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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.
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.
so you feel my pain lol
But now she wondered if she had done the right thing by giving him that file, she knew there was some basic information of him, not the one that had broke her down and caused her to say locked down in her room for two whole days while she processed everything that had been done to him and he had done, not even Sam had been able to get her out from there till she was ready for it, the info he had wasn’t that heavy but it could still have an adverse effect on him.
The mix of all this and finally allowing her body to feel just how weary she was feeling, mostly due to the emotional drainage, and just being in the warm water, which helped her to relax her muscles, prompted her to slowly close her eyes and relax further, trying to fight not dozing off since it wasn’t a good idea to fall asleep in here…
…a little rest wouldn’t hurt, right?
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The Russians had found him, or they had found what was left of him anyway. He had lost his left arm just above the elbow in the fall, the rest of it relatively useless to him. He had been brought to Russia for care, but Hydra was still infiltrated there and someone altered Zola after he had been stabilized. He had been given a Soviet prosthetic after Zola was finished with him, using material from Stephanie's blood to enhance him similarly.
He had been violent, confused and had little in the way of memories. He had struggled against both what was done to him and what he couldn't remember. A caged animal, he thought as he flipped through the pages. They had begun to condition him, to deeply ingrain cues and commands to soothe him. Suddenly he knew; the back of his neck, his throat and his feet were highly sensitive to command. Scientists used his feet when he woke to keep him from thrashing and fighting back; Hydra agents often got a hold of his neck, bowing his head, forcing him to his knees as he gave in and went still. Ready to be commanded.
Other commands and conditioning was listed, but he knew in his bones it was there, seeping in his flesh. If he was triggered, he could either explode like a bomb or mewl and docile as a kitten depending on what it was. Only certain Hydra agents knew the true depth of it all. And the Soviets; they had a hand in him, had given him the original code name that he bore.
He abandoned the file on the bed, torn up and raw as he moved from the bedroom to instead fill the doorway of the bathroom. She was sleeping, trying to anyway. She looked peaceful, yet darkness raged in his mind, age old erratic behaviours wanting to attack her, to pummel her into the dirt, but he didn't. She was his safe place.
"You shouldn't sleep there."
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The fact she was able to tell he was moving in her direction was enough to let her know that whatever he had found in the file had its effects, had she had expected it and she took a deep breath, bracing herself to what could possible happen here. She didn’t reacted when he apparently reached the doorway, trying to keep herself relaxed and trying not to look dangerous, even though she was ready to react in any way he might. She slowly opened her eyes at his comment and looked at him for a few moments, taking him in and trying to see just what he was feeling, what he was thinking right now and she nearly shuddered a bit at the way he was looking at her.
In a way it reminded her of the way he had looked at her when they had been fighting in the carrier or more like when she had refused to fight him and he had demanded her response, yet there was something else there she couldn’t possible identify and it was what was holding him back. She moved to sit, the sound of the water echoing around them and sounding way to loud than it should right now, and well she really didn’t know what to say to him.
“…I know.”
She knew that she shouldn’t sleep here, she knew that he was torn between hurting her and not, she knew he was hurting and she wasn’t sure how to help him, she knew a lot of things right now.
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Slowly, his eyes drifted away from where she was slowly sitting up and glanced at the bathroom mirror. He was close enough to see his own reflection, to see both men staring back at him, haunted and haggard as he had been when they had first met up with his mask removed. He remembered the vulnerability when he refused to complete his mission to Pierce. He knew his defiance would earn him nothing but pain; he was a beaten creature, tortured, remade, renamed.
"Just... don't think about dying. You're all I have left in this world. You're the only good thing anyway," he murmured softly, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He found his eyes straying to the metal arm attached to him before he shrugged. "Take care of yourself, but don't slip away no matter how much it might seem like a good idea."
Slowly, he withdrew from the bathroom, padding back to the bedroom that he had been given. He avoided the rest of the file, leaving it open on the bed as he did the only thing that struck him at something safe, not even realizing how childish and boyish it was; how often he had done it when he was little. He lay down on the floor and used his metal arm to hoist the bed up from the floor, sliding underneath it. It worked much better when one was a child, but the effect was the same as he settled in, near pinned to the ground as the wood and metal springs dug into his flesh. The pressure, the inability to avoid it was like a very cold hug, calming him even if the bed was distorted because of his efforts to just lay there under it.
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But she had grown to accept herself as much as she could and she’s not sure if Bucky is doing that or not, probably not at the moment considering what he had read in that file. She hoped that maybe one day he…whatever she was thinking about soon came to a halt as soon as he started to talk, and she couldn’t help the surge of guilt that she felt at having what she already knew confirmed and she really couldn’t respond before he retreated.
Stephanie stayed there for a bit before she finally decided to get out of the bathtub again, this time she took her time and care drying her hair and body, before moving to look for something to wear since she couldn’t move around naked, could she? Taking a deep breath, she moved to his room, she couldn’t leave him when he was feeling like this and stopped in the doorway when she noticed he was under the bed, she couldn’t help the other sad pang at the sight, she still remember when he had done that when he was kid –it had a habit he had when they had met and she had sometimes slipped under with him, but she doubted he was going to appreciate it right now.
Taking a deep breath she approached and then moved to lie on her side on the floor, resenting a bit the cold against the warm skin of her arms but willing to deal with it for the moment, and looking at him not daring to move closer or further. “I am sorry if you think or I gave you the impression that I was about ready to give up, I know I haven’t been exactly myself right now but a lot of things happened today, but really Buck, the idea of leaving you now that I have you back has never crossed my mind. You’re still the most important person in my life and that’s not going to change, no matter what you or I have gone through.”
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Was he like Schmidt then? Did he crave destruction on some pretense of being something more than he had been born? He didn't know; he wanted to go back to cryostasis and sleep this off. Hell, he might even take the pain of wiping at this point.
He didn't shift under the bed when he heard her come in, and his dark hair fell over his face to mostly blind him. It was his rebellion against the world, blinding himself, wishing he didn't have to hear but stuck here and pinned all the same. He'd cope; she'd take him in, turn a blind eye to aspects of him and things would be okay as long as he wasn't a danger to her, right? Otherwise, maybe the people she knew would simply put him down like a rabid dog, snapping and snarling, terrified as they beat him and ended him. Maybe it was the way it was supposed to be.
"You're allowed to give up on me," he said softly, through his curtain of hair across his face. "I'm not that hero from the Smithsonian; I'm not even the friend you remember me to be. I'm something else, maybe I'm just wearing his face." He hummed softly and turned his head so his face pressed more into the floor. "I won't blame you if you want to walk away."
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“You know, when we first met and you saved me from those kids that were roughing me up, I could tell you hadn’t exactly done it out of pity and you had been sincere on your aid towards me, yet I still yelled at you for getting in the way, I even slapped your hand away when you offered your hand to help me up, anyone else, any other kid would have said something nasty to me and carried on with his way without ever looking back at me, but you didn’t. At the contrary, you called me cute and proceeded to clean the blood off.”
A small little smile appeared on her face at that memory, she had thought he was an idiot back then but it was someone that had refused to leave her behind, they had been in each other’s lives through the most important changes, be those sad or happy, they have had each other’s back and made their circumstances bearable to each other, she had been his everything back then and he still was, despite the situation.
“You didn’t give up on me that first chance and I know I could right now, walk away and leave you behind, but I am not going to do so because, yes you’re not the same person you were before and neither am I for that matter no matter what you might think, but you’re still Bucky, with all the good or bad, and I’m still me, regardless all the changes, and sure we might need to relearn things, but we can do it, we have always been able to do it. We promised to be with each other till the end of the line, and we are still far away from that.”
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He wondered if it told how he had been leashed and muzzled at times and then released to perform a macabre dance where no one stood before him. No target had escaped him, so good at his job as he was knife flashing, trigger pulling, sliding in and out as if he had never been there at all. Some deaths were considered suicides; no one stood against him and lived. Stephanie was the only one physically capable of matching him.
Yet, their first meeting was not something that he remembered, but he felt a sense of longing to. He closed his eyes to try to imagine the setting, the school yard with her flat on her backside, beaten but not broken, glaring defiantly. It was at the tip of his mind. "That's when I was a person," he finally uttered softly.
He might not have given up on her, but she hadn't the history that he did, wasn't the monster he was. He could slide into old habits so easily, knife flashes, enemies falling. "You've read the full file?" He wasn't really this 'Bucky' right now, but he let her believe that if she really wanted to. "You might not like what you find if you stay close. You might realize that it was better to walk away, just point me in the direction of your enemy and let them die with me."
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“…Do you really think I don’t know all the things that were done to you and what you have done? That I am not aware of all the pain that was forced upon you and the lives you took, that you can easily turn on me if something triggers you and that I can be as much in danger with you as if I somehow manage to fall into the hands of Hydra? I could have walked away from you a long time ago but I am here with you and willing to take that gamble, and that might make me stupid, but it doesn’t change that I am not walking away and leaving you behind again.” She takes a deep breath and shrugs a bit. “If you turn on me and kill me, then so be it, it was the gamble I took and I will deal with the consequences, so don’t worry about it anymore.”
She moved to take a seat now and glared at the wall, it was better to aim her anger at that than him at the moment, considering his last statement. “Also you’re an idiot if you think I am just going to synch you to just go and die with any enemy, you don’t want me to die and leave you, and I don’t want you to do the same, so don’t you dare suggesting something like that again, Barnes.” With that she stood up, gathered the file that had been left crumbled on the bed and to decide what to do with it afterwards, before finally leaving his room.
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She wasn't walking away from him; she would stay. Somehow he felt better about it, knowing she would be there, but he shifted slightly when she sat up. Her anger was not impotent on him, but he knew that he was not worth as much as she was in the eyes of the people, in the eyes of her allies and friends. He had nothing but her; if he disappeared, she still technically had so much to live for.
Yet, just like that, she rose and walked away from even after saying that she wouldn't. He shifted, the shudder of metal springs against his arm as he let her go. He had to to mull over what she spoke, to figure out what he would do and how he would do it. His structure system was very shaky after all, and he needed to figure out what to do. Besides, she probably needed a little space.
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After a quick drop by in her room, leaving the file, the phone and the gun a different place –not that she didn’t thought Bucky couldn’t find them, and after standing in her room for a few moments, she once again walked out and closed the door behind her, she needed to step out for a bit, she couldn’t stay inside anymore, she was feeling so trapped in here and she was just a wreck, and she was thankful this place had a fenced backyard and she could go there for the time being.
It was also on her luck that the door for the backyard was quiet enough and she could pry it open without much of a fuss, shivering just a bit since the temperature was dropping, but she didn’t cared at the moment and just sat in one of the new chairs Stark had provided for this place, bending her legs against her chest and resting her forehead against her knees, her shoulders might be shaking a bit or not, it was only natural to get some sort of relief and if hers came in just some barely there tears so be it, she will have it out of her system and then she will be back to what and how she needed to be.
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He saw her moving to a chair and sitting, not actually leaving the yard and walking away. He watched what he could of her as he controlled himself and finally convinced himself away from the window and slowly over to the closet. He pulled it open and stared at all the clothing inside, making a conscious choice that if he were to follow her, he would have to look the part and not make her decide his clothes for him. It was a small step for her, only for her.
He changed into a new pair of jeans that hugged his hips but didn't cling tightly to him. He found a black tight-fitting shirt and then overlaid a red button-down long sleeve shirt over it. He walked to the bathroom and actually brushed his hair and put it back up into a ponytail that was neater and peered at his reflection again. Maybe someday he'd feel like this 'Bucky' fellow. Until then, she was everything.
Barefoot, he walked out into the backyard, breathing in the freshness and allowed the door closing to announce him. He walked over to her slowly, uncertain and out of place before he slowly lowered himself into a chair nearby. "I won't let you down."
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It did made her feel better, not at her best, but better than how she had felt all day and taking another deep shuddering breath, she finally moved to rest her chin against her knees and stared at the backyard, from a distance she could heard the sound of warm laughter and she was glad to know that there were some people in the world that were still happy and joyful, she hoped that no one took that away from them. She lightly tilted her head and maybe it was a bit amusing when she suddenly thought that the backyard could use some work, the grass was too high and the few flowers needed some tending, but what would be the point if she was going to be leaving soon?
She heard the door and knew he was there, but she didn’t reacted and stayed where she was, not turning to look at him and waiting to see what he said to her, they had done and said a lot to each other today as it was. “I know you won’t, James.” She finally broke the silence that had settled over them. “But try to change not only for me, but also for yourself. I am not going to be around forever and I don’t want you to lose whatever you might gain while we are together just because I’m not there.”
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Still, he found himself looking around the yard, listening to the sounds beyond it before glancing at her. He didn't know what she meant that she wasn't going to be around forever, which seemed silly because if she was dead, so was he. They'd be taken out together if it was going to go that way, but he also didn't dare mention that. He found it odd that she called him James instead of the nickname though. "Are you going to call me that now?"
He knew he'd have to adapt and cope, but it had been a long few months. There was no way to change so quickly. "I don't expect to be around if you aren't."
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She took a deep breath and shrugged just a bit. “I figure that might be the best right now, it’s a more neutral and safe way to refer to you I suppose.” After all, didn’t part of him in a way still didn’t felt identified with that name and still didn’t believed that had been him once upon a time, it was probably going to work better if she stopped calling him like that for the time being and return to it when he actually requested it.
Another bout of silence and she finally turned to look at him. “You don’t know what’s going to happen, things happen and you can’t do nothing to stop them, if such a thing happens and I’m gone but you remain, you need to try to remain as you are and accept it, alright?”
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"I suppose so. It's what I was probably called most of the time when I was young anyway," he murmured, though it seemed odd that it came from her lips. He was a bit more used to hearing her yelling 'Bucky' at him. "You'll... call me the other name sometimes too, right?"
No, he didn't know what was going to happen, but he thought he had the strength to protect her for the most part. "I don't... want to remain if you're gone. I want to go with you," he muttered softly, his eyes downcast. "To the end of the line."
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She kept a rather composed face when he asked her that of her, though she was rather surprised he was actually requesting that and she nodded just a little bit. “If you want me to do it, then I will.”
A small frown appeared on her face and she shook her head, one of her hands had moved to rest against his arm but she stopped and rested it against the armrest of the chair. “I know we promised that, and I am not saying it’s going to happen, I just want you to be prepared for it in case it happens.”
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He shook his head a little bit at her words, peering over towards the fence. "I'll earn it," he murmured softly. "For now, James until I've earned the right to the nickname." He understood that she personally needed some barrier of distance between them.
His eyes flicked over when he saw movement, watching her hand move over to him but fail to meet. He slowly turned his head to regard her, his expression neutral even if he looked like he was relaxing in the chair he was seated in. "If you die, I die. It's as simple as that. You are my everything."
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There was a miniscule smile in response to his murmur about earning it back, it at least assured her that he was going to make an effort and try to move on from what he had been reduced to be by Hydra, she knew some aspects were going to remain and she could, no, she was going to deal and accept them. “Alright then, it’s settled then.”
She decided not to question on how he was going to address her, she was going to let him decide that on his own and she was going to willingly accept it as he had, though she hoped he didn’t used captain or something similar. There was a light tensing up at his words and her fingers tightened against the armrest, before she allowed herself to relax again. “Then I guess we will need to be very careful and to avoid something like that happening to either of us, right?”
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He did stand by what he said, that he was better off dead than without her. His abilities, his training, his conditioning made him dangerous at the best of times, but when he had something to focus on, he was better. He wouldn't allow himself to survive outside of her; she was going to become his kill switch. "Yeah, you be more careful. People know you far more than they will ever know me."
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That if people didn’t knew him already as a killer, considering his image at the very least was all over the news and maybe if they were lucky his face wouldn’t exactly be visible enough for people to recognize him right away, the arm could be easily concealed if they needed it. She looked away again and became aware of the sound of music from the distance, probably from the same place she had heard the laugher coming from, and she couldn’t help but smile and trying to see if she could identify the song. “Oh I think that’s the look of love.”
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He tilted his head a bit at the sound of music, though aside from the tune and a few words, he wasn't about to identify it. He actually didn't know any songs anymore, probably not even the National Anthem it had been so long. "The what?"
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She followed the rhythm and tune from the song in her mind, being able to put the necessary words when it was necessary to complete the song, she could even hear Dusty’s voice in the back of her mind now. “The Look of Love, it’s a love song and apparently a rather favored one to dance with.” And it reminded her a bit of the quick dance lesson Sam had given her, claiming it was needed when she finally went and had that dance with Peggy. “I was never a good dancer."
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He frowned at the idea of dancing, but something about the whole idea was somehow... appealing. He didn't know why or how, but he listened a little more closely to the sound, picking out the rhythm before he slowly pushed himself out of his seat and rolled his red sleeves up to his elbows. He extended his metal hand to her. "Show me."
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She was aware of his motions out of the corner of her eye, registering it and wondering what he was going to do now, she hadn’t expected the offer and she stared at the offered hand for a few seconds, processing what she was going to do now and it was then that she also noticed he had finally changed, looking rather well put and now she felt a bit sloppy considering she was only wearing a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, but whatever is not as if he had ever judged her for what she decided to wear.
Finally she decided to risk it and accepted his extended hand, and moved to stand up. “I told you that I couldn’t dance.”
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