Tina Cohen-Chang. (queent) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-01-25 08:52:00 |
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As soon as Bucky saw Tina posting, he was up and walking through the halls, using hs phone to continue talking to her and to find out her location. He only waited long enough for Kap and Han to start to follow him, because he knew those two had missed the woman they were about to see as much as he had. It didn’t take long for him to track Tina down - easy when she had given him her room number. Seeing Gwen pop up on the network too, he made a note to go find her too as soon as he was done squeezing Tina out of breath. Because as soon as she opened the door to his frantic knocking, that’s what he did. He threw his arms around her and squeezed, mindful to not break her or suffocate her in the process. All the stress and trauma of the last two months and new memories he was still working through in his head was poured into that hug, as he kissed the top of her head and refused to let go. “It’s so fucking good to see you,” he mumbled into her hair, eyes a bit watery and voice thick with emotion. Yeah, it was shitty that she had been pulled away from their home too, but he was selfishly glad to have his arms around her right then. Han and Kap were both at their feet, whining and meowing to get their attention too. Considering just a few days ago she had been reading promises about how her life as a member of the Blackpoint community was permanent, the last place Tina had expected to find herself was here. She should have panicked, or felt upset about was happening. Instead she just felt tired. This was never supposed to happen, and now she had left behind her second family. All she could think about was Team America, Lily, Cook, and Riley. They were gone. She had barely felt the needle they’d stuck in her arm, and hadn’t really found a reason to argue against it. There was no point in arguing with people who were trained to deal with these kinds of portals anyway. At least not in her experience. She’d mindlessly answered a bunch of questions they’d asked her, only half registering what they had said. At least until she’d heard Bucky’s name. Then they had her attention. A few more questions later and she was able to confirm that it was the Bucky from her reality, and not some other version. But he was the only one here. The message she had posted worked rather quickly as she explored her new living quarters on the ship. The frantic knocking on the door had her running across the shared living space and fling the door back. Tina had no time to react or say anything before she found herself in a tight hug, probably carefully calculated just to the point to not crush her bones. On the other hand, she didn’t concern herself with not squeezing to hard as she returned the hug, with every ounce of strength she had in her arms. “I’m so sorry.” What else was she supposed to say? He had been happy there, so had she, and now they were both here. But he’d been here for months with no one, and Tina could only start to understand how much that would impact him. “I’m glad you’re here.” She wasn’t glad he was torn out of his life, but she was selfishly glad she wasn’t here alone. They were both selfish, but it didn’t matter. It was all out of their hands, puppets in the hands of some unseen forces at work. To go, to be sent away, none of it could be controlled, so the best they could do was cling to each other and deal with the day, one at a time. Reluctantly, he pulled away before he started getting snot in her hair. Wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt, he held onto her shoulders as he looked her up and down. It had only been two months, but it felt like the longest two months of his life. Squinting, giving her another once over, he asked, “Did you get shorter?” A smile threatened to break out onto his face, giving away the fact that he was joking. Any concern on her face was briefly wiped away with a fake look of annoyance, a frown curling on her mouth. Ha ha. “You all need to get new material. We can’t all be super soldiers.” she replied frankly with a huff. Tina stepped back and to the side, motioning for him to come into the suite with a nod of her head. She had a million questions she wanted to ask, and a million places she wanted to check out on the ship, but she also just wanted to sit for a few minutes and talk. Just having him here to talk to, and figure out how he was doing might help her focus her own swirling mind. “Sit down. Tell me about this place. Tell me what you’ve been up to for two months.” Tell me you’re doing okay.. Tina would never be able to forget the darker times Bucky had struggled with, and it was a very strong possibility that he was not doing okay here. She didn’t expect him to be doing well, but she was hoping for okay. She didn’t expect him to come right out and say exactly how he was feeling, but he looked worn out. She could see it in his eyes, super-human or not. He was hurting, but she needed to figure out how bad it was. “Love you too, Tee.” He ruffled her hair in that way that annoyed her, loving all the familiar reactions he was getting from her. Bucky had been feeling a little uneasy in his skin these past few weeks away from Blackpoint, like he didn’t quite remember how to function. So he had fallen back into old habits, habits that Bucky Barnes of the 40s, of before the hard war times, and played at being a social butterfly, something that would seem normal even if he wasn’t exactly feeling normal. It had worked beautifully because no one was any wiser about the fact that he was not handling his shit very well. But Tina was one person he couldn’t lie to, no matter how hard he tried. She was a human lie detector when it came to him, when it had come to any of their family. He moved to walk in further to the suite, toward the living room where they thankfully had some privacy. Sitting on the soft, with Han and Kap making themselves home on the carpet. “I haven’t been doing a whole lot of anything that resembles productivity,” he admitted, leaning back against the couch and petting Kap when he made himself a home on his lap. “I had these...trigger words put in my head ages ago, but no one knew about them, not until this latest set of memories hit me. So I had to work on getting them out. Took a few weeks, hurt like hell, but no one can use me as a weapon anymore.” He smiled bitterly, hating that it was even a concern. “Betsy Braddock of the X-Men helped with it. She gave me a phrase that people can use to shut me down mentally if anything else pops up like that. A version of Nat’s around, so I gave it to her. And now that you’re here, I’m going to give it to you too.” She followed him back into the room, a bit slower because Han kept trying to jump up and lick her face. It wasn’t until she settled in on the couch and Han was able to rest his head in her lap that he calmed down. She absentmindedly scratched behind his ears as she listened to Bucky talk. “Well, it is a cruise ship. How productive are you supposed to be?” Did they have something else going on here besides being stuck on a luxury liner? “Is there something else happening here? There’s not going to be zombies attacking at night or something, is there?” Because she wasn’t prepared for that at any point in time, but at least back at their house in New York she knew where the guns were kept and how to use them. Anything to do with Bucky’s past and how he was treated, what they did to him, made Tina’s blood run cold. She’d never hated someone she had never met as much as she hated the people who had turned him into the Winter Soldier and put him through a living hell. She was glad he had found a way to stop it, so then there were definitely a lot of remarkable people on this ship as well. Tina had never heard of Betsy, but she was very familiar with the X-Men. “You don’t have to do that.” she said with a shake of her head. It made sense for Nat to have that phrase, that she understood. “That’s a lot of power to hand over to me.” Not in the sense that she would ever use it, but if someone ever wanted to come after Bucky, and anyone found out Tina had that information, she would be an easy target. She wasn’t like Natasha. Tina wasn’t a defenseless young woman, but he knew that she wasn’t on the same level as Nat or Thalia. He could understand why she wouldn’t want the ability to turn him off, especially if someone knew she had it. “Okay. Nat will be the only one, other than Betsy. Those two are who you go to, if you need to.” And hopefully that was just paranoia talking and nothing would prove him right to his paranoia down the line. Sighing, he shrugged his shoulder and gave her a small smile. “Other than that, I’ve just been here, trying to survive. The people are great, lots of familiarity in an unfamiliar way, but it’s not as bad as it could be. Back in Tumbleweed, Texas, the place these people are based out of when they’re not being thrown onto cruise ships, I’m living at one of Nat’s safe houses because it’s awkward at the Avengers compound they have. Can you believe it? There’s already another Bucky here from my original world.” He’s met other versions of himself, but not a twin like this. “I’ll need to put a face to a name for Betsy, but Nat I’m familiar with.” Even if she wasn’t any of the Natasha’s or Natalia’s the Tina had met before, she would always be familiar with her face. Maybe she would need the code in the future, but Tina would like to think she wouldn’t. Or hoped that she wouldn’t. This wasn’t Blackpoint but hopefully there wasn’t so much danger that it was a constant concern. She’d find out in the future. “There hasn’t been any more nasty surprises for you though?” As if some sort of code in his head to trigger him wasn’t bad enough. Tina’s face scrunched in annoyance at the mention of Texas. “Tumbleweed.” She repeated, her voice dripping in dread. “God that sounds like a smaller town than Lima.” If there was one thing she had figure out, Tina was meant for cities, not small towns. She’d met another Bucky, but always a different version. This was kind of weird, and kind of intriguing. “That’s...weird? Have you hung out with yourself yet? Do you get along? Imagine not getting along with yourself.” “I think I freak out the other Bucky a little bit. He’s not used to the level of inception Blackpoint was used to, you know? We have an unspoken agreement to steer clear of each other while he figures out how he feels about it.” Pause. “It’s been about two months, so I’m guessing we’re not going to be drinking buddies any time soon.” Which, you know, was a little sad, but he could understand it. “The biggest surprise I had was I turned into one of the facetwins for a few days. Because apparently that wasn’t special to Blackpoint. I was TJ. It wasn’t pretty.” He stopped petting Kap, realizing that the damn cat had fallen asleep on him ages ago. “But other than that? Nothing significant. Other than the Steve here telling me he had feelings for me. That was awkward.” “Well, at least that’s a relatively tame reaction?” Honestly if she had been through half of the shit Bucky had, with no experience on alternate realities and face twins, she might not react well to meeting herself. “Shame, though. The interactions with everyone with your face was usually so entertaining.” Tina added with a smile. The face twins could get so ridiculous. This was a different world, though. She couldn’t expect the same things. Though if he had to become one of them, TJ would not be the best option. “Oh, ouch.” Winching, she shook her head trying to imagine what the hell happened during that chaos. “I’m not sure I even want to know what happened.” As for Steve, Tina didn’t know what to make of that situation. If Steve liked him, that couldn’t be helped. But the fact that he wasn’t Steve just made it ugly and complicated. “But you two are still speaking anyway?” she did not think Bucky acted on that confession, there was no way. But hopefully they were able to work it out. “Let’s just say that it’s a fucking mess, but we’re still trying to figure out how to be just friends.” God, he wished he had a drink in his hand. “I know why it could never work, so I’m not trying to go there. But it’s really hard seeing Steve’s face and knowing that I can never go back to that. But it’s not the same. It’s not our Steve and that’s fair to no one.” Sighing, he rubbed his face before trying for his best smile. “But you being here? It makes things a little bit easier. A lot less terrible.” “I do like to think I make everything suck a little less.” she said with a smirk. “That being said, do you want to maybe show me around a bit? I could use some food. And like, ten drinks. I may not be freaking out but I’m royally pissed about this.” she wanted them both back in New York, with the rest of Team America. She wanted Reilly, Thalia, Cook, and Baby Rogers. If she was going to avoid feeling sorry for herself and putting off some emotional break down, she needed to keep moving and seeing more about her new surroundings. “We can let Kap sleep on my bed, if you want. And take Han with us if the ship is cool with that?” she’d never heard of a cruise ship that was cool with dogs walking around. But then again, she’d never been on a cruise. “Yeah, as long as he’s leashed and we have a handle on him, he’s good to come with us. Now let me see if I can get up without this lump of fluff waking up and I’ll show you exactly where you can get your two drinks because you’re a lightweight.” He was fully prepared to take shit for his enhanced metabolism that he knew she was probably gearing up to give him. But no way was he letting her get beyond a couple of drinks, let alone ten. “Offended!” she declared as she stood up, scratching Han’s head as she did to reassure him her sudden movement wasn’t a reason to freak out. “I can handle at least three by now.” Usually. If she didn’t drink too quickly. “Besides, who made you the alcohol police? Also there’s zero chance of you not disturbing him. Just accept the fluff is going to be annoyed for two seconds and give you the stink eye.” And that exactly what happened. Kap was quickly deposited on Tina’s bed and beyond some grumpiness, he settled back into sleep and they were able to leave soon after. |