Clara Oswald is going the long way round (alwaysbeenthere) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-10-19 23:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, bucky barnes (winter soldier), clara oswald, twelfth doctor |
Who: Bucky, kid!Clara and the Twelfth Doctor
What: Clara’s been de-aged
When: De-aging plot
Where: Bucky’s
Warnings: Low
Status: Log | Complete
Clara had already been dealing with the whole...not being quite herself thing and pushing through it. She knew it would pass, that all she needed was the dream to finish up when the Doctor was an idiot and jumped into his Time Stream to save her. She could handle it. So she’d gone about her life as she normally would and that meant sleeping even if she didn’t technically need it.
What she hadn’t anticipated was waking up again as an eight year old. An eight year old with no recollection of everything that had happened and all she knew was that something sounded off and that her parents were dead and she was in a strange home. She didn’t quite know why she was in bed with some strange man. A nightmare might have made sense except she didn’t know him and all the adults in the strange homes she’d been in since had never really cared.
All she knew was that she was scared and when she was scared she would go into a closet and cover her ears and count because that was supposed to help. She just wanted to wake up from this nightmare and have her parents back.
Bucky had been soldiering on in handling his dreams that had suddenly lurched ahead. He was still waiting to see the outcome of having been captured after the fight, but he knew whatever it was wouldn’t be good. After all, he was the Winter Soldier, plenty of people would want him dead. Or else they’d want whatever information he could give them about Hydra. That information was less than he’d wished it was. Hydra covered their tracks, and a lot of the people he’d worked with in the organization were, well, dead already.
Even though Bucky well knew what Orange County could be like, he hadn’t quite anticipated this new twist. Then again, how could they anticipate anything? One day it was a horde of orcs storming the place. The next, people were switching bodies or something. He’d woken up when the bed shifted. He was a chronically light sleeper, mostly from his time on active duty in a war zone, so Clara’s movement tended to wake him. Though when he saw a child run into the closet, he frowned.
“Clara?” He asked as he sat up and glanced at the bed beside him. Clara wasn’t there, and now he was confused. He slid out of bed, luckily he was wearing pajama pants and a shirt, and he moved towards the closet. “Clara, are you alright?” If he didn’t get an answer, he’d have to call Duncan and hope the man didn’t decide to go on a Scottish tirade at him before he could tell him what was wrong. Or at the very least, he’d see if Orange County was up to something.
Why did the man know her name? Well he was probably someone she’d been sent to but shouldn’t she remember that? Clara didn’t like this. Not at all. Instead she just went further into the closet, trying to keep completely quiet. As if that would make the man disappear and make the nightmare of her parents death just that. A nightmare and they would find her and it would be okay.
She just had to cover her ears, close her eyes and rock back and forth and it would all go away.
Alright, well, Bucky knew enough to not open the closet and go in after her. He recognized when someone was scared and was looking for a place that made them feel safe. So he knew what he should do. Bucky went to grab his phone and called Duncan. Luckily, the man answered and didn’t read him the riot act. In fact, the instant Bucky told him that a child-sized Clara had gone into the closet, the man said he’d be right there.
Duncan wasn’t certain what was going on, though he had made a check of the network before coming over. Somehow Clara seemed to be a child now, and he knew exactly what it meant when she was in a closet. It hurt his hearts to think about, but he also knew how to handle it. So once he showed up at Bucky’s, through the door for once, shockingly, Bucky showed him which closet Clara was in. Duncan waved Bucky off and looked at the closet before he sat down outside of it, leaning his back against the wall.
“Hello there, my name is Duncan. The other man here told me that you’re scared, and I’m good at helping people who are scared. Do you like stories? If you do, I have a good one I tell you about a little girl who wanted to travel, and who made some friends along the way.” He may definitely be about to tell stories of some experiences from his dreams. Only the good parts, obviously, but he also knew if this was an Orange County thing and Clara eventually went back to her right age, he wouldn’t tell any stories involving her, necessarily.
But Amy Pond? Amy was definitely one he could tell stories about. She wasn’t here to smack him, after all. Clara, Martha and Rose were.
Clara slowly opened her eyes and uncovered her ears when she heard someone talking to her through the door. It wasn’t her dad. No her dad and mom were dead and gone and they kept shuffling her around and she didn’t like the homes because no one seemed to care she wanted to read. Or that she wanted to protect the smaller kids. She was trouble. But children were good readers of people and somehow she knew that this man with the Scottish accent could be trusted. Well. Maybe not trusted but enough to get her to listen.
“Yes…”
Because she did like stories.
“Like a story in a book?”
Well, he was at least getting some sort of response out of her even if she had yet to open the door.
Duncan had to smile a bit when he got a response from her. Luckily, he knew Clara and thus knew how to get through to her. Even if it had been years since he’d first sat outside a closet and talked her out of it, it was still ingrained in his mind.
“Yes, exactly like in a book. The kind where a princess goes to find the dragon herself. Not all princesses need saving by a knight in shining armor, after all. Some of them are quite capable of handling such things themselves. Would you like to hear a story about that kind of princess?”
She might not have left the closet, but Clara did edge closer to the door to hear what story the man was going to tell her. He at least had piqued her interest and that overrode her fear and uncertainty on everything that was going on.
“Those are the best kinds of princesses. The ones who save themselves.” Because of course even at eight, Clara was the type who would want to fight the dragon herself. And the prospect of another story. “Yes please.”
Thankfully with whatever was going on, it hadn’t changed Clara’s personality. She always had liked those kinds of stories. These were the times that Duncan was thankful that he knew how to handle children. Adults he tended to hate more often than not because they were rigid and rarely saw outside of the box. But children? Children had open minds and saw the wonders of the universe and didn’t blindly hate anyone.
“Good, I like those kinds of princess myself.” He smiled and began to tell a story about a kingdom that had a dragon that liked to burn the field the crops grew in. And the princess took it upon herself to face the dragon herself. There was plenty of trouble along the way. Some of it the princess used her wits and smart mouth to get out of. Others she had to fight her way out.
And of course there was a happy ending because there weren’t nearly enough happy endings in life.
As Duncan spoke, Clara kept moving closer to the door. She could see the story play out in her mind, but she also felt like there was something more missing. That the dragon might have been trying to help but because the people in the village didn’t understand, they thought it was attacks. He burned the crops but what if it was something in the soil? There was always more to the story. She did like the happy ending though. It was also enough to get her to open the door and peak out.
There always was more than met the eye where the Doctor’s stories were concerned. It drew upon his experiences travelling through space and time. Almost every place he went, things were not as they seemed. Most of the time, it was getting both sides of a conflict to realize they were fighting over something incredibly stupid and benign. Things that seemed to be bad, such as the dragon, rarely ever were the true bad thing.
Though when the door did open and the brunette peaked out, he gave her a kind smile. “Do you want to hear another story? Or would you like to tell me your favorite story?”
And Clara was very perceptive. The woman who ran the group home she kept getting sent back to didn’t appreciate her perceptiveness and reading but that never stopped Clara all the same. So that was one of the reasons she decided to open the door. Because there had been that more in the story that intrigued her.
So she nodded shyly at the question if she wanted another story. There were stories she could tell herself, but she wasn’t comfortable enough yet for that.
He smiled at her. “Lucky for you, I think I have just the story for you.” And that was when the Doctor promptly began to tell the story he’d just told, but this time, he told it from the dragon’s point of view. Filling in the blanks, as it were. And sure enough, the dragon was trying to help the people of the kingdom. In fact, it was the princess who first figured it out and she allied with the dragon and did her best to educate the people of her kingdom about the dragon.
Of course, with the new details and perspective, the ending was different. The dragon became the protector of the kingdom, which came in handy when enemies tried to attack.
Bucky was standing outside the room listening. He didn’t want to frighten Clara anymore than he had, so he’d gone and put the disguise over his metal arm. He’d wait until she was ready to face some other stranger before going into the room. Though this whole situation was odd. Waking up to your girlfriend suddenly being a little girl was startling, to say the least. At any rate, he was taking it in stride.
As Duncan told the same story, only from the dragon’s perspective, Clara nodded along. Because she had already figured it out that was what the dragon had wanted to do. But it was also nice to know that she was right. She had also finally come fully out of the closet by that point as opposed to having just opened the door up.
“I knew it!”
Because of course she was happy about that. But then she got distracted because a dog came over to her and nudged her with its nose and she just blinked. She didn’t remember any of the homes having dogs in them before. Oh well.
“That’s because you are obviously a very clever girl,” the Doctor commented. But it was definitely a good thing that Clara had come out of the closet. Stories were definitely what helped the most where little Clara was concerned. When Captain came over to Clara, the Doctor just kind of looked at him. Suddenly he wondered where K-9 had gotten to. But maybe it was best the metal dog wasn’t here at the moment. While Clara might like him, a robot dog might also confuse her more.
Bucky had completely forgotten about Captain until he saw the blur of gold go past him. He rubbed a hand over his face momentarily before he stepped into the room.
“Ah, sorry if he’s bothering you. His name is Captain. Don’t worry, he’s friendly.” Bucky assured Clara. He didn’t come in further than one step, but he was ready to take the dog out of the equation if needed. But if Cap was helping? He’d leave him.
“Well obviously.” She was getting comfortable enough around Duncan that she wasn’t so quick to pretend to be properly behaved like she was expected to be so families wouldn’t send her back to the group home. Though he was right that a robot dog would be something completely different. Nice Scottish man with scary eyebrows? No big deal. Talking robotic dog? That might be a bit more troubling and cause her to stay hiding.
With Cap seeming to decide to stay right next to her, Clara looked over to Bucky and tilted her head inquisitively. Now that she wasn’t just awake and confused and scared, she was more curious than anything.
“Do you like stories, too?”
Duncan could only chuckle a bit in response to how she responded to his comment about being clever. “I like clever. Clever is good, it means you use your brain. So many people don’t use it when they really should.”
Bucky was glad that Cap didn’t make Clara nervous. Or at least she wasn’t showing it if she was. At Clara’s question, Bucky smiled and nodded. “Yes, I do. What’s your favorite kind of story?” That may have already come up, but considering Bucky hadn’t been in the room, he wasn’t aware of it.
No nerves from Clara, then again it took a lot to rattle her - even as a child. It wasn’t that she didn’t get scared, she just knew how to use it to her advantage and knew that it was a superpower. She also trusted her instincts which was why she was more than find just sitting there with the two now that she had stopped hiding because of all the strange things of waking up in a strange place and trying to find herself.
“Good. People who don’t like stories shouldn’t be trusted.” Well, she was eight. As for the ones she liked? “The ones that have hope under them even in all the parts that seem one way but are hiding more things and people saving themselves.”
Of course, Bucky would’ve liked that Clara hadn’t been scared upon waking, but he definitely didn’t hold it against her. After all, she was just a child with no memory of this place. No doubt that they’d look back on this situation and laugh about it later. But until then, he’d just take this one step at a time.
Bucky smiled, chuckling softly at the comment about who couldn’t be trusted. “I think that is a good way to look at things.” After all, people who didn’t like stories tended to not have much of an imagination. Or much empathy. “Those are definitely the best stories. Complex plots with dynamic characters who have hope and save themselves.”
And even if Bucky didn’t say it out loud, that was basically why Clara didn’t trust people who didn’t like stories. Maybe not in such big words but she understood that no imagination and seeing things just as they were wasn’t a good thing. Plus people who didn’t like stories always gave her a hard time in the group home and so that also made her distrust them.
“Exactly. But the lady with the blonde hair says otherwise.”
So Bucky clearly wouldn’t know who that was, but Duncan would as she had run the group home and given he knew about all the issues she’d had there, well, it wouldn’t be hard to put two and two together.
The comment did go over Bucky’s head, though he did assume it was someone Clara knew before she’d been adopted. Duncan, however, caught onto it right away. He remembered that lady. He’d never liked her (though when did he ever really like anyone that wasn’t a child?), so it was good that he had a good memory.
“Pay no attention to her. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” And in Duncan’s personal opinion, the woman didn’t. He also didn’t think she was fit to run a group home from an empathy standpoint.
“Clearly she’s someone to not be trusted. Sounds like she’d be some villainess in a fairytale.” Bucky then smiled at Clara. “But don’t worry, any and all stories are welcomed and even encouraged here.”
As Duncan said that the lady with the blonde hair didn’t know what she was talking about, Clara just gave a quick nod. Good. The man with the scary eyebrows seemed to know just what she meant and agreed. Adults were weird like that. They tended to believe one another over children and so would just ignore what she was said.
“That’s exactly it.” And the other man also seemed to get it. Maybe this place wasn’t going to be so bad after all. “Well that’s good. Everyone needs a good story.”