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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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."

"Especially if ..." He paused, then shrugged. "If I end up helping you sometimes."

That has him sitting up a bit more on the couch.

"Are you--"

But he hated asking Jim if he was sure. If Jim wasn't sure, he would say he wasn't sure, and if he was sure, then he didn't want to cast any doubt on the other man's decisions. He breathed out a little.

"I'd appreciate it, especially since you seem to have more experience in hiding. But I don't want you to feel like you have to. Or that you're tempting fate pulling your... acquaintances here."

Not that he wouldn't pull out the stops and handle it. Jim'd gotten an invitation back to the farm for Thanksgiving. That was practically adoption papers.

He nodded toward his room. "I still have my tac suit. It needs a new sleeve. I cached all my weapons a few towns away. I guess I'd need to change to... non-lethal..." That would probably be best, he knew, for all it wasn't his usual method. It may even take some time to make sure he could fight without killing someone.

"I know some places we could go if you need room to practice," because goodness knew he couldn't really experiment with his own powers in the confines of Metropolis proper.

"And I'm happy to provide a somewhat more useful training dummy."

He smiled.

"Honestly, you could probably teach me a few things. I've never really thrown a punch until... well, until everything happened."

He'd shoved timber through a 16 wheeler, but he hadn't actually HIT anyone before the Kryptonians.

That was easy to agree to. He nodded without hesitation. "Then you will need... practice. Training. And tactics." Things he knew he had, even if he wasn't used to thinking about it consciously. His memories had come back in enough of a patchwork for him to know how to do things, why to do things, even if he preferred to forget how he learned.

"Definitely. They...kinda threw me around like a rag doll for the most part."

He was rubbing at the back of his neck, but it was awkwardness as opposed to any lasting pain.

He stifled a laugh. Not directly at Clark but at his embarrassment. "You definitely need practice."

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