twenty eight ✪ voice & spam

[imfollowinghim]

[Voice, backdated to March 17]

[Bucky leaves T'Pol's body where it is. He wipes his knife on his pants, an automatic gesture that leaves another green smear of blood on his soaked uniform, and after staring at her for a moment, he walks downstairs to sit with Steve's corpse. And sits.

Maybe ten minutes later, he clicks on his communicator.]

Steve's dead.

[Bucky's voice is hollow. There's anger there, but it's smothered by the numbness he feels, the strange unreality of it all.

(It's being instinctively self protective, withdrawing instead of thinking about it. He doesn't want to think about what she'd tried to do to him, or what happened to Steve, so shutting down helps him focus. Keeps him from just staying sitting on the floor next to Steve.)]

So's T'Pol.

[The silence stretches for several seconds, even though he doesn't kill the connection.]

I need someone to take her to the infirmary. She's on deck. [I stabbed her, he thinks but doesn't say, because he can still feel her hands on his face and her thoughts on his, and he's got Steve's blood on his clothes and even though it's a more than familiar sensation, he thinks he's going to be sick.] I've got him.

[Open Spam, March 17th through 19th]

[The first thing Bucky does after bringing Steve to the infirmary is go to the inmate showers, strip off his bloody combat uniform, and stand under water that's so hot, it's almost scalding. He's practically catatonic, mouth drawn into a thin line as he just stands motionless under the hot, steaming water.

He turns up in the infirmary an hour or so later, sitting similarly motionlessly by Steve's bedside in a fresh uniform. He's got the shield next to him, clean now and leaning against the chair he's rooted himself to. He's largely unresponsive, even if people talk to him - or more accurately, his responses are just delayed, like he's shut out pretty much everything but the person in the bed in front of him - and he's got a mean five o'clock shadow going at some point. Hunger starts gnawing at him at some point, but for the first time in a really long time - maybe since the last time Steve was really, really sick - he totally ignores it. Even after the late shift starts, he doesn't move to leave. He doesn't even sleep.

(His thoughts feel sharp and brittle, like they had after Zola had been finished with him for the day and he'd been thrown back into a cell to sleep. Or try to sleep. It feels like what T'Pol had tried to do ripped a bandage off a wound that hadn't healed, and he doesn't want to fucking deal with it.)

But once Steve's up and around, Bucky vanishes. He's not in any of his usual haunts, not on the network, nowhere really.

(Thank god he's still got C-Rations in his room. 8v)]

Comments

[thelastbullet]

[He takes a few steps closer, but stays far enough away that he's not crowding Bucky. The guy needs his space; he understands. If it had been Richard in that bed... well, he wouldn't want anyone getting too close.

There's no judgement there; he understands. Still, though, after what Steve had told him about how he'd gotten that strong... He has to ask.]

How the fuck do you kill a guy like that?

[imfollowinghim]

[If it helps, the lifelessness and lingering terror from the attempted mind meld make it even less unlikely that Bucky would lash out or even tell him to fuck off, honestly.]

You're strong, fast, and got really fucking lucky. [That I wasn't there to kill you first is sort of what he means, but also the obvious. Steve's hard to kill, or even hurt.]

Mickey thinks it's the same guy who got Jerry.

[thelastbullet]

[He rubs at his mouth, uncomfortable. It's not that he's unused to seeing seemingly immortal people die, but those people hadn't been people like Steve. And despite the fact that death is less of a problem on the Barge than it is back home, it's still disconcerting.]

The Captain have any beef with anyone? [He can't imagine so, but he doesn't know Steve that well.]

[imfollowinghim]

I'm sure he's got beef with someone, [Because Steve might seem different to people who knew him before the serum, or might look like a pinnacle of good manners and following the rules, Bucky knows he's still the same little shit from before who never knew when to back down from a fight.] But I think I'd know about it if it was someone who could do this.

[thelastbullet]

[He steps just a little closer, enough so that he can reach out to Bucky to clap a hand to his shoulder. Just a second, nothing more than that. It's not much, but it's what he can give-- and he doesn't think Bucky wants anything more than that, either.]

You'll get him, Sarge. [It's an 'I'm sorry' and 'fuck whoever did this' at the same time.]

[imfollowinghim]

[It's good. Bucky needs the reassurance, whether he'd consciously realized it before then or not. The nickname settles something in him, too, because it's been a long time since anyone's called him that - or long enough to realize at least - and it's good to be reminded of that. He's Sergeant James Barnes, not a victim, not Zola's lab rat, not broken beyond repair.

Something in his expression gentles and steels at the same time - he just looks a little more alive.]

Thanks, Jimmy.

[thelastbullet]

[Bucky's vigil by Steve's body reminds him a little of Gene and Snafu, and it makes him feel a little awkward. That undivided attention, that devotion.

He'll leave Bucky alone, unless he gives an indication that he'd like Jimmy to stay. He'll come by with something to eat, later, something small. If Bucky's still there he'll hand it over and leave him alone; if not, it's easy enough to just eat it himself.]

[imfollowinghim]

[Bucky doesn't start a conversation, or try to stop Jimmy from going when he decides to, but he's still there when he comes back, and manages something that might be a grateful smile, if it didn't look so weird on his otherwise blank face.

He misses Dum Dum and Gabe and Jim and everyone a lot right now, but if they can't be here, they've got a decent compliment of people trying to look out for things.]