milliways_bar | (no subject)

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"Go. Go! Take this journal and write down everything you can remember. It will help, I promise you."

"Princess--"

"Do not argue. Find somewhere quiet, where you won't be bothered."

"The kids aren't a bother."

"They are also not quiet."

* * * * * * *

It's been a long time since he's been here, enough that if pressed he couldn't actually say how long. He hadn't exactly meant to come, either, but he'd been thinking about finding somewhere out of the way when he walked out of Shuri's lab, and there's no question that Milliways fits that description better than anywhere else.

About ten minutes later, Bucky Barnes is settled in at one of the quieter booths in the back, the journal open in front of him. (A close observer might notice that each page is subtly embossed with the logo of the Wakandan Design Group.)

He's holding a pen in his right hand and tapping it against the blank page. From time to time he sets down the pen and picks up the cup of coffee waiting beside him instead. A swallow or two later, he repeats the process, swapping cup for pen.

His left hand is immaterial to the whole process, as it's entirely absent. A series of gauze bandages are barely visible under the collar of his shirt, and his left sleeve is neatly pinned shut over where his arm used to be.

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As he looks around the room, he may well notice someone watching him.

Armor has a certain look to it, even when it's armor like this, which he hasn't seen before.

He doesn't try to evade being noticed, but tips his head back in a slight nod of acknowledgement.

For all that he's wearing it because it's the only clothing available to him, Fives doesn't currently have the attitude of someone wearing it - he hasn't come in from a battlefield or even a briefing, and it shows.

But for all that, there's a look even to a soldier on downtime, and he recognises it. He returns the nod with a knowing, but friendly friendly enough smile and, grabbing a bottle of something from the bar, heads over.

"You don't mind being disturbed?" With a nod to the journal.

"Not at all," he replies, setting down the pen with alacrity in favor of the coffee cup.

"You can see I'm not making much progress, anyway."

Fives shrugs, turning his hands out in a way that exaggerates the gesture somewhat - when you spend a lot of time communicating to people who can't see your face body language becomes louder than normal.

"For all I know you've just filled a page and refreshed the screen - which I've just remembered is not how paper works."

He clears his throat as if that will clear his own idiocy from the air.

"I'm Fives."

"Computer guy, eh?" He doesn't seem surprised.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Bucky."

Now that's a decent name. (Fives actually knew a Bucky on Kamino. Nice kid. Overeager. Last Fives heard he bought it on Vassek.)

"Space guy," Fives explains, thumbing towards his chest. He assumes that that provides enough information about his specific context without making him sound like he knows anything about computer systems.

"Never going to get over the range of technologies represented here."

"Ah."

Fives is apparently correct, as Bucky accepts that as a complete explanation in its own right.

"Yeah, I know. It's a hell of a place, isn't it?"

"No kidding."

He gives a glance around, remining himself of the weirdness of the place, and shakes his head, before leaning back in the booth, crossing one leg over the other as if it's the simplest thing in the world to do in full body armour.

"So what were you writing?"

"Nothing, so far," he says, dry as desert sand.

After a moment, Fives chuckles at himself.

"Yeah okay, I walked into that."

He chuckles as well.

"Writing assignment," he explains, relenting. "I'm supposed to write down stuff I remember."

"Like a debrief?" Fives asks. "Specific engagement, or in general? Because if so..."

He tips the base of his bottle at the empty page.

"... I guess you could say it's a really, really long debrief."

There's something almost impossibly wry about the way he says that.

"About seventy years' worth. Give or take."

If Fives looks surprised, it's not because he has any idea of how old humans are supposed to age, it's just that's a really long time.

He exhales heavily.

"And you got nothing?"

"More like I don't know where to begin."

The idea strikes him even as he says it. Maybe if he explains, at least a little, it'll give him a place to start?

"You see, I was, uh...."

Or maybe this was a bad idea, but he might as well roll the dice.

"... an assassin, once. Known as the Winter Soldier. But I didn't set out to be."

It's the hesitation, the 'uh,' that gets Fives' attention. Assassination is just a way of fighting the war. But the way Bucky says it, the last sentences, specifically, causes him to uncross his legs, adopt a fractionally less casual position.

"Conscript?" he asks. But he gets the impression it's not going to be that either.

"Brainwashed," he says. "Mind controlled. Whatever you want to call it."

Confusion drains from his face, to be replaced by very clear, very definite anger.

"Oh."

That sobered him up. And there's nothing to fight, so he's pretty much stuck on any other way to react, which is infuriating all on its own.

"Yeah. So."

He taps the journal in front of him.

"The doc thinks I should write down everything I remember. Find where the holes are, I guess."

Understanding, or so he thinks, Fives nods again, glancing at the journal as if words may have appeared while they were talking.

"And you don't know where to start? I'd go from the first, I guess."

But then, his entire life is a fraction of this.

"I guess," he agrees, albeit a little dubiously. "It's just that putting it in order like that's..."

Words fail him, so he shrugs. It makes the sleeve shift more than he'd intended, as there's no weight to hold it.

That's the other thing about different technologies - in Fives' galaxy prosthetics are so common and accessible you rarely see someone without one unless it's not been fitted yet. But he's seen enough injury not to mention it.

He taps his head, just behind the tattoo of the aurebesh numeral 5 that represents his name.

"Makes me wish info could be downloaded from there as easy as they uploaded stuff in our training."

It's his way of sharing a vague similarity - although of course he hasn't been brainwashed. (Of course he hasn't been.)

There is absolutely no way to miss the sudden sharpening of his attention, at that.

"Uploaded?"

Fives spots that reaction as soon as it comes, and he suddenly realises that it might bring the wrong conclusion.

"I'm a clone," he explains. "Bred and trained for it." He taps his hand again, the palm flat against the standard GAR cut. "Rapid aging, so a lot of my training had to be acquired artificially. Nothing sinister."

(Um.)

For some reason, this does not appear to reassure him at all.

"Bred for it." There's something familiar about the style of the symbol in the tattoo Fives has, but he pushes that aside for the moment. "Artificially trained. Rapid aging?"

A beat.

"Are you telling me you're a soldier turned out with everything they want you to know shoved in your head and you don't get a single goddamn say about it?"