For ashyperfume

[trainwrecked]

It took a while, before he dialed the phone on the card. Weeks, he thought, he wasn't very good at keeping up with the dates. Or, rather, he didn't care that much.

But time had passed since the party. He'd memorized the information, then burned the card - in his experience already, anything after the last wipe wasn't going away, so he was using what part of his memory he could. Extensively.

In the end, though, he just picked a street phone and punched the number.

"Ms. Fukuyama?" Yes, she'd told him to call her Fuu. He couldn't be sure she'd pick up the phone herself. "This is James Banes."

That was how normal conversations went, wasn't it?

Comments

[ashyperfume]

Honestly, she hadn't been sure that he would call. He'd said he would, but Fuu had long ago come to expect that people said a lot of things, few of them meant. She had work to do, and the days fell away. She paid them little attention, paid the entire matter little attention and little more thought.

Except for a single, niggling murmur in the back of her mind: She shouldn't have wanted him to. He was a stranger, a chance encounter. There had been no true reason for her to give her number in the first place.

And yet the decision had been the right one. Of that she had never been more sure. That certainty bothered her, wiggled in the background, and did not quite let the matter die.

She almost didn't answer the phone. She was working late that evening, focusing in on a problematic line of code, staring at the screen so long her eyes were nearly dry. Only absently did she reach for the device as it buzzed, glancing at the number.

Overseas. Generally telemarketers weren't that desperate.

"Ms. Fukuyama?" The voice was low, familiar in her ear.

She was silent a moment in its wake. Her eyes flicked up to her closed door and back again to her desk.

"James." The return of the name was quiet, like an exhaled breath.

[trainwrecked]

"Fuu." Some of the uncertainty eased out of his voice, and it returned to almost toneless... though not quite.

Then his brain tried to figure out what... people talked about, really.

"Have you been well?"

This, probably. It wouldn't get anyone in trouble, right?

[ashyperfume]

Slight amusement flickered through the tone -- though it was genuine amusement. He might have caught the click of her heels against the floor in the background as she rose, clicked the lock on the door. "You crash a party, take my card, and call from overseas to ask how I've been after several weeks."

More quietly, "Maybe I should be asking that question of you."

[trainwrecked]

His response was quick, and there was something. More defensiveness than anger. "I don't know better questions."

No, that wasn't quite true.

"I don't know when to use the questions that I do know."

He also wasn't answering her not-quite-question. He paused for a moment, then pointed out quietly, "I didn't take you card. You gave it to me."

[ashyperfume]

"You accepted it." There was no defensiveness in her tone; it receded back into statement of quiet fact. She wanted to know why, but there was no point in such a question . . . not when she suspected he didn't know any more than she did.

His defensiveness was a reminder . . . whatever conversation lay between them, she couldn't approach it in the usual ways. He didn't work in the usual ways. For the moment there was no use in being flippant, light. He wouldn't understand.

She leaned back in her chair, moistening her lips. "Where are you?"

[trainwrecked]

"Zimbabwe." The answer was almost absent-minded. Yes, the phone connection was good, but who knew how long that would last?

"I'll not be staying here much longer, though."

Which was why he wasn't worried about revealing the fact over a phone line.

[ashyperfume]

"Zimbabwe." Her eyebrows shifted upward. "I suppose that brings to mind two questions: One, why, and two, how can a man who obviously is unnerved by crowds and people in general bear to spent however many hours in place inescapably crammed with them?"

The lightest of pauses. "Not to mention the issue of ID."

[trainwrecked]

Of all things, the last part amused him.

"I had a valid ID that convinced your staff when we met," he reminded her. "Why would you doubt that part?"

The traces of humor faded from his voice, however. "I'm here for the same reason I was there. Learning." In this case, it was verifying details on a very, very vague memory that had swum up in his head. "For more answers, I think asking not on the phone will be better."

Safer.

[ashyperfume]

Fuu's eyebrows shifted again, wry this time as she twisted back towards her computer and touched the pad to awaken the screen. "I doubt that part because my staff would have been checking more if you were legal to drink rather than of legal existence." The corner of her mouth lifted. "You passed, by the way."

She was quiet a moment, the only sound from her the soft tapping of her keyboard. "Oh?"

[ashyperfume]

Aaron's was most definitely a dive bar -- the kind that had been around for years, where smoke and alcohol and the oil of fingers had worn deep into the wood, leaving its own aroma and patina that never quite scrubbed out. It was a small place, and close, with stools clustered under the long bar and a scattering of tables and booths lit by dim pools of yellow light. In the back, men grunted and jibed each other over a game of pool; in the front were a few straggling regulars, unkempt and drowning in their drinks, listening vaguely to the battered jukebox in the front.

Aaron's had long since stopped catering to anyone new, content with its menu and its regulars, never destined to be anything more than it was. It feigned to be frozen in time, quietly decaying with its clientele.

For her turn, Fuu looked to be at home, tucked back in a corner booth. Her eyes were mostly closed, fingertips sliding absently over the rim of the glass in front of her that still contained at least an ounce of amber fluid. She wore what she had worn to the office, bare legs crossed at the knee. One shoe was half off, balanced on her toes and swinging gently.

"Buy you a drink?" The voice came from a man having separated himself from the pool table, grinning as he leaned over the table.

Pale eyes opened slowly, studied him. The corners of Fuu's mouth turned up in a smile; the tiny chorus of dangling droplets at her ears glittering against her neck. The man could see a whole, glorious evening spanning out in that smile; his eyes traced the bared line of her shoulder. He leaned forward, waiting for the answer to fall from her lips.

"No." She still smiled, but it wasn't at all polite. It was a smile that knew exactly what he wanted, and was all too pleased to take it away. It took him several moments to absorb it. He turned slowly red.

[trainwrecked]

Before the man tried to lash out at her, however, there was a gloved hand rather firmly on his chest, not quite pushing him back - but exerting enough pressure to indicate he could.

There was no mustache. Instead, there was one James Barnes - or Banes, or Bucky - rather clean-shaven and fresh-looking, for somebody who'd flown across about half the world rather recently.

"The lady said no," he said, voice and ice deceptively soft. "I think it's good manners to pay attention to such responses."

"And who're you?"

"Company." James's eyes flicked to Fuu, and crinkled oh so very slightly. "Trying to save you from some trouble."

Because, if the man insisted to try a fight, he would be taking Fuu's lead. Taking it outside. Letting her fight herself, if she preferred. Whichever she pleased. James dealing with the man would be swift and efficient, and probably more merciful. If the stranger didn't take the warning, the result would be on his own head.

[ashyperfume]

Now that was a surprise. Neither Fuu nor the man had been expecting it, though both expressed it differently. Fuu kept silent, contained, still in the same open, unguarded position she'd been in before -- though there was something far less lazy about it, more alert, as though a faint electric current ran through her veins. Blue-gray eyes were nearly silver in the light, metallic.

The man's face, by turn, increasingly reddened, the muscles in his chest contracting under James' gloved hand. He stared back at James, met the smaller man's eyes for a long moment, judging, evaluating . . .

But in the end, he was just a drunk -- a man irritated that his pride had been wounded, then further usurped by a second party he both hadn't expected and had been prepared to deal with. He was still sober enough to understand that whatever James offered could escalate fast, in ways he didn't really want.

So he pulled away, twitching as though to shake the moment off himself. "Bitch," he muttered, and skulked away, back towards the pool tables and his friends.

[trainwrecked]

"Yes, you are," James drawled in the direction of the other man, the words and the Brooklyn accent coming to his lips unbidden. And definitely not directed at Fuu, instead turning the insult at the man who flung it.

Then he looked down at Fuu, the sharp amusement fading from his face into the same blank that had been over it during their evening conversation, weeks ago. Other than his eyes, he didn't move.

"May I?"

Yes, she'd set up the 'date.' He had also interfered with her possible entertainment, so she could have changed her mind. Safer to ask.

[ashyperfume]

Her eyes were still almost like metal, looking up at him. They slipped briefly to the man's retreating back, watching him walk away. She was silent. Lifting her glass, she downed the remaining alcohol, the glass clinking back to the table.

"Why?"

This was something she needed to know first, before they moved further. And in the word, there were the unspoken questions: Do I seem like something you need to protect? and What do you want in return?

[trainwrecked]

He didn't move at all.

"Expedient. Forgettable, for him."

He wasn't asking for anything in return. But he was protecting himself.

[ashyperfume]

She didn't move either, though her eyebrows shifted upward. That explanation invited more questions than it smoothed over.

[trainwrecked]

He was still standing, hovering there, and there was only so long that he could do that without attracting the attention he didn't want.

"Isn't that the discussion we are meeting here to have? Or have things changed?"

[trainwrecked]

Nine-thirty sharp, he was at her door, knocking quietly. He got there over the rooftops, that was easier when it came to avoiding cameras and attention both, if he was quiet and careful.

And he was.

He was carrying a few pages from the stuff she'd brought to him the night before, and, well, cash, since he had no idea what kind of food he wanted, let alone what she might.

[ashyperfume]

It was a surprisingly elegant building, a location that not many in the city could afford. Someone had taken their time with the architectural details, putting time and affection into plaster and polished woodwork. Everything was clean, carefully chosen, from a table in a niche to the high polish of the brass.

Traveling from the roof, James might have been the recipient of a faintly suspicious look from an elderly woman and her small, fluffy poodle as he boarded the elevator from an upper level and headed down, making a stop that was not the lobby. But she had the good grace not to comment, merely pressing her lips together as he stepped off at Fuu's floor and the elevator door slid back closed.

It took a few moments before Fuu answered the knock, the sound of a chain sliding before the door opened. Her hair was wet as though recently from a shower, damp around her face, and she was dressed as though for bed, in a silk nightgown and short outer robe that left her legs pale and bare.

Her eyes greeted him, warming to the sight of his face before she pulled the door open wider to let him inside, opposite hand reaching to run her fingers through her wet hair. "There's Chinese on the way."

[trainwrecked]

It was probably for the best that he didn't quite notice the old lady or her dog, other than as another pair of eyes that he needed to keep his face hidden from while still obscuring it from any cameras, as well. Nothing to actually pay attention to.

Fuu's state of not-quite-déshabillé, on the other hand, made him stare for a long moment, conflicting reactions warring inside. On the one hand, he'd killed women dressed more or less like that. He remembered the pattern of stain a knife cut could lead to, as opposed to bullet hole, on that kind of robe.

On the other hand, with her guard down, inviting him into her apartment underdressed like that? Woke up a very remote part of his mind, and he became aware, for the first time, that she was an attractive woman. It didn't cause urges, exactly, but it startled him - it wasn't an awareness that he was used to having.

He suppressed both reactions, stepping inside, and asking, so very intelligently, "Chinese who?"

[ashyperfume]

Chinese who? That caught her a bit off-guard in turn, causing her to blink sharply as he forced her to catch up with his thoughts. ". . . Food, James."

She pushed the door closed behind him, twisting back towards the main room. For her turn, she seemed to be completely unaware of the effect of her clothing -- or was fine with having him look. "Though maybe if you're lucky, someone of the actual nationality will deliver it."

The short front hallway opened into a large room replete with large, high windows -- windows currently obscured with a fine veil of drapes. Each room flowed into the next, the kitchen with only a low bar to separate it from the living room and what was obviously Fuu's work area -- a wide desk with a cluster of monitors and a few towers, piles of work-oriented papers scattered over the surface along with odds and ends like bits of motherboard, wires dangling. Even the bedroom was visible -- an untouched-looking bed behind a shoji screen.

The rest of the room was neat and clean -- almost too much so -- with furniture in clean lines in shades of gray, beige, and dark red. The two things out of place seemed to be the desk and an afghan lumped over the back of the couch, the pillow at one end ruffled as though someone had been using it for a bed.

There were few ornaments, but a number of pictures set on shelves. Along one side of a false fireplace, a shelf with photographs -- a young woman and a man, the frames turned slightly towards each other, a small vase with two lilies between them. On the other, a portrait of an elderly Japanese man, hands gnarled like the roots of a tree, and with it a small carving of an animal that looked a great deal like a running fox.

[trainwrecked]

Pause. Socialization and, well, modernization of things were leaving him way out of clues. "I'm not angling for talking with one." Brief, though it wasn't bitten off or otherwise unpleasant. He didn't need to explain that he'd gotten confused, she figured it out on her own, and it was one of the good things, about. This. Her. The situation, from their first conversation onward.

After a moment, he did remember to add, "thank you."

His eyes scanned what was visible of the apartment, taking in the details, but he interpreted a very different set of information (he would remember, and, perhaps, eventually would find significance in these details). Lines of sight. Vulnerabilities. Exits. Areas where he would be completely out of sight, despite the openness of the place.

When he was satisfied with his analysis, he slipped into one of those spots and... of all things, took an elastic band out of his pocket and tied his hair back. It wasn't a good disguise, but it did help in obscuring his face, for low-quality surveillance cameras. Yes, he was giving her clues. No, it wasn't by chance.

Then he looked at her again, the hesitation caused by the sight far shorter than at the first glance. "Not many people actually come here, do they." Not nobody. But not many, at least that was his conclusion - being wrong wouldn't be the first time. Not even the first time for the evening.

[ashyperfume]

It wasn't many people who could take Fuu off guard as readily as he did. In some ways, perhaps, it might have been one of the things that appealed to her about him; he was a surprise, a mystery and a challenge, one that kept her analyzing, processing, re-evaluating, always moving to meet him on the same field.

At other times, it was inconvenient, especially when he inadvertently stripped her bare. Her breath caught in her throat, and she pressed her lips together before a high, soft laugh escaped like a small explosion.

"Most people say 'nice place.'"

Well, she'd admitted that she was alone, hadn't she? In their previous meeting, she she'd asked him to come. It wasn't as though he'd made a grand revelation.

But it still hurt as though he'd pushed a fist into her abdomen. She pressed her lips together again, looking away, out towards the obscured skyline.

"Do you drink?"

[trainwrecked]

As few as his actual social graces were - and they were few - he was able to read people. He saw the hurt, and it surprised him. Confused him. He tilted his head, blue eyes wide and focused, at her.

"I'm sorry. I don't have much reference." On nice, on apartments, or on visiting them. Business was something else, something he was trying to stay away from. Per se.

"It looks... pleasant to spend time in, and reasonably secure - though I doubt you needed me to say that. And I - can, though it doesn't have much effect. I was not supposed to get inebriated, after all, no matter who tried to make it happen."

[ashyperfume]

She was quiet, still a moment more, before suddenly she was in motion again, pushing off from the couch. Leaning over the low counter, she tugged a bottle of wine from the rack. The corkscrew was already on the counter itself; she worked at it, slicing the long, curling spire into the cork.

"Alcohol isn't just about getting drunk," was her soft reply. "Surely you knew that too, once." Pale eyes flicked up towards him with small, wry smile. "Though it certainly doesn't hurt the allure."

The bottle released the cork with a sharp pop of sound, almost like punctuation. She shifted around the counter for glasses next, stretching up to gather two from a higher shelf by their long stems. "The apartment is paid for by my employer, so you owe me nothing on it. It's a place to work and a place to sleep, and little more than that. The security was good enough. With some improvement."