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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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?"

Fives pauses, and glances up to the rafters with a sigh that indicates he's heard this before.

This is why he doesn't get on with people who aren't clones. They don't get it. (Yeah, special circumstances in this case, he'll admit.)

"And if I said I'd choose it if I did?"

If he sounds mildly defensive, it's because this has the potential to descend into question Fives' existence and that of his brothers, and he doesn't need that.

"If you'd choose it? That's different."

His hand flattens against the table top, then relaxes. He makes his voice settle into something level and steady.

"Do you? Get a choice?"

There's a beat of silence, and Fives looks own at the hand, watches it relax.

"Yes," he says. Although he's not sure if he believes it, thinking only of that story Rex told him of the one clone who didn't.

Yes, they get a choice. One clone out of tens of millions choosing otherwise proves that.

He lifts his chin, almost challenging.

"I believe in the Republic I'm defending."

"Okay."

There's still tension in the set of his shoulders, in the way he's holding himself, but it's less than it was.

Republic. That sounds familiar, too. His glance flickers back to the tattoo again, just for an instant.

"Can't say I'm a fan of the method, but I get what it's like to have something to fight for."

He's not asking for approval, really. Just not to be lectured at about the morality of his existence.

"I've heard it before, I know how it looks, believe me." But he is loyal, and no one in this bar is going to persuade him otherwise.

Noticing the flicker of the gaze, Fives rubs his temple again, the action shifting the plastoid plates of his armor, including the plastron on which he's painted the blaster cannon and words for Hevy in the same script.

"My name," he reminds Bucky, re: the tattoo. "Fives."

"Yeah?" That sounds very dry, for some reason.

Bucky sighs, and makes himself settle back against the wall.

"Look. I'm sorry for jumping down your throat. It's not your fault that I've got a head full of broken glass and sharp edges from being turned into someone else's weapon without any choice of my own," he says, offering it up simply, as a matter of fact.

He nods to the tattoo, and looks at the plastron. "The writing's familiar. Can't quite place it yet, though."

Fives nods. He gets that if you've been through - whatever Bucky's been through, and that makes Fives very angry to even consider - that a born soldier is going to be a weird concept.

So he drops it, turns to the writing.

"Aurebesh - the writing. That's," he pauses, taps his shoulder, "Hevy, my brother.

"Only ever seen the writing from my galaxy, though, so I guess you've been talking to a Jedi? Or - that pilot, Cassian?"

He looks solemn and nods respectfully at the mention of Fives's brother - there's not that many reasons for a soldier to carry someone's name like that, after all.

A faint frown creases his forehead at the mention of the word 'Jedi' - as though chasing a memory he can't quite find - followed by recognition when Fives asks about a pilot.

"I think I met him. A while ago. But I definitely met a couple of other pilots, Poe Dameron and Hera. And BB-8."

Edited 2021-02-24 05:27 (UTC)

Fives wonders about that, but if he's met pilots from his Galaxy, he'd definitely know the word 'Jedi,' so it's easy to explain.

"BB-8 sounds like a droid," he says. "But the BB series, I don't know it. Could be a time thing, or a lesser known line."

The others, he also doesn't know. But it's a big Galaxy, and as long as there are no clones here he doesn't know about, he's easy.

"Yeah, he's a droid," Bucky confirms, with a smile. "A really cheerful one. Strong opinions. I promised him I'd learn Binary."

Cheerful means probably not a Separatist droid. Binary means probably an astromech? But Fives doesn't expect Bucky to have enough knowledge to be able to answer either of those.

"Binary, huh? And I was satisfied just learning English." And Fives has bioengineered learning capabilities. "That's a hell of a task you've set yourself."

He shrugs, very slightly.

"I've always had a thing for picking up languages. Binary's just another one."

"Yeah, but one the human tongue's not designed for."

Fives grins. "Take the compliment. I totally get learning something just because you've got a friend here. This place is pretty great for that.

Edited 2021-02-24 18:36 (UTC)

Bucky chuckles a little at that.

"It sure is. And you're not wrong - I can already tell it's going to be easier for me to understand it than to whistle it."

"Sure he won't mind," Fives says. "Never met a droid that didn't understand Basic."

"He definitely understands me just fine," Bucky confirms.

"I'll keep an eye out," Fives says. "Didn't know any droids came here."

After a second, he finally asks, "you don't happen to get function? Cheerful and binary-speaking says astromech to me."

He nods.

"Hera mentioned that term. Yeah, he is. Works on something called an X-Wing."

"Don't think that's one of ours," says Fives, who has many varied skills, but piloting is not one of them - and neither is High Galatic, so he doesn't know what an 'X' looks like.

"But as long as he's not a Separatist battle droid I don't have to worry."

To explain: "The other side in my war - that's all droids."