milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

"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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"John." With a careless smile and a drag on his cigarette.

"So is it your memoirs you're working on, or something else entirely?"

"Sort of my memoirs, I guess."

He sounds pretty wry about that.

"Trying to put all the pieces back together."

"Ah." It adds up now, Bucky's missing arm and subdued demeanor. PTSD is a bitch.

"Would you like some help with recovering memories? I've got a few memory-spells in my repertoire."

He takes his time before answering.

"How would that work?"

"Bit like assisted meditation," John says. "Find a safe place in your head, like, then venture out from it deeper than you would on your own. If you've got memories that are so painful you don't want to remember them but need to, it would be a way of remembering them from a distance." He pauses, frowning to himself. "That's a tangled way of saying it."

He nods; it makes as much sense as anything else.

"Thanks, but no. No offense, but I've had enough of other people poking around in my memory for a lifetime."

He taps the empty journal and adds, wryly,

"That's part of the problem."

John nods, not insulted. "Let me know if you change your mind."

He smokes, thinking, then says, "Do you have anything that you associate with what you're trying to remember? Scents are supposed to be especially helpful, like in Proust."

"The pieces are all there, I think," Bucky tells him. "Or at least they are now. It's more about putting them together ..."

He hesitates, but decides he might as well say it, and adds,

"... and finding the stuff that needs to be ripped out."

"Blimey," John says. "That's a violent way to think of your own memories. They're that bad?"

"It's not the memories that are the problem. It's what got added to them."

"What got added to them?"

He crushes out his spent cigarette in the nearest ashtray. It's more interesting to talk, anyway.

He's come this far, he thinks. Besides, when Shuri's done with him, it won't be a problem any longer.

(And if she can't fix it, if they can't be sure, he'll deal with that when the time comes.)

"Controls."

"Bloody hell," says John. "No wonder you don't want anyone else poking around."

The closest John has come is electroshock therapy and -- well, the less said about that, the better.

He nods confirmation.

"Yeah. I'd rather keep myself to myself."

"Don't blame you, mate."

He lights up a new cigarette.

"If you're trying to write all this down, start with the most recent memory, maybe? Work your way back?"

"Maybe," he agrees. "Might be easier to backtrack than start from the beginning. Seventy years is a long time, even with the gaps."

"...you don't look a day over thirty-five."

"The scientists messed with more than my mind," he says, dryly. "Also I spent a lot of those years on ice."

"I think," John says, "we both need another drink so you can tell me all about it."

He waves to a waitrat.

"I'll even take notes."

His stomach tries to revolt at the idea of John taking notes on him, like he's a lab rat --

--again--

--before he shoves it all back. That's not what he's offering. He'd looked at the blank journal and offered to find a way to help get words on the page.

Bucky draws a long breath and lets it out in a sigh.

"Okay."

"Whiskey and coffee," John tells the waitrat, "however Mr. Bucky takes it."

He gestures to the notebook and pen. "May I?"

"Black," he tells the waitrat. "Thanks."

As it scurries off to fill their order, he shoves the pen and empty journal across the table.

"Be my guest."

"Ta."

He gets comfortable in the chair, cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. "I'm more of an occult detective than a journalist of any sort, but there are a lot of similarities between the two.

"Now." He uncaps the pen and holds it over the paper, ready to write. "What's the first thing you remember?"

Work backwards, he'd suggested. Start with the most recent and figure it out from there. He blows out a breath.

"Princess Shuri giving me that notebook and pen and shoving me out of her lab," he says.

John smiles and writes it down in the simple handwriting of someone who is used to writing quickly.

"Do princesses often study science where you come from?"