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

[sorser]

“No, I guess I can see that,” he replies, Stephen’s brow arching. Really, he shouldn’t stick his nose into this—except he has a tendency to stick his nose into everything—but there is something about this man that hooks into a part of his mind, fishing for memory. Fishing for familiarity, ghostly as it might be right now. He has to chase after it to some degree, given everything that’s happened to him as of late.

Eventually, he stops as he stands right next to him, glancing up at the branches swaying overhead.

“All right, so you’re here because…?”

[worthallthis]

"Recon," he answers, no hesitation this time. "Intel collection. Danger points and escape points, places to hide or where ambushes might happen." Also, the sound of the wind in the trees is kind of nice, but that's not really a valid reason to be out here.

[sorser]

Stephen isn’t sure if this should be a surprising answer — an odd one, yes, but not completely unexpected, given this man’s demeanor. All the while, the feeling of inherent recognition continues to linger and claw annoyingly at his memory. A memory that often doesn’t falter, frustratingly enough.

“Do you really think someone is going to leap down from this specific tree and attack us?”

Improbable. Impossible? Well, probably not, but the branches seem pretty emptied of actual people.

“Does that happen very much to you?”

[worthallthis]

"I was ambushed three times in the past month," he says simply. Once by gang members, twice by kelpies, though admittedly one of the kelpie ones was on the actual mission to hunt them down, and so not much of a surprise. Between that and his own experience ambushing others, coming out of nowhere to take out a target, it just seems prudent to be aware. "I need to know the possible places it might happen again. Not right now. But where it would be possible."

Granted, these specific trees in this specific park are not high on the probability list.

I lost this notif somewhere, apologies!!

[sorser]

Stephen finds himself pausing instead of firing off another retort. No, the trees probably present absolutely no threat, given the state of them now, but the rest of what this man is saying? It feels quite relevant. And disturbing.

“What ambushed you? Did it have anything to do with—“

He makes a little gesture with scarred hands, which could really indicate anything.

“—the reason why we’re here?”

The supernatural happenings, the apocalyptic shenanigans. He isn’t sure this man is ADI, but with this? He’s starting to think it may be true.

no worries! I am not a boomeranger haha

[worthallthis]

"Twice were were kelpies." A pause. "People who change into horse-lizard things. Very strange. Once was a gang of young normal humans trying to take a thing I was delivering for ADI. It burned them to touch it."

Three times is a lot, for a single month, he thinks. For normal people. It's really a lot for him, who is usually the one doing the ambushing.

"It is statistically likely to happen again. So. I am cataloguing likely places."

Pfft me neither, you’re in good company

[sorser]

At this, Stephen’s expression remains utterly serious — it sounds as though he’s missed quite a lot, being a new arrival.

“I see. That doesn’t bode well, does it?”

He shifts to look at this man again, judging which question takes priority in the queue.

“Two questions for you: do you need help, and do I know you from somewhere? You can pick which order you’d like to answer those in.”

[worthallthis]

"I have a team." It's a small team, currently consisting only of one Yelena Belova, but he has it. He's fine. No one helps the Asset, anyway. That's not what he's fore.

The second question is... kind of exhausting, actually. That's three people now who know him. Only one of whom he has any inkling of remembering. "And if you know me, I do not know you. I have twenty hours of memories prior to my arrival here."

[sorser]

All right, he thinks. That’s a ‘no’ to the first part, though how much Stephen decides this ‘no’ actually applies to him is wholly dependent on the second half.

A second half which, unsurprisingly, has him pausing. His memory so rarely fails him, and he hates that it is grasping at straws, ghost-like, trying to piece together the whole picture.

“Twenty hours of memories?” Dubiously, though he has no real reason to think this is an exaggeration. “Wait, so has anyone else recognized you? Can you name them?”

That might be infinitely more helpful. He assumes this isn’t the first instance of recognition, if this man was so quick to correct.

[worthallthis]

He looks further away, out up at the trees again, uncomfortable but familiar with the discomfort. This is another person who's going to assume he's a proper person, who's shocked by the idea of maintenance, who will expect connection.

But it's not really in him to lie, either. "Two other ADI employees. Wanda from Sokovia. Yelena Belova." He doesn't know how much Yelena is sharing about her past, and he doesn't want to overstep, but he knows she isn't using a cover name, so that's safe enough.

[sorser]

One name, he doesn’t recognize. But the other he knows, not just (very passingly) from their world, but from here, too. Stranded together on a little isle until the tide receded — or until he ushered them both through a portal that crossed that gap without having to wait.

Wanda Maximoff. So she’s met him, too, but she never mentioned—

And then, just like that, recognition falls into place. He knows the man by name, by his frame in the midst of a chaotic battle, or how they both stood somber during a hero’s funeral.

“You’re Barnes. Bucky, right?”

The first name feels a little too familiar, even to Stephen who sometimes ignores propriety, but he’s sure he’s right.

[worthallthis]

("Your name is J--" Shut up!)

He gives a sudden, violent shudder and sidles a step away from Strange, eyes wide over the mask and tension suddenly ratcheted up from merely "wary" to "painfully on edge". What he says is a short, sharp, "No."

Which is not really a sign that he's not James Buchanan Barnes, because who would be that upset by the name except someone intimately familiar with it? Except there's something visceral and painful about hearing it, an impossibility to the idea of saying it.

[sorser]

It certainly doesn’t take a rocket scientist—or a brain surgeon, for that matter—to realize that he’s triggered an unpleasant reaction in the other man. Stephen tenses instinctually, the line of his shoulders going taut, but he raises his hands in a placating manner, trying to keep some semblance of calm.

“All right, listen—“

Stephen’s mind churns. He’s almost certain that he isn’t mistaken, but there’s some miscalculation, some kind of assumption that’s made Barnes look at him as though he’s been verbally attacked.

I have twenty hours of memories prior to my arrival here.

He almost curses under his breath. Making allowances for different timelines, different experiences between them all, would account for this reaction — is he from before he knew him? After? Impossible to say, not being intimate with his history, but there are two things for sure: he doesn’t know Stephen. And he doesn’t even know himself.

“Sorry,” he says, a careful correction. This has become territory he must tread carefully. “My mistake. So what do I call you?”

[worthallthis]

There's a long moment where he watches Strange warily, as if expecting some kind of reprisal for his outburst, or a reapplication of that goddamn name, before he finally unclenches enough to say, "Civilians have been. Calling me Winter. From my code name."

It suits well enough. He doesn't mind it. It doesn't bring up headaches and echoes and terror, and it doesn't upset said civilians to use, and frankly that's all he cares about.

[sorser]

Winter, he thinks, and if thereʼs a remark to be made about how fitting that is — well, Stephen certainly isnʼt going to say it. In fact, itʼs more than clear that Barnes on edge, and whoʼs to say what might happen if the sorcerer steps over the line a second time?
This will be an interesting balancing act, though heʼs wondering why he keeps meeting others from his world that obviously have a lot more going on than he last remembers.

“Winter, then. My name is Doctor Stephen Strange. As Iʼve said, weʼve met before, but you just donʼt recall.”

Thatʼs more than obvious now.

“Can you tell me what year it was back home for you?”

[worthallthis]

"Yes. Two thousand fourteen." It's really not any kind of surprise that he doesn't remember meeting someone. There's probably a lot he doesn't remember, given he has the sense he's been in operation for a very, very long time. Indefinitely, even.

He eyes Strange cautiously, then attempts a question: "What year was it for you."

mumbles a year into my hand

[sorser]

2014. He shouldn’t be surprised—time is a malleable thing, especially in this very worrisome world—but Stephen looks a little surprised. That’s far detached from his time; a lot has happened between then and now.

“Twenty-twenty-three. A ways off. I guess that explains a thing or two. Naive of me to hope we would have all matched up.”

[worthallthis]

He shakes his head a little. "Belova is from closer to that time. I think. Wanda, too." He's the one who's lagging.

Not that he imagines he'd be much different then. He doesn't change. Everyone else changes around him. That's how it works.

[sorser]

“Wanda is,” he confirms. “I managed to run into her earlier, and she said as much. Time is a funny thing even in normal circumstances; I’m not sure it plays by any individual rule here. But it’s…”

A shame in your case, he almost says, sorry for the discrepancy and how… complicated it makes it now. But Stephen allows that thought to drop off.

“…it doesn’t matter. A lot’s happened between then and now, but it doesn’t change anything. We were allied against the same enemy once. I don’t see why we can’t be allies here, too.”

[worthallthis]

That's a satisfying answer, if it can be trusted. There's something in him that says "allies" in the past have not actually been properly allies-- were not to be trusted. And yet Yelena and Wanda, he thinks, can be trusted as allies. Kate, too, to some extent. Maybe this one can be, too.

So he nods once. "Acceptable. Allies are objectively better than enemies. Less time spent on internal fighting and more in cooperation. Do you know my skills?" If Strange knows him from some other time and place, it's possible he does.

[sorser]

Winter’s answer wouldn’t have changed anything. Stephen would have made the executive decision to slot him neatly into the “ally” category, or at the very least the “make sure to check-in on their well-being” category. But his willingness to work together only makes it easier, and he’s glad for it.

“I’ve seen you fight,” he admits matter-of-factly. Granted, he’d seen him fight very briefly through the throng of violence of two armies clashing in a battle for half of the universe, but holding his own in the midst of that speaks for itself. “I know you could knock me out cold in a matter of seconds in hand-to-hand combat.”

Stephen’s no stranger to physical training thanks to his time in Kamar-Taj. But he knows what level he exists on, and it is not Barnes’.

“And then there’s your…” Here, a general motion to indicate at the other man. “…arm. Again, could knock me out cold and then some.”

[worthallthis]

"Hand to hand combat is one of my skills. I am primarily a sniper and saboteur, however. Those do not rely on strength and speed that may be erratic." Yes, he has noticed that he's not quite as impressive here as he normally is. It's frustrating, and he doesn't honestly know why, or why sometimes it's better than others.

Some of that may be willful ignorance, part of his whole "not a person" shtick.

"I speak many languages and have training in handling a wide variety of vehicles," he adds, which may possibly wind up of use at some point.

[sorser]

“Sabotage and vehicle handling might especially be useful in this world, though that depends solely on how much ADI’s willing to trust us. As I understand it, the work we’re given is less field-related and more reconnaissance.”

He pauses, considering, weighing his options here as though there’s anything to weigh. It’s still much better to be prepared than not.

“My magic is stifled in this universe, and I can’t promise that’ll change anytime soon. Still, if you run into anything magical or mystical, and need someone to consult, I’m at Bonnie’s. Not hard to find, just ask after me.”

[worthallthis]

"I can steal cars, too. Hotwire them." Which requires no trust. Though he thinks that ADI would probably give him a vehicle if the mission required it, and isn't sure he could go against orders to steal one if told not to.

He considers Stephen for a moment, though, then nods. Magic. Ugh. He is not fond of magic. "What does your magic normally do. When not here."

[sorser]

The ugh, magic sentiment will definitely be questioned if ever spoken aloud — for now, he’s more than willing to expound upon his abilities. Or at least the extent of what he could do if he bothered to inflict fear on others to a substantial degree.

“My magic allows me to do many things, and we’d be here all day if I listed them all. But in terms of practicality relevant to our current situation…”

His mind filters through the possibilities, which still feel endless — but for Barnes’ sake, he parses it down.

“I can create shields, as well as weapons from magical energy. I know spells which can duplicate, or conjure, or conceal. And I have two relics; one that allows me to fly, another which allows for the creation of portals, which makes traveling long-distances exceptionally easier.”