August Catch-all

[worthallthis]

Who: Bucky Barnes (AKA the dude who doesn't have a proper name right now) and OPEN
When: August catch-all
Where: ADI headquarters, ADI apartments, around town
Summary: Just working, training, and being quietly creepy
Warnings: Internalized depersonalization


I. Patrols - ADI headquarters, ADI apartments

Working security is not entirely mindless, but it's close. Patrol around the outside of the ADI building complex, patrol through the buildings, prod the occasional air vent in the ceiling or panels in the wall just in case there's someone hiding in there, then repeat. It's familiar. It's comfortable. It's not quite mindless, but it's close enough to let him settle into diffuse focus where he doesn't have to worry about lack of orders and going home to not having anything to do there, either.

He's not averse to company on the job, but he's not... exactly chatty.

Sometimes he gets restless and repeats the process around the ADI apartment complex, too. Spot him at night, whether shortly after dinner or in the small hours of the morning, walking at a regular pace around the apartment complex fence, eyes alert but tired. He might be more chatty now-- maybe, a little-- looking over anyone who approaches and nodding in greeting.


II. Keeping or Offering an Edge - ADI headquarters

A lot of his spare time is spent in the target range and training rooms at ADI headquarters. Patrols are easy, but they don't keep you sharp. And he needs to keep sharp, especially as he's found his strength and speed... a little lacking, around here. So he can't depend on it without maintenance. Plus, maintenance helps with the pain from the arm.

So he maintains. Strength exercises, shadowboxing, practicing his aim with guns, flipping and throwing knives.

And if he sees anyone in either room looking lost or clearly struggling, he drifts over. Clasps his hands behind his back and ducks his head. "I can help train," he offers.


III. Exploration - Around town

He doesn't want to be taken by surprise by any path he'll be asked to take for ADI or for a person who needs rescued or killed, or ever be unaware of ambush points, so he does a lot of exploring around town, too. Poking his nose into shops, prowling around suburbs and apartment complexes, and looking up at trees in the park. He doesn't ever sit down in a restaurant or on a bench, but he loiters outside the former and watches the latter like he expects them to bite him, though someone could possibly convince him to try either one.

More than once he gets the cops called on him, because he does most of his wandering around in his full mask and goggles, face comfortably obscured. It helps him feel stronger, for some reason, and it means he doesn't have to deal with making eye contact or controlling his expression. Fellow ADI transplants might find him staring in stony silence at a well-meaning police officer stammering through a warning to stop hanging around residential areas.

Wanna help out?

Comments

[carmesi]

Wanda tries locking her eyes with him, but he's pretty adept at avoiding that. The more she studies his face, the more she hears his voice—Wanda is sure that this is someone she knows; even when he says that he doesn't recognize her, it doesn't deter her from making the right connection.

"You're Bucky," she takes a step closer to the fence, as if wanting to lace her fingers on it, the recognition causing a smile to stir on her features. She knows him, a friend away from home, no matter how short their acquaintanceship was considering all the circumstances surrounding him.

But, just as quickly, the smile disappears, replaced instead by a look of confusion and a frown as she tilts her head slightly. "...but you're different." It's not just the hair situation, but something about his demeanor.

Time doesn't really correspond too well with when anyone is pulled in into this world, that much she has been able to surmise through her interactions with others.

"You are friends with a friend of mine."

Good old Steve Rogers, (the stupid former target).

[worthallthis]

The name drags a shudder through him, and he steps reflexively back. "The. The asset does not have friends." ("I'm not gonna fight you. You're my friend." Shut up.) And his voice is almost a hiss when he adds, "And I do not have a name."

He has a title and a call sign. The former is professional, the latter usually mocking, though here it isn't been. And that name is not allowed.

alternatively, lmk if anything wanda tells him is okay!

[carmesi]

The asset.

Wanda stares for a moment, certain now about who he really is, but finding that perhaps there will be no managing getting through to him so easily. She is no Steve Rogers — just an acquaintance of he who was the Winter Soldier, a boogieman in the stories told to scare kids in Sokovia, even.

This takes healing that she is not qualified for.

Carefully, she takes some mental steps back, tries to measure the situation better.

"What should I call you, then?" A familiar face, but one without recognition. It is like losing a piece of home, no matter how small. "I'm Wanda. I was born in Sokovia."

Is there a reason he should continue engaging with her?

"HYDRA used me and my brother, too."

anything is good :D he just might freak out over mentions of Steve

[worthallthis]

Sokovia. He knows that place. He... knows a little of the language, he finds, because what comes out of his mouth is in Sokovian, though the name is in English: "Here people have called me Winter. That is allowable." His accent is... not great, but it's understandable.

Annoyed with said not-great accent, he switches back to English to ask, "What did you do. With HYDRA."

gotcha! :>

[carmesi]

The words come like a balm on sore skin, the language so long unheard and unused since the time she lost her brother, it is enough to bring a well of emotion forward despite herself. Wanda keeps her composure, though.

"Then you are Winter," she responds back in Sokovian, and continues with it. "We were experimented on, promised that we would grow strong enough to protect our home."

And they did grow stronger, dormant supernatural abilities inside the two of them reacting with the Mind Stone. She switches back to English.

"We fought the Avengers. We were tools in HYDRA's war," a shake of her head, hands clenching into fists as she grabs on to her cardigan. "We learnt differently."

Nothing like what the Winter Soldier had been ordered to do over the years, though.

[worthallthis]

And he only remembers pieces of that, himself. A vague knowledge, an unquestioned certainty, more than specific memories, though the words "experimented on" make the plates in the metal arm shift under his jacket with a metallic whir.

He tilts his head at the word "Avengers", as if hearing something distant, or pinging against one of those long-gone memories, but then looks back in her general direction. "You got out," he says, guessing from those words, but... pretty sure.

She got out. She wasn't stolen before she could even decide whether she was going back to her handlers, like he was.

[carmesi]

"Not like we were kept in a cage for any longer than us learning to control our powers," she offers to him.

This is when she crosses her arms. Her experience with HYDRA is not something she ever had the chance to really talk about — with her brother, perhaps, but he was no longer alive when there was a moment of peace to potentially do so. HYDRA were the bad guys after all, making her one of the bad guys, too, at one point.

(Sometimes it feels like that branding never went away.)

"My brother and I never wanted to hurt anyone, not from our home, anyway," everything they did was for Sokovia, or at least they thought so. "HYDRA's base of operations in Sokovia is no more. That's how we got out and chose a different path."

It's a lot more complicated than that, clearly, but—

"Winter, you're... alright, here?"

[worthallthis]

"You got out," he says again, this time with more satisfaction. It doesn't matter how, really, only that she did, and she did it herself. Being stolen here didn't decide for her. If being stolen here decided for her, then he might have to do something about that. There shouldn't be any still-HYDRA agents here.

He doesn't. Want that.

Is he all right? The question makes him blink once, and look away from her again, giving something like a report. "I am functional. I have a team and work to do. There has been no. Maintenance. No cryo. There are orders, but not as many, and different." No one's hurt him here yet. He's not sure he understands it. He keeps expecting it.

[carmesi]

He repeats that word, and Wanda is left to wonder if there is an underlying current of emotion in the way he says it. It saddens her a little, how difficult it comes to him—emotion, that is—the words, too.

The Bucky she knew had improved so much. She can't imagine how difficult it must be to live under that heavy shell of HYDRA as unwanted armor.

Wanda smiles lightly at the new of no maintenance, no cryo, and that his orders are not of the kind that he would be forced to take on. "It's good to hear that, Winter." She hesitates for a moment but keeps her eyes on him.

"Do you mind if I see you again during the day?"

It's still Bucky, a friend from home, even if it's not the same Bucky she stood near to at Stark's funeral.

[worthallthis]

That's a weird question. She can and should go where she pleases, and see who she wishes to see. What he wants doesn't have anything to do with that.

Besides, she seems pleasant enough.

So he looks actually a little confused by being asked. "Why would I mind." Then, since if she wants to see him, she'll need to know where, he adds, "I work at the ADI headquarters. Security and training."

[carmesi]

"Because you have a right to refuse if you don't want something," she says, carefully, wondering if it's a question he even wants answered at all. His willingness to offer information about himself, though, is something of a win.

An acquiescing into his world.

"I'll drop by some time, and maybe we can talk," about Steve, about literally anything.

[worthallthis]

"Okay." Sounds fake, but okay. Saying no is not a thing he is very good at yet. "We can talk." He pauses, then adds, "I am not. Used to talking much."

Not as a protest, just as a warning. He's not great for conversation, here. But he won't avoid her, not if she knows him and-- and takes some comfort in seeing him. He can't imagine why that would be true, but if it is, he won't chase her away. He wouldn't chase her away, period, because that's not his place, but the thought of an actual reason not to is. Nice.

[carmesi]

Wanda can't say she recalls Bucky, better as he was, talking much anyway. It's not like they had much to talk about the two of them, either. The barest of smiles appears on her face as he admits to that regardless.

"Don't worry about it," it wouldn't be an issue regardless.

As she steps away from the fence, arms crossed to keep the chill of the night away, she turns to Bucky — now Winter. "I'll come find you at the ADI."

It's... oddly bizarre, but him being here is something of a relief. She will bring some food with her for next time they meet.

[worthallthis]

He nods, satisfied.

Then he pauses. "Where are you staying. Will you be safe going back alone." It's very late. And maybe he won't be able to get back in again if he walks her home, but he doubts he'll be sleeping again at this point, anyway.

[carmesi]

It is a question not quite asked like a question. It keeps her from continuing walking, tilting her head to the side thoughtfully. A small smile creeps on her face.

"I'm at Bonnie's," certainly not at ADI's apartments. "Should there be reason for me to think it isn't safe?"

So far, Wanda hasn't found it dangerous — and how could it be considered dangerous, when she's got the powers she has? She can't help but be appreciate, though.

"I won't mind," she waves a hand, motioning at the fence, "but I wouldn't want you to get locked out until morning."

[worthallthis]

He shrugs. The answer wasn't a no, and he does in fact have reason to believe this town isn't safe. "I won't sleep again, anyway."

He heads for the nearest gate out, hoping she follows along the fence, or waits for him.

Provided she does, he meets her on the other side after carefully closing the gate behind him, and explains, "I was ambushed three times last month. It might not be safe for you."

[carmesi]

That, itself, is troubling. Won't sleep again. That seems a little detrimental to the mental health, but Wanda makes no comment of it, instead following along the fence until they reach the nearest gate.

"Three times?" The Winter Soldier would have plenty of enemies, but in this world where there history is reduced to nothing of relevance... "By who?"

Wanda doesn't mind the company, though, especially when it came willingly from a man that is but isn't a friend. She starts making her way down the path, focusing on the landmarks towards the flophouse.

[worthallthis]

When nightmares drive him not only out of bed but out of the apartment entirely, sleep just plain isn't going to happen for the rest of the night. He knows this from experience, by now.

He settles in to walk at her side, eyes roving around the trees, buildings, and street around them for threats. "Once, by young men in a group trying to take a thing I had been sent to retrieve. Again, by kelpies in the shape of different young men, aiming to kidnap to torture. Then by kelpies in their horse forms, on the mission to rescue those kidnapped and tortured." It's a lot of words at once, but he's giving a report, so it's easy.

[carmesi]

It does sound like a report, and were it not for Bucky's serious tone, she would have thought he was joking. Kelpies, of all things? Clearly she's yet to experience the supernatural things that accost this world.

"Sounds like you're being kept busy," regardless of the nature of these attacks. "Did you have trouble dealing with them?"

[worthallthis]

"The humans, no. The first attack by the kelpies was a surprise, so I did sustain injury. I have since healed. The mission was no trouble from a tactical standpoint." It was just the whole... cutting people out of sealskins that was tricky. Because it was so weird. "But there were civilians to deal with," he settles on.

[carmesi]

If it is something that someone without any overt powers can handle, Wanda doesn't think there is much to worry about in terms of managing the supernatural. Of course, Bucky is anything but 'normal', what with his left arm and strength.

Nonetheless, it is something of a relief.

"It's good that you've healed," it would be troublesome otherwise, if there was to be an unexpected threat in every corner. She glances over to him, curiosity on her face. "What is the last you remember before coming here?"

[worthallthis]

He hesitates before answering, but in the end, does answer. His voice sounds flatter than before, though. "Hauling the. Target. Out of the river. Verifying he was still breathing. Leaving before emergency services or allies could find him. Setting my shoulder and searching for civilian clothes." And that's it. That's the last hour or so of his time on their version of Earth.

[carmesi]

Wanda is starting to recognize who Bucky means when he says 'the Target', but she's not going to test her theory—he certainly seems to be struggling with providing the information to her at all.

This, to her knowledge, was before she had even gotten her powers and met the Avengers. Certainly before the Sokovia Accords, too.

"We wouldn't have met until years later," she scrunches her nose. "Seems like we're all displaced from different times and worlds."

[worthallthis]

Yeah, Wanda may or may not ever have been told the story of how Steve's best friend was sent to murder him, and very nearly managed it. He frowns, mostly to himself, in thought rather than annoyance. "Belova is from later, too. She said. Time shouldn't work backwards." He shrugs a little. "But maybe it does. Or maybe this is not our world. I have found no sign yet of HYDRA through the usual channels."

[carmesi]

Yelena? So, they've met.

At the idea that this is not their world, Wanda shakes her head in agreement. "The Avengers don't mean anything for the people here," and it is in her experience that they tend to be recognized, one way or another. "I wouldn't think too hard about what it means."

This world being not their world, the way time doesn't seem to work right, here.

"I also don't think you'll find sighs of HYDRA here."

Even from the time she is from, that organization is hardly a blip in the radar, anymore.