The Winter Soldier blinked.

"Coffee?" he asked. The pepper spray had bumped her up half a degree in his threat assessment, but the offer of coffee was completely out of the blue.

"Yes, coffee. Delicious life-giving liquid. I haven't had enough of it today." She tucked her pepper spray away again and started walking, although slowly, giving him time to decide if he wanted coffee or not.

The decision wasn't a hard one.

"Sure," Bucky said, nodding once. He jogged a bit to catch up to her.

Kate grinned and tucked her arm through his as soon as he caught up, walking with him to her favorite hole-in-the-wall coffee place, and paying for both their coffees.

"Got any plans for the rest of the day?" she asked once they had their coffees and were sitting outside. It was nice out, after all, not too warm, and only a little chilly when the sun was hiding behind clouds.

"Plans?" He considered the word for a moment, weighing its definition against what his vocabulary typically held for him. Plans, plans... Missions? Possibly. "No," he finally said, "no plans."

"Good, I've got nothing going on for the rest of the day, and you look like you could use some fun and some food. Sounds like a good plan to me, anyway, after today." Kate grinned at him.

Barnes shrugged. It sounded like a good idea to him. He wasn't about to turn down an offer of food.

Kate ended up spending the whole day with him. Literally the whole day. She got food for them and they ended up walking around and going to Coney island, and she took several pictures. Including one of the giant bear he got for her.

What she didn't realize was that posting pictures of her "new awesome almost-hobo friend" to her Tumblr would cause a stir on the Internet. She was blissfully unaware of that as she and Barnes headed to find dinner.

The giant bear was easy to get. The Winter Soldier had to briefly wonder the point of such an easy game until he realized that the game was supposed to be rigged. Barnes took a bit of pleasure in winning the bear in one try.

Elsewhere, Selena was checking her dashboard during some downtime at work, and she saw the pictures of Kate and Kate's 'almost hobo.'

"Oh, that can't be good," she murmured.

Kate grinned and kept the bear with her, scoping out a food place for them. He could definitely use a few good meals. Or more than a few. He was definitely in good shape, but he looked kinda hungry.

"Do you like pizza? I feel like pizza. Plus we can get pizza to go."

"Please tell me it's not related to Tony," Pepper said, pausing momentarily to look at Selena. "If it's related to Tony, I may have to throttle him, and he's the best R&D monkey I have." She couldn't help but grin a bit, though, because she knew that if Tony heard that he'd have a fit.

"Pizza is acceptable," Barnes said, nodding a bit.

"No, it's not Mr. Stark," Selena said. She turned her tablet so Pepper could see it. "That's my friend Kate. Apparently she made a new friend."

"Awesome." Kate grinned and picked a pizza place she knew was good, looking at him for a moment before deciding to stick to simple for now. So she got a large pizza for them to share and, while waiting for it to finish, debated for a few minutes.

"Want to come back to my place to eat? It'll be quieter."

Pepper looked and paled a bit. "Does she know who her new friend is?" she asked, even as she pulled out her phone to text Steve and Tony both, because they needed to know.

The Winter Soldier considered that for a moment. Being away from the open sounded like a good idea, but he hadn't gotten any orders to do so. Barnes shook that thought off almost as soon as it registered, and nodded once.

"Okay," he said.

Selena blinked.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "I mean, it can't be a good thing that she found a hobo to drag around, but other than that..." She trailed off.

Kate beamed at that. "Awesome." She picked up their pizza when it was done and then walked with him out of the pizza place. "Did you have fun today?"

Pepper shook her head, because Selena had been around long enough that she knew things civilians weren't technically supposed to. "That's the Winter Soldier," she said.

Barnes momentarily froze at that. Was he even allowed 'fun' anymore? Did it still have some sort of meaning? Cautiously, he nodded.

"What?" Selena squeaked. She looked at the picture again. "Oh hell. What the hell, Kate? Why?" she said plaintively.

Kate pretty much just grinned like a loon. "Excellent. My place isn't far from here, you can hang out as long as you want, I've got nothing else I need to be doing."

Pepper nodded sympathetically. She kind of knew the feeling. "I'll let Tony and Steve know, they'll be able to find out where the two are, if he's still with your friend."

"Alright." Barnes was a bit neutral on the idea of going back with her, but he did owe her for feeding him, at least.

"I'm almost about to call her myself and ask what she was thinking," Selena said. "This is exactly why you don't mess with hobos, you never know who they might be."

Kate let him into her apartment, giving him time to settle down and relax after their day. She did put up a picture of the pizza they (mostly he) had devoured, though.

"Is she still putting up pictures?" Pepper asked, frowning. Now she was kind of worried, because it seemed like this girl was still with the Winter Soldier.

"Yeah, she is," Selena said, flipping through the string of posted pictures. "And that's the living room of her apartment. Oh hell, she took him home."

"That's... bad. That's very bad." Pepper bit her lip. "Try calling her, but don't ask about the Winter Soldier yet."

Selena nodded and tapped her screen, calling Kate.

"Pick up..." she murmured.

"Hey," Kate chirped, making more coffee and keeping half her attention on Barnes. "What's up?"

"I saw your tumblr," Selena said. "A hobo, Kate? Really?"

"He's nice," Kate said with a shrug. "He's got manners and he knows how to have fun. I had more fun with him today than I did on my last three dates."

"It could have been so much worse than it was," Selena pointed out. "Who knows what kind of wacko he could be?"