and now after some thinking, i'd say i'd rather be

[shapedthecentury]

WHO: Bucky Barnes, and his new housemates.
WHERE: In and around housing residence #024
WHEN: 11/22
WHAT: It's been a big day. Falling off a cliff, waking up in the future. Processing all this might take a while.
WARNINGS: Possible references to war, violence, etc. Updated as necessary.


At first, he thinks it's a trick. It has to be.

This place looks and smells and feels like America, and the people here could pass any test of authenticity, but that's impossible. How the Hell had he been out long enough to get stateside again? And why did everything look so alien, so foreign and futuristic? They said this was Florida for crying out loud, but it could have beat out any Pavilion at the World Expo back home.

Still, military keeps things simple. At least it's something familiar. He gets hustled along, processed like the others, gets his folder and eyes the back of his soldier escort the entire way out, not sure if he should say anything. This all still could be some kind of trap, or hallucination meant to get him to talk, right? But the longer he sits in silence on the ride to wherever it is they intend to keep him, the more he suspects it's not as simple as that.

His eyes fall to his wrist, thumb unthinkingly rubbing invisible letters. There's a lot of talk in his ear about swearing in and signing up for this government project for people like him. Whatever that's supposed to mean. A hero? Wise guys snagged the wrong guy for that, no question. But government? Sure. Guys who sent the lot of them overseas to die. They can trust them, no sweat.

They drop him off at a house and speed away, leaving him and his file and this thin hunk of plastic and glass that they tell him is a phone. How stupid does he look, really? He grips it tight in his hand and tucks it out of sight without fiddling with it once.

They're coming for him. The boys are coming for them, or he's going to wake up, but until then it just makes sense to push onward. He's on autopilot when he turns back to look up at that house looming over him. The other shoe's bound to drop soon. Still. It feels like being alive. That's a lot better than the alternative he swore he was facing.

Swallowing tightly, he puts a hand to the door handle.

Comments

[raincheck]

[ there's not much to do for steve in the weekends. he's more or less figured out how to be a pe teacher by now, and he likes most of his students. still, preparing for classes doesn't exactly take much time, and so his evenings and weekends are mostly spent keeping up with the network or wandering around town.

right now, he's sitting on the couch in the living room, drawing — and then the door opens and steve lifts his head to greet whichever one of his housemates is coming back, only to forget, for a long moment, that supersoldier or no, he still needs to breathe.

he knows bucky is alive, of course. he knows, even if the winter soldier didn't, doesn't remember him, even if he doesn't know where he is right now. ( he knows that the soldier fished him out of the potomac and that's all he needs, really. )

he knows bucky is alive, but he looks different now: long hair and rough voice, black leather and metal arm and blank gaze with little memory behind it. the man in front of him isn't that man.

it's like seeing a ghost, again. ] Bucky?

[shapedthecentury]

[ It's amazing how quickly he feels a sense of relief, like a taut cord snapping. It's visible in the sag of his shoulders as he lays sights on the man, looking for all the world like this is home now, and it can't help but color his view of everything that's happened so far. Everything he's been told.

Maybe they were telling the truth, after all. Maybe falling was just a dream, and this was reality now.

Part of him wants to stride over and get a grip on the big blond and shake him until his teeth rattle, or hug him. Part of him still remembers the sound of train tracks fading on the wind. Instead he smiles tightly, a little forced, and closes the door behind him with the flat of his palm. ]

Kid, what kind of mess did you get us into this time?

[raincheck]

[ there's something wrong, but not as wrong as things were before. it's in the tightness of bucky's smile, in the way he doesn't step away from the door just yet. there's a restraint in it that steve can understand — but that he can't manage himself, right now. ( that he doesn't want to manage, either. )

the moment bucky speaks, sounding like himself, sounding like he knows steve and remembers, steve is standing, the sketch pad dropped to the couch and the pencil clattering on the floor. steve pays it no mind; he crosses the distance to where bucky is and pulls him into a hug.

it's probably a little too hard. maybe it's too much, too. he doesn't care. ] I promise this isn't my fault.

[ he's missed bucky — but that doesn't take away that things are wrong. ] What's the last thing you remember before this place? [ comes out tight, more controlled than he feels. ]

[shapedthecentury]

[ If it hurts, he wouldn't say. How often has he hid things from Steve to protect him, to try and take the edge off the world? Little white lies like I'm fine and this girl will be different, I promise. It doesn't hurt enough to keep him from slinging his arms around Steve in turn, that's for damn sure, and he squeezes back for all he's worth. ]

Yeah, you say that now.

[ When he eases back to look at him he can see...something clouding his friend's face. Something's wrong, more so than waking up in a strange future-land where their future's been decided for them and there is no war. What happened while he was unconscious?

How long was he out, for that matter?

The last thing he remembers is a searing pain along his left side, and pain. Cold. He remembers Steve reaching, but not quite far enough. Swallowing, he shakes his head. ]

Us getting the mission to go after Zola. Gabe got a hold of one of their transmitters, we were trying to listen in on their orders before we boarded the train up in the mountain pass. Why?

[raincheck]

[ steve doesn't swear often, and he doesn't drink often, but the instinct to do both is there. of course, drinking wouldn't actually help at all, because he can't get drunk. couldn't even get drunk after his best friend fell off a train and died because for all of his superpowers, steve couldn't reach him, couldn't save him.

that he knows now that bucky didn't really die doesn't actually help. the things that were done to him — or the things that are going to be done to him, if what bucky says is right.

he can't quite bring himself to let go of bucky just yet. ] I'm sorry. [ for not reaching far enough, for not saving him, for everything. ] It's been — years since then for me.

[shapedthecentury]

Yeah, kind of feels that way, doesn't it?

[ It doesn't sink in immediately that he's being literal, even with the change in scenery and their supposed rule in this new, modern city. He just looks wryly understanding, squeezing Steve's arm before stepping back, getting a look at the house around them. ]

Now there's all this. You seem like you've settled in okay.

[ He moves to pick up the spilled art supplies, in the meanwhile. Giving his hands something to do might hide the fact that they're shaking, slightly. ]

[raincheck]

[ it doesn't just feel that way, but steve doesn't immediately correct bucky's assumption. instead, he lets his hands fall away from bucky to his side, a little uselessly in the face of bucky picking up the mess steve made.

that feels a bit like a metaphor for everything in their lives together. ] I woke up here a little over a month ago. It's not — it's not too bad, I suppose.

[ a long moment later, throat working: ] I've missed you.

[shapedthecentury]

A month?

[ Even that seems like a stretch, though as good as he feels, maybe that's the truth of it. Maybe it just took that long for his body to piece itself back together again. It never occurs to him for a second that they're on different wavelengths, that Steve's gone and seen the future -- his future -- while he's still stuck in the past.

When he hands the pad and pencil back over, he can see the way Steve's struggling to keep it together. So another tight smile gets pulled across his lips. ]

Don't go getting sappy on me now. Come on. Tell me what happened.

[ There's a nod towards the couch. Well, one of them's going to keep it together, even if he has to fake calm all the way there and back again. ]

[raincheck]

[ it's wrong — it shouldn't be bucky who keeps it together while steve is falling apart. bucky's the one who fell, and it was steve's fault. bucky's the one who fell, and bucky's the one who was captured and tortured and turned into someone he's not, and if steve had only been a little faster, none of it would have happened.

it shouldn't be bucky being strong right now, but steve, and so he forces something like a smile on his lips as well, even if it feels like it'll crumble any second, and he takes the pad and pencil from bucky and sets them aside. he sits, and then pats the empty spot on the couch next to him.

if bucky can be strong, what right does steve have to be anything less? ] You probably want to sit down for this as well, Buck.

[fridgeflower]

[ Laurie's got the TV on as background noise while she does some homework, sitting cross-legged at the coffee table in the living room. (Well, it's not entirely background noise. It's also a program that she happens to like, and she pauses every once in a while to absorb what's happening plot-wise.) Seeing a stranger enter the house isn't new, but it's still causes a moment of slight upset in her every time. She looks up expecting to find another, familiar housemate, but instead she gets... Well, someone else.

They do have a vacant room, though. ]

Uh... Hi. New in town?

[shapedthecentury]

[ He smiles loosely, brow raising as he steps inside and lets the door shut. ]

Yeah. Guess you could say that. Name's Bucky.

[ His eyes flicker to the tv -- it's in color too, that's so bizarre -- then back to the young girl. If she's here in the government housing, then it's likely she's in on what's going on.

She certainly seems like she's been here a while, to be so relaxed about a stranger just wandering in. ]

You part of this hero program, too?

[fridgeflower]

That's a way of putting it. [ Calling it a "hero program" makes it seem more organized and planned-out than it seems to be in her eyes. She's never thought too deeply about it, but the whole thing comes off as largely random to her, at least where selection of those who arrive here is concerned.

'Bucky,' though... It's not a very common nickname, and Captain America already lives here. She doesn't want to be too direct about asking after him, just in case, but Bucky's story is a well-known one, back home. At least, the beginning of it is. ]

Um... Do you know Steve? Mr. Rogers, I mean.

[shapedthecentury]

Mr. Rogers.

[ He grins wide at that, shaking his head. ]

Don't tell me he's got you calling him that. Yeah, I know Steve. We go back a long ways.

[ Something twinges at that. Back when he needed him, he thinks but doesn't say, continuing to smile at the girl. ]

So what's your name, doll?

[fridgeflower]

[ That Bucky, then. ]

I'm Laurie. I live here, too.

[ Just so he knows she's not some kind of homework-doing house crasher. ]

[shapedthecentury]

[ That Bucky. Steve's Bucky. He knows how that goes by now, and it's still a little irritating, though he doesn't say anything about it any more. There are worse things to have people associate you with. ]

Good to know. What's that you've got there?

[ He feels more tired than he ought to, but it seems like bad manners to go hide in his room. Wherever that's going to be. Besides, the girl seems nice enough. ]

[fridgeflower]

[ Laurie lets out a little, exasperated huff at the question, but follows it up with a small smile. It's not that bad, but... ]

It's my chemistry homework. [ Not her strongest subject, so she's trying to get it out of the way. ]

[shapedthecentury]

[ He could see the reluctance in her face, and there's a faint snort of sympathy. ]

Chemistry, huh? Well better you than me.

[ He'd been a good student in school, top marks and all of that. Helping his little sisters with their homework had been a regular thing for ages, but chemistry? Probably not his best subject either. God knows what they're teaching the kids these days, anyway.

Still, curiosity prompts him to head around towards the stack of homework she's currently working her way through, craning his neck to get a glimpse of what's on the paper. ]

Can I see?

after steve and laurie. let me know if this is alright!

[huntergames]

[ It's late evening by the time another one of Residence #24's inhabitants drags herself through the door. Slung over her shoulder is her schoolbag and attached at her hips is her 3DMG. She's gripping her stomach, which growls loudly in need of food. ]

Laurieeee, are you home?

[ She calls, pushing the door behind her shut.

It's pretty quiet, unnerving to Sasha. She can hear footsteps, but listening closely reveals they aren't light enough to be Laurie's or heavy enough to be Steve's. She swallows hard, realizing there's someone else in the home and reaches for the handle of her blade. ]

... hello? Who is there?

[shapedthecentury]

[ When he rounds the corner to see who it is, he isn't expecting someone toting a sword, that's for damn sure. He starts visibly, taking a step back and lifting his hands up placatingly. ]

Hey, whoa. Easy there. Fresh meat, that's all. I live here now, too.

[ He digs for his keys as though to prove it, giving a little jingle in the air and staring back at her wide-eyed. Interesting people his friend had fallen in with... ]

[huntergames]

O-Oh! Oh! So sorry! Please pardon my rudeness!

[ Sasha is quick to sheathe her blade and she lets the handle grips go. She raises both hands, mimicking Bucky's movements, to let him know she's both sorry and that she isn't going to turn her weapon on him. ]

I didn't know we had another housemate moving in. They never tell us!

[shapedthecentury]

That's the government for you. They only keep track of the inconvenient stuff.

[ Letting out a breath, Bucky pockets the keys again and reaches to rub at the back of his neck. Alright, well, that definitely could have gone worse. ]

The name's Bucky. I'm a friend of Steve's, from back home.

[huntergames]

[ Sasha is visibly surprised by that fact, though she's glad to hear it; Steve's been by himself in the house. She has Laurie now and her comrades and friends from home, but she hasn't been sure if Steve had anyone from home. A nice man like him probably needed company. ]

It's very nice to meet you. I'm Sasha.

Um, I'm sorry for frightening you! I promise I wasn't going to hit you with my blade.

[shapedthecentury]

Hey, you're the one with a sword. I'm not arguing.

[ As apologetic as she was being, yeah, okay, maybe a little ribbing was necessary. She deserved to know he wasn't offended or anything like that. Maybe strangers in the house wasn't the weirdest thing to get defensive and weird about.

So he offers her a semi-teasing smile and a shrug. ]

[huntergames]

[ She rubs the back of her neck sheepishly, laughing awkwardly as well. Then she gestures down the hall leading to the separate bedrooms. ]

Have you already taken up a room? You must have arrived today, right?

[shapedthecentury]

Took the last empty one. Figured that'd be the safest bet.

[ He nods, shoving his hands loosely into his pockets. There's an air of weariness about him, but nothing overwhelming. ]

At least they keep things simple.