ʙᴜᴄᴋʏ ʙᴀʀɴᴇs | ɹǝıpןos ɹǝʇuıʍ (bucky) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2017-09-27 10:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | marvel: mcu: bucky barnes, the adventure zone: lucretia |
Who: Bucky Barnes, Lucretia
When: Day 4
Where: Opening to Cave C/E
What: idek
Rating: TBD - Ongoing
For the second day in a row, Bucky had ventured outside of the crystal blue saltwater cave that served as basecamp for himself, Wanda and Rogue in search of some manner of useful supplies. They were doing well on food, as the cave they’d claimed was flush with fish, but there’d been a few injuries between them that could probably do with tending. He’d seen a wide variety of supplies around the mouth of the cornucopia, and although he’d lost track of that fucking flare gun, he knew there was probably more to be found, whether that was scattered supplies from the first day or recent additions from the gamemakers. Or, just as likely, the discarded possessions of… less fortunate participants. Perhaps it was a little morbid to take supplies from the fallen, but Bucky would be lying if he said he’d never pulled a gold filling from the mouth of a dead Nazi. Though he hadn’t done it after Steve had arrived in France. He wondered, sometimes, how much of what he’d done for Hydra had been the conditioning, and how much was just-- who he was when Steve wasn’t looking. He’d managed to hold it together for a few years backpacking (in that he had a backpack) through Eastern Europe on his own, but he’d never really been backed into a corner there. There were far fewer places to run in a cave, and far fewer resources to fight for. Bucky walked out into the central cave containing the Cornucopia to find it relatively empty, and seemingly unguarded. As he approached the mouth of another cave on the far side of the “room,” he spotted two things in the shadows -- a first aid kit, and movement. Whoever it was, they were closer, but Bucky was pretty fast, and it seemed worth chancing. Without hesitating, Bucky broke into a run and darted in the direction of supply kit, hoping he could grab it before the other. Lucretia had seen many worlds in her life; worlds both above and below ground, under water and high in the clouds, lush and arid and wet and dry and every possible combination in between. Moreover, she was used to hostility more than she was friendliness. They’d truly been lucky that the Starblaster had landed on Faerun, a place that was full of people who didn’t want to kill them on sight. How long could they have gone? How many worlds could they have killed or ruined? It was one of those questions that kept her up at night. But right now, the only question bothering her was how much longer can I do this? She’d survived in the wild on her own before, but she didn’t have to like it. And she’d gotten used to the Bureau, the luxuries of it all. She’d gotten soft in the last ten years, in some respects anyway. So she wasn’t doing, perhaps, the best. She had a weapon, though she was hesitant to use it, she had an explosive of some kind that she was even more hesitant to use, and she had some fruit soaked in alcohol, which she was trying to stretch as much as she could. What she didn’t have was anything that could actually be of some use. She was a protector more than a fighter, and she had no one to protect nor any way to try. But she had to find something. So she snuck back to the main room that they’d arrived in, hoping to find some kind of salvage now that the chaos was mostly gone and everyone had dispersed. Anything, really, at all. She was grasping at hope, frankly. She was incredibly relieved to lay sights on what appeared to be a medical kit of some kind, so relieved that she failed to notice anything around her. She just went for it - very Magnus like, just rushing in rather than considering her options and thinking it over. She didn’t even notice the other man, she just reached out and grabbed the kit. Well, he guessed he wasn’t quite as fast as he used to be. Bucky was still pretty light on his fight for a man his size, but not enough so to stop on a dime. He managed to avoid slamming into the woman who reached the first aid kit before him, but his forward momentum was still strong enough to push her further into the tunnel when he grabbed at the box and clipped her shoulder with his, leaving both of them unsteady on their feet. It was dark in the caves, and he hadn’t gotten a good look. He thought he’d seen the woman before, but he didn’t know her. He didn’t know how she’d respond to provocation, or how fiercely she’d defend the medkit. She didn’t seem badly hurt now -- and Bucky didn’t particularly want to hurt her -- but supplies were thin on the ground, and who knew when another one of these would turn up. He could just take it, couldn’t he? It would be easy, wouldn’t it? He needed it more, didn’t he? Truthfully, it was less of a thought process and more of an adrenaline rush that prompted him to grab for the arm holding the kit in his metal one, his other hand floating just over the handle, poised to grab the box if it fell. It was an awkward hold, but it seemed like his best chance at ending this was just to make her drop it, pry it from her fingers, and run. He twisted her arm enough to exert pressure, enough to be uncomfortable. He didn’t think it was too much, but it was hard to gage with a new fight partner, and an arm with no feeling that wasn’t properly calibrated. Lucretia, whatever her actual age (even she had trouble defining it most of the time), had the body of a fifty year old human woman. And no matter what plane she was on or where she was, there were certain things that were just inherent with age. One of those was unfortunately a certain amount of delicateness, especially when dealing with what appeared to be a literal iron grip. Whatever his intentions, this man hadn't taken all of that into account. She almost didn't register the snap as being something that had happened to her, until the box fell out of her suddenly slack grip. Then came the pain - Lucretia had broken bones before, of course she had, she'd fucking died often enough that it was inconceivable for her not to have broken something at the very least. That didn't mean she liked the pain, though. And the man still had a grip on her arm. Before she could think she grabbed the hammer from her belt and swung blindly, just hoping to scare him into letting go. She hadn't meant to connect, and she was horrified as she pulled the hammer out of him. “Oh, Gods, I'm sorry, I didn't - “ she stammered, even as she made a grab for the box again. “Let me get this open and I'll try to fix it - “ With his focus on grabbing the falling first aid kit, he didn’t immediately process the the significance of the way her arm suddenly gave against the pressure, whether it was a break or a dislocation or something else. He should have let go then. He should have been paying more attention, been more careful and conscious of his own limitations, taken a moment longer to examine the scene and size up his opponent before he’d run head first into this confrontation. But he hadn’t been. And the lesson would be swift. He succeeded in making the box fall, but almost the same moment he grabbed for it, he felt some sudden sharp pressure just below his ribs and looked down to find blood seeping through the fabric of his shirt. Oh. Bucky had been stabbed before. Bucky had been stabbed a lot, actually. But he was caught rather off guard by it this time. It was odd, he wasn’t even sure if the feeling was accurately describable as pain so much as shock. If he had been more alert, he might have stopped her from pulling it out — he wasn’t sure how deep it was, but it’s usually the blood loss that got you, not the injury itself — but instead, he watched as she pulled it out and looked at him in horror, offering to patch him up. He nodded absently before leaning to see— stuffed animals? “….the fuck?” Bucky reached down to put his hands on one of the toys, moving one out of the way to see if it was hiding something, to see if there was something underneath it, but… there was nothing. Just… bears. “I-- don’t understand.” Lucretia stared as well, her own pain receding as she realized, with dawning horror, that the box they had been fighting over contained nothing useful. Not medical supplies, which both of them would surely need, but toys of some kind. Stuffed toys. She thought, wildly, for a moment, that perhaps supplies were stuffed into them. But that was too desperate a hope. That wasn’t how this was going to work. Here she was, injured, with nothing but alcohol, cherries, a bloody hammer and a plethora of bears. She was alone, she was scared, she had no supplies. Even at her most desperate in those hundred years, her most alone, she had more than this. She could cling to the knowledge that everything would be reset and redone and they would be, physically, no worse for wear eventually. Here...she wasn’t sure. Her calm facade slowly cracked, chinks forming slowly and crumbling it away, until, improbably, she began to laugh. And then she swore, vividly and bitterly, as filthily as she knew how in every language she knew. She stooped to pick up a handful of bears and cradled them to her chest, before she turned and headed back to the small hideaway she’d created for herself. The realization that all of that had been over something so useless drained the adrenaline, and she was left, tired and in pain, and in need of a patch job. When she was safe she would find a stick, tear a bit of her shirt off, and bind her wrist in place. She’d use a bear or two to provide some padding. She’d take a shot of the alcohol and she would pray. To Pan, to Istus, to anyone at all who would listen. She didn’t have Merle’s lackadaisical faith, but at the moment, she was willing to try and find it. |