The Pen is Mightier! (penismightier) wrote in chaotic_library, @ 2014-11-02 14:33:00 |
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Current mood: | apathetic |
Current music: | Korn - Alone I Break |
[Bucky Barnes, Cast; R] In Derelict Sidings The Poppies Entwine
Character/Series: Bucky Barnes, Cast; Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: R
Notes: I based Ellis on Bartlet from West Wing. Because we have almost nothing of Ellis right now, and I like Bartlet. I kept picturing Martin Sheen while writing this.
Title: In Derelict Sidings The Poppies Entwine: Chapter 2
Author: yuuo
Word Count: 3823
Summary: Captain America and the Winter Soldier were probably the only two people alive that could get away with approaching the president while armed.
Captain America and the Winter Soldier were probably the only two people alive that could get away with approaching the president while armed. Well, maybe not, Bucky had heard about the Iron Patriot, but he was a military special force unto himself. While Steve was Captain America, and the Winter Soldier was accepted by extension, they still were free agents, getting away with walking into the White House armed with no less than three guns, two knives and Steve's almost deceptively dangerous shield.
Bucky wasn't entirely sure how Steve had arranged that, but it was nice to not get accosted and made to give up his weapons just to go in to talk to someone who usually wanted to hire him to use said weapons. Sure, he still had his hand-to-hand, and he was no less lethal with that than with his weapons, but it wasn't as efficient as a bullet to the brain.
He'd been trained to be efficient. Not being efficient made Pierce angry. Made Hydra angry. Never make your handlers angry.
But it wasn't much concern, somehow they got away with it, nobody ever stopped them as an office professional would lead them through the White House to the Oval Office. "Mister President," the office worker said after leading them in. "Captain America and the Winter Soldier are here."
"Thank you, Julia," President Ellis said. He was watching out the window, back to them. Awful trusting, Bucky thought, but then, they'd never given the president reason to not trust them. Still, one would think a head of state wouldn't turn his back on two very dangerous mercenaries.
Julia left without a word; she was the same woman that escorted them to the office every time they came in, which was alarmingly frequently. While they flat-out refused to ever help the US with anything in the Middle East, America had its fingers in a lot of other countries, some that it seemed the public had no idea about. It kept Steve and Bucky busy, though.
They waited silently, watching the president. He looked to be holding something in this hand, alternating between looking out the window and down at whatever he had in his hand. Finally, the president turned just enough to look at them over his shoulder. "Good morning, Cap, Winter Soldier." He looked back down at what Bucky realized was a tablet. "You know, when I woke up this morning, I was expecting to hear more news about ISIL, or Gaza, or the Ukraine. Or the Ebola crisis. Those are still waiting on my desk." He motioned to his desk. "But that wasn't the news that greeted me."
Bucky focused on breathing and keeping his expression completely neutral, unaffected. He knew what was coming next, and he wasn't really wanting to react to it too much.
The president turned fully, walking closer to the desk, and held up the tablet to display two pictures of Bucky side-by-side, one from his days in the military, one more recent. "So. Bucky Barnes, is it?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw Steve look at him, then back to President Ellis. "Sir, we can-"
"I wasn't asking you, Captain," the president interrupted, staring pointedly at Bucky. "I asked your partner." He put the tablet down, resting his hands on the desk, slightly stooped. "Are you Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes?"
For a long five seconds, Bucky couldn't get his voice to cooperate. "I haven't been Sergeant Barnes since I died," he finally said. "It's just Bucky now."
President Ellis straightened, nodding just slightly. "Is there a reason you couldn't tell me before?"
"Plausible deniability," Bucky said, although he knew that the president wasn't likely to buy that.
Which he didn't. The president tilted his head to the side slightly, giving Bucky a barely tolerant look. "You expect me to believe that?"
Another few seconds ticked by before Bucky answered. "No."
"Then what's the real reason?"
Bucky kept his jaw tense, almost too much to speak. "There'd be too many questions."
"Like how you're still alive," the president said, raising his eyebrows. He walked around to the front of the desk, putting himself closer to Bucky and Steve. He leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms. "Which is a good question. I don't suppose you're going to answer that one?"
"I don't remember," Bucky said, an easy lie that tumbled off his lips like he'd been practicing it forever. He'd been mentally preparing for it, but saying it was far different. If he were anyone else, he might feel ashamed for how easy that lie was.
President Ellis didn't react at first, like he was waiting for more. Once it became obvious that Bucky wasn't going to give him more, he drew in a deep breath. "Amnesia. You don't remember anything about the last seventy years? At all?"
Hearing it put like that, Bucky realized he'd have to throw something out, just enough to be believed without giving away anything he didn't want out. "I have a few vague impressions, nothing that makes sense. I remember falling, being found, and not much else until Steve found me." Which wasn't entirely true; he remembered far more than he'd care to, but it was a rawhide for the president to chew on for awhile.
The president looked at Steve. "And where did you find him, Captain?"
Aw, shit. Steve was a terrible liar. Bucky silently begged him to be as vague as possible. "On a causeway here in DC," Steve said. "He didn't know who he was."
There, a truth that Steve would be comfortable with. Bucky wished they had developed some sort of stupid telepathy like Tony had joked about, just so he could mentally thank Steve for not making things worse.
"That was around the time you were arrested by Hydra," the president said. "Any guesses on why he was there?"
Bucky wanted to throttle the president. He knew Steve was an awful liar and was deliberately preying on that. Asshole.
"He was just there," Steve said, and Bucky hoped that the president wouldn't pick up on the subtle change in Steve's voice that Bucky knew meant that he was lying. "I couldn't say anything more."
A smooth lie, especially coming from Steve. Not that the president wouldn't be able to see right through it, he probably got told a variation of that numerous times and knew exactly what it meant. Not being able to say something didn't mean that something was an unknown.
President Ellis didn't look particularly impressed with Steve's answer, but he turned his attention back to Bucky. At that point, once Steve said he couldn't say something, it would be easier to address Bucky. When Steve decided to be quiet, he got stubborn about it. Not that Bucky wasn't, but in some ways, he wasn't quite as stubborn as Steve could be.
"Do you know how you survived?" the president asked.
Bucky kept that bland, unreadable expression on his face. Not even a facial twitch. A weapon, not a person. "Dumb luck?" Okay, so maybe a bit too flippant to be completely just a weapon, but at least he was able to keep a straight face.
"Very dumb luck," the president said, standing up again. "You know you were never listed as KIA, right?"
That broke Bucky's otherwise flawless expression, causing him to look over at Steve in confusion. Steve shrugged. "I saw the files," he said. "You were listed as MIA because we never found a body."
"Did anyone even look?" Bucky demanded, then looked at the president, expecting an answer to that.
"I don't know," the president admitted. "Your file didn't say. Just that you were listed MIA. Which means that you're technically still in the army."
Bucky felt the blood drain from his face. "I'm not a soldier anymore."
"According to the law, you are," the president said. "Of course, if you let us keep you, we'd owe you roughly a million dollars in back pay, and enough promotions that you're probably a four star general by now." He sounded vaguely amused, a break in the seriousness he'd been interrogating them with a moment before. "Not to mention whatever medals and honors I decide to clip onto your uniform."
"I don't need any of that," Bucky said, hoping for something that would get him out of having to go back.
"Wouldn't he be up for a discharge by now, sir?" Steve asked. "And he was part of the Howling Commandos, that put him under the SSR's authority, and they were taken over by SHIELD. SHIELD isn't around anymore to take custody of him. Would the regular Army really be able to claim him as a soldier still?"
The president made a disgusted noise. "SHIELD. Good riddance to them." He motioned to the chairs on either side of the desk. "Take a seat." He continued as Bucky and Steve moved the chairs to sit more opposite the president's chair. "As far as the Army, they could. At least in theory. As you said, he was under the SSR's authority, but the SSR was still part of the Army at the time. It was easiest to let SHIELD handle you, Cap."
"So you're going to let the Army take Bucky," Steve said, almost an accusation as he set his shield on the ground in front of him. Bucky made sure to sit on the edge of the chair; he didn't need his weapon on his back digging into him.
The president sat down in his chair. "I could," he said. "They'd want him to run tests to see why he's suddenly a super soldier like you. Someone experimented on him, that much is obvious. It's a matter of who."
Bucky expected that much to be figured out. "I don't know," he said. "And nobody's putting me in a lab."
"No," the president said. "Nobody's putting you in a lab. I don't care what sort of information we could get from your DNA, I won't allow those advances to be made at the expense of a national hero. I didn't allow it with Cap, I won't allow it with you."
Bucky had to grip the arms of the chair he was in to keep the relief from showing too much. "Generous."
"I don't approve of human experimentation," the president said, leaning back in his chair. "As grateful as I am for the effects of it that Captain America is still with us, and now you, if I'd been in charge back when the super serum was created, it wouldn't have happened."
"To be honest, sir," Steve said, "I don't think President Roosevelt knew about it."
President Ellis looked confused for a moment, then chuckled, shaking his head. "I know how old you are, but sometimes it doesn't really mean much until you talk about history like you lived through it."
"Talking with Thor makes me feel young, sir," Steve said.
"If what the reports of Thor say are correct, he makes everyone feel young," the president said. He looked off over Steve and Bucky's heads, clearly lost in thought. "I'm not going to make you stay in the military. Whatever's happened to you, whether you remember or not, was obviously not a romp through a park. I think you've earned your honorable discharge. If any of my generals want to argue with me about it, they can leave their jobs. I'm the Commander In Chief for a reason." He sat forward, folding his arms on the desk in front of him. "That only leaves one thing. Your back pay. It might take awhile to calculate just how much you're owed, given inflation over the last few decades."
"Donate whatever it would be to the VA," Bucky said. "I don't need it."
The president smiled. "If I had any worries that you weren't still the man that we knew from the films, that just dismissed them." He looked at the tablet still sitting on his desk, clearly lost in thought again. He grabbed the tablet, looking at it, then turned it to show the pictures to Steve and Bucky again. "Nice picture, by the way," he said, turning it back to look at it himself. "Nice to see what you look like without that mask." He turned off the tablet and set it aside. "I'll start the process of getting you that discharge. It shouldn't take terribly long for it to go through, and in the meantime, you're on leave, and you answer to nobody but me. For a few days, you're still a soldier in the United States Army. So I recommend staying out of trouble and turning down any jobs you get until that discharge comes through."
"I have a feeling we'll be hiding from the press a lot," Steve said. "We wouldn't want to do anything that'd increase that spotlight by going out."
"Smart idea," the president said. "I'll be asked for comments on this, I'll come up with a press release that will hopefully keep them off your back for awhile. I did it when Captain America came back, I'll do it for you."
"Thank you, sir," Bucky said, keeping a flat tone, like his gratitude were a social expectation and not real, even though he really wanted to melt into a puddle of relief.
"No need to thank me, soldier," the president said. "We're just glad to have you back." He glanced at his watch. "If you leave now, you might get to catch 'Good Morning, America' and see what they run on you. Should be interesting."
Bucky resisted the urge to make a face of annoyance. "Then we're dismissed?"
The president smiled. "Yes, dismissed, soldiers."
Steve grabbed his shield and stood, hooking it back onto his back. Bucky stood and followed him, neither saying a word as they left. It wasn't until they were back on the bike and on their way home that Bucky realized they'd both forgotten to salute upon dismissal. So much for being soldiers.
The press had gone by the time they got home, all except one young woman with red-brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses that were too dark and contrasted sharply with her pale skin, who sat on the front steps, hiding under layers of winter clothing and shivering. Bucky wasn't even sure at first if she was press or not; the only thing she had that indicated she might be was a notebook and a recording device sitting on the cement railing next to the stairs.
"Drop me off here," he told Steve.
Steve glanced over his shoulder at Bucky, pulling the bike to a stop outside the front door. "You sure?"
Bucky hopped off the bike. "Go put that away, I'll meet you upstairs," he said in answer. While Steve drove off, Bucky studied the young woman, who'd been watching them a bit cautiously. She looked like she was a bit intimidated by him, which he didn't blame her for. Most people saw a mercenary armed and in their uniform, and felt a bit small by comparison. "Reporter?" he asked.
She looked like an animal trapped in a cage, then looked at her notebook and recorder, then stood up. "Oh! Yes, um, yes, I am. I'd ask if you were the Winter Soldier, but that'd be a dumb question." She tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "I know you turned everyone else down, but I'd really like to ask you a couple questions. If you don't want to, that's fine, just say so."
"Who are you with?" he asked, walking closer, stopping just outside the front door.
"Nobody," she said, picking up her notebook and recorder. "I'm a free-lance writer. If I could be picked up by a news site, that'd be great, but right now, I'm just feeding my baby and I on what I can get."
He didn't know whether or not that was true, but either way, throwing that out there was a good guilt tactic. Appealing to the human side of someone that some people didn't even think was human. He bit back some annoyance. "And talking to me might get you noticed."
She looked a bit sheepish. "Well, yeah. But it's not just that. Most of my pieces have been on Captain America and you. Well, if you're really Bucky Barnes. But even if you're not, a lot of my more recent stories have been on you, too."
A theoretically single mother making a meager living who was also a fan. Goddamnit, Bucky didn't have the heart to say 'no', although he really wanted to. "Ask your questions. I won't be able to answer most of them."
She brightened, fumbled with her notebook and recorder. "Sorry, my fingers are cold."
"How long have you been out here?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Since just before everyone else left," she said. "So it's been awhile. I was actually about to give up and go home." She finally managed to get her notebook open and her recorder on. "So are the rumors true, that you're Bucky Barnes, Captain America's childhood friend?"
"They're true," he said, not changing his expression.
She didn't look terribly surprised. "Do you know how you survived?"
"No." He knew he wasn't giving her much to go on, but he'd already said more than he cared to that day. Although she was definitely prettier than the president was. Too bad she hadn't found him before the president did, he might've given more to her than he currently was.
"Not at all?" She still held a serious look, not even showing anything but earnest curiosity at his answers.
He couldn't help but a tiny smile behind his mask. She was reminding him a lot of his younger sister; Rebecca had always been determined to be a journalist, too. "I got lucky," he said. "And no, I don't remember much about the last seventy years. Not enough to tell anyone."
She didn't seem bothered by the fact that he probably just answered half her questions without giving her any story. "Why did you decide to stay hidden for so long?"
"Because people ask questions," he said.
The irony was lost on her. "Where did you get the name 'Winter Soldier'?"
That was a good question, actually, one he'd not been prepared for. "I don't know," he said after a few moments of thinking how to answer that. He wasn't sure where that name had come from. Hydra agents mostly called him 'the asset' to his face, but the project that created him had been called the Winter Soldier Project. He wasn't entirely sure where Hydra got the name. "Look, I know you want a story, but you're not getting one from me. I don't have the information you want. I remember falling, and then I remember running into Steve. The rest is fuzzy."
"You're talking to a reporter," she said. "That alone is story enough. I know you don't remember much, but do you know anything about what happened to your arm?"
He glanced at his metal arm briefly. "I tore it up on the way down the mountain," he said. "Someone replaced it, not sure when."
"Do you think the communist star has anything to do with whoever rescued you?"
Bucky did his best to now show his internal alarm at her question on his face. "Maybe. You can theorize all you want."
She paused her questions, tilting her head and studying him like he was some sort of new species. "Were you always this hard to question?"
"No," he admitted. "But I was never under this kind of scrutiny, either."
"Completely fair," she said. She juggled her notebook and recorder, managing to slip the thin device under her glove. "One more question." She pulled the pen she had clipped inside the spiral of the notebook out and held it and the pen out to him. "Mind if I get an autograph?"
There was that smile again, even though she wouldn't see it. "So how much of this interview was an excuse to ask that?"
She shrugged with a smile. "Not all of it. I really am a free-lance writer. But a chance for an interview and an autograph from my favorite hero was too good to pass up."
That surprised him, and he drew his head back slightly, looking at her. "Your favorite? You mean Captain America isn't?"
She shook her head. "No. I mean, he's my hero, too, but not my favorite. I couldn't really say why. I guess those of us who follow you superhero types just have our preferences." She moved the notebook and pen slightly, drawing attention back to it. "Would you? Please?"
"If I do, do you promise to go inside and warm up somewhere?"
"Cross my heart," she said.
He took the pen and notebook, eyeing the page it was opened to. It had a series of questions written down, all intended for him, but most not asked. His stubborn insistence that he didn't remember anything had made it impossible to ask them. "My sister wanted to be a journalist," he told her, scribbling down both of his names. "I'll tell you what I told her. Keep trying, you'll make it." He handed the notebook and pen back.
That seemed to make her day, if the way sunshine and sparkles practically glowed on her face was any indication. She took her notebook back, closing the cover, then clipped the pen back in its former place. "Thank you," she said, pulling out the recorder and fiddling with it. "I mean that, thank you very much."
"Go get warm," he told her.
"I will!" she said, hurrying down the steps. "Thank you again!"
Bucky waited a minute until she crawled into a car that looked about ten years old that was parked down the block. Deciding that she'd be fine at that point, he turned to punch the security code in, only to get whacked in the face with the door as it opened. He staggered back a step, his right hand reaching for one of his knives, left arm drawn up to block another hit.
"Sorry!" Steve said, looking terribly guilty. He propped open the door against his hip, looking like he wanted to fuss at any potential damage.
Bucky yanked off his mask, pressing a finger against his nose, checking for blood. His nose was bleeding. Damnit. "You jackass," he said. "Thanks, I'm going to be snorting blood for the next hour."
Steve pursed his lips, looking torn between guilt and amusement. "Sorry. I thought you moved enough for the door to open."
Bucky shoved by Steve, pinching his nose shut. "I'll believe that later," he said, stepping to the side to let Steve go up the stairs ahead of him. "After I have a chance to plug the leak."