Bucky Barnes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
imfollowinghim) wrote2014-08-07 08:09 pm
imfollowinghim) wrote2014-08-07 08:09 pm
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[It's been over a week since Bucky was almost beaten to death maybe a couple yards from the infirmary, and he feels... fine.
Fine. Sore, tired, still healing, but fine, and that's so deeply unsettling that he really doesn't know what to do with it at all. At all, because he's gone this long without having to talk about what happened to him in any detail at all, and he definitely doesn't want to start now. It's just a lot harder to dismiss little differences like increased appetite and tolerance to alcohol and apparently painkillers now, too, as not a big deal when the deep black and blue bruises on his ribs have already faded to almost nothing, when it should take a friggin' month for broken ribs to actually start feeling better, not days.
He's scared. He's been scared of what this is going to mean for a long time, and two days ago, after he'd shooed Steve away, locked the bathroom door behind him and turned on the shower, he'd spent a distressingly long time staring at his own reflection in the mirror, wondering if now's the time his face is going to start peeling off to reveal some monster right out of a pulp underneath.
So he stays quiet about it, tries to pretend like he still feels like shit and doesn't want to do much - which isn't a difficult thing to pull off, because all of this means he is pretty fucking miserable - and if he's a little more sullen and cranky than usual, Steve seems to be chalking it up to the fact that he's got three busted ribs and a bad concussion, and leaves it at that. It works out for the most part.
But eventually, boredom does get the better of him. Sitting around in bed while you're recovering - unless you're really out of your mind with fever or whatever drugs were trying to help nudge you back along to health - is fucking terrible, no matter who you're with or where you are, and obviously it's not like he expects Steve to be keeping him company the whole time he convalesces. They can't both be sitting around in Steve's room feeling penned in and bored.
Bucky slips out of Steve's room sometime after his friend heads out to go for a jog, and as much as he wants to go for a run or punch the hell of something in the gym, he heads for the dining hall and helps himself to a giant stack of pancakes instead. Now that he's not as achey or metabolizing painkillers out of his system too quickly, he's even more ravenously hungry than usual, and winds up settling at a table near a corner, facing the door to get to work on finishing breakfast. The bruises around his eyes are gone, and there's still a bandage wrapped around his left hand - even though the cut's healed, he'd changed the wrappings himself so no one would get suspicious - and as much as he looks burned out and tired, he's in a lot better shape than he has any right to be, and kind of looks it.]
[It's been over a week since Bucky was almost beaten to death maybe a couple yards from the infirmary, and he feels... fine.
Fine. Sore, tired, still healing, but fine, and that's so deeply unsettling that he really doesn't know what to do with it at all. At all, because he's gone this long without having to talk about what happened to him in any detail at all, and he definitely doesn't want to start now. It's just a lot harder to dismiss little differences like increased appetite and tolerance to alcohol and apparently painkillers now, too, as not a big deal when the deep black and blue bruises on his ribs have already faded to almost nothing, when it should take a friggin' month for broken ribs to actually start feeling better, not days.
He's scared. He's been scared of what this is going to mean for a long time, and two days ago, after he'd shooed Steve away, locked the bathroom door behind him and turned on the shower, he'd spent a distressingly long time staring at his own reflection in the mirror, wondering if now's the time his face is going to start peeling off to reveal some monster right out of a pulp underneath.
So he stays quiet about it, tries to pretend like he still feels like shit and doesn't want to do much - which isn't a difficult thing to pull off, because all of this means he is pretty fucking miserable - and if he's a little more sullen and cranky than usual, Steve seems to be chalking it up to the fact that he's got three busted ribs and a bad concussion, and leaves it at that. It works out for the most part.
But eventually, boredom does get the better of him. Sitting around in bed while you're recovering - unless you're really out of your mind with fever or whatever drugs were trying to help nudge you back along to health - is fucking terrible, no matter who you're with or where you are, and obviously it's not like he expects Steve to be keeping him company the whole time he convalesces. They can't both be sitting around in Steve's room feeling penned in and bored.
Bucky slips out of Steve's room sometime after his friend heads out to go for a jog, and as much as he wants to go for a run or punch the hell of something in the gym, he heads for the dining hall and helps himself to a giant stack of pancakes instead. Now that he's not as achey or metabolizing painkillers out of his system too quickly, he's even more ravenously hungry than usual, and winds up settling at a table near a corner, facing the door to get to work on finishing breakfast. The bruises around his eyes are gone, and there's still a bandage wrapped around his left hand - even though the cut's healed, he'd changed the wrappings himself so no one would get suspicious - and as much as he looks burned out and tired, he's in a lot better shape than he has any right to be, and kind of looks it.]
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So what else is new? [Being holed up recovering had meant he hasn't been paying as close attention to things like the network as he probably should be.]
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Last night it had proven to be important, but he grimaces.]
Well. Someone else from home showed up last night. Isaac. [He knows Bucky talked to him.]
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You ever wonder why so many people from where you're from keep showing up?
[But before Stiles can really comment on that...]
What's that face for?
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He's not a bad guy or anything. I mean, not really. Other than that time he tried to kill Lydia. But he was acting on his alpha's orders, and Derek was being really dumb and stubborn and not listening to reason when we tried to tell him that Lydia wasn't the kanima -- which is a giant homicidal lizard that we had to deal with, by the way -- and he's helped out a lot since then.
[He pauses, shifting in his seat. But. But. But Isaac and Scott are friends. Good friends. And as much as he's vowed to himself that he'll try to make amends with Isaac, too, despite the fact he should because Isaac is part of Scott's pack, is -- whatever he is with Allison, and he's there to help fix part of Stiles' mess -- despite all of that, he's already on edge from the beta's presence on the ship. They aren't friends. They've never been friends. They grate on each other's nerves -- intentionally on both their parts -- and don't get him started on the scarves the guy wears in sixty degree weather. He's tense. He shrugs when he looks at Bucky again, knowing how very petty all of it is, how over it he should be.]
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Anyway, Stiles is obviously uncomfortable, and Bucky might not be able to really fully relate - there were moments early on where he'd felt resentful and jealous that people like Peggy and Howard, or even random strangers suddenly gave a shit about what Steve had to say when they wouldn't have given him the time of day before Captain America - but he's usually been pretty good at finding a spot he's comfortable with in a social circle, and isn't very easily intimidated or ticked off by newcomers.
Still, if there was some guy he didn't really like suddenly acting like he was Steve's best pal, or an honorary Commando or something, sure, he'd be pissed.
It makes it pretty easy to casually make this offer after he finishes off another half a pancake.]
Do you need me to beat him up for you?
[He's kidding. Hopefully.]
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Nah. No violence required. We just...get on each other's nerves. On a regular basis. We're on the same side of things, we just clash.
[He does relax a little again.]
He's got this thing for scarves.
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Okay, interrogate is probably too strong a word, but he's curious.]
Why scarves?
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We live in California where it's in at least the sixties like every single day of the year. Why the hell would you even wear a scarf?
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[Which is fully a joke at his own expense, and he wouldn't have a good answer for you even if he was from 2014.]
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That's okay. I'm keeping you anyway.
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Wow, I'm touched. Would've been pretty disappointing if clothes was what made you decide I'm an asshole.
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Yeah, plus that'd make me a shitty person. [It's not like most of his beef with Isaac is about his scarves anyway. It's just the easiest thing to mock, the thing that won't lead to the deeper discussion of the reasons the two of them don't like each other or get along.]
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So, he just a normal teenager, or do I need to start reading up on vampires?
[Maybe that would explain the scarf thing...]
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Well. He's not a vampire. But he is like Scott. Minus the alpha part anyway.