(Untitled)

[prodigaljaybird]

He's taken food from the Winchester.

It's not stolen, not today, and he even took the time to sweet talk the tall, pretty blonde in the kitchen into a custom order. He hadn't even had to help, just promised an extra boar or two the next time the Winchester needed meat, showed up when the food was ready, and that was that. And so it is that when

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[onlyapassenger]

Bucky pokes his head out of his room, fresh from a shower, and in the process of putting on a shirt. The pantry they keep in the hut's basic at best, meaning the wafting smell of an actual dinner catches him by surprise; they don't make a habit of eating in. Tugging down the sky blue polo, he steps into the common area, and drags a hand back through his still-damp hair. His gaze sweeps over the spread Jason's set down on the table, his brows furrowing in confusion.

"I think you got turned around," he says, fixing the kid with a dubious glance even as he collapses into the opposite chair; turning down food isn't in his nature, but this all seems a bit extravagant for a normal Thursday night. "You realize this isn't your little gal pal's treehouse, right?"

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason grins. Gal pal. For such a badass, Bucky is an enormous dork sometimes. It's almost enough to tempt Jason into locking him and Tim in a room together to see who nerds out the hardest.

"Don't have much time for eating at the treehouse," he says with an obnoxious grin, one that's entirely swallowed up by a blush when he realizes that's not exactly true, but in ways he has no intention of discussing with Bucky.

He swallows and pulls out a chair for himself. "You didn't eat, right?"

[onlyapassenger]

Bucky's not a prude, but he's from an era where that kind of thing just isn't discussed, let alone at the dinner table; he doesn't blush like Jason at the implication, but he does, for a moment, pointedly avert his gaze to the food in front of him, grabbing a fork. That his thoughts automatically turn to Natalia whenever the subject of Lux comes up in conversation doesn't help matters; he hasn't seen her since last year, but his feelings for her haven't gone anywhere.

"Nope," he answers after a beat. "I was just getting ready to head out. You've got good timing, kid."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Hey, I know your schedule by now," Jason replies as he yanks the roast closer to him. It smells fucking good, and had the whole journey over. More than once Jason had been tempted to tuck in early, and the way he's all but drooling over it now lends a casualness to his next statement that doesn't need faking.

"Thought you might be visiting Steve, though."

[onlyapassenger]

"He's not lacking for company," Bucky replies without hesitation, his eyes flicking up from the food to stare, intently, at Jason. Considering the man's importance, Bucky hasn't talked much about Steve to anyone since he arrived; then again, Bucky doesn't talk about much of importance to anyone, period.

"I'll drop by later," he adds, sticking a fork in the casserole. "You order all this like a normal person, or didja climb into that little go-kart of yours again?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"Totally above board," says Jason with the ease of a man who's said it many times before. But the iron grip Jason held over the organized crime of Gotham is a world away from this dinner table, and his smile holds nothing but surprised delight at the roast in his mouth.

"Can't believe this came from one of those big hairy pigs," he grunts. "What're you guys gonna do? He might not be lacking for company, but he seems pissed bored whenever I look in there."

[onlyapassenger]

"You'd be bored, too, if you were stuck in there," says Bucky around a mouthful. He prefers the Compound kitchen for meals -- family-style restaurants don't sit right with him -- but this is just as good as anything he could get back in the city, if not better; after so many years in the military, though, few things are worse than rations.

"S'good. What's the occasion?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"Saw somebody else pickin' up food," says Jason, fishing some beans right out of the dish and into his mouth. "Figured I might as well." It's the truth. That Jason hopes it will give him a chance to press Bucky on things he'd hoped Bucky would've spilled by now is also a truth, and one Jason won't be sharing.

"When's he get out, anyway?" he asks, and here he does have to do his damnedest to sound casual. "Where's he gonna live?"

[onlyapassenger]

"I don't know," says Bucky, which is true enough. The doctors have given estimates, of course, but none of them mean a damn if Steve decides to crank up the charm, and talk his way out confinement; were their positions reversed, Bucky would've already done just that a while ago. That the kid's fishing for information is obvious, but his motives are a little more obscure. Reaching for a knife, Bucky leans over to cut off a chunk of the roast.

"What's it to you?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"I dunno," Jason echoes, chewing through the last of his casserole. His stomach feels weird, not hungry but nervous in a way he can't control. "He's your best friend, right?"

It'll be here. Steve's polite about it, and Bucky tightlipped, but Jason has to think they'd want it, having partnered all those years. Which leaves him to wonder where he's going to go. "I mean...is it gonna be here?"

[onlyapassenger]

Steve Rogers is Bucky's brother in everything but blood, but with that bond comes both the good and the bad; while there've been lighter moments since Steve's dramatic entrance, they've done little to mask the inherent tension underlying every conversation. Theirs is a complicated relationship, mired in decades of lost time and secrets untold, and that's not bound to change anytime soon; living together under the same roof is something they might've done in the past, but seems like a recipe for disaster in the present. If it came right down to it, if there was no other choice, he'd take Steve in in an heartbeat, but there are other choices.

"Why would it be here?" he asks, shoving a piece of boar in his mouth.

[prodigaljaybird]

"Because," says Jason, wondering if Bucky really wants him to spell it out. If he thinks Jason won't, he's fucking wrong, even if Jason has to think he's sealing his own doom here. There's no reason to keep Jason around when Bucky could have his best friend again. "'Cause...he's Captain America, and now you are." It'd be like Bruce giving up the mantle - it wouldn't be Jason he chose, it'd be Dick, because they'd been together longer, because they had a bond.

"Because you spent all that time together in the war, 'cause you were groomed or whatever to be his partner. 'Cause he came here dying, and now he's alive, and that's - why wouldn't you?"

[onlyapassenger]

"Because we're both adults and housing's free," says Bucky with a shrug that belies how casual the statement isn't. There's not a word Jason's said that isn't true, but there's so much he doesn't know -- and that Bucky has absolutely no intention of telling him -- that it's no wonder he's able to take such an optimistic stance. From his perspective, it probably does seem like a no-brainer, but it's not as simple as all of that in reality.

"We lived on opposite ends of the city back home."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Oh." That...makes no sense that Jason can see. After all those fucked up years with Bucky and Steve apart, and they hadn't even lived near each other? Sometimes Jason thinks he'd give up all of it - the guns, the arson, the lethal skills he'd worked so hard to cultivate, all of it, just to sit over a dinner table with Bruce again, to feel like he belonged there, to have the opportunity to try.

"Why?"

[onlyapassenger]

"Because your food's gonna go cold if you keep flapping your gums," Bucky replies, which isn't a real answer by any definition of the word, though it's the only one he's inclined to give. What happened between him and Steve stays between him and Steve; fond as he's grown of Jason over the past few months, some things just aren't any of his business, this included.

He gestures with his fork. "Eat."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason deflates, curve of his spine pressed hard against the back of his chair. He eats, but not because he's told, he eats because he's fucking hungry, and because it'll probably take every ounce of his energy to get more than a word out of Bucky.

Pushing roast into his mouth, Jason looks up again, eyes on Bucky as he chews. "I asked him where he wanted to live."