milliways_bar | (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

"The one in the lab wasn't designed to kill," she said absently, shaking her head. "Just to hurt. It was easier to get the soliers to talk if they were hurt and scared."

Zola had learned early on the distinct advantages of pain and fear when used simultaneously. So had Sinthia.

"Where you live now..." Which is not with HYDRA, "They're helping you? Do they know?"

"Well, it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, so there's that," he says, grimly. "He never got anything out of me but name, rank, and serial number, though."

It had done more than hurt in his case, activating the changes at the cellular level.

"Where I am now? Yeah, they are. And they know. They know all of it."

Bucky had been one of the few exposed to those cellular changes that survived the exposure.

She sighs. "I know. I remember them telling me." She doesn't remember all of them, not entirely. Barnes, James Buchanan, Sergeant, 32557038 is not one of the ones she remembers, for better or worse. Perhaps both.

"They don't think you're...evil? Or broken?"

"Not evil," he confirms. "As for broken..."

He shrugs.

"Not beyond recovering."

He's not sure he entirely agrees with all of it, but T'Challa and Shuri's promise to free his mind of HYDRA's embedded controls is something he holds on to every day.

"You remember more than I do," she says. "Maybe it's working."

Unsaid goes her addendum that she's not sure what if anything would work on her, because she's not sure what was done differently to her.

"The bar gave me a plant. A flower. She said it would help." Knowing what said flower is mildly worries Sinthia, but she's kept it. For now.

"So far," he points out. "It's not a race."

"A plant? Like -- in a pot?" He thinks of the goats, and of Joe's cactus, and gets a glimmer of understanding. "To take care of?"

"A terrarium," she corrects, shaking her head. She mimes with her hands slowly to approximate the size, and though she is trying not to project, the image of a glass bell jar containing a slender stalk of foxglove in moss materializes.

"She said it would be somthing to do. To keep it alive."

He studies the projection and nods.

"Not a bad idea."

She looks away and the projection breaks, fading away as her brow creases. "It wasn't my idea," she says. "But it's not dead yet." She has actually been taking care of it, though she isn't sure exactly why; but this little delicate plant is something to worry about and check on, even as mechanically as she does it.

There's a checklist she uses. It helps.

"It's poisonous. The flower. Digitalis purpurea."

The corner of his mouth quirks up in a small smile.

"I know that name. Digitalis. It's also used for heart medicine."

There was a time, back before the serum, when Bucky Barnes was extremely well informed about any and all possible treatments for Steve Rogers' many, many medical conditions.

She nods. "It is. It slows the heartbeat. Bradycardia."

But it's also very pretty and very delicate. She likes it. "She also gave me a book on poisonous flowers."

He's not sure if that's a theme or a coincidence.

"To help take care of it?"

"I'm not sure. Either that or they're just...pretty," she says. "They all look so delicate."

And can kill you.

The parallel should be ovbious.

The point she's making is very obvious, in fact. And yet, his calm, steady gaze doesn't waver.

"I'm not great with plants. They've got me looking after goats instead."

"I'm not very good with animals," she says lightly, and she seems to relax when he doesn't look away. He knows, he understands what she is, and he isn't leaving anyway.

One of the first.

"They don't tend to trust me. Plants don't have that problem."

"Trust just takes time," he murmurs. "It can happen."

He is almost certainly not talking about animals any longer.

"Is that what's happening?" she asks, her hand on his trembling ever-so-slightly.

"If you want it to," he says, very gently, keeping his hand still under hers.

Sinthia has never been trusted.

Not to do anything more than to fulfill a mission, to eliminate a target.

She just blinks at Bucky when he says that--that he trusts her if she wants him to, and she doesn't know how to take it. She has no basis for comparison.

"...Oh."

He grins, small and wry, but real.