[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

[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. ]

[smithsonian]

[Annie listens as he explains, the subtle differences in his body language almost too subtle to notice. As he tells her the story of what happened, she feels a slight horror and barely resists the urge to comfort him.]

So, they used you for Russian wetworks.

[It's not a question.]

[deadthenred]

Mostly.

[ He nods, just once. There were some other things— extraction, training, sabotage. But that was the big one. ]

[smithsonian]

Okay.

[She nods more than once, to assure herself, and him, that it is okay.]

Maybe sleeping through it would have been better.

[Bad joke? Bad joke.]

[deadthenred]

Yeah, I'd say so.

[ It's hard to tell if he's joking in kind. But he doesn't reach for his drink. ]

[smithsonian]

[She watches him for a second.]

You okay?

[To be honest, she hadn't thought their conversation was going to get into deep secrets. Now that it had, she wanted to make sure that she hadn't inadvertently ruined their active night.]

[deadthenred]

Yeah.

[ And he means it, really, as best he can. This doesn't qualify as a deep secret for him, it's common knowledge where he's from, and something he wants to make up for, not run away from.

Also, pretty hard to explain being an ex-KGB operative without all the caveats. Hell, the KGB doesn't exist anymore. ]

It was a long time ago, right? I don't break very easy.

[smithsonian]

I didn't think you were.

[She motions to the bartender for another round.]

This one's on me.

[deadthenred]

Thanks.

[ He smiles, just for a second, incongruent with everything he was just talking about. He still has an easy, John Q. Public grin, one of the last remnants of the kid he was for America's newsreels. ]

So, languages, huh?

[ It does explain why she'd be recruited, but not why she can fight like she does, why she'd pick field work over an analyst desk. He assumes most people get the choice. ]

[smithsonian]

Languages.

[She huffs and runs her finger across the rim of her glass, then shakes her hair a little before looking at him.] I know a lot of them, but that's why I got recruited. They pulled me a month early from the farm for a case they needed help on. My, uh. I guess my ex-something or other was involved and they wanted me to lure him in.

[Cute, blonde... what can she say?]

[deadthenred]

[ That makes sense. He's not sure if he should buy that story entirely— or rather, if that's the whole truth. But he wouldn't blame her from holding back. He was doing the same. ]

Did it work?

[smithsonian]

[Annie huffs a laugh that carries no amusement and looks out over the bar they're in, glad they're tucked away in a corner. Did it work?.]

Yeah, for a while it did. He has a tendency to do what he wants, though, so. [She shakes her head.] But he saved my life that time and the next time our paths crossed, I saved his.

[She gives a shrug, suddenly uncomfortable.] He was a fling, not really an ex. [Her lips quirk.] Still owes me fifty bucks.

[deadthenred]

Gonna be hard to collect that debt here. [ Hard to pay debts here, too. But he doesn't say that. ]

Listen, that kinda work mixes you up. It makes it hard to know who you owe, and for what. [ Translation: he has dated spies, too. ]

[smithsonian]

[Annie laughs and tries to explain.]

I know, he's asleep. But it's not that. [She takes a drink from her glass before going on.] I met him on a beach in Sri Lanka. I didn't know what he did for a living and I was there after doing a humanitarian trip in South Ossetia. We were together three weeks and then I woke up one morning and he was gone.

[Her smile widens.] I'd spent fifty bucks on a bar tab he'd said he pay back and then he just. Disappeared. [Eh.] Or so I thought.

I get what you're saying, though. Don't hold on to the little things.