[closed]

[deadthenred]

Who: Annie Walker (smithsonian) & Bucky Barnes (deadthenred)
What: Rise of the Ryders quest.
When: Late September.
Where: Somewhere slummy in Wyver.
Warning(s): Possible violence?

[ The first time he was here, Bucky joined the Olympian Royal Guard, because it was the first place to ask. He'd been less skeptical of his orders, back in those days, more unblinkingly loyal. Less inclined to asking questions. This time around, he has more doubts. For one, the Natha were gone, the space station in shambles. And on the ground things weren't much better. Bucky wanted to get a better look at Wyver and he wanted to do what he could to help the people in the aftermath of the apparent disaster. So he took Heryn up on her quest to try and root out the old guard turned bad. And if he can get a better idea of what is really going on, well, so much the better.

He tracks down one of Rasyc’s old followers to an underground gambling house outside of the city proper, hidden in an abandoned warehouse. Bucky's there to scope out the scene— see who comes in and out, maybe get a few more leads before shutting the place down. But the first person he sees isn't one of Rasyc’s men. It's a vaguely familiar blonde. ]

Hey. [ He says, approaching her, not a little confused. ] You're… Annie, right?

[ The "what are you doing here?" question goes unsaid. At least for a moment. ]

Comments

fastforward

[deadthenred]

[ After clearing out the gang, they head to another bar, one that isn't a terrorist front, because clearly there are some things to discuss. The place is quiet and discreet— not the sort of bar with ears in the walls, but Bucky still plans to sit in a shadowy booth by the corner, and not where the bartender can overhear them.

But first, they have to order drinks. ]

I'm buying. [ He's a gentleman. ] The first round, anyway. [ Sort of. ]

[smithsonian]

[Such a gentleman.]

Then I'm still drinking whiskey.

[She sits across from him, her back to the rest of the bar. She doesn't feel like it's a bad position to be in, considering he's had her back for the rest of the night. If something else were to happen, she has a feeling he'd still be on her side. If not, well, she'll deal with that then.

For now, she watches him carefully.] So. Maybe not actually an acquisitions specialist for the Smithsonian.

[She remembers what she told him when they met on the Station.]

[deadthenred]

[ He figured. ]

So what. FBI? Langley? [ She wouldn't have a cover like that if she wasn't based in DC, is his thinking. ]

For the record, I really was in the army.

[smithsonian]

I believe you.

[She lifts a shoulder and, because she's fairly sure that there's no one left awake to judge her for her confession, she tells him the truth.] I was - am - an operations officer for the CIA.

[She inhales and looks around.]

Right before all this, my boss had walked into my kitchen and shot me. Twice. In the chest. Next thing I know? I'm waking up in one of those pods.

[deadthenred]

[ Bucky's never been directly betrayed by a superior— not like that, anyway. He keeps his gaze low. ]

Hell of a cliffhanger.

[ He could make a joke. "The medical care's pretty good here." But he swallows that instinct. ]

I wasn't just in the Army. I had an OSS clearance, during the war.

[ His voice trails off, unsure of how to come to the next part of that story. ]

[smithsonian]

[For his comment, Bucky gets a huff of a laugh; it's not funny, but it kind of is.

Then he goes on with his own - is it a confession, given what he says? - and Annie tips her head at him before looking around the bar, then focusing back on his face.]

The OSS was dissolved in 1945. [She blinks once, then looks him over.] So, you mean the war.

[deadthenred]

I guess I do.

[ He runs a hand through his hair, defeated. The war was a habitual reference point, how he ordered his life. And things to so mixed up here that it was easy to forget how strange that really was. ]

The one with the Nazis, anyway.

[smithsonian]

Yeah.

[She breathes it, still watching him.]

You said it was 2016 for you. That you were thirty-one.

[deadthenred]

I look thirty-one, right?

[ He wasn't lying, exactly. It just got hard to keep track.

Okay, definitely at least a fib. ]

[smithsonian]

That's not an answer. [To a question she hasn't asked.] How did you fight Nazis in World War Two and still...

[A breath.]

How?

[deadthenred]

Same way everyone got here, more or less. You woke up on that ship after being in stasis for who knows how long, and it wasn't like any time passed at all, right?

[ He hesitates. ]

Could've been a day. Could've been a century.

[smithsonian]

No. [She shakes her head.] That's not what you said.

You specifically said it'd been 2016 before-- [She stops and sits back, looking at him before she reaches for her drink, which she downs.]

Thanks for the drink.

[deadthenred]

It was 2016 for me. [ He isn't trying to be evasive. ] I'm 93. But I wasn't awake for most of it. [ The years, he means.

His life, or whatever passes for it. ]

[smithsonian]

[Annie's still working past the warmth in her throat from the whiskey when he admits to being 93.

Her eyes wander over his face and remembers what happened earlier in the evening.]

You had an OSS clearance in World War Two - the one with the Nazis - and then... fell asleep until 2016?

[Help her out, Bucky.]

[deadthenred]

I guess it sounds weird when you put it like that.

[ This sort of thing isn't exactly ordinary in his world, but it was par for the course in the crowd he ran with. And Bucky, focused on his mission and his melancholy, never really took the time to look at how far from normal his life had gotten.

He takes a sip of his own drink, a grateful swallow. ]

[smithsonian]

Is there a way to say it where it doesn't sound weird?

[Hey, she's seen a lot of weird shit. She's open.]

[deadthenred]

I guess not. [ He hasn't totally lost touch with normalcy. ]

But everything's weird here.

[smithsonian]

You're not wrong.

[Not sure what to say to a man who's 93 and looks 30, claims to have been asleep for seventy years, and still has skills like he fought ten years ago, Annie bites the corner of her lip.]

What's Bucky short for?

[deadthenred]

Is this an interrogation technique?

[ Ask the easy questions, make the hard answers come easier. He raises an eyebrow, game. ]

My middle name's Buchanan. [ He pauses, he might as well get the rest outta the way. ] James Buchanan Barnes.

[smithsonian]

[She has the grace to glance at the table, then raise only her eyes as he answers.]

I'd like to think I could do better if it was. [She lifts a shoulder and confesses.] I was trying to lighten the conversation, that's all.

[Her chin goes to her palm.] Buchanan. That's different.

[deadthenred]

My father's name, too. [ He's James Buchanan Barnes Jr. if you want to get technical. ]

How did you get into Langley?

[smithsonian]

My language skills. [Mostly, kinda.] They come naturally to me.

[deadthenred]

[ He brightens a little. ]

I like languages. [ It's true. He was always pretty good at them, too— it was a small point of pride, when he was younger. Nothing like Annie, though. ]

And I wasn't asleep the entire time, either.

[smithsonian]

[She could have asked what languages he spoke, but. He brought it up again.]

What were you doing?

[deadthenred]

[ He takes another sip of his drink. ]

Near the end of the war I got hurt real bad. The Russians recovered my body, but I didn't remember who I was. I remembered how to fight, how to speak four languages, but my memory was a complete blank. [ He doesn't quite shrug— the gesture is too small for that. But his shoulders get heavier. ] It took 'em a while, but eventually they figured out how to use that. They'd break me out when they needed something done, and put me back to sleep again when the mission was over.

[ This is all public knowledge back home, of course, headlines in all the papers. It isn't his favorite thing to talk about, but telling the story lets him take a kind of ownership. A kind of responsibility.

It's not much. ]