Possibility of Tomorrow - 30

 

Cont...

Smuggling Darling stateside was easier than expected. But having a powerful foreign dignity and an ex-assassin on your side helped too. Now she was inside the Avengers Compound receiving painstaking treatments for the burns. Bucky had come with her. But not before he was placed within the royal family and exempt from arrest on foreign soil. Shuri had also come for the medical side of things. 

Dr. Cho was welcoming to all of them and didn't bat an eye at Bucky. She was calming and confident that the procedures would go well. Privately both she and Shuri were worried that the serum and wounds from the arc reactor, put in initially to save Darling's life, would negatively affect the surgeries and the Cradle regeneration process. But it didn't. 

They treated her left leg first, and when it was done, it was like new. She was still restricted to her wheelchair because her muscles had been shredded, and they needed physical therapy to get them moving again. But it worked. A few days later, they started on her right leg. The process was gruesome and took forever. But by the end, it worked. She started physical therapy soon after both legs were restored. 

It was during this time when Bucky finally met Tony's interns. Met would be a reach, more like crashed into them. Darling had pestered him into getting her fast food, so at two in the morning, he'd trekked out to McDonald's for a shake, fries, and a burger. He'd smuggled it back in through the service elevator, so he didn't get chewed out by Cho.

 He got to Darling's floor and noticed that the light was on in her room. She was probably just waiting up. Easing the door open, he slid into the bright room. 

"The contraband!" Darling grinned devilishly. 

Bucky smiled, coming over to her bed, "Cho's gonna kill me." 

"You're not wrong." Darling grinned, digging out the fries. 

 A stomach growled. Darling froze up before shoving fries in her mouth. 

Bucky narrowed his eyes watch his daughter purposely ignore the rumble that wasn't from him or her. If he listened carefully, he could hear two pounding heartbeats over Darling's munching. 

A stomach growled again. Darling kept eating and even offered him some fries. Bucky took some and nibbled. Darling knew whoever was here and was trying to hide them, interesting. 

They were somewhere above them if the rustling was right. Bucky got up and moved to stand in front of the door, "It good?" 

Darling made a noise of enjoyment as she stuffed her face with a burger and nodded. 

The unknown stomach growled and then a quiet, "Oh No." 

Before Bucky knew what was happening, he was on the floor under two teenagers. There was a beat of silence as he stared at the two terrified dear-in-headlight faces and the two boys stared back in terror. Darling froze on the bed, mid-bite mouth open, staring at the three of them. Then she burst out laughing so hard she was crying. 

"You unstuck-!" 

"I was hungry!" 

"HuNgRy?!?" 

"I'm sorry-!"

"You dropped me!"

"What?" Bucky sputtered as the two teenage boys untangled themselves and rolled off him. They both whipped over to look at him, going from angry at each other to frozen again. 

"Sorry?" The curly-haired one offered. Bucky raised an eyebrow as he got up. 

"We just really wanted to see Darling, and Cho wouldn't let us and Tony gonna have our hides if you tell-" the other boy vomited out words almost faster than Bucky could understand through his Southern drawl.

"Tony?" Bucky interrupted, "You two know Tony?"

"They're his interns." Darling provided no longer dying of laughter but watching with great amusement. 

Bucky looked slowly back at the two, "So which one of you is Harley Keener?" 

The one with the Southern drawl paled, "That would be me, sir."

 Bucky looked at him a long moment enough to make the kid squirm before looking at the curly-haired one, "So that makes you Parker, right?" 

"Yes, Mr. Barnes, Peter Parker." The curly-haired boy nodded. 

Bucky leaned back on the balls of his feet, looking at the two. "Well, I'd offer you some food, but it would seem the walking black hole ate it all."

 "Hey! You're worse than I am and that's not even mentioning Steve!" Darling objected, "Or Sam with dessert!"

 "Oh, you haven't seen anything until you've seen Pete eat." Harley countered, "It's scary." 

"Rude. I'll have you know I'm a growing child." Peter glared at Harley. 

"So am I, and I can't down a giant sub sandwich in one go." Harley deadpanned. 

"That's just offensive. You make it sound like I'm some sort of glutton." Peter huffed, sitting on Darling's bed glaring at Harley, who sat on the side table. 

"No, the word would be addicted. You lost your grip just because you smelled her food." Harley pointed out, gesturing to Darlings now gone burger. 

"I was hungry!"

 "At three in the morning?" 

"I haven't eaten in nine hours!" 

"You lost your grip from up there?" Bucky interjected, looking up at the ceiling, which was vaulted but only had a vent all the way up in it, no handholds. 

"Uh, yes?" Peter offered, suddenly realizing his mistake. 

"How?" Bucky asked, suspicions growing.

 "Parkour?" Peter responded. 

"Parkour? And you fell with someone holding on to you now less and were fine?" Buck asked, pieces starting to click. 

"Yeah. Wait, are you fine?" Peter turned to Harley. 

"I think so. I don't feel like I broke any bones." Harley answered, examining himself.

 "Oh, for the love of everything good, just cut it out." Darling rolled her eyes at the others in the room as she sipped her shake. 

"Cut what out?" Peter asked, looking desperately for a way out of this situation.

 "You and I both know what."  Bucky countered, "Didn't know you were an expert in nerve toxins, Spider-Man." 

"He's not. Peter Parker is." Harley answers when Peter couldn't seem to form the words.

 "Ah, so Peter Park is the genius, and Spider-Man is the alter ego?" Bucky asked, amused as Peter opened and closed his mouth trying to find the right thing to say in vain. 

"He looks a bit like a codfish, don't you think?" Darling giggled. 

"Was that a Mary Poppins reference?" Harley asked with a grin.

 "Yep." 

"She's been cultured!" 

Darling smacked Harley with a pillow. 

"Pillow fight!" Peter finally found his bearings. He lunged for the pillow on the accent chair as the door opened, "What in the tarnation is going on here?" 

Tony stood at the door, glasses on top of his head file in one hand, observing the scene that had frozen at his arrival, "And why did no one invite me!" 

Then it descended into chaos. The food wrappers went everywhere. Harley broke a pillow, and Darling got a mouth full of feathers. Tony was mid-windup when Cho walked in. Tony swung the pillow and smacked her. 

The silence that followed was stifling. Cho looked around the room in silence before slowly turning to Bucky and Tony, "A word with you two." 

The moment the adults were out of the room, Harley and Peter dove for the trash to make it disappear. By the time the adults came back, the boys were nowhere to be found. 

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