twenty nine ✪ spam

[imfollowinghim]

[Closed Spam]

[The room is... familiar. He doesn't know why.

There are parts of it that look like the exhibit at the Smithsonian - the rifles stashed in the closet (M1 Garand, M1903 Springfield), the clothing folded in the dresser and hanging in the closet all look as though they've been removed from behind the glass and placed here for him. Then, he'd almost wanted to be able to touch, now, he's almost afraid to.

That doesn't stop him from touching the dark blue sleeve of the jacket one of the mannequins had been wearing. The fabric's different from how he thought it would. Softer, maybe.

(It looks black when its stained with blood.)

Some of it doesn't make sense. Plaid shirts, pieces of equipment that don't come from this time period - even he has a vague sense of technology, how much the world's changed, if only because of the museum - and then there's some of the weapons he's used, things he's been issued in the past for assignments, even though he doesn't remember how or when or what happened.

Everything except the last one. His one failed mission.

There's a bear dressed like Captain America sitting on one of the cabinets. He picks it up, holds it gently in his right hand, and there's a part of him - a vicious, violent, terrified part of him, no I don't! - that wants to rip it to shreds, but the thought makes bile rise in his throat. (Or would, if he'd eaten anything today.)

The bear is carefully returned to its place, and he decides he's seen enough. There's nothing for him in this room except more questions.]

[Open Spam]

[So he sets out onto the ship. He remembers the Admiral - it doesn't bother him that he doesn't remember what he looked like, or exactly what he'd said, he's been given a mission and he's going to fulfill it - and he remembers the helicarriers, remembers failing, remembers the inexplicable surge of terror and guilt at Captain America's - Steve Rogers, the museum said his name was Steven Grant Rogers - last words and the equally inexplicable relief he'd felt when the badly injured man had started breathing again on the shore of the polluted river. But the rest of it is still... not there. Blurry.

It gets worse the more he walks around. He's still wearing the jacket, shirt and jeans, the sleeve covering his left arm, and he keeps his hands shoved in the pockets to further prevent anyone noticing. The baseball cap's still tugged down over his dirty, too long hair as well, shielding his eyes a little as he tries to get his bearings, exploring what parts of the ship he has access to, trying to attract as little attention as possible.

(People are staring at him. No one at the museum had paid him much attention, not even as he stared at his own face blown up huge in black and white, but here, people are staring at him, and it makes him want to vanish. He hunches in on himself, and tries not to meet their curious eyes.)

The Admiral had said he'd been here before. He doesn't remember. This isn't like any facility or place he remembers, not at all, but at the same time, the more he looks, the more he feels some horrible sense that he's been here before, the same, strange feeling he'd had staring at the photo of his own face starting to settle in his gut.

He feels bad. Not injured, but... Ill. Compromised.

He takes a seat in the dining hall in the corner, with his back to the wall, holding a mug of coffee in his human hand, but not drinking it, even though his stomach complains to be filled with something. The lights flickering as he walks through the halls don't bother him, but he stops to inspect some of the lingering signs of violence and death that still stain the walls, crouching, leaning in close, and frowning.

The infirmary is avoided entirely, and he spends a long time on deck, watching the stars.

Something about them seems different. He doesn't like it.]

[Spam for Morgana, after he's got his memories back]

[It's all too much. Way too much. So he - Bucky, James Buchanan Barnes - runs, because he doesn't have a choice. He can't stay there, can't talk about it, doesn't know what to fucking do, because there's no where to hide on a cruise ship of the damned where someone won't be able to find you.

He can't go back to his room. Steve will find him there, or Helena, or Ben, or someone else, and he can't face them right now. Can't face any of them, and he feels more trapped and boxed in and terrified than he's ever been, overwhelmed by the weight of memory and the years he's suddenly got crushing down on him.

Some combination of conscious thought and instinct has him standing outside a familiar door, knocking anxiously, wondering if this is just as much of a mistake as the rest of this was. But how could he have known? What the fuck is the Admiral's problem?]

[ooc: Dillon and Jean are going to pounce him and give him his memories back, but until then, enjoy your new and improved brainwashed assassin in recovery, Barge.]

Comments

[youwillgotohell]

[It doesn't take her long; she turns away while he's still staring, hoping he'll sit. When she hears him do just that, she lets out a little relieved breath.

It's a quicker process than it should be: Morgana sees no reason not to press magic into every inch of her life. There's no waiting for a kettle to boil over the fire. Instead, she heats the water with a few stray words, and brings him back a mug. She takes the seat adjacent to him, and for a moment, falters. What does she say? Is there anything she should say?]

Why?

[It stumbles out, and there's no taking it back, so she just tries to clarify.]

Why did you try to kill him?

[imfollowinghim]

[Bucky doesn't take the mug immediately. He reaches his hand out to cautiously press his fingers to the mug, not flinching even as he registers the heat (his left arm's under the table) and pulls back after a moment, wondering when the last time someone did something like this for him. Wondering if he deserves this at all.

He doesn't. He can't bring himself to look at her.]

HYDRA found me after I fell off the train. [The words come out almost automatically, like he's not fully in control of himself, and maybe it's that thought or just the pent up rage and shame and emotion that turns his voice embarrassingly rough, and he really can't look at her right now.] They turned me into an attack dog.

["Dog" is a deliberate choice there, because he'd been more like an animal than a person. He can still hear the sound Pierce's hand had made when it slapped him in the face.]

[youwillgotohell]

[Morgana watches him, and waits. She wants to press - she wants to reach out, take his arm, say tell me - but what might she have done, had someone done that to her? Maybe she'd have given in, collapsed and cried herself dry, but more like she'd have thought she made a mistake, drawn back and retreated to suffer alone.

Alone. How alone he must feel, she wonders as he speaks. To be found by an enemy - to be changed--

She remembers what the other Barge was like, remembers the other Bucky. She remembers HYDRA, and she thinks, he must feel like a monster.

She does reach out when he finishes, resting her hand on his left forearm.]

That doesn't sound like something you chose.

[imfollowinghim]

[He can't help it - she touches his arm and he flinches, jerking it back and hoping she won't be able to tell that it's different even though she probably will.

(The glove doesn't cover everything, for one. His wrist's exposed when its bent, and the glint of metal's unmistakable.)

It takes a shaky breath and a nervous swallow to get talking again, and he picks a spot on the table to stare at, like maybe that's going to make this easier.]

They wiped my memories. They couldn't leave me on my own for too long, or I'd start putting some stuff back together. [He frowns, embarrassed.] Not a lot. [There were other times it happened, but the one that stands out the strongest is the fact that some part of him had known Steve, even after everything. He'd recognized him twice, and the second time, that hadn't been enough to stop him from trying to kill him.

He shakes his head, angry and disgusted with himself, not sure what to do.]

I should've fought back harder.

[youwillgotohell]

[He feels wrong - he feels wrong and then there's silver and for a moment she just stares at him. The loss for words lasts long enough that she lets him talk, dragging her attention away to focus on him instead of just his arm.

(She saved that arm, and there is something in her that's deeply disgruntled at seeing that turn to nothing. She saved him.)

She pulls her tea closer, takes a swallow and tries to find something useful to say.]

They might have killed you.

[imfollowinghim]

So? [He's hunched in on himself, hands shoved in his pockets again, less defensive and more just... trying not to let her see what happened. He can remember being rescued on the ship now, and it creates a bizarre double image, the time he was rescued and healed and the time he was rescued and awake when they'd finished sawing what was left of his arm off.

So what if they'd killed him? A lot of people would still be alive. Steve wouldn't have to deal with the guilt - completely useless, meaningless guilt, because there was nothing he could have done to save him - of knowing what had happened to him. Is that really the worst possible outcome?

(Except what if they'd done it to someone else, and that someone hadn't remembered in time to stop Steve from getting himself killed? Or would Steve have found it a lot easier to kill a Winter Soldier who didn't wear the face of his childhood friend?)

There's a long moment of hesitation before he takes his hands back out of his pockets and pulls the glove off his left hand. He doesn't reach out to her, or do much other than put it on the table, but... she can see it.]

I've killed a lot of people, [He says, and it comes out as a miserable whisper. His vision blurs, and he takes a wet, shaky breath, trying desperately to hold it all back. Maybe coming here was a mistake, too.]

[youwillgotohell]

[It wasn't so long ago that every step, every breath felt like a mistake to Morgana. She lets him talk, lets him make the decision to put that silver hand on the table. For a long moment, a held breath, she does nothing. Then, slowly but not hesitantly, she reaches out and settles her hand over his metal one. She keeps her eyes on his face.

Magic defined her from the moment she discovered it. It became all she was: Morgana the witch. She stopped being Morgana the ward, the daughter, the friend. It all wiped away, until Anya showed her otherwise. She understands that now, even though she doesn't know how to share the lesson with any subtlety. He is not only what he became.

Her fingers curl around his, and she leans toward him.]

I know you don't want to hear that it wasn't your fault. It feels like it was. [She is guessing here, because the things she did - she regrets them now, but she made her choices. She was never forced to act like he was.] And that's what matters.

But what if it wasn't you? What if it was someone else who wouldn't have fought at all? [Part of spending so much time second guessing herself is that she's gotten very good at what ifs.] You would be dead, and maybe Steve would be dead, and HYDRA might have a willing weapon.

All that you've done - I won't tell you to forget it. I won't tell you to put it aside, because that's impossible. But eventually, I hope you'll realize - no matter what you did, you can make a different choice now. You'll do a better job making up for it alive.

[imfollowinghim]

[Fuck. Fuck. He has no idea what to do in the face of such easy acceptance and forgiveness - is that even what it is, if she says it wasn't his fault? If, in fact, this was maybe for the best, because a different Winter Soldier could have killed Steve and helped HYDRA really win? Even the fact that she says him feeling like this was his fault is all that matters hurts in a way he doesn't know what to do with, and his vision blurs and suddenly clears as tears spill over and down his unshaven cheeks and chin.

It's embarrassing, and he swipes his right hand over his eyes quickly even as his left doesn't move from the table. He hasn't cried in a long, long time, and the idea of letting it out scares him, even as it becomes more and more obvious that he's not going to be able to stop it.

Bucky closes his eyes and lets out a shuddery, wet breath. His body trembles and he tries to hold himself firm even as everything starts shivering apart. His left hand twists gently on the table until he can wrap his cold fingers gently - so gently, because he knows what his hands are capable of and he really, really doesn't want to hurt her - around hers, just holding on, keeping some kind of solid presence for him to focus on as he drops his face into his right hand and everything starts to really crash down on him.]

[youwillgotohell]

[When his hand shifts under hers, she doesn't pull away. She doesn't stiffen. She lets him hold her hand, because this is Bucky, and she trusts him. He won't hurt her, wouldn't, just like he couldn't kill Steve.

He starts to cry, and she stays where she is, hand slowly tightening around his. But she has never been one to way someone hurt and feel nothing: her eyes sting, and she pushes herself up from her chair, closing the space between them so she can wrap her arms around his shoulders. She can be a solid presence for him, stroking his hair back from his face and making all the soft sounds you make to someone who is hurting.]

[imfollowinghim]

[He tenses with surprise when she puts her arms around him, but she's right - he doesn't move to shove her away, or lash out, or anything. He'd never hurt her, not if he was in his right mind, and he is now, for better or worse.

So instead, he just twists to lean into it, pressing his face against her shoulder and sobbing. Later, he'll be embarrassed and apologetic, look back on it as some shameful breakdown he shouldn't have given into, but right now? This is just too fucking much, and so he cries, carefully wrapping his good arm around her waist, chest heaving violently.

He'll wear himself out eventually, but right now it feels like seventy years of torture and murder is just falling on him all at once. He can't handle this. He can't.]

[youwillgotohell]

[She lets him break against her shoulder, ignores the way her heart flutters in her chest. She's never had someone lean on her like this, and she's terrified that she'll buckle under the weight. But she strokes his hair, resting her cheek on the top of his head, and holds him while he cries. She can be strong enough for that, she thinks. He deserves to have someone strong enough for this.

Eventually, when his tears slow and the sobs fade, she glances at the cup of tea she made him. Cold, now, but the look and a thought spell make her eyes glow, and then steam is rising from the surface. She reaches out to pull it closer.]

Here. Drink.