[Between growing up in the Depression and spending a good deal of the war eating C-Rations or whatever other crap was readily available, Bucky's used to being hungry more often than he's not.

That means the dining hall has pretty quickly become his favorite place on board, only partially because you can apparently talk people into making you pancakes for breakfast basically every morning, and that's where he is and what he's doing now.

(This might actually be plate number two.)

He's wearing his combat fatigues, and there's still a sort of hollowness in his expression, like the amused smirk doesn't quite meet his eyes, but maybe he's just tired.]

So, potential end of the world aside, you guys realize this is basically a cruise ship, right? [There's a spa. A friggin' spa, and here he is coming from a place where a goddamn bathtub was a ridiculous luxury you were pretty much never going to see.] I've been in a lot of crummy places where things're about to totally fall apart, but I've never been around this many pancakes in my life, even when I was back home.

[It is and isn't a joke. Whatever's coming deserves some amount of respect and preparation, but seriously. This is nothing compared to holding up in a flooded, muddy fox hole waiting for a grenade to fall in and blow you to hell.]

There's still a lot I'm missing out on about the future, but if this's anything to go off of? The food's definitely a lot better. I mean, maybe I'm not the best guy to judge, but we used to boil everything, [He sounds somewhere between disgusted and fond in saying that.] And if anyone ever tries to trade you a can of ham and lima beans, you're better off socking them in the jaw, I don't care how hungry you are.

[Private to Ben]

Alex told me I was your warden. [And with that admission, there's a sort of awkward, half apologetic twist of his mouth that's not really a smile.] I'm having a hard time remembering everything, but I think I'm starting to get bits and pieces of it.

[It's like some nightmare he only has pieces of, and most of them don't make a lot of sense. Talking to him in some cell in the middle of God knows where, a weird hotel, were they animals at some point? It's a lot to figure out how to respond to.

And then there's the fact that he'd left. Or vanished, or who knows what, and he might not totally remember Ben, but he knows he feels like a complete jackass for walking out on him, intentionally or not.]

Sorry.

[Open Spam]

[Routine is - Bucky figures - the best way to keep himself from going completely nuts as long as he's just... here. Without an assignment and without some crisis to get in the middle of (for the time being, anyway), being at loose ends means he has time to sit and think about what happened, and what the future's potentially going to hold for him, and that's absolutely not how he wants to be spending his time.

So besides the dining hall - which again, you can find him in at least three times a day eating and finishing pretty sizable portions of whatever's available today - he also spends a decent amount of time in the gym. A lot of the more modern exercise equipment gets ignored - not because he doesn't know how to use it, but because beating the hell out of a punching bag is something he hasn't actually had a lot of time to indulge in over the last couple months

He also keeps finding himself wandering back to the library, which would probably surprise some of his grade school teachers if they were around to see it. Bucky's not an idiot, and he was no slouch when it came to academics or anything, but he'd definitely rather be out playing baseball or bailing Steve out of whatever shit he'd gotten himself into than sit around reading a book. And yet here he is, frequenting the same section of the library every time he comes in and selecting books all with more or less the same theme - The Day of Battle, The Longest Day, Band of Brothers, Eagle Against the Sun, Pacific Crucible. Sometimes he just flips through them, scowling like there's either something just factually wrong here or morally offended him, or maybe both. More often than not, they get returned to the shelves without being finished, and he goes back to looking for books that talk about what he's actually interested in.

Maybe someday, he'll come back to all of this and try to understand the bigger picture, but right now, he's got a different focus.

And then there's the firing range, which he is, frankly, unimpressed by. It's boring, not a challenge at all for someone who's used to taking impossible shots, sometimes while under heavy fire. Even the moving targets aren't especially difficult, and this leaves him feeling weirdly caged in and bored more than anything else.

There's a part of him that feels like this is a waste of ammo (and there's another, much quieter part of him that wonders if not just being able to say fuck it and never pick up a gun again is a bad thing or not), but with the way people are talking, it doesn't sound like he can really afford to get rusty, or pack it in and say someone else can deal with it.

Not that that's ever been his style.

And honestly? Part of him almost misses it. Not the killing, not the constantly being in danger of getting killed or watching a friend bite it, but the familiarity of it, the strange consistency of the life he'd adapted to over the last couple years. Getting suddenly jolted out of it is taking more effort than he'd sort of realized it would.]

You know, I don't really remember what year the breach was supposed to be in, but I was a kid, back when Prohibition was still on the books. Kinda weird to live through it again as an adult, considerin' three year olds who just moved to New York from middle of no where Indiana usually don't pay all that much attention to that kinda thing.

What are the odds we'll stop over that way, any time soon? Not that Redemption wasn't nice and all, but I haven't been home in two years and it kinda sounds like things are pretty different now. [Since you know. Most of you are from way past 1945.]

[Private to Natasha]

[... So this is awkward. It was easy enough to shake off having been in a failed relationship with her as teenagers at a magic school, but being married and in love and all that was... weird. And he hasn't really known what to say about it since it happened, so when he does finally decide to send her a message, it's something short and hopefully not really acknowledging the not sure how feel about the whole thing.]

You're not actually related to those Romanovs, are you?

[Private to Ben]

How're you holding up, kid?

[ooc: Pretend this got posted closer to the beginning of the week before school ate me. >>]

[Warden Filter]

Ben's down in Zero for attacking Mal Reynolds. He'll be down there for the week.

[Private to Mal]

I need you to tell me exactly what happened.

[ooc: Following the events of this log.]

I'm heading up to the CES if anyone feels like tossing a baseball around for a while. I've got an extra glove if you need to borrow one.

[And for the curious, not that you can see him anyway, but Ben is within eyesight while making the public part of this post, because someone has been pretty much glued to him when he's not sleeping or working in the dining hall since that incident.

However, the next part is done in private so there isn't the awkward of talking about you while you're standing right there. :|]

[Filtered to Steve, Peggy and Natasha]

I've got a favor to ask you guys, and I get that it's kinda asking a lot, so I just wanna put it out there that there's gonna be no hard feelings if you're not up for it.

I really need a couple other people keepin' an eye on Ben and making sure he isn't getting into trouble when I'm not around. I've been trying to keep up with him, but the kid barely needs to sleep and I don't want to just order him on lockdown because I need a couple hours of sleep every few days. [He's kidding, but he honestly really doesn't sleep all that much, and hasn't since he was overseas, and so the fact that he's starting to feel kind of worn down is saying something.] We don't need a rotating schedule or anything, and honestly, the kid could do with a couple good influences in his life that aren't me and Rhade. He's really not a bad kid, he's just kind of messed up.

[And basically he trusts you guys and thinks you'd be good people to teach Ben how to not be such a robot and hopefully won't treat him like shit because he attacked a guy for basically no reason. :V]

[Private to Natasha]

I know we don't know each other all that well [Someday he will realize the irony in this statement BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.] so I understand if this isn't up your alley, but Steve said you're reliable and I figure the more eyes the kid has on him, the less likely it is that he's gonna cause problems.

[Warden Filtered + (Reluctantly) Kozak]

[Directly following this lovely little misunderstanding and this conversation, Bucky is making a post to the network to let you all know what, exactly, is going on. He doesn't love having to explain himself - you guys aren't his superiors, and he doesn't want this to turn into a let's all gang up on the crazy kid fiasco, but he's been around long enough to know people like explanations, and he wants to make sure the record's straight before this turns into a witch hunt or something.

So basically, be prepared for an unapologetic, I know what I'm doing and this is not up for discussion warden in the responses.]

This probably isn't news to anyone, but about an hour or so ago, my inmate - Ben - attacked Kozak in a hallway. I just want to make it clear that I talked with him, and this isn't gonna happen again. [Hopefully. :\] Ben's kinda unstable, port shook him up pretty badly, and he thought Kozak was a kind of monster that would attack and kill him if he didn't get at him first. Anything that doesn't look like a baseline human has potential to set him off, so I'd stay on your toes.

I'm not sending him to Zero. After what happened, it'd just make the situation worse, and I'm really not interested in having a repeat incident as soon as he gets out again. And if anyone starts using this as a reason to try and antagonize him, I really don't think you're gonna like what happens.

[Kitchen Warden Filter]

So my inmate, Ben - he's the kid that looks like Dean and's been running around introducing himself as X5-493 - needs a job. Neither of us are particularly picky in where he ends up so long as it'll keep him occupied and get him working with other people. He's never really had a "normal" life, and I think giving him something to do and making him keep a schedule'd be good for him. He follows directions and I think he'd be a decent fit wherever you guys would need him, honestly.

The one thing I just wanna put out there so everyone's aware, he can be a little unstable. Before he got here, he used to nab people, tattoo them, arm them, and then release them into a forest, where he'd hunt them down and kill them by breaking their necks. I completely understand why that's not exactly a "gee, I really want this kid on my shift in the dining hall", but I figure the more people know what to look for, and the more people who're keeping an eye on him, the easier it'll be to contain a situation if we have to. And I really think giving him something to focus on for at least part of the day that gets him interacting with other people learning a skill might cut down on the free time he'd have he might otherwise be using to cause trouble.

And I understand discretion's kinda a complicated thing here, what with the floods and whatever kinda suspending free will sometimes? But I'd really appreciate it if you don't let him know how much I filled you in on this. Believe me, it'll be better for all of us in the long run.

[Bucky sounds a little more level than he did in his last post, back to his normal, not oh god I suddenly have superpowers self, and he sounds more vaguely amused/annoyed by the flood than anything else.]

I guess as far as first floods go, that coulda been a lot worse. [And that's all he really wants to say on the subject for right now, if that's cool with the rest of you.]

[Private to Ben]

Hey, kid. I've got your file. [And he's thumbed through it a little and holy shit, your life :|] You got anywhere you wanna meet up and talk? [He figures you're likely to agree to whatever he asks you to do, right off the bat, but he wants to give him the option to pick where he'd like to sit down and talk about stuff.]

[Private to Steve]

I think your friend Nicole has a crush on me.

[Yesterday morning, Bucky woke up feeling... great, really. Better than great. Until he started realizing something was definitely very extremely wrong, which started to sink in when grabbing stuff snapped it in half or pulled stuff off the wall, and see and smell things way sharper than he'd been able to before, and there was a very horrifying couple minutes where he was pretty sure he was losing his mind.

So, after calming down enough to pick up his communicator - incredibly gingerly, worried he was going to destroy that, too - he scrolls through the few posts that have already gone up, and then flips on the video feed, looking vaguely annoyed. Someone who knows him well might notice he's actually pretty damn unsettled, but he's doing a good job of putting up a front for the Barge at large.]

Is anyone missing some superpowers they've usually got? Because I think I know what happened to 'em.

[ooc: Bucky's swapped species with Ben, which means he's got all the powers and abilities of an X5. If anyone wants to run into him wandering around the ship, tag in with a time and place and he can totally be there!]