imfollowinghim | twenty one ✪ video & spam

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twenty one ✪ video & spam

[Public Video, Backdated to Thursday]

[It's pretty dark when Bucky clicks on the video feed, but that's nothing new. He's sitting on the couch in Steve's room, and the light from the comm's screen is illuminating his face. He's not wearing his Commandos jacket, although it's folded over the arm of the couch, and he's still got his uniform pants on, even if he's swapped the t-shirt or fatigue green sweater for one of the plaid shirts Stiles had gotten for him.]

Alright, for anyone who's new, I'm Bucky Barnes. I'm a sergeant with the US Army, it was 1945 before I got here, and anyone who says "hail" or "heil" anything around me's gonna get a fist in the face.

I was running some people through basic training before stuff went to hell. I'm gonna need a headcount of who's still interested. That includes anyone new - we cover endurance, strength training, hand to hand, weapons and survival skills. It's gonna be hard, and you're gonna be mad as hell at me sometimes, but it'll be worth it next time we wind up somewhere dangerous. We're gonna meet in the gym until whatever's going on with the missing room's gets fixed.

[If it ever does.

There's a quiet rustling noise some somewhere off camera, and Bucky looks off to his left, distracted. He drops his voice, and manages to look irritated and amused at the same time.]

One more thing: if anyone wakes up the star spangled dummy here- [Bucky jerks his thumb towards what's presumably the bed and therefore a sleeping Steve.] In the next eight or so hours, I'm gonna kick your ass.

I don't know what you guys did to him while I was gone, but Steve's taking a week off. If you really need Cap, call me or one of the other twelve superheroes you've got on board. Pretty sure we can handle it.

[There's a soft swoosh of air as a pillow goes flying towards the camera. Bucky catches it almost without looking and puts the comm down, turning away as he kills the feed.] Go back to sleep, you dumb punk.

[Spam for Helena, backdated to Tuesday]

[Before Bucky had finally put his foot down and more or less guilted Steve into taking a break - he hates admitting he feels shitty, that he's back to feeling like his skin's about to crawl off of him, but if saying he's worn out gets Steve to take it easy, he'll say he feels like shit - he'd been doing his best to just keep things together. It's easy enough when he's got something to focus on, like running sweeps of the ship with Steve, figuring out what they do and don't have on board now, damage control, all of it.

But then there's downtime, and it's suddenly a lot harder to take his mind off the fact that he was strapped to a table and poked and prodded and drugged again, and that this time, he'd gone into it knowing exactly what he was getting himself into.

He doesn't regret it, but his skin itches like it doesn't quite fit anymore, and he knows he should be tired or at least try to sleep, but he winds up staring at the ceiling in his room, or Steve's, and he just... can't.

On Tuesday, he gives up. It's late, or early, and he throws on his Commandos jacket and uniform pants over his sleep shirt and boxers before heading up to the deck. Times like these, he almost wishes he was a smoker. Maybe it'd help calm him down at least a little, especially considering most of his usual haunts for stress relief - the CES, the CTS, the firing range... - aren't around, so he tries to make do with pacing around the deck and chewing gum. It's better than nothing.

Most everyone else seems to be asleep, but Bucky's not out on the deck long before he spots a familiar figure slinking into his peripheral vision. Helena's been scarcer, he realizes, and he's not sure if he's more worried or relieved. Worried, because they haven't exactly talked much since what happened, and relieved because Bucky has no idea how he's supposed to talk to her about what he did for her, or about what she'd overheard him admit to. He's never told anyone what Zola did to him, not really, even if he knows and can't pretend like he doesn't anymore.

So there's some hesitation before he glances over to acknowledge her, but he does. He even manages something that might be considered a smile.]

Hey. [He reaches into his jacket pocket and produces a chocolate bar, offering it out without commentary, as one does when you're both basically constantly hungry.]

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[The exchange of food helps settle him a little. Whether or not she brought the orange specifically for him or just happened to have it with her and thought to offer it to him isn't exactly important, because at least it feels something close to their normal patterns of behavior.

Bucky accepts it with a smile, holds it carefully in his hands, and tries to think of what to say.]

You doing okay? [That seems like an obvious place to start, doesn't it?]

[Her own smile in return is small but it's something at least; she brought the orange specifically. In answer to his question she nods, toying with the chocolate for a few moments before starting to eat it, glancing at him. It doesn't quite feel right, that he's asking her after what happened, but it does feel nice. She likes it despite herself.

That doesn't mean she's going to be distracted from asking about him, though.]

Are you?

Edited 2014-11-08 06:38 (UTC)

Yeah. [It's not even totally a lie. He's okay - he's not being hurt, he's not in serious danger right now, he's not as worried about the people he cares about or their chances of ever getting out of his place. He could be worse. Bucky has been worse, and maybe one of the reasons why it had felt fractionally easier to trade himself for her was the knowledge that he'd survived it once, he could do it again if he had to.

He digs his thumbnail under the skin of the orange and methodically starts peeling it. The smell still catches him off guard sometimes, because fresh fruit had been one of the things he definitely hadn't seen a lot of at one point in his life, and there's something absolutely pleasant and reassuring about it. It makes it easier to relax.]

Good to be back.

Yes.

[It is definitely good to be back. Being stuck there is not something she's going to miss. (It's strange to think how hard it is to lose things like respect and friendship when she'd never really had them up until arriving on the Barge. Now that she knows she wants them, having them taken away was much worse. She's very glad Bucky had been himself, while simultaneously wishing he hadn't been.)

She breaks pieces of the chocolate bar off and plays with them a little before putting them to her mouth. The smell of the orange is pleasant. She knows he likes them and knows it's because he grew up without them. She knows how that feels.

Her voice is quiet and she doesn't really look at him when she speaks.]

Thank you.

[She means Banner but she means everything else as well.]

You're welcome. [It comes out simply enough, but he means he'd do it again, that he doesn't regret it, even if it wasn't an easy thing to do. Except it also kind of was.

Bucky's quiet for a moment as he peels his orange, hanging onto the peel instead of pitching it over the side or something. It's good to have his hands occupied while he tries to figure out what to say, how much to reveal next.]

Don't tell Steve. [Please is silently tacked on to the end of the request, and when he glances over at her, his expression's both composed and slightly vulnerable.]

He doesn't know- [Well, that's not explicitly true, and he feels like he should explain, or clarify, but at the same time he really, really doesn't want to, because saying he doesn't know what they did to me or about the torture on the other Barge would make both seem a lot more real and terrifying.

Bucky winds up clearing his throat instead, glancing back out at the stars.] I've never really said what happened, and I don't want him to worry.

[There's a lot of things she could say to that and there are a lot of questions she wants to ask, too. She wants to know why he hasn't told Steve, when Steve is as close to a brother as he's got. She wants to know what it means, really, that he's a super soldier. She'd asked Steve what had changed for him and it had been everything - strength, height, vision, senses - and she wonders how different it is for Bucky, what changed and what stayed the same; it must be less obvious, if Steve doesn't know.

Instead, she looks at him, regarding him for a few moments while he looks at the stars. She pushes her hood back from her hair and tilts her head a little and finally, what she asks is:]

What does he think you dream of?

The war. [It comes out a tiny bit dryly, because it's true, that is what he dreams about. Steve just doesn't have the whole picture, and he can probably put pieces together, but Bucky's reluctant to let him have the whole thing.

What good would it do? It won't change anything, and won't make it easier to deal with.]

He knows I was a POW and that Zola-

[He stops himself and shakes his head briefly, because he still can't say it. Won't, can't, one of the two, and at the end of the day, it probably doesn't matter much which it is.]

I just didn't tell him everything. [Bucky finally looks back over at her, and his expression's surprisingly calm, given what they're talking about.] I didn't tell him anything about what happened with Banner.

What did they do to you?

[It's blunt - really it's just a different way of asking What happened to you? - and there's a hint of her own confused hateful feelings about the scientists who made her in her tone. Maybe he'll answer and maybe he won't. She won't tell Steve, not about what happened in the war and not about Banner. But she wants to know, needs to ask. Maybe she's wondering just how much it might have cost him to put himself into that position for her. Her voice softens and her hands rise a little, carefully, palms out and open.]

Please. I... won't tell him. I only want to know.

[It's a fair enough question, really. Bucky knows everything about Helena, and she only knows what he's told her. And no, he doesn't want to tell her, but he finishes peeling and dividing his orange into sections, and uses that as a distraction to try to find the right words.]

They, uh- [He has to stop again, letting out a short breath, looking back out at the stars again.

The orange helps, and maybe it's because the smell is grounding him in the here and now that he just says it. The words are still a little disconnected, like he's talking about it happening to someone else, or describing something he saw happen in a movie or something. Something unreal.]

This guy Zola experimented on me. [Another beat, and then:] Tortured me, did a lotta medical tests. I don't really know what they were doing, but it kind of worked.

[He's faster, stronger, heals faster, maybe he even sees and hears better. And that's all well and good, but suddenly he hears Banner's voice again, telling him that the only thing worthwhile in him had been given to him by a Nazi.

Bucky knows that isn't true, but it's still like ice down his spine.]

They did it to a lot of other guys, too. I was the only one who survived.

Steve got me out.

[Steve got me out. She thinks of the key to Tomas's cage jingling in Sarah's hands as she unlocked the padlock and opened the door wide; she thinks of the feel of Sarah's body against hers when she hugged her. If she was in his position, would she tell Sarah? She doesn't know.

There's a disconnected tone in his voice which is a little unusual, a little like when they'd both been sick, before the swap to the other Barge and she turns a little to look at him. Her fingers come to rest lightly on his arm, just her fingertips grazing against the fabric of his jacket, her gaze drifting from him to look out into the stars.]

If you were the one who lived, you must have been strong before they changed you.

[Light as they are, her fingers on his arm startle him a little, or at least pull him back so he's looking at her instead of at anything else. It takes a moment for her words to really register, but when they do, a corner of his mouth lifts in a sort of bitter smile, even if it's not directed at her.]

I guess. [He's always been strong, always been capable of taking people's abuse for the sake of someone else. Maybe that's why he'd been so good at his job, why he'd turned down offers of being made a platoon sergeant or getting sent home to run Basic.

The gum in his mouth gets pushed to one side as he finally eats a segment of the orange, chewing and swallowing before saying anything else.] Don't beat yourself up about it, alright? I'm fine. And I'm sure as hell not sorry I did it.

[Sorry it had to happen, sure, but he'd do it again in a heartbeat if he needed to.]

[She nods and then she's quiet for a little while, withdrawing her hand and breaking off pieces from the chocolate ration carefully to raise to her mouth. She likes the taste, the texture; it's a safe, comforting taste, because it's all Bucky. She's sorry he did it, but in a strange half-pleased, half-ashamed way. She doesn't want him to hurt for her, but she can't help being sort of awed that he would.

Finally, after a while, she asks another question. She wants to know, sure, but she wonders if it wouldn't be good for him to talk about it, too.]

How different are you now?

[Bucky shrugs, more or less nonchalant, except his brow furrows in serious thought, making it clear that he's really thinking about this. It's hard to quantify, exactly, and it's not like Zola had given him a list of side effects to expect from whatever the hell he was pumping into his system.]

I heal pretty fast. Haven't been sick since it happened, don't need to sleep as much. [Which has been useful, considering how little he actually can sleep, sometimes.

He shrugs again, eating another segment of orange before continuing.]

Whatever they did, it's not as good as Steve's, so I'm not really as strong or as fast as he is, but it's more than I should be.

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twenty one ✪ video & spam

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