milliways_bar | (no subject)

When Bucky reports for KP as ordered, he finds to his bemusement that the Milliways kitchen (at least during the major meal shifts) is run by a small team of rats. He does his best to explain his sentence to the one who seems to be orchestrating everything while waving a wooden spoon.

Either they understand him better than he does them, or it's not the first time someone's been sent down for this kind of service. He suspects it's the latter.

Eventually it all gets sorted out, and Bucky finds himself with instructions to bus tables and wash dishes as needed. One of the rats brings him a large industrial apron; after a couple of minutes of protest, he gives up and ties it on over his fatigues, grateful that he's only wearing an army-issue shirt and pants, but not his jacket.

Whistling cheerfully, he sets to work, alternating between washing up each batch of dishes in the kitchen by making rounds through the bar to clear tables.

[ooc: Bucky's sentence is a week long, and hence this post is open all week! Catch him in the kitchen, in the bar, or anywhere in between. All tags will be answered, with occasional breaks for needs of the mun's RL schedule. Thanks!]

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"You shot one of them."

Mike repeats it on the off chance he misheard.

"With a gun."

"My sidearm," Bucky confirms. "My rifle wouldn't have been any good in that situation, even if I'd been able to reach it."

He shrugs his right shoulder, as if testing the weight of a weapon that's not there.

"I warned them first."

"Yeeeaaaah, chances are good they didn't hear that warning."

Goodness knows Mike didn't, when he was warned. He doesn't realize he's doing it, but his right hands comes up to rub at his left shoulder.

"I know that now..."

His glance follows the motion.

"Did you get hit?"

Mike blinks in surprise, until he realizes where his hand is, and then lowers it.

"I did, yeah. I've decided not to do that again."

Bucky offers him a wry smile.

"Probably a good plan."

"I have my moments of clarity and brilliance. Sadly they usually come after the fact."

"Better late than never?"

"Anyway, figured you should know, in case anyone decides to hold a grudge."

This is about the point where Mike begins to make this rather undignified whining noise.

"I'm going to have to go talk to them, aren't I?"

"... I don't know."

Bucky looks a little alarmed by this.

"Don't feel you have to on my account, if it's a problem, man."

"No it's just...the right thing to do. They kind of freak me out."

"Just between you and me," he confides, "they kind of freak me out too."

He grimaces again.

"Especially when they're using night-sight equipment and throwing bolos."

"If you think that's weird, you should have seen what they did to my friend Indy."

"Yeah? What'd they do?"

"No joking, they encased him in a bar of chocolate, like Han Solo in Carbonite."

"..."

Those faces Bucky was making before? They've got nothing on the one he's making now.

"I did see that, actually. From the inside of my own bar."

"...no way."

"Believe me, I wish I were kidding. Chocolate's issued with every C-rat, and I can't even stand the smell right now," Bucky informs him, sourly.

"Who's this Han Solo guy, and what the hell is carbonite?"

Mike is not leaning slightly in Bucky's direction to sniff at the air. And it's certainly not because Indy smelled like chocolate for weeks after being bar'd, regardless of how much the explorer showered.

"He's a scruffy looking nerf-herder of a smuggler. One day a local crimelord that he owed money to caught up with him and encased him in carbonite. It's like...freezing someone with liquid nitrogen if that liquid nitrogen then went solid and metal-like."

Bucky stares at him.

"... did he survive?"

It's only after the weight of the stare builds up that Mike realizes he's talking to BUCKY BARNES about being frozen in suspended animation by bad guys.

"oh....oh yeah, there's some temporary blindness, but he turns out okay. Even gets the girl."

His grin flashes, quick and bright.

"All's well that ends well, is that it?"

"If kick-butt princesses who once wore gold chain mail bikinis are your thing."

Mike's love of Leia's Gold Bikini and alcohol was ruined one day when a pocket dimension appeared unexpectedly.