stands_for_hope | At Home with Clark and Jim

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house of am

At Home with Clark and Jim

[continued from here]

They'd fallen into a routine pretty easily.

Clark had managed to write up something about the church bust without incriminating either of them, which meant that his Perry had been pleased enough with his work for the day and had only yelled at him for five minutes about his failure to show up in the office the whole day. Lois had ribbed him a little, which had been remarked upon as she usually gave the new guy hell if he did anything remotely out of the line, and then she'd ribbed him a lot. He hadn't minded too terribly much since he had visited her afterwards at her apartment and she'd done plenty of kissing to make it better.

With a second person in the apartment, he'd started to fix it up a little, bringing home new linens, keeping the fridge stocked more regularly, and he'd even managed to find a new couch for them through a very kindly older woman and Craigslist.

True to his word, he'd gotten some rudimentary identification for Jim and he walked through the door with a spring in his step, closing the door behind him and plopping it down on the kitchen table with a smile.

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Clark doesn't mean to make the first noise in what seems like ages in the apartment, but the laptop has a little hinge at the back and a clasp at the front and it clicked as he shut it for the night.

"I'm gonna head to bed. Lots to do tomorrow. Don't forget to check the kitchen before you head out, though."

Because there will be authentic New York bagels and cream cheese waiting for him to send him off properly.

...you can take the boy off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy. Work should always start with a good breakfast.

"I will. ...Goodnight, Clark." He still had ads to look through, and he'd pencil-circled a few. With any luck, he'd find himself employment, so long as he could find the bravery to be on the phone.

Before long, with the classified ad section folded backward on the table for convenience, he went to bed, himself. He'd need to be rested for the next day's travel. Probably some long walking, time spent on the bus. Just like old times.

The next morning, he'd find Clark already on the way to work and a fine selection of perfect, NYC bagels with only slightly-softened cream cheese sitting on the table.

Unexpected. And savored. He ate, each bite taking him to good places in his memories - places he couldn't have even thought of before - and it gave him a good mindset for when he headed out to check on job after job, going to the addresses before he had to face the phone. The phone put him much more on edge than meeting face to face, for reasons he couldn't put a name to.

With just a few easily-believed lies about papers getting destroyed, he had a construction job by two in the afternoon, ready to start the next day. When he got back to the apartment, he had a temporary badge with his name on it, and the intention to have some ice cream in celebration.

When he gets in, there's two tickets sitting on the table for the Mammoths vs Cyclones game, as well as a small treasure trove of Cyclones gear: there's a hat, a rumpled jersey, two penants, and a foam finger. There's also a note.

Home in a couple of hours; checking out a scoop. Lombard had this sitting around in his office. He practically begged me to take it. Set up the rice maker?

And in the kitchen, there is a small box with a japanese elephant logo that apparently contains a ricemaker with a bag of rice sitting beside it.

It looked like both of them had been busy. He read the note while looking everything over, pulling the hat on almost automatically. The foam finger had him skeptical, but the pennants, the jersey - the jersey, he knew he'd probably wear. The pennants would go on his wall, much like the Monarchs pennants had gone on Clark's.

And then, the rice maker.

He picked up the box, looking it over before opening it and starting the read-over of the instructions. He didn't even realise he was reading them in Japanese until he had already started the rice cooking.

Clark came in, as promised, a couple of hours later, just as the rice sang it's little tune to announce that it was done.

"I always forget to turn it on before I start cooking," he admitted as he closed the door behind him, taking in the room and Jim.

"How'd it go today?"

He looked up as the door opened, some of that old wariness striking him again before he reminded himself that he was expecting Clark to arrive. After a breath, he could answer. "I have a job. And I speak Japanese."

At the moment, he wasn't sure which one was more momentous. He was glad he had a job. He was confused at the unexpected knowledge.

Clark smiled at the first part and then frowned a little, considering the second.

"Is this more comfortable for you?" he asked, switching to the language in question. He started going over what Japanese recipes he knew; he hadn't been in the country long, but he'd spent a decent amount of time in some of the Japanese immigrant communities in Brazil during his trip around the globe.

Then he nearly kicked himself.

"Congratulations!"

"Thank you," he answered, but fell back into English. "I'm... I think I know a lot of languages. I know... English, Japanese... Russian." The Russian just made sense, with the red star on his arm, though it had a few scratches through it now. He didn't want to wear that star forever, even if he needed the arm. But then, he mirrored Clark's smile. "I start work tomorrow, though. Construction."

"Use whichever one you feel comfortable with," he said with a shrug, "I can understand just about any of them."

Then he headed straight into the kitchen to start pulling things out for dinner.

"That calls for a celebration."

"Tell me how I can help."

He stood, adjusting his hat out of reflex. He could definitely, he thought, cheer for the Brooklyn Cyclones, and knowing that he had a game to go to just felt nice. And tomorrow, he had a job to go to. Everything looked to be going well for once, and that meant he didn't need to start thinking about how that usually meant it would stop.

Clark shook his head.

"It's high time I did some of the cooking. And it's only fair," he offered before pulling out some of the vegetables. The cutting board was retrieved from the back of the counter and a couple of the knives pulled out from the block Jim had managed to get them.

They were chopped and put into distinct little piles within a couple of seconds.

"Besides, you did the rice. Which, I'll be honest, I forget to put on more times than I don't."

"That's how I learned I know Japanese," he said, coming to sit at the kitchen table. "The English instructions were awkward. The Japanese instructions were better."

Bucky was fast and knew he was fast, but Clark was faster. He didn't resent it but respected it, watching with a degree of curiosity.

Soon enough, he was adding ingredients to the pot along with some sauces and a few spices.

"Huh. Well, I've got books from all over in the bookshelf over there if you're curious which other languages you know."

He put the top on to let it all cook together.

After some thought, Jim nodded. It was something that might not need to be known, but eventually, he would want to know. "I may, sometime." But not tonight, he thought. He'd already learned more today than he'd expected to.

"Dinner shouldn't take too long," he reported before heading over to his usual spot on the couch.

"So where're you going to be working? Something normal or some of the reparation projects?"

"Repair," he nodded. "They need people to lift and carry. I can do that." His strength, here, was going to be his selling point.

"Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't be out there doing that myself," he admitted, letting his head drop back against the couch.

"But then I remember how bad I am at keeping my secret when I walk the line like that."

It was a line in and of itself.

"Yeah," he said quietly, "I'm... a little worried about... when the weather gets warmer." As the weather got warmer and people started wearing short sleeves, and he wore one short sleeve and one long, along with one glove. It would make him very conspicuous.

"You could always switch to carpentry at that point," Clark said after a minute of obvious thought.

"This place is a pretty good example of how good you'd be at it. It's mostly inside, and you'd be working on your own."

It took him a minute to realize that he the warmth he felt was the idea that Jim was quite content to still BE there by the time summer came around.

"Though there's a new fad that involves thin long sleeves and you have to wear gloves anyway for the job..."

He shrugged.

"I'm sure we can figure it out."

"Maybe I could paint it," he murmured thoughtfully, looking down at his arm. A coating of paint that would look like skin tone... It was possible, anyway, but he wasn't sure how the metal would take paint unless it was baked-on enamel.

He could bake on some enamel, though. He'd just need a blowtorch.

"You're right. We'll figure something out."

"Actually," he said with a tilt of his head, "you could. Latex paint, a little blushing from an airbrush... most people wouldn't look twice and those that did would just assume you were using a prosthetic."

He offered a crooked smile.

"Which isn't really a lie."

It was a point. A point he conceded with a nod. "I don't know how it'll stick. It might have to be enamel," he said, "but... that or get some kind of fabric and make a single sleeve and say it's a prosthetic..." He shrugged. "Still not a lie."

"We should look into priming materials," he agreed. "But all the same, as long as you cover it a bit, people won't bother you too much."

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