keepcruising | Fun with canon divergence

He's been running for a long time. It all runs together sometimes, but he tries to watch the dates because the longer he's been on his own the more the memories come to disorient him. At least he thinks they're memories. There's still so much he needs to pieces together, but a few things are clear: the people who want to find him most are HYDRA and Steve Rogers and he knows he can't let HYDRA do it.

Eventually it's evading HYDRA that has him pausing enough to let Steve's friend find him. Of course, HYDRA's right on Wilson's tail and Bucky can't remember much past the fight. He remembers taking out most of them, but then he'd been hit with something.

That's how he wakes up in a white room with a spike of adrenaline running through his veins. He only opens his eyes enough for a quick look, closing them again to try to do a risk assessment. HYDRA has him. Wilson might be dead or he might be here somewhere. He's important to Steve, so Bucky shouldn't leave him behind if he's still alive, but that's going to complicate things, especially if whoever has him here knows how to activate his programming.

What he doesn't know is that JARVIS has already alerted someone that his vitals are indicating he's finally awake, even as he lies there with his eyes closed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bucky opens his eyes. He knows that voice and it doesn't take him long to connect the dots. Scrambled as his brain has been, watching the news and reading whatever information he can get his hands on had been the best thing he'd found to ground himself. Following Steve and the other Avengers had seemed important and Tony Stark isn't exactly an unknown man in this time.

He's not sure if this means HYDRA has Stark or if it means he's not in HYDRA's hands after all and he's not sure that there's a safe way to ask, so instead he sits up stiffly and eyes Stark with a wary look.

Now that he's up, he can get a better look at the room. It's more secure than just about any room he's ever seen. He thinks it might even be overkill and that's saying something, because normally he can find exits and weak points in seconds. What the hell was this room built for? If it was for him, they've really overshot his abilities.

"Who are you?" There's nothing to be gained from admitting he knows.

Tony is used to being looked at, so he just stands there, arms folded, chin lifted a little, until the examination is over. Normally he'd riff off someone not recognizing him, play it up, but he's 1) pretty sure it's a stalling tactic or something this time and 2) not really in the mood to fuck with someone who's been fucked with pretty much constantly for the last seventy-odd years.

"Tony," he says instead. "Who are you?" he adds, then smirks and shakes his head. "Nah, forget it. I know. What do I call you?" That might be a more relevant question. Depending on what kind of mental state he has going on, it could even be valuable. Has he gone back to using his name? Which name?

Bucky doesn't feel quite right. It's the closest he's got to a name that isn't just a fake document, but it still feels a little off. If he's honest, everything feels a little off.

If he admits that he thinks he knows who he was, he gives away a little too much of the game. He can't trust anyone until he knows who has him here. As far as he's concerned, the only person who he's entirely sure isn't HYDRA is Steve Rogers himself and that's only because Bucky knows just enough about him to know he'd rather die than serve those ideals. Even trusting Wilson had felt like a foolish liability. Maybe they're all in on it. It wouldn't be the first time Steve had unknowingly helped HYDRA, right?

"I don't know." It doesn't even feel like a lie as he stands up and approaches the glass slowly. "What did they tell you to call me?"

"They didn't." Tony looks away from the guy in the cage—why tiptoe around it, that's what he is right now—and up at the housing of the glass. It's built to hold the big guy, it shouldn't have any trouble holding the Winter Soldier, but it isn't sitting too well with Tony that this is where they'd decided he should end up. "They don't know I'm here."

From this vantage, he can see the arm a little better, and he's both impressed and a little horrified. He'd seen footage of the fighting, not much but enough cobbled together from security cameras and blurry cellphone videos, and it's easy math to figure out how heavy that arm must be. He doesn't even carry himself that much differently. How the hell is it that well-balanced?

"So what? You broke in here just to see me?" There's an almost sardonic humor to the question. Someone who knew Bucky Barnes before might have recognized that in him, but even Bucky doesn't quite notice the quality coming through. He's too caught up in figuring out what this place is.

Who has him? What do they want? Can he get out? Those are the question he really cares about.

And then there's a small voice in the back of his head that he should have let Steve catch up sooner. Maybe it would have gone down differently.

"Looks like it." He should probably be more intimidated, but he's too wrapped up in the problem of the arm to care about the threat he represents. Besides, that had sounded properly sarcastic, and Tony relaxes in the presence of sarcasm. He notices the examination the honeymoon suite is getting, but he isn't concerning himself with that right now. He knows the room is secure. Incredibly too secure for this.

"So that means you get to introduce yourself," he continues like he'd never left off in the middle of speaking to count the plates in the arm and start mentally calculating flexibility and rigidity. "First impressions are everything, so make it a good one if you're picking a new name."

Bucky's brain is still a mess. He knows who he's supposed to be, but he doesn't remember it. Not entirely. Worse, though, is that he remembers times when things had slipped through and he'd been punished for it. His mind wiped blank until he'd been more pliable. If this is a trick and he admits to too much, it'll be worse for him. They'll watch him that much closer and wipe him that much more thoroughly.

"I don't know." He repeats it like a mantra. It's how he'll answer any question that he's not supposed to know the answer to. If he can lower their guard, maybe he can escape with his mind intact, at least as much as it is now.

"Okay, or don't." But it finally gets Tony's attention, their guest going back to responding with nothing more than the bare minimum, the examination of the room, the way he's holding himself stiff and apart like he's braced for anything. Well, he'd wanted an answer, and he supposes "I don't know" is technically an answer.

So he slips his hands in his pockets, opting consciously for a more open stance instead of crossing his arms the way he wants to when he realizes what the guy is braced for. Punishment. Must be. He's waiting for either a way out, or for the hammer to fall. "You're in New York," he says instead, changing the subject, a little quieter now. "Manhattan. Avengers Tower. Wilson got you out, but they hit you with something. You're shaking it off now, Jarvis says it didn't do anything permanent, you'll feel better once you get some food in you, you want out of there?"

Yeah. He isn't a fan of the caged-bird look.

Fun with canon divergence

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

sorry I had a weird month irl. I understand if it's been too long and you're not interested anymore.

no subject

no subject

no subject