… Maybe he’ll want to come with us. We just need to let him know we’re there, is all.
Either way, we win.
Either way, we win. Keep an ear out for our flight. I’m going put in a call to Larry, let him know what’s up.
And get yelled at.
Maybe. Or maybe he’ll think it’s brilliant.
BUCKY
— Airport in Kingston, Jamaica: A little before noon, 05 May 2012 —
“You want to what?!”
It’s about as enthusiastic as he’d expected Larry to be about the idea. Which just means they need to talk it over a bit more.
“Join the Avengers,” he murmurs into the phone.
“No. That is a stupid idea.”
“It’s a solid plan,” Bucky says. “I’m sure of it. It’s not going to—”
Larry scoffs. “In what way is it a solid plan to join a scrappy team of superheroes when you are in the particular business you are in? I spend a lot of time clearing your name of things, but even I am going to come up against some problems trying to sneak you onto that roster.”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “You won’t have to sneak me anywhere. I’m walking up to them and asking to join.”
“And here I thought you wanted to avoid S.H.I.E.L.D. I’ve gone to great lengths getting you off their radar for you to walk in there and—”
“The Avengers, not the S.H.I.E.L.D. assholes!”
Loud.
Bucky lowers his voice again. “We hate the S.H.I.E.L.D. assholes, remember? They get in our way and mess up our jobs.”
“And who do you think is running the Avengers Initiative?”
Bucky frowns. Fuckity-fuck. “…I’ll admit to not having given that much thought. Ugh. Is it really S.H.I.E.L.D.?”
“It’s really S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Larry says, sounding like his victory is around the corner. “You’d have to go through them and get past Nick Fury to get on the Avengers roster.”
“Well that’s unfortunate.”
“Right. So can I assume you’ll be giving up this truly horrible idea and seeing sense?”
Bucky doesn’t answer for another long moment. Damn. S.H.I.E.L.D. Really? It’s just his luck the quasi-decent but ultimately irritating asshole division of the alphabet soup is behind the Avengers. How’d old Tommy end up getting mixed in with that lot? He’d even warned him about S.H.I.E.L.D. specifically.
“Jimmy,” Larry says. “Jimmy, listen to me. Once you get into S.H.I.E.L.D. records, I can’t get you back out. I’ve kept you in the shadows like a roach under the fridge, but if you turn on the light and crawl out from under the fridge, I can’t help you. You’re going to be seen.”
That’s kind of the point, to be seen. By Steve, specifically. If they have to get seen by others as well, that’s just an unfortunate necessity. Once Steve sees them, though… The others won’t matter.
“But there’s still Vinnie and Jamie and some of the others,” he says. “There’s aliases still available even if I burn Jimmy Varnes by walking up to S.H.I.E.L.D. and knocking on the door.”
None of them will be the alias he’s had from the beginning, and it’ll suck to start over, but he can do it. It won’t be the first time he’s started over.
“They’re going to see through any of your other aliases, Jimmy. It’ll be a matter of time. By the time they let you into the Avengers, they’ll know all about our company. And they’ll know that all of the agents employed by that company are just you with a different name. They’ll know how prolific you are in your field of expertise.”
“Maybe we make that work to my advantage. Maybe I go in there without an alias and just use my old codename.”
There’s a long silence on the other end and Bucky can practically hear Larry’s arteries clanging shut in despair at the idiocy of the idea. But he still proceeds.
“Say I saw the shit show in the City, wanted to throw my name in to help out next time there’s an issue. Winter Soldier crawls out from under the fridge after forty years to loan himself out to the good guys out of a sense of planetary harmony.”
Larry’s voice is tight when he answers. “As your legal counsel, I advise strongly against doing that. That agent died in the ‘60s and you’re better off leaving him there.”
“Well, let’s say I did it. How would we go about fixing the problem afterward?”
“I don’t know that we could. Just how much of your records are you planning to share?”
“Whatever I have to. Whatever it takes to get close to Steve Rogers.”
There’s a disgruntled sigh and a rustle of cigarettes in a box. Clearly Larry is giving up on instilling any common sense. “Give me an hour. I’ll see what I can do to get you safely disclosed to S.H.I.E.L.D. And Jimmy?”
“Yep?”
“Don’t you dare give up the real fight for this stupid flight of fancy.”
“No worries there, Larry. As fast as those fuckers sprout, we’ll chop them all down again. Death to HYDRA, to the end of the line.”
Larry grunts his satisfaction and hangs up on him, which to be fair, is probably the nicest way to end the call. Bucky slides the phone back in his pocket.
How are we doing on flight time, V?
Go to the gate. You can walk it. Larry does not sound enthusiastic.
He’s not. Bucky starts walking. But he’ll get us what we need.
Larry is good at many things, and one of those things is making sure they have what they need to do a job, whether that be information or legal advice. Hell, he supplies the jobs after Des Moines. He’s a great middle man.
And we are sure it is a good idea? Venom asks. Usually Larry is right and we are wrong.
Okay, yes, that’s a fair point. Larry does have a more practical way of looking at things. But still.
This is about Steve. Larry… He shakes his head, not caring much that it looks like he’s arguing with himself. It’s not exactly a wrong impression for people to make. Larry can’t understand about Steve. No one can. Only us. No one else even knows our name.
Steve, though. Steve will know their name. Or, his name, rather. Steve won’t know anything about Venom, and that may be weird at first, but it’ll work out. Somehow.
The Pal…
If we have to give it all up to get Steve back, we will. We’ll never stop hunting down HYDRA, never stop eating the worst this planet has to offer, never stop shutting down every A.I.M. workshop we come across. But to get Steve back… We don’t have to be in business, officially.
Venom shifts around until they’re nestled between lobes of his liver. It’s a comfort spot, like the space between stomach and pancreas, and Bucky feels bad for upsetting them.
But only if we have to stop being in business, Venom finally says. I like our business. There is a lot of variety on the menu.
Yeah, love. Only if we absolutely have to. But if we have to shut our doors as a hitman for hire, we still win Steve. Ultimately, whatever happens, there’s no losing.