[ Brooklyn ] a new beginning

[from_the_outside]

Going down to DC has been a much easier prospect ever since she bought the condo and had it furnished (and adapted) to her specifications. It gives them a place to settle that isn't the hotel; a place that's theirs, that feels like home. There are cat toys and a tree for Alpine and dog toys for the little gray bully who'd moved directly into their hearts and home, and it's lighter and airier than the Brooklyn apartment but feels just as much like home.

Because he's there. That's the secret ingredient.

She wakes up slow, light diffused through the white linen shades she'd had installed in their bedroom, and rolls over to find Bucky's side of the bed still warm but rumpled and empty.

A deep breath in, and she rubs at her eyes, stretching over the bed to eye the door and the sounds beyond it. "Baby?" she calls. Her voice is gritty with sleep, and she takes a second to clear it. "Are you heading out for a run?

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

"Maybe. Although Val strikes me as cunning enough to keep one hand from knowing what the other's doing."

He scowls, stabbing the toast a little too hard.

[from_the_outside]

She watches as he attacks his toast, reaching for her coffee. "Then I guess I should make that the top priority to find out."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I hate to agree." Bucky looks up from his plate and into her eyes. "But I think we need to know. I think the world needs to know."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon frowns at him, the coffee paused mid-way to her lips.

"What do you mean, the world?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"If it was just a matter of stopping her - you and I both know there are ways to do that."

Bloody, brutal, deadly ways.

"But that's not who we are." Not any more. "So I was thinking about other ways to handle her, and others like her."

[from_the_outside]

And at last they're back to where they were back in the bedroom, but she hadn't push too hard to get there. A good sign, she thinks.

Sharon sips her coffee, finally, and sets it down again. "I'm all ears."

[nerves_of_ice]

He draws a slow, deep breath. Once he says it aloud it'll become something more than a crazy idea he mulls over in the dark hours of the morning before sunrise. It'll be real, one way or another.

"I was thinking I might run for Congress."

[from_the_outside]

...She's really glad she'd put down her coffee.

"Sorry, did you say you want to run for Congress?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky nods.

"Do you think it's a stupid idea?"

[from_the_outside]

"I think it's a pretty complicated idea," she hedges.

Stupid? Maybe not. But she's not the one who knows how it might work. "Walk me through it?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Definitely complicated," he agrees. "And don't get me wrong, I want you to poke holes in it. If I'm going to do this, assuming I can even win, I'm going to need to do everything right."

He sighs and leans back in his chair. "I was thinking that getting into Congress would give me access to information and contacts, not to mention the right to call for accountability in ways that would be hard to avoid by a player like her. And she's not the only one. We've seen too many people using politics as a route to twist and use and destroy others. Why not as a counter to that?"

[from_the_outside]

Her eyebrows push up and she nods, acknowledging. "It's not a bad idea to turn the tables with a strategy the other side's been using. But you can't just get into Congress and use it for intel. You'd have to occasionally act like a Congressman."

She shakes her head at him, not arguing, just uncertain. "You've been trying so hard to stay under the radar. This would put you back in the spotlight. Are you sure you're okay with that?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk it over with you. If I go through with this, even if I lose - to some degree, it'd still put us both in the spotlight."

Bucky finishes his coffee and sets the empty cup aside. "But someone needs to do something. Sam can't carry it all alone. And I don't think hiding in the shadows is going to be enough."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon reaches for her coffee, tapping a fingernail idly against the cardboard as she thinks, her gaze turning inward for a moment. "Neither of us will stand up to much scrutiny right now," she murmurs. "I'm going to have to do some scrubbing to make sure nothing comes to light that we don't want out there."

[nerves_of_ice]

He leans forward and reaches for her free hand, squeezing her fingers gently. "I don't want to make things difficult for you. In any way."

[from_the_outside]

She curls her fingers around his without hesitation, giving him a small but warm smile as she shakes her head. "I know you don't, baby. But don't worry about that, it's just logistics."

The harder part is... everything else. "Do you really think you want to have to run for office, though? The speeches and everything else?"

Although... her mind mulls it over as she asks the question. That might not be the only way.

[nerves_of_ice]

"It's not my favorite thing, but I used to be pretty good at talking to people." Bucky grimaces. "Although that was a while ago. Still, I figured I could get back into the swing of it."