(no subject)

[disassembling]

Character: James "Bucky" Barnes &
Time period: Post-CA: TWS
Warnings: Obsessive Bucky on the loose.


At first, independence had seemed like one of his better ideas, but he had begun to revise his opinion once he had verified certain truths, taken noted of the factions searching for him, and realizing that the world was a wide landscape where a man could get lost. After he had rearmed himself from the bodies of two Hydra agents, a drug dealer, and a gang banger, he had come to realize that slipping away, hiding, being nothing at all was very easy, too easy.

He had been built on the foundation of a command structure for more than seventy years. Even before the blurred vagueness of falling, he knew order and military command. Aside from mashed up images, feelings and impressions, he knew that he had to have some manner of structure in his life. With no more commands down the line, he loitered, slipping through the shadows on Washington for awhile, finding the unsavoury places and people, leaving a few bodies in his wake and not particularly caring that they were found and televised either. A weapon bared he moved through the chaos at first because it was all he knew, listless for anything but the violence he had played a role in for so long. It lost it's purpose without the trigger of structure.

His world stagnated as he avoided those who hunted him, and he cared little for the lives he took when they found him. They came to command him because they thought he would simply bow to old standards, that he would go back to being his code name if they applied even electricity to his brain. They hadn't earned the right to command him. They were weaker than he, hadn't even survived a single encounter when he decided to throw his weight back at them. They were weak men, lost in words and hiding behind guns and dying in the shadows of buildings and trees.

Slowly, resolution began to form from the ashes of his lost command structure. He decided he would allow himself to be commanded again, that he yearned to be commanded by someone with the strength of both character and body to overtake him or at least bow him slightly with respect. Pierce had been like that, he reflected. The man hadn't needed to physically harm him to command his respect, though he remembered well being struck when he required the prompt. A few others had commanded a similar reaction deep in his guts, and his attention snapped over to them. One at a time, he decided. One searched, the other could be found if he looked.

He had been lost for a few months, considering leaving to go to Brooklyn for more pieces of an old puzzle, but he was drawn back into Washington because beating information out of a SHIELD agent had satisfied him that he would get what he wanted. As a ghost story, he knew that the only way to get proper attention was to do something not only obvious but dramatic. His depth of dramatic no doubt would be very different from others that he knew existed, but like a well-trained dog returning to his master, he knew how to get the attention that was needed to invite a recall command.

Hydra agents were not easy to find in large quantities in Washington anymore, most arrested or underground and hiding. It took him two days to find a nest of the vipers, using the old underground tunnels that he knew well. He'd ended them to prove he might not be under command, but it was something worth earning given his skills. Their bodies were left in obvious Hydra uniforms and symbols and piled high in front of the Smithsonian. As if the symbol of his loyalty degradation wasn't enough, none of the corpses had heads, and he had piled them in such a way that he could sit atop the whole mess and lounge there as obvious as the start of a new day.

Media and police were one thing, not that interesting, but he let them think they had command of him for a moment. Let them show his face around for SHIELD and Hydra and them to know he was here. Meaningless orders were ignored, people's reactions only earned a turning of his cheek in dismissal before he knew that the police presence would be a problem to slip away from. Instead he slipped from his lounging perch to ignore warnings and breaking into the Smithsonian because it suited him there. It seemed a fitting place to bow to the command of someone worthy.

Comments

[waypastasking]

To say that Steve was having a bad week, or a bad year would be an understatement. He was not even taking into account everything that happened in New York. He was more thinking about recent events, and he was really disillusioned and burned by life at the moment.

He hadn't really given a shit that he was breaking the law. He had busted his way into the Smithsonian, and made his way to his exhibit. He stared up at it. It felt weird to be standing there with his shield. The last time, he had been in disguise.

This time it didn't ease the pain. Everything he thought to be the truth was in fact a lie, and he didn't know what to do with that.

His hearing picked up the slight sound, and he turned quickly, his shield ready.

[disassembling]

All the noise couldn't be masked in the empty hallways of the museum, and it seemed a fitting place for two fossils like themselves. He tracked Steve as soon as the man entered the building, moving silently in the other man's wake to let his quarry pick a spot for a fitting reunion. He knew where it would happen, the coldly calculating part of himself already picking out the weaknesses in such a spot. There were an awful lot of breakable things there.

He remained to the shadows of the corners and eased forward, stepping out as he made a purposeful noise. He stood quiet and ready, a combat knife rolling down his fingers only to be grasped by the hilt after bouncing off of the back of his pinky finger.

"Did you like them? I left them for you," he said coolly. "I probably should have lit them on fire actually; the signal would have gone higher than where I was sitting."

[waypastasking]

Steve's eyes narrowed slightly and while he knew that this man was his best friend and he always will be, it did not escape his attention that he was rolling a knife between his fingers.


He glanced up. "So, are you planning using that?"

Steve looked at Bucky in shock. It was impressive he had to admit. "That was you? Why?"

[disassembling]

His eyes drifted away from the bared shield and the man behind it, having fought Steve enough to know how well they did playing warriors with each other. His arm still twinged with memory occasionally after all, but he had other purposes here and now that he hadn't decided if they would include a fight or not. He could lead a merry chase through the Smithsonian, and there were plenty of exhibits to hide in.

"Are you going to give me reason to?" He knew the dangers of knife combat with Steve after all. He had to be careful as he wasn't getting maintenance on his arm anymore.

"Cut off one head and two more shall take its place was the motto of Hydra," he said in an almost conversational tone. "I've found though that if you cut off enough heads, they start to run out. Its simply necessary to cut off all the heads in a certain amount of time and the beast dies."

[waypastasking]

"I'd rather not if its all the same to you," He said. "I've kind of hand sucky week you know?" Steve glanced up that the piece in front of him. He smiled broadly.

"So why come here?"

[disassembling]

Some of the tension that came with anticipation for combat left him at the refusal, and he allowed his arms to dangle more freely at his sides. It was the only obvious sign he had relented on the possibility of combat at this very moment. "Do you want to talk about it?" He hungered to hear about it, to know someone would treat him human for just a few moments.

"I was living in a time where I belonged for awhile," he said simply. "And making a statement, not as broad as yours taking out SHIELD and Hydra, but all the same."

[waypastasking]

Steve looked at his best friend, his mouth hanging open a bit. He couldn't help it. He just started laughing because he couldn't do anything but laugh. Suddenly his shoulders started to shake, and he looked absolutely striken.

It was too much.

"Yeah because that worked out so well didn't it?

Steve sighed and slid down the wall. "What are you really doing here?"

this got long and sucks i blame you for this so take responsability

[eleutheria]

Her choice to go after Bucky hadn’t been a hard one, or a surprising one. It was only natural for her to go after the man that had such a key and integral part through most of her life, to find a way to help him since she refused to believe her friend was totally and completely lost, he had left her alive for a reason after all. But she had looked for him for months and still the only glimpse that she still had with her was his retracting back after he pulled her out of the Potomac, she was always too late when she thought she was catching up with him and it was clear he didn’t wanted to be found, maybe it was another sign.

Since clearly all the things that had happened to her since she found herself in this century, from her confusion and adaptation to it, the incident in New York in which she got a quite painful realization that there were more sources of danger for all them, then the re-emergence of Hydra, finding out her best friend was alive, the fact that she had been lied and used and finally culminating with the dissolution of SHIELD were probably signs that made her think it would have been better to remain in the ice they had found her.

Maybe that was why she hadn’t fought when Sam had suggested them to stop, after ending empty handed again, and to go back, it had hurt but she had agreed and ruefully gave up since there was nothing she could do if Bucky didn’t wanted to be found. And so she had returned to DC and decided to stay with Sam for the time being, her apartment had been wrecked after all and to be honest she hadn’t felt like being alone, and tried to ease into normalcy, gone back to visit Peggy (even if it hurt as hell to be fully reminded that the two people she loved the most, didn’t even remembered her) and waited for time to just pass.

And then Bucky had appeared again and she clearly couldn’t ignore it, could she? Not when it was done like that and the irony of the location. And now here she was, having broken into the Smithsonian with Sam’s help and then ordering him and whoever else might have been in the building to leave, wearing the new uniform Coulson had so proudly presented to her once and her shield strapped to her back, waiting for him and see what he did before going straight into attack mode against him.

Responsibility is considered shouldered

[disassembling]

The security room was supposed to be impressive, but he was only here for the use of the cameras to watch the few cleaners and security leaving. Apparently they didn't appreciate his entry and felt safer with the headless corpse pile as well as the police. No doubt someone was going to have a try for fame, but he wasn't interested in humanity very much. There were few that stole his attention, and he watched on the camera as she came.

There was nothing to be impressed about when it came to the uniform because it was the person under it that was far more than a symbol. There was a commanding officer; there was structure; there was his new world all dressed up and breaking free of the same strings he had cut from himself when he walked away from the only life he had once known.

Easing out of the security room, he ghosted through the hallways, making certain that he eased around her position to check for traps and other people she might have hidden away. Windows were secure, the doors were shut, and the sound of police sirens was really just a good backdrop to such a reunion.

'James' stepped out around a model of an old World War II war plane, and he regarded her for a long moment in silence. "You gave up on me," he said softly. "I knew the moment you stopped following me; have you lost all hope?"

welp damn hitting where it hurts buck -_-

[eleutheria]

The sound of the sirens worried her just a bit, she really hoped no one tried to make their way in before she was done scooping the situation here, she had no doubt that it was probably going to add to the already impressive body count and that was the last thing she wanted right now, the best thing she could do was to see what he wanted, try to deal with it as best as she could before anyone had the bright idea of breaking in.

She knew she could go looking for him, but considering how that had gone all of these months, it was best for her to remain where she was and let him come to her, because she knew he was going to come and she stood as tall and calm as the situation allowed it to her. But her mind was maybe a bit of a mess, maybe what had happened all those months ago, the fact that he had saved her life had been a fluke and he was coming to finish that? But then that didn’t explain his display, since the message had been clear, brutal but clear.

To her credit she didn’t flinched or showed anything that could be perceived as weakness when he appeared, her eyes just quickly looked him over, to check if he was hurt and know if he was poised to attack –which he wasn’t not yet, before meeting his eyes unflinchingly. “I didn’t give up on you.” And she really hadn’t. “And I haven’t lost my hope either, but you didn’t wanted to be found then, were you Bucky? So I assumed that you were going to be the one to find me or let me know somehow you were ready for me to find you.”

She refrains from saying that she doesn’t quite appreciate the way he had to deliver that message, she doesn’t needs to do so, he probably knew already.

manipulation commencing in 3, 2, 1

[disassembling]

That was something that he noted and picked up right away about her now as she had always been in his foggy memories and that was first checking him over. Like she cared. Like he meant something to her and that warmed him to the idea that he could bow his head, slide to his knees before her if it was ordered and let her direct his hand to missions and targets. She would give him structure, but the warm compassion that he had so far lacked in the last seventy years. There was no compassion when one was a weapon to be set loose.

"I was lost," he said simply to her reasoning that he didn't want to be found. That might have been true, but he had never stopped looking over his shoulder watching her give chase. It had been the only thing keeping him going before he realized what he needed, but she was here now. She would put things right, uniform or no.

"You saw my message then," he added with a tip of his head so his dark hair fell partially over his face. "I had hoped you'd recognized my sign for you."

darn him and trying to manipulate her

[eleutheria]

Somehow she wasn’t surprised that he didn’t appeared wounded, but what exactly would she have done if he had been? It’s not as if she could easily approach him as it had happened in the past, he was still a bit of blank for her when it came to his motivations. Stephanie raised a small eyebrow at that lost comment, she hadn’t exactly been waiting an answer from him and much less one like that, briefly she wondered if she should take the chance to ask if he remembered anything, but probably this wasn’t the best time for it.

Her fingers curled into fists, she really didn’t appreciate having seen his message and it had taken her just a bit to get over the shock of it. “It would have been a bit hard to miss, don’t you think?”

A pile of bodies with a man easily lounging on them as it was a throne straight from anyone’s nightmares was blatant enough, but not a lot of people would have been able to truly know the real messages the uniforms and probably the decapitation was meant to convey, which had been a very loud and clear for her. “And now here we are.” She tilted her head a bit. “Now what was supposed to happen after I answered to your message, Bucky?”

[disassembling]

While he might have been passive or appearing so, he watched her like a hawk, his brown eyes keen and hungry for her reactions even if his expression showed nothing. She was so pure and honest, giving him what he wanted to see, showing him the bits and pieces that he knew made up her person and the steel spine that would allow her to direct him as Hydra never could. Compassion was for her to worry about; he had left compassion behind when he had began his bloody trail through history. He recognized that she could temper his sharpness or set him to her enemies with a single command. A thrill ran through him at the sheer thought, so the real thing would no doubt be much, much better.

"Few would have seen the layers of the messaging in it, but you have always been smart to that sort of thing," he said softly as he stepped away from the plane to bring himself closer to her. He put himself in the open as a sign that he wouldn't hurt her, though he still could if he wanted to. "Hydra is without its fist, and the heads of the beasts are being reduced faster than they an regenerate. Think of a world free of that ideology."

He stepped closer bit by bit until they were within striking distance with fists. He took another larger step forward, staring at her eye-to-eye. "Who is Bucky to you?"

[capwolf]

Yeah. A bunch of bodies wearing Hydra uniforms in front of a museum was not subtle. It wouldn't have been subtle, even by Steve's standard (he was only vaguely familiar with the definition of the word, and only in theory), even if Steve hadn't literally been able to smell Bucky.

He wasn't in disguise and he wasn't in uniform. He was wearing jeans and a jacket, and he didn't have the first problem entering what Bucky had already broken into. It was dim, eerily lit because of the exhibit spotlights, but it was good enough for his purposes.

"What are you," he asked what looked like empty air, "a cat?"

Dropping prey on the doorstep?

[disassembling]

He had picked his spot, ironically, as a cat might. He chose to face the one chosen to come and find him from high up towards the ceiling, using the shadows of the planes to his advantage as he lounged on the nose of one suspended from the ceiling. He looked as comfortable on his belly on the old plane as he had lounging on the bodies of the dead outside. The only difference was he deigned to notice the man who came in and called out.

His bead of red settled evenly on Steve's chest, though he had no intention of firing. It was simply his need to play with prey that allowed him this measure of entertainment. He knew a shot through the heart would only make this wolf angry.

"I thought you'd appreciate the sentiment," he replied casually. "You alone can appreciate how hard it is to decapitate that many men in so short a time."

[capwolf]

He looked down at the red light and then followed it back up so that by the time Bucky was speaking, Steve was looking at him. "I'm flattered that your opinion of me's that high and all, but you're wrong."

No, not he alone. He was pretty sure he hadn't done anything truly alone in his life. There'd been Bucky or Howling Commandos, or Avengers, or Sam and Nat, or even SHIELD. He didn't work alone. Other people worked with him and god dammit he wasn't a lone wolf. His pack was loose, scattered, he was sometimes introverted as hell, but he wouldn't have accomplished much alone.

[disassembling]

"Am I?" He leaned a little on his rifle, eyeing the distance from himself to the man standing on the ground. He kicked his legs up into the air like a child might, but he was anything but that as his brown eyes were coldly calculating. "You came, and I suppose that's all that matters. To the end of the line, right?"

He shifted on the plane with a surety that it would hold as he rose to his feet even as the plane swayed in the air and the cables groaned softly. "You didn't like my gift then? I can find something more to your liking if you want."

[capwolf]

Steve stepped back, but he only did it so that he could keep his eyes on Bucky. Whoever or whatever he was, he'd meant what he'd said. "To the end of the line," he repeated. He ignored any feelings that might have roused, hearing those words in that tone. "And I didn't say I didn't like your gift, I just said I wasn't the only one who understood the difficulty."

He paused, but only for a moment. Could he have gotten up there? Yeah. He could now, actually, but he didn't see much point. Not yet, anyway. "You coming down?"

[disassembling]

His chest swelled with breath when he heard that repeated back to him like a declaration, and his expression softened with faint euphoria as he swayed on his feet. Yes, he had chosen well to leave such a message. This was one who could give him what he needed, and he would see to it that Steve gave it to him. "No, you and I are different from the others. Others recognize decapitation is difficult, the little details to doing it, but you and I... we're special." And they had each other.

He shifted and stepped off the plane, falling the distance with his rifle in hand before the sound of his boots hitting the floor echoed. The tile under his feet cracked, but he simply ignored it and stepped away, flicking his rifle with an expert each to swing against his back instead. He walked towards his friend. "I saw my old face, you know. Strange they'd make a monument part for me, right?"

[cloneororiginal]

Every Hydra agent went into hiding. No one safe from the police, Captain America or from him. The man who was a living ghost, capable of finding any of them in their sleep and killing them. He was the thing that children were taught to be afraid of. Sarah wanted to track him down, not as an agent of Hydra but as her own person. She wanted to see if he gone insane or see if he had any information on the scientists that created her and the other clones.

A lot of people would consider her plan to be a suicide mission. No one willingly walked into the den of a lion.

It hadn't been easy to track him down, but he made his presence known by the lovely display of dead Hydra agents. She slipped into the Smithsonian, sticking to the shadows as she looked for him. There was a chance in hell he might still be around, wanting to see people's reactions to his body pile.

[disassembling]

Her presence wasn't the one that he expected, but he knew better than to underestimate the clones either. He had trained and killed enough of them to know what they were capable of when given a free leash to run on. His independence had taught him just as much as how well and far an order could go, but why had they sent her in the first place? Surely they knew a single clone could hardly best him in combat, least of all a clone that snuck in with so little equipment to face off against him.

Instinct made him pause from ruining her on the cold floor because there had to be a reason she was here. No one simply walked in unless they either expected a fight or saw the value of opportunity outstripped the risks to themselves. Sarah had always had the cunning and the skills to think for herself; he somehow doubted she came under order because of her equipment. She could hardly hope to con him out of his own weapons, and he was known to be deadly bare handed anyway.

"Hydra's invitation to enter ended at the door," he said as he stepped out of a shadow behind her, leaving enough distance so they couldn't physically engage one another just yet. "This is your single opportunity to leave before your body sits on top of the pile."

[cloneororiginal]

Sarah's stepped stopped cold hearing that all too familiar voice. Though he couldn't see the smirk on her face, he might be able to hear it in her voice.

"Know what they say about assuming? It makes an ass out of you and me, even though yours is perfectly fine." A small throwback to their nights together when they were able to have a handful of hours of privacy.

She wore nothing that gave away her old affiliation to Hydra. A jacket, pants and boots were her items of clothing, all of which were black. Tucked away was a knife in her boot and hand guns to her thigh and under her arm. Sarah was clever, smart and deadly, not stupid. She knew better to come to him unarmed. If she wanted to sign her death warrant she would've charged at him right then and there.

Instead, she slowly turned around, revealing her face to him while keeping her hands in her coat pockets. She kept her stance relaxed and composed, as though she was talking to an old friend and not mass killer.

"Didn't think you'd be one for dramatics, Love. But, good t'see you too..." she let her sentence trail on, giving him a once over.

"I'm not here for a fight, only information. Tell me and I'll leave you alone for however long you like."

[disassembling]

So she had left Hydra behind then? It was an interesting concept, but while she might not wear the decals, he wasn't about to trust someone he was certain he had probably concussed more than once in combat training. He also knew that she was armed, but not as heavily as he was. He had also set up a few traps to amuse himself if someone had decided that they wanted a little wander around this particular room.

His eyes narrowed briefly at her familiarity before recognition flickered through his gaze. He knew her as more than Sarah, then? The warm skin resting on his cooler one was something the flickered through his mind, but he didn't relax around her. He didn't participate in many trysts, so the fact that she dared to indicate he had with her meant she was either elevating herself or poking at his last episode of wiping. "You know better than to assume that I won't kill you when it suits me regardless of your claim to affiliations elsewhere."

He stood his ground with a relaxed easiness that always came to him. He had nothing to fear, nothing to lose, and that's what made him so effective. Nothing held him back from acting on what he wanted to, carrying out his orders. She was in no way weak though; only a fool underestimated someone of her abilities and training.

"What will you give me in return for any information that I provide for you? I don't deal without equal value," he replied, his metal fingers flexing at his side.

[cloneororiginal]

"I know better than to assume around you."

He could kill her at the drop of a hat. Sarah was probably fairing better than the bodies in the pile at the rate she was going, but she had to tread carefully. While she remembered their trysts it didn't mean he did. He might recall bits, pieces and maybe some feelings, but that was probably it. He had information and so did she. Hopefully he'd see it as a fair trade. If not, then she could either fight him for it (and die), entice (and possibly not die), or walk away.

"You still have holes in your memory right? I could fill in the blanks, maybe help you relive a memory or two." She let her words sink in before taking a small step forward, drawing her hands out of her pockets to loosely cross them over her chest.

"So? Do we have a deal?"

[disassembling]

"Assuming will lay you out at my feet," he confirmed with a growl. He had no time to waste on such concepts when he liked things laid straight and that included orders and explanations.

He measured her up at the same time that she was measuring him, and he knew that she was not the best person to chase off. From the twinges of what he did remember of her, she kept hidden the fact that she was resilient against mind wipes, so that made her infinitely more useful to him alive than as a corpse in the growing smelling pile outside.

"They aren't all intact," he slowly confirmed because there was no point in lying about that. She would know he was lying, and one didn't build good negotiations based on lies in his little world. Of course, she was assuming he remembered information relating to her. "That would depend if they are something worthwhile reliving, but you have a deal."

He shifted his weight on his feet and took a step away from her, breaking the potential for combat and moving out of kill range to go deeper into the Smithsonian but away from the doors. He ended up in a small room with screens that allowed him to view the various cameras in the place. "This will be suitable for discussion."