the winter soldier (metallic) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2014-08-21 10:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, bucky barnes / winter soldier (616), bucky barnes / winter soldier (mcu) |
Who: Bucky Barnes MCU, Bucky Barnes 616, Cameo by Natasha Romanova 616
When: Today.
Where: Moscow. An old abandoned soviet grocery store that's actually a cover.
What: Bucky² meets up for the first time. Again.
Rating: R for language, of course.
The power was on. Maybe other people in the world would have seen that as a good thing and a saved effort, but it had only made James and Natasha exchange looks. No words were needed. They read the same thing out of something as simple as an illuminated underground bunker: whoever had gotten here first took care enough to mask his or her method of entry, though there only looked to be one way in through the long-abandoned grocery store overhead. Either way, they had to count on company. James lifted a hand to set his comm link on, even as he pivoted around corners with his gun at the ready. Natasha was rounding from the other side. If anyone else was still here, they would find them faster by splitting up, and he’d promised her to not get captured this time. On the whole, it wasn’t a stand-out plan or anything new; secure the bunker, then go digging for whatever Jack Monroe might have left behind. With any luck they would score a hit on at least one of those things, and maybe the answers would be the same. God only knew that Jack’s forces had to be thriving if Hydra was fronting the cash for their operations. Any clues as to how to clip the wings on that faction would go a long way considering they were only two spies, even if they were fully trained and able. The door coming up on the left looked just ajar enough to warrant suspicion. James slowed his step. Years of scouting meant his footfalls were silent as he crept in. He paused, listening intently. No amount of tech could replace what sharp senses could detect, anyway. If someone was there, he’d hear them before they could hear him right now. This place, магазин, was the first place that James Buchanan Barnes was held after his fall. Bucky only knew that from flashes and the paper trails he'd found in the London base. The London base had been a plethora of information on him. It looked like it hadn't been used for him in ages, not in the same way Germany was pillaged or Ukraine. Those were empty hovels with not much left behind to pick through. No need to blast it to hell. Especially after Paris. What a clusterfuck. Bucky hadn't meant for the whole damn thing to collapse. He thought for sure that he'd factored in the structural damage so that it wouldn't bring the street down. Watching all those people had struck something in him. He was never going to get away from what he was, was he? His arm recalibrated as he reached between two large metal cabinets. He couldn't remember what the mechanism was to get into the sub-basement levels, but he didn't need to. Bucky flexed the fingers and latched onto one to rip it from the wall. The sound that reached James’s ears was familiar, and he couldn’t help looking down and to the left to make sure he hadn’t given the command unknowingly. No, it wasn’t him, which meant there was a name to the man who had gotten here first. The betting odds were worth taking on that one, and James gently tugged the door open with even more care. His eyes narrowed on the black-clad figure trying to pry between two lockers. It wasn’t the first time meeting this world’s Winter Soldier; the memory of their last encounter was enough to force James to maintain his aim on the man’s backside as he moved around. The sound of metal hitting metal served to veil his movements as he got himself into position. He was close, but there was space between them. If there was any sudden move, he could easily counter it. “What’s back there?” James asked, voice level and cool. Until he knew how this was swinging, he wasn’t going to ease up. Somehow, Bucky had been concentrating too hard on the memories and the lockers in front of him to notice anything behind him. He paused, his metal hand finding purchase behind the locker, and thought about how to go about this. It was too late to get the jump on this guy, but Bucky counted about a hundred ways to get the upperhand here. His hair blocked any line of sight he'd hoped to get without turning, and since he was almost literally pinned, he drew in a breath, shrugged, and glanced over his shoulder. The costume was ridiculously similar to his. Bucky's expression darkened in bewilderment. The glint of the newcomer's metal arm confused him more than he could express. The crease in his forehead grew the more disoriented he became. He didn't remember another Winter Soldier. He was the Asset, there was only one. What else had Pierce lied to him about? He recovered just enough to keep his voice steady as he yanked the metal locker out the wall. "You should know." James stepped back, gun still leveled at the other Winter Soldier as he pulled the metal locker back. “Wouldn’t be asking if I did,” he returned. It was hard to trust that the lack of a fight being put up meant this could be just a conversation. He’d tried to talk last time, and that had just about earned him a knife in the gut. James curled his lip in a wry smile. One misstep could make this backfire. “Lot of people looking for you right now, Buck. I’m sure you know that,” James continued. He could signal Natasha, but instinct was saying to hold back on that for now. “You don’t remember me.” Bucky's forehead twitched, but it wasn't at the name. Was he supposed to remember this guy? It was like looking in a mirror: a shorter, broader mirror. His mouth formed a tight line that gave nothing away, even as his gaze inspected the other's bionic arm. His own fingers flexed roboticly at his side. Behind him, the removal of the locker revealed a tunnel. While they were already in the basement of the grocery store, this tunnel sloped a little downward, just enough that you wouldn't have to roll yourself down here if you were in a wheelchair or strapped to a gurney. "I don't give a rat's ass who's looking for me." Then Bucky turned and began the slow trek down to where it all began for him. “That’s a load of crap,” James called at Bucky’s back. He breathed out, lowering the gun, and picking up step behind. “Hey, wait. Talk to me for two minutes, guy.” The location wasn’t the same -- not in the slightest as to where it was situated, what was above it, and even the small details of the concrete floor. It didn’t spark any memory for James, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know why this place existed or what it was probably used for. That in itself was enough to set an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. You never really got over the nightmares scientists inflicted on you. Not really. “You want answers? I’m not here sightseein’, either.” "I'm not here for answers." He had some of them. Fallen from a train on a mountainside in Austria. Captain America's faithful side-kick and best friend since childhood. Turned into a murdering machine by HYDRA, the group they all fought against in the 1940s. His entire existence was all a big joke to them. Let's turn Captain America's best friend against him and everything he stood for. It'll be funny. But Bucky wasn't laughing. "I'm here to destroy the equipment so they can't do this to anyone else," came Bucky's terse continuation. God, he hoped he wasn't just talking to himself. (Ha-ha.) He already felt crazy enough without memories of growing up. He didn't even remember all the stuff in the museum, even if there were some emotional responses to videos and photographs. "You got a problem with that, you can hit the door, pal." This was ridiculous. James felt like a little kid, trailing behind and pleading for a second of someone else’s time. He stopped, figuring if Bucky had any interest in his company for the evening, he’d turn around. “It’s a lot of ghost stories to chase for just one guy.” Granted, James knew his first priority wasn’t his holding cells; when he remembered who he was, there was a more defined hit list with names that needed crossing off. It got methodical. Maybe in the same way Bucky was getting methodical about destroying this one specific part of HYDRA. “And I’m the last one who’d argue you over making sure no one else gets their brain fucked with. Look, you could plug me right now -- I lowered my defenses. I wanna think that’s a good sign seeing as the last time you didn’t go so well.” Bucky stopped the second he heard the other -- what? Him? The mirror version? Whoever he was, it was the longest conversation that Bucky'd had with anyone in years. He turned around, and in the dim light from down the corridor, he could barely make out the other man's face. He pulled a flashlight from his belt and flipped it between his hands, but made no move to turn it on. "Who the hell are you? As far as I know, I was the only one exactly like me that they made. Apparently.." he flicked the flashlight's switch and shined the light up and down his costume and then settled on the arm. "Apparently not. Did Zola make you too? What regiment were you in?" “Only one in this world,” James carefully answered. He didn’t move from the spot, his gun was still held in his right hand. “Zola was a different kind of problem where I’m from. This isn’t the craziest thing anyone’s asked you to stomach, either, so I know whatever I tell you isn’t gonna faze.” The dark corridor helped somehow. Maybe because it made expressions irrelevant, not that either was giving away their cards so visibly. Not having to look at more than the glint of light off the metal arm of the man before him made it almost as if talking to a reflection, too. If there was anything James had experience with, it was fighting himself. This was old hat. “Soviets,” James explained, flexing his metal arm. “Did my time being someone’s puppet, but there was just a different master holding the strings.” Bucky swallowed. He only remember the last mission. He knew there were other missions, other doctors. He knew that he began here in Russia, and then was stationed out of Kiev for some time. That had been the only paperwork he could find, which is how he was led here. This base hadn't been used since the 1980s, and even then, it doubled as a legitimate grocery store. Only the richest and most connected were allowed inside. "They had mine for a time. That's why I'm here." He hoped he could find some kind of file, anything that would prove that he was a real person. Something that might jog his memory. Nothing was sticking. There were memories buried deep in his head, he could feel them desperately trying to claw for the surface but the programming and the wipes kept them down. "I don't remember. I don't remember anything." That… that wasn’t anything James anticipated. It seemed such a given that Bucky would know who he was by now that staring down the other man was the most he could do as silent moments ticked by. Finally, he stepped forward. “Remembering everything isn’t better. Long as you get that, maybe I can help.” James looked down, seemingly debating his next move until he struck out a hand. “Everyone calls me Bucky. Like I said, maybe I can help.” "Everyone says they called me Bucky. I don't feel like a Bucky." Of course, he didn't really know what he felt like. Seemed like a problem. If he was real, wouldn't some name suit him? They said he was James Buchanan Barnes, but all he saw was that the man on the bridge was telling the truth, and that was it. It didn't tell him who he was or where he'd come from, and it sure as hell didn't clear anything up in his own head. If anything, it made things more confusing. Bucky gestured with the flashlight for them to continue down. Standing around and talking was all well and good, but he needed to keep moving. If he kept moving, he wouldn't be able to think too much. "Yeah, but I remember waking up in a chair and killing people on those helicarriers. Trying to kill Rogers and Wilson. That's all I've got." That looked like an invitation to walk with Bucky, which was taken without hesitance or even second thought. He squinted down the darkened path while his eyes adjusted. He adjusted the grip on his gun, knowing all too well that trusting this place to be vacated was a stupid move. Clearly it already wasn’t, but maybe Novokov had some guards deeper inside. “Not all you got. You shook that off? Took more force to get me back to my senses -- would tell you that’s a leg-up, but it’s crap no matter how you cut it,” James ventured. “You know Rogers probably is tearing apart the countryside right now to find you. Mine did the same.” They were coming up on a reinforced door with what seemed to be a relic of technology affixed to the wall beside it. The huge box had keys on it, likely to input a code, and a cover that James had to guess was hiding a handprint scanner. At fast glance, it also looked like new tech had been grafted on, probably to keep any curious Russian teenagers from getting past anything too flimsy. Bucky hesitated. So this guy was one of those refugees from another dimension. The ones they couldn't explain, and that someone wouldn't explain. He remembered hearing rumblings about it in the days after the Potomac, but he'd been single-minded and self-centered until Paris. That's when he started paying attention to the news, pulling up blogs and reading what people had to say about things. "I don't know anything about Rogers, except what I've read." James might have told him that having all that knowledge wasn't the best thing, but Bucky couldn't help but want to know something, anything -- about his past, about what he'd done. He knew he was a bad guy, which was enough in some cases, but he didn't know how to go about fixing things. He had no knowledge of HYDRA that he could rely on to track them down. All he had were a few fragments here and there to go off. "And the helicarrier. What kind of idiot tosses his one weapon into the Potomac?" Bucky shook his head before he examined the box. Odds were this could be fixed with an EMP, but he wanted to see what this guy's suggestion was. "Seen anything like this?" “The kinda guy who knows his best friend wouldn’t actually do him in,” James answered on a guess, as he pressed forward, holstering his gun, and tripping the concealment on his arm. It morphed appearance to look flesh, then a second command direct from James’s brain reconfigured the fingertips to match the prints lifted off one of Novokov’s discarded weapons. “He wasn’t wrong,” James added, flipping the cover off the hand reader and holding his bionic arm against it. Better to not force a way in if access could be granted on a literal sleight of hand. The door beeped and a few locking mechanisms clacked open before it slid into a recess. “Listen, I got my partner down here. She’s gonna give me hell if I don’t let her know we’re moving on. Honestly, not a fan of lying to her, either.” James raised a hand to his comm link, readied to signal Natasha, but not before waiting for a response from Bucky. "It was a stupid calculation. My head's so fucked with that I might have murdered him on sight. No questions. No flicker of recognition." Bucky watched as James worked the mechanism, showing off the flesh-like appearance of his arm and managing to bypass the fingerprint recognition. He'd been ready to fry the sucker with a directed EMP. "And I'm not his best friend. Whoever that guy is, he's gone. He died when he fell into that ravine." Bucky eyed the other man with some trepidation. He had a partner? Since when did Winter Soldier have a partner. Flunkies, people who were supposed to look after him, make sure to back him up. A partner? That had connotations of an equal. "She gonna give me hell about what I'm doing?" “You say that, but I remember what it was like. Fact is neither of us killed anyone named Steve Rogers,” James replied, keeping his finger hovering over the comm link. It was a small trick; he’d activated the line during Bucky’s reply, letting her hear the last exchange in its entirety. It would probably give her what she needed to know he wasn’t in danger and to start cutting a path to him. Still, he made a more visible movement to feign engaging the line for show. “Heading deeper, Widow. We’ll wait up if you’re joining in.” After lowering his hand, he gave Bucky a short grin. “She’s used to the guys in her life pulling stupid shit. ‘Sides, she’s got a stake in this, too. We probably got some HYDRA friends in common.” "Black Widow?" Bucky's internal alarm went off. Her name was one of the few that rang with some familiarity. He wasn't sure how, though, but he'd seen the video footage of him trying to kill her in Washington DC. He wasn't that keen to see her again. "Red hair. Former Russian spy?" Bucky backed up a few steps, frowning. This was why he worked alone. It was easier to deal with people you'd already tried to kill a few times in your lifetime. “Ease up. She was my partner back when we were on the other side of things -- defected long before I got my memories fixed,” James explained, crossing his arms and turning to wait for her to come down the way they had already descended. If Bucky wanted to run, he’d give chase, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. “And, listen,” James added, “you want a friend like her.” "What kind of friend are you talking about?" he snorted in answer. But the truth was: at this point, Bucky just wanted a friend. Any kind of friend. He wasn't nearly tired of running yet, but it would be nice to talk to someone about anything other than the mission. If James was telling the truth about who he was, then he had about a thousand questions he wanted to ask. The women who descended down the corridor was not the same one from DC. This was one tall and willowy and wore a cat suit with a gold belt. For a moment, Bucky could only wonder how she kept any gear on her in that costume. He caught himself staring and forced himself to look back at James and clear his throat. She didn't stop when she got close to them. Instead, she slipped by the pair of them and into the now-opened base. A few seconds later, she called after them, "Are you coming, boys?" |