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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Her smile is crooked, but warm. "Gonna hold you to that, y'know."

Their drinks arrive, brought by a waitrat clearly in a hurry. (Presumably in order to get away before either of them can mention the words 'fresh fruit'.)

"Figured you might."

He has to juggle things a little awkwardly with the one hand to swap the empty cup for the new one, but manages well enough.

"Thanks," he tells the rat.

Fortunately, she knows better than to try to help; just accepts her own drink (making sure she doesn't get in his way) with thanks, and sips.

"Mmm."

The whipped cream on top is glittery, obviously. The rats apparently don't hate her that much. ~~(Yet.)~~

"So, you wanna tell me what went down?"

Edited 2021-02-23 02:27 (UTC)

He takes a long sip of his coffee.

"You want the short version or the long one?"

"What about the one you're most comfortable with telling me?" she suggests.

"It's not like I'm short on time, not here. But I'm not gonna make you play Twenty Questions either."

"I'm supposed to write everything down," he informs her, patting the journal. "So I better get comfortable with telling it."

She shrugs. "I figure it's probably different, writing it all down to saying it out loud. But seriously, I'm cool with whichever version you want to tell."

She's not his homework!

Er. Or something.

"Then somewhere in between, I guess."

He's glad about the refill; he's going to need it.

"First things first, given what was going on when I was last here... they caught me."

"See, this is what happens when you don't have me as back-up."

She gives him a lopsided smile. "I figured you might have been. Offer still stands in future, by the way."

(Her first instinct is to put her arm around him, but her second instinct is that it wouldn't be a good idea. So she doesn't, for the moment.)

"I appreciate it," he tells her, and means it.

"Turns out I ended up with Steve as backup. He got to me before they did, but we didn't have enough time to make it out before JTTF special forces caught up."

Along with the Black Panther, who'd been a much more difficult opponent.

"They brought me back in a cage. Glass and steel. Have to admit, it wasn't a great time."

"...Yeah, I can believe it."

A beat, and she does put her arm lightly around his shoulders.

"Sorry about that whole thing with Baby, by the way."

She'd been in a hurry (and very, very angry) at the time, but still.

"Well, I did piss you off."

He doesn't pull away.

"That is true," she admits, dimpling a slightly rueful, slightly mischievous grin. "You definitely did."

"Probably will again," he muses.

"Eh. Lotsa people do. You're cute and not a killer robot, so you'll probably live, I guess."

He grimaces.

"Not a killer robot any longer, anyway," he corrects, wryly.

On the one hand, it's clear her first observation has gone clear over his head, so God knows what that means. On the other, 'going clear over his head' at least means he hasn't reacted badly, so it could be worse?

"Pfft," she says dismissively, "You were never a killer robot. At most you were a killer cyborg. I had a killer cyborg for a brother, they're cool."

"Ran into a guy named Cyborg here once," he observes. "Not the same guy as your brother?"

He shakes his head.

"Hate to correct you, Sparkle, but I might as well have been. What happened at the JTTF proved that."

She shakes her head. "Don't think so, although Vic used to come here for a while when we were kids. He had a lot of nicknames, but he never went by Cyborg."

Her arm tightens slightly around his shoulders. "I mean, Vic was literally programmed to take over the world, so... What happened?"

"The guy who set off the bomb in Vienna did it to get to me."

He's pleased to hear that his voice remains level.

"He killed the shrink they were going to have 'evaluate' me, took his place, and ..."

He reaches for the coffee and takes a swallow.

"There were controls left in my brain. Mind control programming. He had the manual. He wanted the Winter Soldier. And he got me."

...She has several questions, most notably 'so is he dead yet?' and its tight-knit sibling 'would you like him to be?'.

She also has the observation that again, in several ways he's not entirely unlike her brother, but she has the feeling this might be somewhat... unhelpful. (Especially if he asks her to elaborate, and she includes the emergency shut-down codes they had for Vic.)

She doesn't hug him any more tightly, but she sure as hell doesn't let go either.

"Well," she says, eventually, "That doesn't sound like a good time."

A single breath escapes him, a small, wry laugh.

"Yeah. You could say that."

Bucky draws the tip of his index finger in a circle on the table and looks up at her.

"He got the intel he wanted from me and targeted me to escape if possible, doing as much damage as I could on the way. Steve stopped me, again. I damn near killed him, again. And a bunch of other people."

She doesn't look away.

"...Just so we're clear, we're in agreement that none of this is in any way your fault, right?"

She may or may not be speaking as someone with experience of misplaced guilt. Mainly in other people. ~~But.~~

"People keep telling me that," he agrees. "I know it wasn't my choice to do any of those things."

"But I did them."

She shrugs, delicately, with her free shoulder.

"That's kinda the point of mind control, though, isn't it?"

She pauses for a moment. She doesn't want to make this about her, but...

"My parents could - and did - make people do all kinds of horrendous shit. But I know where I'm putting the blame."