8420/Gee, Where's That Hank Guy

Gee, Where's That Hank Guy
Date of Scene:	20 July 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Bucky, with Steve in attendance, finds Hank at the bar mentioned by one cat-suited thief and gets to appreciate the retired CIA agent's tales of his hunting for the Winter Solider. Hank, by the way, is an excellent karaoke singer.
Cast of Characters:	Winter Soldier, Captain America

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Winter Soldier has posed:
So, in one of their recent sessions of bike restoration, Buck recounted his encounters with Madame La Chat Noir.....and asked if Steve wanted to come along when he went to the address she mentioned. If it's a dive full of old spooks, well, there could be trouble.

So now it's early evening, barely dinner time, as they stand before the bar. The neon shamrock glows brightly, and there's kind of an Irish feel to what decor can be seen on the outside. "Here we are," Buck says. No bouncers, so he simply shoulders in. He's in t-shirt, jeans, the sleeve over the arm. No Lili - she's memorable, and he's not sure he wants to be remembered here.

Captain America has posed:
Given there could be trouble, of course Steve came along. He'd given his oldest friend an even look over the seat of the aged motorcycle they had been working over, but sighed and nodded his assistance in matters.

He follows behind Bucky with a faint frown on his features. There's no bouncers to be seen and the bar's not fully packed with patrons just yet. The swinging hour's not yet upon the place. The bartender looks up from wiping out empty pint glasses and gives them both a friendly smile not out of place at any drinking establishment in the world: welcoming to a degree.

"What can I get you gents?" he asks, pausing and resting his weight forwards on the counter behind the bar.

There's a karaoke machine quiet in the corner next to a small stage where local bands must come and play. The tables are tall, three seats to each round table, and a few are filled. The two men entering get appraising looks a-piece.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Buck settles carefully at the bar, making sure he's got his balance on the stool. "Jack and coke, please," he says, politely. Not obviously surveying the place - it's more the subtle glances of an agent casing somewhere new. Where are the entrances and exits? What's near him that could be a weapon? What kind of people are here?

To Steve, he says, gently, "Get what you like, Grant, I'm buyin'."

Captain America has posed:
"Sure thing, Buchannan. Same," he tells the bartender, echoing Bucky's order as he takes up the stool next to him. Making certain there's room to turn on a dime without slamming knee to knee, he marks his friend's scoping of the place. Nonchalantly, he does the same.

It's not a huge place and the exits are clearly marked to the front and back, a bright red EXIT sign above the hallway in case of the latter. The decor is cheery...almost too cheery. There's more color than usual and no true coherent theme but for 'tropical' at best. The weapons at hand are myriad: bar stools and chairs, metal napkin holders, shotglasses of toothpicks...the heavy-looking mask on the wall shaped like the love-child of a pineapple and a third-grader's depiction of Santa. Creativity matters!

The bartender returns with their drinks fairly quickly, within the minute, and delivers them with a bigger, whiter smile. "So. You boys are new faces. What brings you in?"

Winter Soldier has posed:
Winter Soldier takes a sip of his drink, before answering, "I'm actually looking for a guy named Hank." His grin is sheepish, aware of how vague it sounds. "Older guy, gray hair. Eighties? I think. Friend of a friend...." He waggles a hand vaguely in the air, looking as guileless as he can. He doesn't have Steve's 'I Am Trustworthy' halo, but he can manage 'not overtly threatening', at least.

Captain America has posed:
Steve, sipping at his liquor, merely thumbs towards Bucky rather than stop from drinking at the highball glass. The bartender nods and rises onto his toes behind the counter, squinting.

"Hank... Mmm, not in just yet, but..." and the man pauses to look at the watch at his wrist. "Any time now. Friend of a friend? Hank's been coming around here a long time. He's a regular. Folks love him. He can croon a mean Sinatra if he puts his mind to it. Either of you sing?" He glances between the two soldiers. "We're starting karaoke in about fifteen."

Winter Soldier has posed:
He shakes his head at that. He's learned what karaoke is....but has never tried it. "Nah," Buck's voice is quiet. A glance at Steve - he's reassured by that comment. "Couldn't carry a tune in a bucket."

Captain America has posed:
Steve, under scrutiny, gives a good-ol'-boy kind of smile. "Sing like a crow's swallowed a rusty wrench," he shares (by which we mean, lies) with a little shrug.

"Aw, a loss. Still, not a sin when you can still applaud for anyone who tries. Wait until you hear Richie. He can do a great impression of Madonna." The bartender grins. "But yeah, give Hank about fifteen minutes. He's pretty timely. He'll be glad to see your faces, given you're a friend of a friend." Dark eyes run up and down Bucky and then Steve as well. "Hell, anybody would be glad to see your faces," he adds before moving down the bar to take another patron's order.

The Captain glances over at Bucky. "You wanna linger?" he asks sotto-voce.

Winter Soldier has posed:
This is a lot friendlier than he's used to New York being. The bartender's puzzled him - Buck cuts his eyes to Steve, as if the blond might know more. Does this guy recognize Steve? Usually they start asking for pictures immediately. "I wanna see if this is the Hank we're lookin' for."

Captain America has posed:
"Alright. Well...somebody's going to ask you to do some karaoke. I'm safe," the Captain informs his oldest friend with concrete certainty. In fact, they've already garnered more attention than when they initially arrived. A handful of young men not too much younger than them, all sleekly-dressed in either inner-city professional or ESU student gear are pointing without hiding it at the pair.

The bartender's grinning to himself and glancing up at Bucky again even as he fills the pint glass with a light beer from the tap. The patron down the way, older than both Steve and Bucky (at least in looks if not actual age) smiles to himself before looking down at the napkin set for his arriving drink.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Buck says, very quiet, "They're gonna figure out it's you pretty quick, I bet. You're sitting there like a Sherman tank made outta brass." His tone is apologetic. Steve may handle the public scrutiny with grace and aplomb, but that doesn't mean it's fun for him.

He's nursing the drink - it's basically bourbon-flavored soda, for all the good it does him. Doing that thing where he glances down and left, in search of the dog who isn't here.

Captain America has posed:
"'m pretty sure they already know it's me. I've seen a selfie taken over someone's shoulder in the reflection off my glass," Steve informs the brunet with a hint of patient forlorn. "But Janet's all over social media. Nobody's gonna ask me to do karaoke." Is that...an eat-shit quirk of a grin at the corner of Steve's mouth?

Maybe.

The front door swings open and in comes an...older woman wearing skin-tight faux-leather clothing in luridly bright colors. Her wig is curling blonde hair, golden-red, and her lipstick on-par with a shiny Macintosh apple. She's even got a beauty mole on her upper lip.

"Hank! You're right on time," the bartender calls out, his tenor voice carrying in a warm singsong. Hey, this guy //should// do karaoke. "Got some friends here to meet you!"

"It's Honri," replies Hank in a light accented voice despite his age as he saunters towards the bar. His steps are expert in his high heels. "Who wants to talk to me?"

Bucky and Steve are pointed at with glee by the bartender. "These two handsome devils."

"I'll say..." replies Hank with a down and up look-over of both men.

Steve pastes his Public Smile on his face with a tenacity that could survive a nuclear apocalypse.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The look on Buck's face - he hasn't been that blank since Loki yanked Winter out by the roots. He's not horrified or shocked or surprised. He's just.....not *there* for about three beats.

Then he recovers....and he smiles. It isn't a smile for public use like Steve's. A kind of rueful acknowledgement, the look of a man who sees that this has all been an elaborate set up for a joke, and he's the butt. Not even angry. Just amused.

But....is this guy the right age, behind all the maquillage? "Honri," he acknowledges, recovering his balance. "I'm Jim, this is Grant. Ah, a little black kitty told me that in a past life, you used to work for the Company." He uses the old euphemism for the CIA, looking into those meticulously painted eyes searchingly.

Captain America has posed:
'Grant' lifts a hand in a short wave and then immediately puts his drink back to his lips as if it might stop him from making a fool of himself somehow. Hank folds his arms and taps a heeled toe on the linoleum floor.

"I used to work for the Company. You want to talk shop? Georgie, my usual," says 'Honri' with a snap-snap of painted fingernails at the bartender and then he turns to walk away towards one of the booths tucked into the back corner of the place. It's great for watching every person who comes in as well as eyeing up the exits and weapons -- just like a CIA agent might do. Old habits die hard.

"After you, Jim," murmurs Steve with a toss of his head towards the departing Hank.

Winter Soldier has posed:
"I'm buying," Bucky mouthes at Georgie, as he gets up to follow. Nevermind the assortment of eyes following their movements. It's like the hall of ghostly portraits in the Haunted Mansion.

Buck's a hulking brute by comparison to his new drinking companion. He lets Honri pick a seat first, before seating himself. ....ladies first? Anyone who can manage those heels qualifies.

Captain America has posed:
Georgie nods and winks at Bucky by way of acknowledgement. The Tokyo Tea is on the brunet with the melancholy eyes.

The blond Captain is Bucky's shadow as they travel and Steve seats himself last, on the edge of the U-shaped booth. Hank is centrally to the back, queen of proceedings, and looks between the two younger(-looking) gentlemen with a red-lipped smirk.

"So, heard about old Hank's exploits and want a tale? They're thrilling. But you have to keep things hush-hush," the man explains before he puts a finger before his mouth. Definitely hush-hush...until he gets to drinking. No wonder Felicia overheard him.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Instincts and training say....get him drunk. Hell, play up to what he suspects Hank's preferences may be. But.....he's got his enormous blond Jiminy Cricket right there, so no playing real dirty. "We're silent as the grave," Buck assures him, gently.

Captain America has posed:
"Couldn't convince us to make a peep," Steve echoes as sentiment and mimes locking his lips and tossing the key over his shoulder. Hank grins, flashing teeth yellowed at the corners in age, and sits back in the booth.

"Ask away then, my little chickadees. I don't know this little black cat you're talking about though, Jim," he informs Bucky. "If that's a euphamism for something, it's a new one to me."

Winter Soldier has posed:
"Young lady - hair so blonde it's pretty much white, big, green eyes," Buck offers, in his low voice. "That's the nickname she goes by."

He cuts another look at Steve, says, after a beat, "What's your craziest story?"

Captain America has posed:
"Ohhhhhhhhhh." Hank slaps a palm on the table. Steve makes a grab for his drink and shakes the excess slosh from his fingers after the surface rocks enough. "You mean Fifi, Georgie's cousin twice-removed. Or was she his ex-boyfriend's old roomate? I haven't seen her for a while. She's a scamp, but oh, the way she wears a shirt." He whistles. "It makes a man jealous."

Steve sips his drink sedately, eyeing Bucky over the edge of the glass at this news.

"My craziest story? I've got a really good one. None of mine are crazy." Bucky gets a pursing of lips and frown. Georgie saves the day by delivering the Tokyo Tea at the table. "Oh Georgie, you're the bee's knees," Hank simpers. Georgie simply salutes with two fingers from his brow and returns to his task.

Hank takes a deep, deep...deeeeeeeep sip of his drink before smacking his lips. No lipstick lingers on the glass -- it's the sturdy stuff. "I bet you boys are too young to know about the Winter Soldier," he then whispers, now looking halfway between conspiratorial and worried.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Ooh, the bartender's another lead? Interesting. Fifi. Forsooth. A glance back at the man behind the bar, but then Buck turns those blue eyes on Hank again. "Yeah, I was kinna wondering if her superpower was not falling out of her top. I haven't seen cleavage like that in.....years." He spreads his hands.

He's brought his Jack and Coke with him, sips from it. Half tempted to ask Hank what brand he wears, Peggy might like to know. "I've heard of 'im," he says, casually. "But he's another of those internet conspiracy things, right? Like, I dunno, the Loch Ness Monster used to be. The sites I found .....they make it sound like he assassinated every dead politician since Caesar."

Captain America has posed:
The blond Jiminy Cricket peers somewhere off over Bucky's shoulder at the artwork hanging on the wall and sips his drink, content to keep his thoughts to himself on the potential superpowers of chestly chastity.

Hank gasps, a hand rising to land on his sternum in shock at Bucky's claims. Overhead lights gloss over his violently-purple manicure. "You believe all the shit on the internet, Jim? You can't. You're old enough to know better..." His carefully-done eyes drag along Bucky again. Of course it's a come-on, with the finisher being an unspoken, " -- and young enough not to care". If only Hank knew how he was the spring chicken here. "Hmph. The Winter Soldier's real. I saw him myself, once in Baltimore and again in D.C., right before Kennedy was assassinated. Look...you know the story behind him, right? He was Steve Rogers' friend, Bucky Barnes. If you go to the Smithsonian, it's there on the wall -- Barnes fell in the Alps, they never found him. You know who did? Somebody else. Can't tell you who, but he came out as something else. Not human. Government wants to say he's a ghost." Hank's gotten steadily more and more quiet, increasingly strained at the edges of his composure. "He's not a ghost. He's real as you and me, silver arm and all."

Steve, at this point, looks incredibly somber.

Winter Soldier has posed:
How does he not realize what he's looking at? Buck's not in disguise - no makeup, no facial hair. His hair's longer, pulled back....and there's the living human expression there, now. Maybe that's what makes all the difference: the animating spirit. Because Hank isn't looking at the Soldier.

He's looking at Bucky Barnes.

"He'd have to be, wouldn't he? A guy who fought in World War Two? He'd be in a nursing home, now, if he wasn't dead in a ditch....how d'you account for that?"

Captain America has posed:
"Because I was also the junior lead agent on his case until '88," says Hank, starting to sound a little querulous. "He was moving like a cat with his tail on fire back when Kennedy was dropped, but we couldn't get a bead on him. Nobody who fell down a mountainside moves like that. I wasn't fast enough, but I got a glimpse of his arm. Silver, metal, with the star on the bicep. Damned Ruskie." The retired CIA agent looks like he wants to spit, but is far too refined in his current guise to merit this.

Steve continues to be silent, watching his oldest friend with a quiet light of beseeching warning in his eyes.

Hank kills half of his Tokyo Tea in one sitting. "They took me off the case in '88 because I got too close," he grouses, frowning down into his drink.

Winter Soldier has posed:
This guy may be retired, spend his evenings in glittering drag, crooning his old favorites. But there are agents in good suits with cold eyes and quick trigger fingers who are still in the Company...and some of them might be inclined to listen, when old Hank calls in his last favors. Yes, he may have SHIELD at his back, but even SHIELD can't defend him from the high caliber bullet at long range.

So Buck's reconsidering any thought of revealing himself - no popping up like a plastic Halloween ghoul. All he says, gently, is "Yeah?"

Captain America has posed:
"Yes. The bastards pulled me off it because I was getting too close and would've caught the sneaky son of a bitch if I'd been given another week. Prague. I had him //cornered// in Prague, and then they recall my entire unit because of some political rally in D.C." Hank finishes off the Tokyo Tea and, on an empty stomach, he's already wobbling in his seat.

Up on the stage, Georgie's readying the karaoke machine. The microphone squeals and someone nearby heckles him; he fires back something and laughter erupts.

"The Winter Soldier is real," the retired agent insists with a smack of his glass against the table. Steve is holding his drink up this time and, as such, as not privy to another slosh over his fingers. By his expression, this is a small miracle.

Winter Soldier has posed:
He remembers Prague. The castle and the bridge and his pulse in his throat, the net drawing tighter and tighter and tighter. Operation Danube saved him, turned the place into a roil of conflict with the American and British agents nearly all pulled out.

Buck licks lips gone dry, no matter Jack Daniel's best efforts, and says, very quietly, "He *was*. He's dead. He died in a SHIELD facility this last winter. They caught him in Canada and brought him in and....they were trying to see if they could get him well enough to talk. But there was that sleeping sickness that was going around? You remember that? He wasn't immune. Strange to think of, huh? Live by the sword, die in bed without ever waking up."

Captain America has posed:
Thank god for the growing tumult of the bar filling around them and the hecklers moving up towards the stage for the incipient round of karaoke. Steve inhales quietly despite himself, his nostrils gone white around the edges. His eyes slide to Hank.

The old CIA agent is squinting hard at Bucky now. "Nobody drops that acronym without a pair of brass balls or an ID card. He can't be dead, he's immortal. You're just yanking my chain like everybody else does around here," Hank claims, his voice rising garrulously in his drink. Steve winces. "Primped up little asshole, with your hair pulled back. You don't know jack!"

"Honri! Honri, you must sing for us!!!" The shout comes from across the room from a middle-aged man in a snazzy bright-red dress shirt. "I want to hear you do 'You Make Me Feel So Young'!"

Winter Soldier has posed:
Time to depart. Even stopped clocks are right twice a day, as the saying goes. Buck gives Hank a little inclination of his head, a duellist saluting a worthy opponent. "Your public's waiting." Then he's slipping out of the booth, tilting his head at the door. Steve's seen that signal so many times before.

A pause to take care of their tabs, leave a very generous tip, and he's gone out the door.

Hank will wake days later in the bitter watches of a New York night, and realize that the last time he met that gaze, it was over a muzzle.

Captain America has posed:
"Hmph!" Bucky is summarily dismissed and Steve shooed out of the booth by the manicured hands. Hank's public indeed awaits. The blond Captain scoots to one side, thankful for his drink not sloshing a final time for the alacrity of the man's exit and prima-donna stomp to the stage. Once there, Hank seems to forget entirely what he was just discussing and really...he does shine. His voice is mellow, rounded, and nearly an exact imitation of Sinatra.

"You make me feel so young," he croons, grinning over the mic. "You make me feel that spring has sprung -- and everytime I see your face, I'm such a happy - in-dividual..."

Steve leaves the bar to the end of the chorus and looks at his oldest friend. "So..." he says on a sigh, hands in the pockets of his coat. "Curiosity assuaged...? Or am I going to catch you back here for karaoke night looking for Fifi...?" He gives Bucky a searching look, not yet ready to be amused on his account.

Winter Soldier has posed:
"I'm gonna find Fifi elsewhere," There's that low, growling note in his voice....and Buck's found cigarettes and lighter, lighting up even as he stalks for the subway. But he snorts laughter, once he's got the ember glowing. "I was fucking lucky," he says, with precisely no deference for Steve's innocent ears. "Sounded like a good time - scare some old man, y'know, hear the old war stories. I was an idiot. That guy and his team nearly got me. I can remember it - the CIA in the 60s was no joke. Madame Henri there had a hard-on for Winter like you wouldn't believe...." He blows a long plume of smoke at the halo of the nearest street lamp.

Captain America has posed:
Karaoke continues to filter in and out of hearing as patrons arrive and leave the place, looking for the two good-looking gents who had the balls to pester old Hank. The two gents in question are far down the block at this point, enough that even super-soldier ears have to strain to hear what song is being sung. Steve squints off down the street at nothing in particular as he walks.

"I believe it," the Captain offers solemnly, his voice subdued. "Glad I came with, in case things had gone sideways."