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 chuckled at the response before heading back to the oven to cut into the pie.

"This place could use a little optimism," he said. Maybe he means the world, maybe he means the city, and maybe he means the apartment. Either way.

"Also pie. Want a plate?"

"I like pie."

Now that, he didn't even have to think to know. Dessert was always a good idea, so he was all for it. While Clark cut pie, he topped off both their chosen drinks. And it was as he settled Clark's glass back on the table that he said quietly, "I like it here."

Clark brought the plate over and gave Jim a smile.

"Same."

And then he was sitting down to enjoy his pie with his roommate, doing his best not to think about tomorrow. Nope, he was just going to enjoy sitting with a good friend, having pie, and celebrating the good things in life.

He ate quietly, enjoying the quiet, enjoying the pie, and letting his subconscious work out the details of what would happen the following day. "I don't know what time I'll get off work tomorrow," he eventually offered. "I know I need to be there at seven, so if I work eight hours with a lunch break, I'll be here at around four or five."

"We'll be here around five thirty," Clark supplies, in between a couple of bites of pie "since we need to grab some of her work from her apartment."

"I'll grab some coffee once I drop her off. Lois is definitely a happier human being with some coffee in her at any hour."

Jim nodded. "Then I should have time to get everything done." Time to get to the restaurant, get home, shower - he doubted he'd have the time to get his weapons, but that could wait. He'd at least have food ready by the time they got there.

"I'll talk to Lombard about switching the tickets. He told me I was good to ask whenever I wanted... as long as it wasn't a Monarch's game."

Because Lombard is a bit of a jerk, but Clark's not going to fail to take advantage of it if it means free tickets. He might be able to deflect bullets and fly, but he's still got bills like the next man.

"Construction pays all right. We'll hit a Monarchs game once I've got my half of the bills getting covered." That was as good as a promise, as far as he was concerned. If Clark was willing to watch a team that wasn't his, the least he could do was do the same.

"I'll hold you to that," he teases, knowing he doesn't have to.

Jim gave him a smile in return. "Soon - probably about a week or so. I don't know when my paycheck will come."

That got a handwave.

"No rush. I haven't gotten to go to a game in a couple of years because of the traveling anyway."

Times had changed. He wasn't sure how people got paid anymore. He'd find out eventually. "It'll probably take a week or so."

"Probably. Jobs like that, they like week to week."

He's obviously speaking from experience.

He nodded. "Do they pay in cash?"

"Depends on the site, but I'd bet they are right now. There aren't enough functional banks around right now for it to be convenient to use checks."

"Good." Cash, he could handle. Checks, he wasn't sure just yet. But he nodded - and the next day, he found out.

Wearing two pairs of socks and Clark's steel-toed boots, hair pulled back into a low, short stub of a ponytail, he showed up at work and started asking questions. Cash payments, every week until banks came back up, and that looked like a while. So when he left work, though he was covered in a sheen of sweat, he didn't have a bundle of money for pay, but he did have a date when he would get paid.

A glance to the clock told him it was four. He had an hour and a half to get everything done. And that gave him the time to go get his weapons cache, spend a bit more of his savings on a sleeve for his arm so he could wear T-shirts, and then a quick trip to the Chinese restaurant to get their food.

That was where he learned he didn't only read Chinese - he spoke it. The owners spoke to him, smiling, as he explained that he needed one order of General Tso's chicken, then something vegetarian for his friend, and something for himself, and he couldn't remember if he'd eaten anything Chinese or not.

He had two big bags in his left hand when he left, and he stored their contents in the oven when he got back to the apartment. Fifteen after five. That left him just enough time to shower.

Fifteen minutes later, practically on the dot, there was a stiff breeze near the window. A few moments later, there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and finally, the door clicked open to reveal first Lois Lane, intrepid reporter, and then Clark. Lois took a moment to look around the apartment, taking in the decore and the general tidiness of the place before sticking on Jim. She gave him a smile.

"You're Jim, right?"

Clark nodded from behind her and offered a wave, carrying a significantly-sized briefcase in one hand.

He was clean, still a bit damp, but had his hair tidied, pulled back out of the way. He wore jeans, socks, and most notably, a T-shirt that showed his entire left arm as gleaming metal. "Yes," he answered, offering his right hand for a handshake. "Jim Rogers. That's what I'm going by, anyway."

And after he took a breath, he went on: "My real name is James Buchanan Barnes."

Lois swallowed, because there was no mistaking that name and what it meant. She looked back at Clark, who shook his head and gestured for her to go in and sit to talk with Jim. She nodded firmly before doing just that, slipping around the table to sit across from him with a faint, amused smile.

"You know, the films and promotional materials for you and--" she glanced back at Clark who rolled his eyes a little before closing the door behind them, "-your friends back in World War II are part of just about every journalism curriculum around. I'm not easily flustered, but I'll admit I'm just a little starstruck."

Clark walked in and put the briefcase on the table, smiling over at Jim.

"He prefers to go by Jim."

"Don't... be starstruck," he said quietly, shaking his head. "I'm not that person anymore. I brought dinner."

He stood when he said that. "General Tso's chicken for you, vegetable chow mein for you," he looked to Clark, "and beef and broccoli lo mein for me. Also eggrolls and vegetable spring rolls."

The oven had been at a low temperature, just to keep everything warm, so when he doled them out left-handed, they were still steaming slightly. "From what experience I have, it's easier to talk over food."

Lois grinned and nodded pointedly at Clark.

"Someone told him my favorite," she said with a little smile.

Clark just spread his hands as he tucked in her seat for her and took his own.

"I just wanted everyone to be comfortable. Or as comfortable as this kind of situation can be."

"And you're monitoring the area around here? No one's listening?"

Clark nodded firmly before meeting Jim's eye and nodding again.

"I'd hear any electronics and no one within the range of any equipment is staying in one place that isn't sleeping."

At Lois's slightly widened eyes, Clark blushed.

"The breathing's different."

Lois nodded slowly before starting to open her food and turning to Jim.

"So Clark hasn't said much, and you've just told me your name, of course, but I'm not quite sure how you fit into things. He said you wanted to help, that you had good reason to want to help, but he didn't say much more than that."

"He said that you've discovered Hydra plants deep in the local government," Jim said, a bit of animation leaving his voice. "And you know who I used to be, seventy years ago. You... don't know that... I was a Hydra asset called the Winter Soldier."

From there, it was quite the story, from the fall from the train to being picked up by Soviet scientists allied with Hydra, the surgery to replace his arm to the cryo chamber and the mind wipes. He spared the worst details, since they were eating, but he didn't shy away from how much it had hurt, and still hurt at times. He did tug the neck of his shirt to one side to show scars, and admit to eluding - and eliminating - Hydra agents that were trying to reclaim him.

"So," he said once his story had reached the present, "I'm the easiest way for you to confirm your list of Hydra agents - and the easiest way for Clark and I to make sure they get what's coming to them."

Lois listened, and it was almost amazing how easily she listened. She didn't take notes or pull out her papers until he was done and her eyes never wavered away from his unless he turned from her. When he was done, she nodded and pulled up her briefcase, opening it and pulling out a large stack of documents as well as a single notebook. She turned to the page she needed and held it out for Jim to look at.

"The left hand is the code names, the right hand is who my evidence has led me to. I've got all of my work here, all paper copies to keep it in one place only, so you can look through it and see if your conclusions lead you somewhere else. They're letter coded for correlation."

She swallowed.

"Thank you, James. Jim. I appreciate... I'm just going to say I appreciate your honesty."

Clark leaned over and squeezed her shoulder a little and nodded along, as he appreciated it too.

"Let me get us all some drinks. Jim, beer or pop?"

"Beer, please," he said, looking up from the papers to give him a nod. "I'll look at these, but names are kind of blurry. They never used names around me unless they had to. I know faces more than names--"

But he broke off immediately and shook his head. "This one, though... I know it isn't right. I know who he is and he's not governmental ops. He's SHIELD cover. Probably trying to get a bead on Fury right now. This is..."

He frowned slightly, but then held out his hand. "Do you have a pen?"

This one, he could fix. The others... The others, he wasn't sure of just yet, but more reading and he might be able to be more definitive.

She passed him a pen and started separating the stack. There were pictures connected to most of the stacks.

"You can see the faces here. Sorry some of the pictures aren't great. Wait. Fury? Director Nicholas Fury? I... I thought he was dead. My source inside SHIELD--"

Clark shook his head.

"You don't get better than first hand, Lois. You know how it goes."

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