dappered | (no subject)

[ It's Tuesday in Avengers Tower.

A lot of the particulars of this arrangement had gone over his head, given that he'd been all but catatonic from shock and exhaustion through half of it (turns out using the Cube for a major temporal displacement actually took a lot of energy from the bearer, in this case him) but it seemed to include a lot of shouting and posturing while he'd suffered a fatal disconnect over which Steve he was supposed to back up, the tiny angry one or the big angry one. But the gist of it, explained by Howard Stark's son, is this: the Tesseract fucks with time, and sometimes deigns to answers wishes. Even those not spoken out loud. One flash of blue light later it had dumped all four of them here in the future in some kind of 'temporal bubble,' whatever the fuck that was, and it's keeping them here indefinitely.

Stark promises he's working on fixing it, but the future has things like inhalers and endless amounts of hot water, so there's that. Bucky's not in any big freaking hurry to head back to the war front in any case, even if being stuck here means staring at the frankly terrifying person who is supposedly future-him, or one possible version of future-him.

They're all under what's effectively house arrest in Stark's future robot building, given leave to go wherever they want in the Tower. They've all got their own bedrooms, their own kitchens, even their own floors if they want them, but Bucky had shown up at younger Steve's door at first opportunity and hadn't left him since.

(Part of him thought that maybe, maybe he should be throwing in with the other one, the older one with shadows under his eyes and a look on his face like someone had just kicked him in the stomach, the one Bucky remembered from Europe, but stress had brought on one of Stevie's attacks and Bucky couldn't leave him alone for that.)

He'd been kicked out eventually, though, told to go do his worrying and hovering somewhere else and take his stupid glowing alien box with him, which meant that Steve wanted some space to be upset in peace and that was fine, that was all fine, Brooklyn Steve didn't really know him since he'd been taken off to the camp and. Yeah. He's different. He's killed a lot of people since then, has watched his best friend waffle between science experiment, propaganda darling and one man army with maybe 10% of the training he needs to do the jobs they've got him doing. He's got a glowing alien box that always comes back to him, no matter how he tries to get rid of it. It bothers Steve that he's different. Not a one of them really know each other right now.

He drifts into the kitchen out of lack of anything better to do, still dressed in yesterday's clothes because he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep while Steve rasped in the bed next to him, mechanically opening cabinets and going through drawers, staring in something like hopeless frustration at the array of supposed edibles. The packages are all brightly colored and there are three kinds of everything, all declared to be low-fat or pure organic or a good source of vitamin whatever, like it wasn't possible for a guy to just get milk anymore without having to make some kind of choice about it. The labels are in every kind of language possible, of which he can only read three with his fragmentary French, Italian, and German. There's butter, more than he knows what to do with, and real meat, impossibly fresh, and the house robot has told him that if there's anything he wants that isn't there, he just has to ask for it and it'll be delivered.

All he wants is a goddamn loaf of bread and some cheese to make a sandwich, jesus. ]

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[ he follows. of course he follows, he'd glanced at steve's door at the same time, and his fists clench in irritation at the thought of any shared behavior. Steve is his, boiled down to the guts of it, and he's put up with Carter and he's put up with Howard Stark and he is not about to give one more inch to anybody else that wanted a piece of Steve Rogers, especially the smaller version.

He's scowling for the duration of the elevator ride, grimly tapping out a cigarette from a battered pack he'd hoarded in his jacket pocket and then lighting it once they get out into the open air. Can't smoke around either Steve, no matter how much his nerves need it, Brooklyn Steve's asthma won't tolerate it and the older one kept giving him disapproving looks and making pointed comments about how he's ruining his lungs. ]

[ he pays him no mind in the elevator, not ignoring him but wholly concentrates on his task. people think just because he isn't speaking or moving ( or even blinking sometimes ) that there's nothing but a vast emptiness in his head, the perfect hollowed out doll for use. but it's rather the opposite. his mind is buzzing, always, always running a thousand processes at once that sometimes it's just too much to keep up with. the only way through it is to stay focused on the facts, the details necessary to his mission.

this man is james buchanan barnes. he is from 1945, when he should have died but was instead brought to the future. he is the bucky barnes that steve cries out for when he can't run from his nightmares anymore. he is him but younger, and bucky resents him for the years that span the space between them. that's why they're here, to bridge the gap.

he can do this. he can.

as soon as the doors are open, he walks straight ahead into open space. it might be nice to have a cigarette himself, though he doesn't really know where the inclination comes from ( bucky himself, he supposes ), but he won't ask for one, not from him. not right now. he looks at the sky instead, the blanket of stars that is a testament to just how isolated the tower keeps them from the rest of the world. this is one of the few places he truly feels at ease; it will either make this easier to get through or ruin one of his only safe spaces in the tower.

take your bets, ladies and gentlemen. he turns to face bucky with a certain clarity in his eyes, and waits. he made the offer, he'll wait for bucky to initiate. ]