nineteen ✪ video & spam

[imfollowinghim]

[Bucky's taken a day, and he knows a few things:

1. He's an inmate here, so no weapons, limited boost from the serum, no warden areas and no asking the Admiral for any supplies.
2. People here are just as gullible and easy to fool as they had been on the normal Barge.
3. Steve is going to be a fucking problem.

So they'll still find out who he is eventually, but he's going to try to bide his time as long as possible. He's already seen himself mentioned as unaffected on Arthas' list, and he's not surprised, but he's also feeling more than a little self satisfied. He's done his homework.

He's in his cabin when he clicks on the video feed, wearing the blue Commandos jacket just like his counterpart usually seems to and smirks a little lazily at the camera.]

I know we're steal dealing with some pretty rough shit, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to be back in my right mind again. [He's seen the conversation with the Emperor. Pathetic.]

While we're still figuring out who's who, anyone who's interested and not currently a psycho: boot camp's starting up again first thing tomorrow. You guys all know what to expect by now.

Anyone got any questions, you know how to find me.

[He's going to need to figure out a way for someone to get him into the CES...]

[Spam, September 30 - October 3]

[This is a different part from what he's had to play before, but unlike his counterpart struggling to keep up a mask of indifference to the suffering of others, this Bucky's finding it incredibly easy to pretend like he cares about these people. He smiles, makes smalltalk, delicately probes for more information, and they just spill. There haven't been too many who have looked at him with anything but trust, and those who have viewed him with suspicion apparently haven't put two and two together yet.

So Bucky seemingly goes about life as usual, even if there's something maybe a little bit off about him. He's quick to brush it off as being bitter about his trip through the door, at losing a month to being out of his mind and terrified of everything, but it's still... a little odd.

Feel free to catch him in the dining hall, the gym, heading back to his room, or conveniently carrying too many things - books, usually, but sometimes equipment for boot camp - to be able to open the lock on a warden area by himself, and if you could grab the door, he'd really appreciate it, thanks. Boot camp starts up again, and is virtually identical to the routine that people had been running before Bucky had gotten too incoherent to continue, except sometimes his motivational barbs sound more like direct insults. But that's what a drill sergeant does, right?

The only thing that's really different is that he doesn't seem to be gravitationally pulled back into orbiting around Steve as much as he usually does. They don't not spend time together, but Bucky seems off on his own for most of the day, or talking with other people like nothing's wrong. Because it isn't. Everything's fine.]

[ooc: Tags will be coming from shieldcatchesyou! Steve is going to officially out him on Friday. :|b]

Comments

[velocette]

Is bootcamp about survival, or about team dynamics?

[He's been curious about it for a long time now; but there are many reasons that even the frantic draft of the late Vietnam War hadn't wanted him in the ranks, and those reasons apply here, too.]

[shieldcatchesyou]

Both. Can't have one without the other.

[That he doesn't even have to fake, or just borrow from the other Bucky. He went through Basic. He's been in the army since he was seventeen, and he knows how much you need to be able to trust the guy sitting next to you.]

[velocette]

[It sounds like the same thing he'd built his gang on, too. Except that being king of the thugs had taught him a few other lessons:]

Up to a point. When people, even good people, get frightened enough in just the right way, they're all just crabs in a bucket. And that's without anyone being actively malicious in order to regain a sense of control...

For some people the best survival tactic they can learn is how to rely on themselves. Especially now, don't you think?

[shieldcatchesyou]

That's normal people. I've been in the army for [He doesn't know how long the other Bucky has been, but he doesn't miss a beat.] years, and I've seen a hell of a lot of rough fighting. Guys in your unit, you can count on. Most don't crack, and the ones who do don't do it because they only give a shit about themselves.

[Unless someone offers them a better deal.]

[velocette]

[He nods, seeing the sense in that. Most everyone on board wouldn't have cut it in the military, but the Motorcycle Boy's doubts don't mean that he thinks a boot camp is a bad idea.]

There's someone else on board, he sounds a little like you. You've been to war, too? [He's pretty sure Bucky has. There's something in every veteran he's ever seen, from Steve Rogers to the catatonic amputee back home, that feels like well-worn violence.]

[shieldcatchesyou]

Pretty sure it's the same war. [There aren't many people like him on board either Barge.

Just the one, really, even if things are completely different here.]

Steve Rogers is my best friend. [Steve Rogers was my toady, now I'm his partner. They were never really friends. Back then, Steve had put up with him for survival, and now it's all just business, especially now that Steve's brain got fried by Zola.

(Sometimes, that almost bothers him. Almost.)] I enlisted before he could.

[velocette]

[Names are difficult for him to keep hold of, and he shakes his head slightly, as if to jar loose some familiarity with it.

Very few people here admit to having best friends. He hasn't met any who have 'best friends' here who are the same as at home; realistically this friend has to be Cap, the Other Symbol.]

Cap...he said he had trouble getting let on the roster. Did you really believe in the war when you signed on?

[shieldcatchesyou]

[No, he hadn't. There hadn't been a war when he'd signed on, he'd just wanted to do something different, wanted to learn how to use a gun and be trained to hurt people, because he was bored and angry and directionless, and had nothing better to do. It was that, or wind up at some factory job, or working down at the docks.

But that's not the other guy. That's him.]

Yeah, I did.

[velocette]

[He's quiet a moment, his gaze unwavering]

When did it change? See- the motive behind a war might stay the same, but you bring enough blood into it and ideals get...drowned in it. First time you see a guy bleed out, first time you take a hit. Even Cap, I don't think he got through in one piece. No one does.

[shieldcatchesyou]

No one does, but that doesn't make you stop believing in why you're fighting.

[HYDRA is building a better world. A more honest one. Bucky isn't going to turn his back on that just because he's dead, or just because he's seen a lot of guys get killed.]

[velocette]

[He hums. Faith unsettles him, even as it fascinates him. It's one of those characteristics that he's become too alien to understand, but he can see very clearly how deadly too much belief can be.]

In nearly every soldier, when they get on the ground, the dedication stops being about abstract ideals. It boils down to fighting to save your own life--or the lives of the men around you, I hear that one a lot. Loyalty is as fine a razor as God is.

Maybe someone with the tenacity of a priest could manage to set fire to villages--that's a large point of contention in my war--and still believe they're right, though. To use an example from your time, the Germans certainly seemed to believe in themselves, no matter what they were actually doing.

[shieldcatchesyou]

What's your war?

[velocette]

Vietnam. It's been going on a while; I don't know if you would know it, though.

[shieldcatchesyou]

I've read about it. You serve?

[velocette]

[He shakes his head]

I died before my draft came up. But they probably wouldn't have taken me anyway--they don't like you to have a TBI before you even get shot, I guess.

[Which is hilarious to him, but hey.]

I've got a brother, though. He'll probably die there.

[shieldcatchesyou]

Then you don't get it, and you never will, so you can shut the fuck up.

[velocette]

Where I'm from, children are soldiers. I understand more than you think--but certainly less about bootcamp and saluting and 'yes, sir'.

[It's one of those things he has undisguised scorn and amusement for, in equal measure.]

[shieldcatchesyou]

No, you don't. Doesn't matter where you come from.

[velocette]

[shrug. Mark Twain's advice is not to part with illusions--he's pretty sure that also means not arguing with someone about how alone or isolated they feel.] I suppose that makes things easier in many ways.