A mission goes wrong and Bucky saves everyone, getting them out of danger and starting to fly them home, before he finally collapses, due to the severity of his injuries.
When he wakes up in the Avengers medical unit, he's no longer the Bucky they a...
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Author notes: Please don't drink and drive. In the comics Carol Danvers has a drinking problem. In this story, she has the same ability as Bucky and Winter to drink alcohol without it affecting her. The images on the right were created by the author using Microsoft Copilot app in Designer mode.
This was a mistake. Going out with Carol and a couple of other staff members was a mistake. Winter felt it in the car as they drove to the nearest town, to the bar where they were going to play pool. As he sat in the front seat while Carol drove, Winter tried all sorts of things that the psychologist who visited the compound told him to try to lessen his anxiety. He breathed, in for ten, out for ten. He thought of old movies he had watched with Peter, Star Wars and its sequels, trying to remember the names of the characters except he was distracted when he wondered why the Empire reminded him so much of HYDRA. Then he tapped his fingers to the music Carol was playing, some of it from some movie she loved called Top Gun, that he had tried watching but found the premise ridiculous. Certainly, if that Maverick character had been in HYDRA he would have been at least grounded for his insubordination, possibly even sanctioned, probably by him.
"You nervous?"
Her voice startled him. "No ... yes, maybe this isn't a good thing." He looked out the window. "What if I say something wrong and start a fight?"
The two men in back chuckled lightly, which didn't help. Carol grinned.
"You thinking of starting a fight?" she asked.
"What if someone ... hits on me?" It took him a moment to recollect the word that Peter used when he told him he was going out to play pool with Carol and some others. "I promised Noelle that I would not allow anyone to interfere with the bond she has with Barnes."
"If anyone hits on you, you just say you're not interested," she replied. "We'll be there. We'll back you up. We're just a group of friends grabbing a beer, playing some pool, and listening to some music for a couple of hours."
"But Peter said I'm hot and that could make some people persistent," added Winter. "I don't want it to get out of hand."
She shook her head and muttered. "I'm going to kill Parker when I see him." Glancing quickly at Winter, she recognized that he was really stressed. "Hey, it's very laid back. Like, I said, if anyone persists you can count on us to set them straight, okay?"
He nodded, his mouth suddenly feeling dry. Is this what Barnes experienced before he met Noelle? Winter tried to recollect the times when Barnes went out and interacted with people in a bar setting but it wasn't always clear as he had stayed so much in the background then, not wanting to spook his host and send him into a panic. The man tended to go to a little neighbourhood bar with no music, just quiet, unhappy people looking to drown their sorrows in a beer or something stronger. No one bothered anyone, no one spoke; they were there to drink.
