7232/A Place of His Own.

A Place of His Own.
Date of Scene:	05 August 2021
Location:	1117 Brighton Beach
Synopsis:	Does there really have to be a reason at all?
Cast of Characters:	James Barnes, Wanda Maximoff

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James Barnes has posed:
    At first, Bucky was reluctant in regards to the whole 'house' thing. It's really a foreign concept to him, completely and utterly foreign, so it was difficult for him to wrap his brain around - a place to call his and his alone. But he caved in the end, because who can possibly resist Wanda's gentle sort of persuasion long?

    Decorating the place was another challenge, in the beginning, but once he got started, something happened. Bucky Barnes turned into an excited little kid, dragging Wanda along with him to antique shops and quaint little thrift shops, flea markets. A pattern set in, he was fond of old things; things cast aside by others. Made a bit of sense that. It also became apparent that he enjoyed refinishing old furniture, he likes blue and darker woods. ... and so it began that a *real* person started to shine through where there was once nothing but a ghost.

    Except the bedroom, the place that should be a person's true safe haven, that space he seemed unwilling to really deal with.

    How many times did his dreams bring about night-time attacks on Wanda, born from a mind still riddled with holes and plagued by nightmares? Maybe she stopped it before it got to that point?

    Other things, perhaps surprising, certainly came to light as well. It hasn't been an uncommon thing to find him sitting in front of that easel on a stool, lost in whatever he was painting; little paint splatters already stain wood floors. Someone needs to show him a drop cloth. He also spends more time than anyone would rightly guess practicing ballet in front of them mirror downstairs. He likes to cook, that's different. Russian is the language he seems to prefer with Wanda, but is it a surprise? He spent more time in his 107 years among Russians than the English speaking, even if they were mostly evil bastards.

    Currently he's involved in another, potentially, surprising past-time. He's sitting in one of those leather love-seats reading a book. He's up to The Order of the Phoenix and he's been pretty enthralled with the series.

    In recent days, it's also become obvious that he's fond of casual, platonic physical contact. Little kisses to the top of a head, sitting together to watch a movie; nothing ever crosses any line, but it's like the man is just catching up for all those years where such things were denied him.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Houses are where people live. People, not just stuff. And what defines a 'house' can be a scrap of floor and walls in a corner, little bigger than a bathroom, all for a grand total of $3,500 a month. Could be Tony's sky palace.

However many caches that Bucky Barnes may have, or whatever liquid assets are at the Asset's disposal, buying a house -- or renting one -- in New York is deliriously, gaspingly expensive. Arrangements on her part will never be fully explained, the auburn-haired Avenger responsible for a temporary let with terms that accommodate 'tenant ran away screaming into the night.' Who wants to fight with a witch?

But once he has the keys, whatever funds he taps on his own or possibly her shoving over a prepaid set of debit cards, he can do whatever he likes. This is his place. She doesn't even step foot over the threshold without an invitation, though he can mentally call out to her for opinions on crooked picture hangings or whether people need black out curtains when bombs don't fall anymore. He will have to ring her up if need be.

<<Do you have tea?>>

It's a morning question because the teahound is likely to drinking it at the table in her own apartment. She lives among the Avengers now and then. Where else, a secret concerning only her brother, not even her sister or her father.

In recent days, the little signs and signals wind around them. Might be a delivery for him here or there. Neat dishtowels. The patterned Kashkar plates from the disastrous night market visit, too. Heck, he gets junk mail -- not from her -- but it's proof he exists! He exists to marketing departments somewhere that don't care. He gets a Ukrainian and Russian-language newspaper for local events, talking about sports teams and blinis and the best haircutter anywhere in the neighbourhood. Olav and Lena are both in *total* competition for new visitors. Take that, Luke Cage!

<<It is a good book, you know? I was so angry about Sirius, so bitterly angry.>>

James Barnes has posed:
    <<Don't care for it much, but got some.>> Probably just for her even. <<Spoiler ALERT!>> Where did he even pick that phrase up at? Bucky sets the book aside and wanders into the kitchen to get a pot of proper tea started.

    <<Can you come over?>> It's been a more and more recent request to be honest. Once the consummate loner, he now doesn't seem so fond of being alone. Usually it's just been for company, maybe a shared meal, an old movie watched with him sitting on the floor at her feet - but not submissively! Just for the closeness, really. One night there may have even been a silly dance-off in the basement.

    But there's a different current flowing through is request this time. Something's up and he wants to talk, face to face.

    Still though, not all of the 'you're not a thing that matters' has been erased from his psyche. <<It's okay if you're too busy.>>

    Junk mail sits piled on the counter, most of it unopened, but even that he's looked at sits there. Maybe a reminder as intended or maybe just a typical 'man' thing of not being bothered to throw it away? Otherwise, the place is mostly neat as a pin save those paint splatters on the floor. He cleans on the regular - another bit of personality where there wasn't much before shining through.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Not care for tea? Fine, you're getting reprogrammed, Barnes. Burn, baby!

<<It is not a spoiler! He was so much in the earlier book and then he plays second fiddle to a sea of annoying characters with half the development. He is presented as being a key relationship and then everything else centers on endless blathering.>> Wanda would be stung, but the flash of thoughts over telepathic links lands hard in the first few chapters. <<I have to set aside this palm. Then, yes?>>

Watering the plants is important. She can easily forget about ferns and other benign hanging baskets, then be forced to resurrect them using cheap witchy tricks. Oh well, the joy of sniffing the bundles of callibrachoa and night sky-patterned petunias is a heady, quiet joy.

Her eyes close slightly as she breaks into a smile. A silly dance-off? That's an old game with Pietro and absolutely one that probably ended up with them both sprawled on the couch, though his endurance way outstrips hers thanks to the serum. He surely can outdo her for stamina, but she has good footwork.

Footloose? DDR? Whatever.

Something up, then. <<Do you need me to bring food? We have more than anyone ever does here. It's a supermarket.>> Her smirk lifts off her lips. Organizing her way takes a few moments, then she plucks up her cross-body backpack, a little thing in substitution of a purse or a real backpack. A wave of motion tiptoes through their shared thoughts.

Revitalizing the ring is going to be necessary anyway, and proximity is already an improvement. What they need to leverage is literally him, and she has thoughts in mind already on that. It can potentially wait.

<<I'll drop in down the block.>> And with a twist of power, she does, the ground replaced from wooden floorboards to concrete.

James Barnes has posed:
    <<No, I got it.>> Food that is. Of course it's probably been noted that his idea of 'food' is often laden with fat, grease and carbs and all manner of 'unhealthy', even when he's doing the cooking.

    Cooking isn't happening today though; he's eating Twinkies. For her, he's set out some pastries from a nearby bakery. The tea that'll be ready as soon as the kettle announces it so, is whatever he's picked up on to be her favorite.

    Fancy footwork might have also been a surprise, Bucky Barnes can *dance*, he truly can. ...and even laugh right out loud while doing it. It's something he's been doing more of lately, laughing, but he could stand to do more of it, it's an infectious thing, his laugh.

    <<Can you grab the mail on the way in?>> Such a damned *simple* request that speaks volumes about how far he's actually come in a few short weeks. Years, decades, of being used, tortured, turned to something less than... and here he is asking someone to grab his mail. Man's resilient for sure.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Food doesn't matter when you live forever, burn energy like a rocket, and have the calorie requirements equivalent to jet fuel. Damn supersoldiers.

Or you can be the twin to a speedster, sharing that general genetic requirement, and have to bloody well *eat* in volumes to sustain magic. Of course, that means food applies heavily to Wanda's world. She sashays up the street like she has business being there until passing tall apartment, tall apartment, little biddy shotgun house that sticks out like a sore thumb. Thing about big cities, they don't do detached family housing much.

Clonk. Knocking on the door is one thing, but that means raiding his front mailbox, a little bronze thing that locks somehow. Saying hello to the plants. The hanging baskets, a nice fat fern, all part of colour-this-place-up on her part. He can kill them, flip them, shift them and it's all quite well. Maybe a big planter of pussywillows and touch-me-nots or thistles will be Bucky's idea of landscaping.

<<You have coupons here. I'm not reading your mail, but just seeing they have a borscht place, pizza place, good noodle place, terrible diner with garbage potatoes. Wasn't this shut down?>> Apparently one place should be and Wanda checks the grades for a restaurant. If the city will judge hygiene, she will darn well heed their attention. While waiting on the knock to be answered, she hovers about like a bee.

James Barnes has posed:
    <<It's not locked.>> Mild annoyance there, because her *insistence* upon waiting for him to open the damned door all the time means he has to actually get up and do it. He'd settled himself in at the kitchen table for Twinkies and milk after all - strawberry that milk, always, not white or chocolate.

    When Bucky pulls open the door, he'd look nothing more than a simple dude hanging out at home save for that metal arm.

    He's wearing a snug 'beater' style tank paired with olive green cargo shorts and a pair of leather slides on his feet. His hair's pulled back into a loose knot at the base of his neck; little strands of hair fall around his face, but he's not hiding behind the whole 'veil' of the mess like he tends to sometimes. There's a little red paint smudge on his right cheek, the same paint tints his fingers, especially his nail beds. Been painting already this morning it seems, but the evidence of it is all tucked away save the mess on him personally.

    He smiles, a real and genuine thing and, honestly, it's *radiant*. There's a reason he got all the dames back in the day, isn't there? That smile's part and parcel with that. Especially when, just for a moment or two, it chases the shadows from his pale blues. "Tired of borscht, the pizza's always soggy unless you eat in and there's something to be said about garbage potatoes really. I mean, nostalgia and all that?" Was that a joke? Dark one, but yes it was. Garbage potatoes were likely on the menu a LOT during the true Winter years.

    Stretching his right arm out, he holds the door open for Wanda to come on in.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Not that a door would stop anyone wanting to enter. The nice screen on the exterior hardly makes much of a defensive mechanism, but then actual bars in concrete probably won't do much for a thunder god, a supersoldier, a kitty with magic metal claws. Mrowr.

The brief pause of the door opening finds him in casual attire and her in a ballet dress, tied at the waist by a leather belt, and blocky earrings displaying the night sky in all its sparkling black-shadow glamour. Bit difficult for them to have a dance off without going full out flamenca for her, and stampy surf times for him. "A productive morning, was it? You are sure you want the distraction from whatever you were working on?" The faded, worn gold ring at her neck is a simple pendant heavy with memories, one of those antiques that tells more stories than the 14 karats it comes with. Death, loss, renewal. One day he might learn the story. He might not.

At the end of the day, Bucky is not an art project but she has to watch him closely. Very closely, to see if the faded look in his eyes or the twitchy tells of running arise. If he fakes it in tone, if there's too much deliberate smattering on bare hands and metal lamellar to be purely accidental. If Lucifer can have a therapist, so can the Winter Soldier, without crossing quite so many lines.

She tucks her hair behind her ear. The strands get loose without much trying, the definition of being a flyaway texture. "Tired of borscht? It's summer. Are you putting enough sour cream in? Besides, you move to Brighton Beach, you expect borscht. And the noodle place is sacred, don't even dare to tell me otherwise. Mongol, Uighur, and Russian culture comes together on a plate, it deserves its own museum."

Nostalgia of soggy potatoes is a truism for the starving in Ireland, the serfs of Russia, and Transian witches raised in poverty. "Those potatoes are not seasoned by sweat or salt. Corporate garbage potatoes is sad, but so unhealthy the inspector fails them, that is poison. Might as well serve up a heap of belladonna on the side, and some ricin in a salad, for how edible they are." And mostly in the same family. Guided in, she shucks her walking shoes and tiptoes in sock feet further into the foyer. Kitchen. Same room. "This will be nice in the winter, won't it? You can get some light."

James Barnes has posed:
    "Need it, muse wasn't there," Bucky replies. "Light in the winter's nice, yeah." Double meaning that, one of them way darker than the other. He's speaking Russian, he always is with her, especially when they're alone.

    The tea kettle whistles and he sets about pouring a cup, but it's all window dressing and distractions really; the tea, the pastries, strawberry milk and Twinkies. It's just the casual stage set for the rest to play out, the reason he's invited her over for more than just a DVD screening of West Side Story or a cookout in the little backyard.

    "I sent Steve the address," he announces, casually enough. But casual words wrapped in a spike of tension and maybe even fear are easily enough unwrapped by Wanda. Makes sense that Steve Rogers would be the first outside the little circle of Wanda, Sharon and Bucky that he'd contact. Also makes sense that the impending visit - because Steve simply wouldn't NOT show up - is a little stressful for Bucky, given all that's happened. It's Steve, it's Bucky, it's a weird platonic life partner thing that's impossible for most outside it to even come close to comprehending, so understanding his fear of 'disappointing' Steve might be outside even Wanda's wheelhouse; other than the very general 'fear of disappointing'.

    Tea poured, he places the generous sized mug down next to the pastries meant for Wanda.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Russian is not her native language any more than it is his, but close. She speaks it much better than English, though the same probably can't be said. "The trials of artists everywhere. When they are not tortured, they aren't producing their best work. Something like that?" She can name far too many of those tortured artists and where their path led, but unless a bottle of whiskey is in hand, another in the sink, and a third on the easel, Bucky is safe.

She takes a few moments to glance over the sink and out the window, the view of a dense brick wall not exactly anything to write home about. A small quirk of a smile might not be seen in profile. Eyelids drop lower until close to shut, and she takes a deep, slow breath, cleansing the detritus of the city out from her lungs. Bringing a chance bit of peace, a centering of her her body and her mind.

It works, for now. "You know, protein in a diet is important. Maybe you should try some yogurt or cheese cubes, feed the body and the mind. I get distracted eating too much sugar." It's worse than that, but still tasteful. She slips nearer to one of the seats, but it's his kitchen and she will not flop herself down without his indication, spoken or not.

So that's what it is. Bucky sending out a housewarming card isn't lost on her. She breaks into a small smile. "You are making progress. That's good." Her slender fingers fan wide, rings sparkling. "It's your choice who comes and when. Do not feel you have to have an open door policy, and no one has a right to expect that. You dictate the times you are available. No explanations needed either. You're free to say no, and that is a complete sentence. Even with Steve. Me. Anyone except police and postmen. Then you tell the former you have a lawyer, the latter you have milk and would they like a drink?"

Pity the postmaster who kicks open the door. She runs her fingers around the mug, absorbing the warmth. "Thank you. See? This is well thought out. You can kick me out after finishing tea or coffee." Her eyes glitter, amused.

James Barnes has posed:
    "You can sit, you know?" There's that mild annoyance again. Rules of hospitality are something he's not used to, not when they're being bestowed upon him and not thrust upon him.

    "It's different with Steve," Bucky begins but then, "HoHos aren't protein?" he's joking, right? He has to be, but so deadpan.

    Two bites and one Twinkie's just gone. He has the good graces to not speak with his mouth full, so it might take him a second to get back to the discussion.

    When he does, it's repeated, "It's *different* with Steve, Wands." His teeth worry at his bottom lip, his brow furrows, those pale blues go a little distant, staring off past Wanda, but it's not 'bad' in the way it sometimes gets when he has that look. No, he's not slipping away into some subconscious flash of memory suddenly jolting to the surface to send him into a frenzy of flight or fight or, at times, even complete catatonia for a moment or two. He's just... confused, thinking, trying to figure out how to bring what he's feeling into words.

    He fails, miserably, he's a work in progress not perfection.

    "It's just different," he finally settles on with a little sighed out breath.

    "I thought maybe we could put some music on after..." He's distracted though, still a little stuck on trying to figure out this whole communication thing in regards to 'it's *Steve*.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"I am setting a painful expectation. Chalk it up to me educating your unconscious mind to knowing its own space and leveraging a tacit set of rules that I have to abide by," Wanda explains in clear, or relatively clear, language. She outlines this with a certain ease, pulling back a chair and sinking down with a fluffing of those gauzy skirts. "Like do you want shoes off in your kitchen? Do we sit and eat here or go out to the living room?"

Her bag goes over the back of her seat, slung off a post. "Little rituals surround food and socialising. You're the main one determining what we do. Any guest worth their salt, like Steve, will be paying attention. We all do it. Most of us never stop and think. Breaking down each bit is not easily done, even when you know what you are looking for, right?"

The tea comes to her lips. She watches him still, almost sleepy-eyed. Softened, disarmingly so, but while he masters staring, she values being underestimated.

She licks her lips. The dark tannins mix with the milk. The confusion gets to live there between them, unrushed for them to untangle. Drilling through being human takes a lifetime. Reinforcement there and then is a matter to overcome, and he doesn't intimidate her by those silence. "It's different. Not a bad thing. Little by little, you come up with what works best. So planning takes out the surprise and you know where can go. By mapping this out, you know what to expect or what to spread out into."

Just like a date. A murder. Studying. It's all alarmingly similar.

Another lick of her lips banishes the taste of the tea, glossy and wet. Black, because black is best for caffeine and the hit. "Let's talk about that. You invite him over. He comes. You plan on a few snacks like this?" It's practice. Walk with her, he can follow surely. "Going to put music on after he sits down? After you show him the place and that you have your own spot, where you can be you, and you're okay?"

James Barnes has posed:
    For just a second those pale blues refocus to Wanda's face, more to the point to the her lips, a little transfixed, maybe on glossy and wet? Or maybe Buck's not seeing them at all, hard to say with him.

    It might seem, for a moment, that he's going off on a completely different tangent. Given the still scrambled state of him, it's not uncommon that he does so... but this time, patience on her part will bring it full circle.

    "I was in a cabin. It was dream, but it wasn't. I knew it wasn't. Remembering, they came for me in a cabin." This last time, this time that their mucking with his head, scrambling his brain, re-digging holes that had been filled - well it didn't stick as hard as it did in the past. Maybe because it was only once before he was saved? Could be there's more to it than that?

    "I don't know where the cabin was, but I know... I was trying to get back to Siberia, to Zola. If I could kill him, then maybe I could kill the part of me that everyone hates and fears, the part of me that Steve... denies exists anymore." His voice drops to a whisper and the way he hangs his head a little makes it obvious that he's wishing his hair wasn't pulled back. "...how can I tell him that it does? Exist? That it always has?" ...but how can he not, and since there's no option but to tell him, how can he bear what he might see in his best friend's eyes after?

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Hard to know, hard to say.

Scrambled thoughts have their time to come back around one way or another. Wanda sips her tea, indulging in being quiet and sitting in the sunshine. She needs nothing more than this.

Is he happy? Has he gone wandering down the garden path and found herbs and veggies instead of a lawn, but both of these are still fine? Or is there a speed bump too big to take?

Is he afraid? Has the door opened to that shadowy space, barely retained images of besmirched brown walls and grimy windows where a dark-clad strike force comes in to take him down? They are dangerous things, memories, muddled like the bottom of a lake full of sediment.

The steady assurance from her might be a line to hold onto. A line to reel himself back to a sunny kitchen. "You are a complex man. After a century, I'd expect no less. It may be helpful to remember Steve spent seventy years in cryostasis." She pinpoints that fact with considerable solemnity. "You spent yours in another situation, and separating your time in the Soviet Union from now. You are the sum of those years. You cannot be reduced to three or four separate individuals. You are not Bucky Barnes, first sergeant, age twenty-four. The Winter Soldier, 1963. Bucky Barnes, survivor, one hundred and four."

A sweep of her hand creates a shot line of red across the ground, and he is not imagining it. It exists in sparkling detail, threads spiralled with energy. "The Bucky from Brooklyn before the start of the war is still you, but you are not *him*. People change. You absorbed all your experience. Even what you forgot is still a piece and part of you. We can be ashamed of having darker impulses. It's not something you hide from, or else you are less whole. The energy put into denying or repressing that shard means you are forever spending time not being you, and the trauma chalked up to that sickens and wounds. It can kill. You die by inches not being who you are, but it's a little death. Steve may not like it because of *guilt*."

Her green eyes widen, seeking his to grasp that fundamental fact. "When someone you care about, someone you love, gets hurt, it's easy to blame yourself. For all the things you meant to do and didn't. Maybe he looks your way and sees how things might have went differently if the Soviets didn't get you, and hopes you have the full happy life he wanted you to have after the war. This is a second chance. Maybe he wants you to have the sun and moon, and that's a valid wish. It doesn't matter what he wants, me want, anyone but you. You has to hear the hard conversations that you went through something and you are that something, but so much more. You have not decided fully where your life takes you now but you need the support to become that, instead of being pruned back to fit a person who never existed in the first place, any more than my father was a loving family man in a suit who went to work in the city everyday, nine to five. I got the pro-mutant, megalomaniacal egoist who will rip apart time and space for his children. We have our understanding. Does it make us any less? No."

James Barnes has posed:
    "It wasn't his fault though," Buck mumbles, but he does get it, feeling guilt over things he couldn't possibly have changed or controlled, he gets that in spades. He falls silent and settles in to picking apart his second Twinkie absently, something to do with his hand. It'll be reduced to a crumbled pile of gooey filling and preternaturally moist cake before he's done. Seriously, those things are either supernatural or a failed science project, but he does love them.

    It's a lot to think about, too much at one time truth be told, so, he brushes his hand off on a napkin, and looks up to the ceiling. "Alexa, shuffle play Grease." While he's waiting for the woman in the walls to cue up the proper tracks, he stands and kicks off those slides.

    When music flows through speakers strategically hidden throughout the house, the first in the shuffle is 'You're the One That I Want'. But really Buck? *Grease*? It's silly, it's fun and maybe a little silly fun is in order while he tries to process the 'Steve' situation.

    With a dazzling smile, all dimples, pearly whites and pale blues dancing, he holds out hand to Wanda. "Dance with me?" No, it's not even that, there's not much question to the end of it, it's more a statement. He might not take no for an answer easily.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"That doesn't make a difference," says the Witch about fault. "He lost what mattered. You relive the one failure and how you could have made it right. That's not your problem to face, it is his. I am guessing. But understanding other people have reasons driving their actions is important as a level-set for your own, isn't it? The two of you might have the very same goal, that you live 'well.' You may not see eye-to-eye on how that's done."

While he destroys Twinkies, she finally nudges a pastry her way and picks up a knife if any to break it all down. He then picks a questionable musical number and the only redemption is Olivia Newton-John, isn't it? Her eyebrows rise. Yes, his tastes are suspect but they'll do. "You know your opinion is the one that matters? You repeat it to yourself. It will sound strange. Do it anyway. Affirm to yourself: 'my opinion matters.'"

She pops the bit of pastry, just the flaky point, into her mouth. Is there a napkin? Now it's stained and abused by a crumpled handful to clean her fingers off, bringing none of those buttery, sticky stains into the act of dancing. His hands may be messy with dried paint, but that doesn't give anyone leave to add another glistening layer to metal or flesh. Especially unkind to break guest right that way!

The chair tries to trip her up but she nudges it away. Her dress swirls in abundant rippled movement. "I think I know how to do this one. See, you made a good transition. Shut the door on something you are done with, give a good diversion. Do you feel bad about it or is this not a little fun to be able to say 'enough, my terms?'"

James Barnes has posed:
    Still with that big old smile to soften any bite to his words, Buck says, "Just shuddup about it already, and you don't 'know how to do it', you just *do* it." And, well, he just does it. First he pulls her close in a little twirl of a spin but then he breaks away.

    The place is small, it really is, that must means that ever available inch needs to be utilized for this little diddy.

    From a drop to his knees over how 'electrifying' she is, to back on his feet and off, he'll lead - if she catches on to it - Wanda through a silly, ridiculous dancing jaunt that takes them through the whole house, the *whole* house. At one point he's on the back of one of the love-seats, then the kitchen table that he steps off of onto the back of a chair, it tilts, he steps off just before it falls over; it clatters back into place nicely behind him. Shimmies, shakes, snapping fingers, tapping foot, pulling her close, spinning her away again to be off once more about the house. He even sings the damned song, not overly well, but not so far off key that cats outside are joining in or dogs howling.

    He's either an amazing choreographer or it's simply fate that has him spinning her toward him at the end of the song... only to have 'Hopelessly Devoted to You' come up as the next track. He doesn't let go after that spin in, in fact he pulls her a little closer. Just an innocent slow dance between friends, right?

    ...until about halfway through the song when his right hand strays to the side of her face to cup her cheek and brush a thumb there, feather light. His intent would be known, maybe, before it happens... but Buck doesn't ask permission before he kisses her.

    It's only been a few weeks, it might seem inappropriate? But a few weeks spent as close as they've been; her almost living in his head? Well, it lends a feeling of it being a whole lot longer than a scant twenty days or so.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
The ditty in question demands a lot more legwork and armwork that other songs of its era, at least those before it. Olivia and John started a trend, didn't they?

"Are you telling me to shut up?" Wanda asks, her eyes widening. None of the red hue, though, that gives away most of the time when someone is deeply in trouble. Then again, the predictable signature actually isn't.

She's in sock feet so any amount of dancing has to bear in mind the risk for actually slip-sliding all over the place. Bucky has more connection to the floor. His slide brings a look of amusement, a laugh following when she bends forward like she might bow. Nope. He gets a light suggestion of a kick.

But then he has to start mincing or jauntily around the place, and that's just terrible. No funhouse of horrors to include, so she wiggles her hips and twirls for her skirt to run in dangerous waves. Spandex went out of style for a reason, didn't it? A strutting stride isn't the only option, arms in the air, shoulders shaken and some kind of twirl put in there now and then. Truth is, she lacks of any idea about what she should be doing, but doing shimmies and little shifting punches is easy enough for manage.

Now, if Saturday Night Fever enters the equation, they're back to Boogie Nights and the eponymous night club. Wanda is seriously in Club Brothers Gibb, thank you. Rhythm is the best she can bring, leaving the singing to him, tossing her head a little bit.

Spin and plucked like a dizzy flower, and what exactly is Bucky going to do with that? The obligatory shuffle of the song needs an advance nudge, but she doesn't ever get to invoke the electric lightshow. The universe can't say 'You Should Be Dancing,' because they already are! Bit redundant without rolling his arms or mincing around some spotlit squares. Truly, the 70s were horrible and magical.

But maybe he's going to deal with that startled 'mrm?' present when he runs his thumb over her cheek, and the wobbly thread snaps. Yeah, smooth. On par with Travolta not splitting his pants practically breakdancing in front of a cconstellation of New York glitterball people. It doesn't stop a response, tentative at first, to that kiss. Taken a little aback, since she can't see *everything*.

<<I'm obligated to tell you this is an ethical violation were I a professional.>> Her tone is more than a little amused. <<I'm not. But be sure you do it for the right reasons. I can't tell you what those are.>>