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

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

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.

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[ 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?

[ 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?

[ 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. ]

[ 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?

[ 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.

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. ]

[ 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.

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. ]

[ 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.

[ There's a heavy sigh. ]

Why not. Can't be any weirder than the rest of my day.

[ He sinks down, grateful that it's not a cot or a wood chair or the ground. It's amazing the little comforts you learn to miss, but here he feels sorely out of place. Maybe that will change with time.

He feels a little less lost with Steve here, that's the truth of it. Whatever he's got to say, Steve has Bucky's full attention. ]

After you fell —

[ he swallows. it's been over two years now, or over seventy, depending how you look at it, but the image of bucky falling, hand stretched out, still haunts steve. ] After you fell, I went after HYDRA and the Red Skull, and I caught up with him on a plane. He was going to drop bombs on the US and kill thousands of people.

So I put the plane down in the Arctic, and I was frozen for almost seven decades. Coming here was the second time I've woken up in the future.

[ he's been looking alternatively at his hands and sneaking little glances at bucky to judge his reaction, but now he forces himself to look up. ] You — you didn't die from falling.

[ maybe it would be better not to tell bucky. maybe it would spare him some pain. it's not steve's choice to make, though. bucky's been denied a lot, hydra's stripped him of a lot.

steve doesn't think he's got any right to withhold information from him, even if none of that has happened for bucky yet. and still, he falls silent now, swallowing dryly.

he's failed bucky on so many counts. ]

[ Confusion marks his face as he listens. The plans of the Red Skull don't seem that far fetched, and he doesn't doubt Steve put an end to them. If anyone could...

No, it's the rest of it. He put a plane down and was frozen? For seventy years? The furrows in his brow crease tighter, mouth drawing into a thin line as he shakes his head. ]

I know I didn't. I'm sitting right here, aren't I?

[ There's nothing to like about where this appears to be going. ]

Hold on, stop. What do you mean, the second time? You're not just gliding past that on me.

Yeah, you are. [ for a moment, he has to look away again because he is, but this isn't their world and that's not how things have happened or are going to happen in their universe. in the end, he looks back though — keeps looking back at bucky because it's damn good to see him, even if it's also a reminder of things steve wishes hadn't happened. ]

Peggy and Howard founded an agency, SHIELD. They unfroze me in 2012. I spent two years in the future of our world before I woke up in the lab here. This is a different universe, apparently.

[ a shrug. ] Apparently there's lots of different universes. Plenty people here know a different version of me. Some of them know you as well.

...you're serious. You're not making this up.

[ Because there are tells when he is, either too straight a face or just a hint of humor in his eyes, but there's nothing. No reassurance that he'll turn around and laugh and this will all have been a joke. Or something.

But he knows Steve too well. He can't lie to himself as easily.

Bucky sits there expressionless for a numb, disbelieving. He isn't sure what he feels, hearing all of this. It's too much, too quickly, but Steve can't stop there. That would be too easy. And how much crazier is it than Nazis with laser weapons that vaporize people, or his sickly best friend turning into a muscle-bound hero?

The world's just a little too mad for him, some days. ]

Wish I was.

[ he's not making this up, even if it is crazy. that's not even talking about aliens in new york, or the way the city's changed in seven decades, how peggy's aged and how steve recognises very little. it's not talking about the internet or how expensive things have gotten.

or how there's flying cars here, but not in their world. ] It's been years, Buck.

[ 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?

[ He falls quiet for a moment, absorbing all of this, trying to reconcile it with the infodump he just got this morning about this little city in Florida that needs new heroes. One hand comes up to rub over the lower half of his face, another deep breath taken. ]

Jesus.

[ Maybe some of those other stories would be well suited for another time. Maybe the key is not to think about it. Just go along with it, like every other time, absorb the weirdness and just do what has to get done. Worry about sorting it all out and how he feels about it later. ]

...don't tell me what happens to me. I don't want to know.

[ 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?

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.

All right. [ he's not sure whether he's supposed to be relieved. he probably isn't — and yet here they are. bucky doesn't want to know, and steve's relieved for it. ]

I know it's a lot. [ it was easier for him, the second time around — and having an emergency to deal with soon after waking up in the future the first time around had helped as well. ] You're all right, though.

[ he makes it a statement, but really it's a question. are you, buck? please tell him you are. ]

Yeah, I'm alright. It's you I'm worried about.

[ He leans forward, teeth showing through that grin. ]

You managed to get through all of that with a straight face. You're not careful, and you're going to start taking how weird your life is now for granted.

[ He's not alright. His heart's pounding about as loudly as his head, and he's got his hands clasped together to keep them from trembling noticeably. The world's gotten turned upside down, and apparently it's not even their world or time, but they're here now. And it can't be as bad as all that if Steve was sitting on the couch drawing like he's done a million times at home.

He just has to ignore certain facts, like the way he looks at him like he's seen a ghost, or that whatever happens to him in the future? It isn't marrying Greta Garbo and getting a house with a white picket fence and five fat kids. But he's buried worse in the back of his mind already, after his stint as Arnim Zola's special guest in that factory.

So what's a little more repression between friends? ]

Not really like they make it out on those sci-fi radio shows, is it?

[ That smile is gentler now. Can't be any easier for poor Steve. Guy always smiles his most when he's feeling his worst, same as him. ]

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?

[ it's good to see bucky smiling. it's good to have bucky here, alive and clear-eyed. if his hands are clasped together a little too tightly, if his smiles and grins are a little on the forced side, it's still good to see bucky.

he's not sure he'll ever have the words to express how good it is to see his best friend again and have him recognise steve. the words startle something close to a laugh out of him. ( it could have been closer to a sob than a laugh, too, if he'd let himself, because of the flood of emotion just under the surface. ) ]

You don't even know half of how strange things've gotten. I woke up in New York, and the first thing that happens is aliens.

Sure. Aliens.

[ He's not even going to argue -- Steve wouldn't lie to him, anyhow -- but it's far easier just to take his word for it. If he pretends its alright long enough, it'll be alright, and that's that.

Straightening his shoulders, he leans forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees. ]

So everything they've said about this place. That's true, too?

There's some things they brush over, but that's only details. So, yeah. What they said about this place, that's true.

[ a beat, before he adds- ] Did you get any powers? They give people powers. Not sure how that works.

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

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