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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"Perspective."

He huffs out a breath that could be a sigh or a laugh or something in between, and glances down at the empty page.

"Right."

"Some things cannot be rushed," Elrond says, quietly.

"Not even if we want them to."

Much less when we don't. He doesn't say that.

"It's more like I don't know where to begin," he admits, frankly.

Only that's not quite right, is it?

"... I mean how. How to begin."

Elrond nods.

"That first sentence," he says, agreeing. "I spoke at length about just that with an old friend. He wanted to write down his adventures but in the end he decided that the best place to start was with who he was. What deep inside was still true of him, adventures or not."

This time the breath that wisps out of him is anything but amused.

"Yeah, well... for me, that's the hard part."

Elrond nods.

"Is that a place to start?"

He should not offer advice, but he finds it difficult not to - offer something.

"Is it helpful if I tell of not knowing where to start due to - not knowing -"

He pauses.

"Due to having lost my purpose."

"Maybe," he admits.

"I don't remember how much I've told you before." He sets everything down and lays his hand flat against the page, then looks up at Elrond.

"Lost your purpose?"

Elrond nods a little. "You have told me some. That who you were was taken from you. And I know, I can see, that you have known much pain. Much suffering. What I can share, is not the same. Only insofar that it left me with no words to begin with."

He nods down at the journal.

"I have been many things over the years," he tells him. "But for a long while, the answer to who are you would have been not the King's Herald, not the Lord of Imladris, but the one who loves Celebrian. I knew that I would always protect her. That she would never know sorrow."

His smile is small and sorrowful. "What a fool was I. The roads were dangerous. She had travelled to visit her parents as she had often done and her party was waylaid. The orcs that had taken her - hurt her."

He doesn't elaborate.

"I did not keep her safe from harm. I did not save her. And when we returned home, I watched her wither away, all my healing draughts for naught. And if I could not keep her safe, and if I could not make her whole, how could I claim to love her? If she could not bear my touch? And I remember how I felt, when I saw her board the ship that would take her away, saw her walk aboard without looking back. And I remember sitting down later in front of an empty page and all I could write was 'I do not know how to begin. Once I knew my purpose. But I failed and now all words are senseless markings. And I do not know what to do.'"

He doesn't need elaboration. It's all too clear. His eyes darken as he listens in silence.

"I'm going to guess," he says, finally, "that you... found something to do. In time."

"I'm sorry about your -- about Celebrian."

He nods.

"I had duties. I still do. And so I have filled my life with those. It is not a bad thing. And thank you."

"Did the writing help?"

"It did. In time. It's harder to avoid answering your own questions when you put them down on paper."

He takes a sip of tea.

"Who am I? When your old answer cannot be used anymore, you have to find a new one."

There's no mistaking it: he flinches, at that, following it with a silent nod and staring down at the blank paper.

Visibly steeling himself, he takes the pen and writes,

I remember all of them. Even when I don't want to.

He sets the pen down and looks up at Elrond.

"There. It's a start."

Elrond looks at him with compassion.

"Although it may go against what most people hold to be true of healers,if there was an easy way we would offer it up without hesitation," he says, quietly.

"I don't doubt it," Bucky assures him. "Healers are different from scientists that way."

A thought seems to catch him, and he backtracks, "Most scientists. I know one I trust."

Elrond nods.

"That too will be a journey, I should think," he says.

"The only scientist I know well is Jemma Simmons, whom I have met here. She is curious and can be too focused perhaps on the end result, but if it's tempered with compassion. Some lack that."

"Too focused on the end result can be a problem," he says, as neutrally as he can.

"I don't know this Jemma Simmons."

"Too focused on the end result can lead to ruin and despair. At times, others must ensure that it is stopped."

He has quite firm opinions on this.

"She is young and very, very skilled. But she tells me her job is rather quiet. I hope she'll get a chance to show her brilliance to the world."

S.H.I.E.L.D.?
Never heard of it.

"Yes."

It's agreement with both observations - and for a single word, it is incredibly firm.

"If you say so. I hope it stays quiet."

Elrond's smile brightens.

"That,I believe,is the true wisdom of age. To long for quiet,uneventful days, and calm nights."

He huffs out a quiet breath that carries a wisp of laughter.

"Then right now I must be the wisest man alive."

"An uneventful morning passing through a quiet noon into a quote boring afternoon."

His sigh does carry a hint of longing.

"I would not mind it one bit."

Bucky gives him a careful look, on hearing that sigh.

"Things rough back home for you?"

There's a pause. Then Elrond says, "My sons loved their mother. And they have tried every since to fill their emptiness with revenge."

He looks down at his hands and then back at James. "They are grown and must make their own choices."

Even if their father wishes they would do otherwise.

"Ah."

He takes another swallow of coffee from a cup that's going cold, ignoring the change in the taste.

"Vengeance... doesn't really help all that much. But I'm guessing you already know that."

A beat.

"I'm sorry."