imfollowinghim | thirty one ✪ spam

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thirty one ✪ spam

[Open Spam, throughout port]

[Going into port would have been a difficult enough decision for Bucky if Steve wasn't in a coma, but the fact that he is just made it harder. Leaving him alone on the ship, especially after how weird and bad things had been getting lately feels weird, but staying and watching over him feels like something he shouldn't be allowed to do anymore, so eventually, it just gets easier to leave. If nothing else, it'll give him the space he's been looking for.

Even if for most of port, Bucky winds up hanging out with Helena. They hit up nice enough restaurants, but bakeries and food carts wind up being more popular. Neither one of them is really the kind of person you'd want in a five star restaurant anymore - Helena's got terrible table manners and Bucky still doesn't really like dealing with, looking at or talking to people - so it's easier when they're out in the open, or don't have to stick around once they've got their food.

One priority is going shopping for clothes, because all Bucky's got on board the ship are old army uniforms he doesn't deserve to wear anymore and he can't just keep stealing stuff from Steve's closet. Hiding his arm is still a priority, and he's not really sure what to think of some of the more modern stuff, but he gets jeans and sneakers and some other stuff, sort of grateful he doesn't know how many Euros are equivalent to a dollar in 1945 because he's never spent this much money on anything before.

At night, he can't sleep and wanders the city, not paying much attention to where he's going or what he's doing. The city's a lot different from how it was in 1944, and 1974, and whenever else he's been here, but it's easy enough to navigate. He stops a mugging almost without thinking about it the third night they're in port and sends way too much time at the Arc de Triomphe staring at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier the day after.]

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[It's no coincidence that this is where they've both ended up: the pull of the Champs-Élysées had naturally drawn him towards the Arc de Triomphe, like all roads in Paris inevitably lead to. The busy roundabout had left him reeling the first time he'd passed it, unsure of where to go when the cars were going this fast-- he hadn't managed even half the speed people were going at, not even in a getaway car.

But there's tunnels, and plenty of them, and eventually Jimmy walks out of one and up the stairs and there he is, and there they are. The torches next to the tomb flicker quietly, and Jimmy stands a few paces away from Bucky. He's hardly surprised to find him there.]

Been here before?

[Bucky hears him coming, and even if it hadn't been Jimmy - the uneven pattern of his footsteps was familiar enough, but Jimmy's not the only guy in the multiverse with a limp - he wouldn't have tensed up, or been expecting needing to defend himself. If nothing else, he knows how to do that.

But it's a relief to see and hear him, even if Bucky barely glances over to confirm who it is. He's not sure this is something he's allowed to think or say anymore, but Jimmy feels like a friend. Maybe it's nice, not to be stuck in his own head.]

No. [And he's not really sure what he's doing here now, but... he's here.]

We weren't in Paris that long. And I wasn't here to sight see when I came back.

[Far from it.]

Must be weird.

[For you, he means. It's weird for him, even if this wasn't his war.]

[He hadn't been sure about Bucky visiting Paris, either, but he's answered both of his questions at once. He rubs at his mouth and shrugs, but it's obvious that Bucky has touched upon an uncomfortable truth.]

This fella was probably born around the same time as I was.

[And now Jimmy is standing here: dead but alive, almost a century in the future.]

[Bucky nods silently, hoping that somehow communicates the deep understanding he feels there. They're both supposed to be dead, but they're standing here alive and well while this other poor bastard's here as a reminder of what Jimmy had fought for, of the cost of that war. Except that hadn't been enough to stop it from happening again, or again after that.

What right does he have to be standing here when he should have died at the bottom of that canyon? What right does he have to be standing here with Jimmy, who - while an inmate on the Barge and probably responsible for some shady shit - fought for this cause in the war to end all wars, and Bucky's the opposite: an instrument of war. HYDRA had practically wanted their very own Franz Ferdinand, and the Winter Soldier had been one of the pieces they'd used to try and find one.]

They had a whole museum exhibit about Steve. I went there before the Admiral asked me back.

[He looks up, his legs slowly warming up next to the flame of the torches.]

They say anything about Sergeant Bucky Barnes?

Yeah. [He grimaces, remembering how strange it was to be staring at a huge picture of himself in black and white and remembering literally nothing about what was written next to it.

Now he knows they fucked up. He definitely didn't die in 1944. Had the SSR lied to conceal what really happened?]

It was weird.

They get a lot wrong?

Not really. It was just vague. I guess some stuff was still classified.

[There's a beat of silence, and then, bitterly:]

I guess telling the American public I got killed taking in a Nazi scientist who wound up getting employed by the government to fight the Russians wouldn't have gone over well.

[That bitter tone gets Jimmy to look at Bucky, sidelong. The rush of traffic all around them makes this seem safer, somehow- a conversation in the open, but no one there to hear them.]

Guess they didn't figure you'd be around to correct them. [But you are now, is the implicit statement. You can still do that.]

[Something like a smile tugs at his mouth. It's not exactly a nice one.]

Guess not.

[He's quiet again for a moment, listening to the traffic pass, and he's pretty sure he's said something like this to Jimmy before, but.]

Sorry we fucked it up.

[He looks up, frowns at Bucky.]

How the fuck did you fuck it up, Barnes?

[The other Bucky probably would have admitted no, it wasn't his fault things got fucked up. The Germans and the Japanese started all of it, maybe the British and the French too for pissing Germany off so much, maybe the whole fucking League of Nations for pissing off the Japanese, but not Bucky Barnes, who was just a kid from Brooklyn who had no effect on the greater political atmosphere.

But the Winter Soldier is a different story, and everyone keeps telling him it wasn't his fault, but... Jesus. How isn't it, at least a tiny bit?]

I literally was a weapon to make sure there couldn't be a war to end all wars. The more fucked up things were, the easier it was for HYDRA to get their claws in people without them even knowing it.

[I was, not they turned me into. It still feels like his fault.]

[He doesn't deny it- he doesn't know what it feels like, after all, to have that kind of influence in the grand scheme of things. He was just a footsoldier, a machine gunner, no one who could really change anything important.]

They didn't want to win- they just wanted to keep the war going?

They wanted people to be scared enough to give up their freedom so they could basically take over. And wipe out anyone who didn't fit into their perfect society.

If Steve hadn't stopped them, it probably would've worked.

Jesus. [He rubs his mouth, flicks his eye to where Bucky's hand is still stuck in his pocket. He doesn't know her what he's hiding, but he's curious, judging by occasional look he gives.]

Steve stopped them? Does that mean he--? [Hurt you? Killed you?]

[He knows he's looking, but there's something in him that's still reluctant to show it off, make it obvious that something's really, really different about him now, besides all the obvious things.]

No. [It comes out quickly and firmly - no, Steve didn't kill him.

He almost killed Steve.

Bucky swallows, trying to figure out how to say it.]

He got through to me before I could kill him.

[Jimmy's eyes close for a fraction too long to be a blink, but when they open there's no shock there, no judgement.]

He's a good soldier.

[It feels like a dog's age since he's been in a city, and despite having lived in one all his life, it's all a little overwhelming. He browses the carts and vendors, and watches people to reorient himself.

Which is how he ends up watching Bucky, although this time he smiles faintly rather than just staring and staring and following.]

I always wondered what that would look like.

[That's definitely an improvement. Bucky's still extremely wary and not sure what to make of him, but at least he's not openly hostile right now. Just wary, and that's not anything new.]

What?

Someone--in my mind it was Steve--from a different time, a different generation, stepping fresh into what might be the future.

I don't know that I'd be adapting so well.

I was in Paris in 1973. [The next admission is stated flatly. It's not one of the killings he feels especially sorry for. Turns out HYDRA liked to terrorize terrorist organizations too, if it continued to add to the general public's growing fears about security and the future.]

I assassinated a Professor of International Law from the American School of Beruit.

[So this isn't entirely new for him.]

And I was here when we went to Amsterdam.

Edited 2015-05-31 05:24 (UTC)

[He considers that, wonders which of the many questions to ask first.]

What about Steve? Is he going to be sorry he missed this?

[Bucky shrugs.] We didn't get to stay here long during the war. Maybe he'd like to see more of it.

[And now the other questions] Did the Professor know you?

No one outside of HYDRA knew I really existed.

[He nods, though it's not quite what he meant. What he says and what he means hardly ever line up, though, and he rarely explains.]

It seems you've got a lot of lost time to make up for, then. What are you going to see here?

[Another of those loaded questions. What a person does with limited time shows sides of them they probably aren't even aware are showing.]

I need to buy clothes.

[That's it. Otherwise, he has no idea and is happy to let Helena or whoever else he winds up spending time with decide on their itinerary.]

[Another first, for Piper at least: the thought of clothes isn't utterly boring.]

Formal or casual?

I only have uniforms and a couple shirts on board.

[And he doesn't feel like he has any right to wear those anymore.]

...You might not like the styles of this time.

[But he nods at a store, at random. It's upscale, there's a hint of cool air around it.]

But I need some, too.

[Ricki runs into him in one of the men's clothing shops. Now, he doesn't know Bucky well, but when he sees him now he figures, what the hell, and jumps for him.]

Looks like we both had the same idea.

[Unfortunately, the maintenance Dillon and Jean had done to Bucky's brain? Hasn't totally fixed certain things that are usually required for interacting normally with your peers, so at first, Ricki just gets a dead eyed, slightly suspicious stare before Bucky goes back to sorting through this pile of shirts.]

Everything's expensive.

Don't wardens get magic charge cards?

[Recalling, curiously. He's just been convincing them to help him out, and nicking things they aren't on hand for.]

I don't know what the exchange rate is, but where I'm from, a t-shirt didn't cost thirty Euros.

[This might be a slight exaggeration, but seriously, for someone who was used to getting paid way less than $50 a month, this is strange. He's never gone shopping for clothes in port before, just food, and that had been weird as hell too.]

What, really? They finally got the Euro through? They'd been talking about that since the sixties.

[Cheered to know. He doesn't know it took until the nineties, of course, but progress is progress.

Also, yes, he has just been nicking things so far.]

Guess so. No idea when.

[But there sure aren't Francs anymore.]

Sure gotta look that up.

[A mild shake of his head.]

We should stage a mutiny, all of us anachronisms, make them steer us to a reasonable time. Watch everyone flail about, not sure how to use a telephone you need to turn a while to make dial.

Edited 2015-06-03 11:48 (UTC)

No texting, no internet, all the food's boiled...

[He says it very dryly, and while there's still something just ever so slightly off about his tone... it sounds more like how he used to be.]

[The food in the restaurants is good, but honestly? Helena prefers the sugar hit of crepes dripping with chocolate or ice cream or flaky buttery croissants with jam. Walking through the streets with Bucky is good, too, because it reminds her of Amsterdam, and everything feels less shaky like this.

(She has a smattering of French and she knows Paris, too, thanks to her hunt and assassination of Danielle Fournier. ...not that she's mentioned that's the reason, because awkward, but she feels comfortable enough here.)

Anyway, right now, she's polishing off the last of a chocolate croissant and scattering the crumbs for some waiting pigeons with grimy feathers, glancing thoughtfully across the little park they settled down in to the row of clothing shops on the other side of the street.]

[Bucky speaks French. He'd used to speak pretty basic French, but now he knows a couple languages he'd never had the chance to master on his own, and it's weird being back here. Having company helps, but he still can't help but think of how it was the last two times he'd been here, and how different things had been.

It means he's been quiet and vaguely sad, but that's pretty much just how he is these days, and he sits silently next to Helena and watches her feed the pigeons.]

We were here for the liberation, [He suddenly offers without prompting.] It's weird thinking most of the people here don't remember it.

[She's been getting used to this new Bucky, the one who's quieter than he used to be and sadder in a different way: the difference between being haunted by things you've seen and being haunted by the things you've done. She doesn't love him any less, but things have changed in ways she can't fully describe or identify.

Anyway, she doesn't expect him to talk. Silence is comfortable enough between them. His voice doesn't startle her but it takes her a little by surprise and she brushes her hands off before turning to look at him, folding her fingers in her lap as she does.]

Memory is short, sometimes. [She sits back a little more on the bench beside him.] What was it like?

Happy. [It was, and it had been difficult not to get swept up in the euphoria as they marched through the streets, watching people waving French and American and British flags and singing La Marseillaise at the top of their lungs.]

People were going out of their minds, trying to kiss anyone in a uniform, climbing on tanks, crying, screaming, singing.

[His expression clouds a little, though, because that's not all of it.] But I saw Resistance members shoot some collaborators, and we heard later that some of the women who slept with the Germans were mobbed and had their hair sheared off.

[She's quiet and lets him speak without pushing for anything more than what he wants to share.]

There's a saying in Ukraine: "Black souls wear white shirts." [The next is sort of matter-of-fact, and she doesn't seem surprised at all by what he told her.] When people are angry, there is more room inside their souls for blackness.

Yeah. [And there had been plenty of that during the war.

(Except those memories are still somehow worlds better than everything that happened afterword. He can look back on those memories of collaborators being shot without feeling sick.)

He's quiet for a moment, watching the pigeons.]

Steve would have tried to stop them.

[She glances at him, then follows his gaze to the birds.]

Mm. Do you think they would have listened?

I don't know. Maybe not.

[There's more silence for a while, and then he tries - tries - to crack something like a smile.]

I'd make a joke about the French not listening to a guy called Captain America, but one of our guys was French.

[So while that came out a little stilted, it's still more Buckyish than he's really been in a while. So that's good, right?]

[It's definitely good and Helena's smile is maybe a little wider than it really deserves but hey, it's nice when she can see her Bucky still inside this new metal-armed Bucky she hasn't quite adjusted to yet.]

Perhaps he was an exception.

Edited 2015-05-31 12:08 (UTC)

Maybe.

[It's nice, to be able to look back at at least one memory with some fondness. It's not like he'd been ordered to assassinate Dernier.]

You probably would've liked him.

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thirty one ✪ spam

picking a super surprising location i'm sure!!

i'm shocked, shocked!!

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out in the city

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shopping for clothes

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