maskormenacelogs | (no subject)

WHO: Spot Conlon and Bucky Barnes
WHERE: De Chima, a sort of seedy bar that doesn't seem to care about distributing liquor to minors
WHEN:
WHAT: Spot and Bucky fight, Spot and Bucky make friends. It's like a kid's book!
WARNINGS: Bad grammar.

Usually, Spot's fights don't end like this; they don't end with him deciding that yeah, he'll get a drink with the guy he just spent the last twenty minutes trying to punch out. But he remembers just two years ago, and building his boys up from nothing - there was a lot of this kind of thing. You give a guy a soaking and then you get him a drink, and suddenly it's respect.

Spot doesn't kid himself - he wants that kind of loyalty back. If there's anything he misses, it's his gang of boys, ready to go to war for him. With him.

With him, because that's the kind of leader Spot Conlon is.

So he and this kid from Jersey - the kid is older, clearly, but Spot's the leader of 2000 newsies, so it don't matter - are heading over to the only place Spot's found that will sell him a beer without complaint.

But he ain't paying for Jersey. He can buy his own.

"You got a mean left hook."

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"I'd sure hope so!" His government spent a lot of money to make every hook a mean one. And excuse him if he sounds rather nasally. Pretty sure his nose is fucked up six ways to Sunday, and damnit if that ain't great! It's been a long time since he's been this roughed up. At least in this way. Bucky's not counting Hydra death rays or vampires or anything super human. This was two normal boys slugging it out. Fucking aces!

"Pretty sure I ain't got much of a nose left, though." Hacking up in the back of his throat, Bucky spits out phlegm and blood onto the sidewalk before they enter the establishment. He is going to look like shit for this "swear-in" business coming up, but for now he's still in his afterglow.

So when they get to this bar of Brookie's, he expects them to be turned right back around with the way they look. The staff barely looks at them. Hot dog! "No wonder you come here..."

"Nah, you got a nose, but it ain't the same one your ma gave you," Spot says, leaning back in his chair. There's a pleasant burn up his side, and a soreness to his lip - it's probably split, but Spot's never complained about a soaking before and he isn't about to start now - that makes it tingle a bit when he drinks.

He looks around a bit, at the people who don't look at them, and shrugs. "It ain't right, denying a person a drink like that. So I had to find the place that wouldn't. My money's as good as anyone else's."

Bucky laughs. "Hasn't been since I was twelve, really." Way back then, though, he couldn't actually hold his own. He was a tiny thing that simply got the tar beaten out of him. But then he got his act together, grew mean with the death of his mother, and found his niche as a bully.

"Boy, tell me about it!" He opts for a whiskey since the fight's already over, there's no reason to say no to the dark liquor now. "If I'm old enough to off someone, I should be old enough for everything else, ya know? Bunch limp-dick adults..." Making up arbitrary rules. And then what do they do? They turn their back while he's out on the front and expect him to comply back on the main land. It's bullshit!

It may in fact be a point of pride that his nose is the same - people have given him split lips and black eyes, but he's never broken his nose, not yet, anyway. It makes him one of the few newsies in Brooklyn without the telltale crook. He gives a shrug, and a part of a grin, but not the whole thing at Bucky's comment.

"You've been offing a lot of people?" Spot asks, not with doubt in his voice, but maybe instead with a sincere measure of curiosity. On the streets, it's not uncommon to find a boy who claims he's killed someone, and Spot doesn't question that sort of thing - mostly because he the clout and the confidence not to have to. Anyone who wants to prove their mettle with him is perfectly welcome, but his reputation precedes him for a reason.

Bucky gives him a look that translates accurately to "Well, duh!" as he sips on his whiskey. But it doesn't last long when he realizes--Not every able man here is a soldier. That's not their reality anymore. A hero, yes, but that's not the same. The call to arms is a lot more voluntary here. And, shockingly, there's no shame in saying no. Bucky sure's no coward, but there are people that shouldn't be in war and now those people can publicly admit that.

"Uh, right, let's backtrack. I'm a soldier back home." So that should clear up that likely odd comment he made. Offing people kinda sounds sleazy outside the context of war. "What about you?" Bucky gets a sly smile on his face. "Circus act, right? Come see the Brooklyn Wonder!"

He takes a drink and listens. A soldier. Well, it wasn't his first guess, but Spot knows soldiers who took it up younger, boys who left Brooklyn with hopes of meeting Roosevelt. Well, look where it got them.

"I run Brooklyn," he says, casually, with that assertiveness that says no, he's not joking. "I'm the head newsie." Which still means something, in 1945, although Spot doesn't know or care. In 1899, it means everything, when it comes to anyone on his turf.

Well, assertive or no, Bucky's snorting at that declaration all the same. It's not even a problem of disbelief, he's just amused by the balls on this kid. He could tell him he ran the military base he lived on--Which he sure as spit did! Ask any one of those green cadets! He even had the drill sergeants eating out of his hand--and Bucky'd likely get the same derisive snort.

"That explains your smart mouth." Finishing up his whiskey, he asks for a few more fingers. He's not looking for shit-faced levels, but he'd like to be in that area where everything's tingly and the pain's nice and distant. "So, you an orphan, then?" That's how that works he always assumed. But Bucky can just as likely be out of touch, though. Living on a military base all his life, his reality and civilian reality didn't often line up the same way. Things like that, he never had to worry about or interact with.

Is he an orphan, that's not a question people usually ask him, but generally that's because everyone knows. "My mam's still alive," he says, shrugging, "haven't seen her in a while, though." Spot lives on his own, and has for the past few years. His mother doesn't have enough space or money to raise all the kids she has, and his siblings aren't really close to him.

"Why, are you?"

That is... so not what he expects to hear or wants to really. He's probably staring like a fool, but that's... Boy, that's sad. What's the point of having a mother if they aren't going to be around? Though, to be honest, he would still want his to be alive even if he never saw her. Just knowing she was out there would be fine.

"Yeah. My ma died when I was young. My father a couple years later, so the military just kinda looked out for me. He was an instructor for the base in Jersey." Even if they were on bad terms when the man died, Bucky still spoke of him with obvious pride.

It's different when you're basically kicked out at fourteen, maybe. It's not that Spot never sees her, and anyone stupid enough to mess with his mother would bring the wrath of God down on themselves, but he doesn't really spend a lot of time thinking about her. He's not like Kelly - he doesn't need to be assured of family.

"Drink to that, then," he says, raising his glass and taking a long drink. And maybe he means it, too.

"So." Enough with that feelsy bullshit. "Just how long have you been stuck here?" He needs to know just how deep into his drink he needs to be over this hopeless situation. The one person he knows from his world (sort of?) has been stuck for six years. And, man, fuck that! Pretty sure he woudl rather eat a bullet at that point.