milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Shuri's made a few changes to the last version she'd had him test, and has sent him back out with instructions to try smaller things with the new arm this time, as she is looking for fine nuance and haptic feedback results.

As a result, Bucky's decided to settle in the bar at the ends of the worlds for a bit with a good cup of coffee and see what he can figure out to test next.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's a lot to parse in everything he just said, but Zinda's expression goes from startled to scowling midway through.

"You just say Sharon turned you in??"

First she toys with his affections and makes him think she's chosen some other guy, and then she turns him in to the authorities when he'd done nothing wrong at all? Zinda's blue eyes flash as her mental approval rating of the other woman drops like a rock.

But the rest is even worse, and she puts a hand over his new metal wrist, sympathetic. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry."

"She had to," he insists. "Everyone saw the camera footage. She thought it was me - my fault, that I'd done it. She knew if I was activated - the Winter Soldier would have blown up that building without hesitation. People died. More could have. She had to."

He sighs a little, quietly grateful as she touches his metal arm, rather than pulling back from it.

"Steve managed to get me back - again - but I damn near killed him, and Sharon, and Natasha, and did kill a number of others on Zemo's orders. We got to a safe location, and went over what he'd gotten from me. We thought we knew what he wanted. We were wrong."

His eyes are bleak when he meets her gaze. "Tony came to help, in the end. We went to track down Zemo - me, Steve, and then Tony. It was a trap. Zemo wanted Tony to see what I'd done, as the Winter Soldier, years before. I killed his parents on another mission. Steve stopped him from killing me. They haven't spoken since. And as a result, the Avengers are broken and scattered to the ends of the earth. Zemo got what he wanted."

Zinda doesn't look convinced – she takes stand by your man as seriously as any gospel – but she drops it for the moment, listening in sympathetic silence to the rest, her warm hand still on his arm, though she has no idea if he can feel it.

"Okay," she says, gently. "You think this Tony, maybe he'll come around? He's gotta know you didn't do it on purpose, right?"

"I don't think that matters to him. He's hurt, and mad that Steve picked me over him - the way he sees it, anyway." Bucky sighs. "I hope he does come around. Steve gave him a way to get in touch."

"Stubborn," she says, shaking her head.

"I hope so, too. Once he cools off, maybe."

"Maybe." He hopes so, anyway. "I thought maybe if I could talk Steve into reaching out from a safe location... but I don't know."

"Could be that might work," she nods. "Seein' as he's the one you can work on."

She wants to go back to that part where the woman he's seeing turned him in and kicked off this whole chain of events, but even Zinda knows when she's got to sort of work her way around a topic. "I met him, you know?" she says, instead.

"Your buddy Steve?"

Everything about him brightens like the sun. "You did?"

"Sure did."

She smiles back at him, pleased to have hit on a better topic of conversation. "Nice fella."

"He's the best," Bucky tells her, with absolute sincerity. "I'm really glad you met."

Zinda just smiles at him, wishing for his sake that meeting had gone just a little better – but, well, everybody has bad days. Could be she just caught him on one.

"He was tickled pink when I told him I recognized him 'cause of you," she says, absolutely honestly.

"I bet. Used to be he felt a little awkward coming here, there for a while," Bucky tells her. "Steve can be pretty self-effacing sometimes, and he got recognized a lot. But that's different."

Understanding flashes through Zinda's face, and her smile turns a whole lot warmer.

Well, that must be it. She'll just have to try again another time. "I remembered seein' him in the pamphlet you showed me," she says. "Tell him I say hi, will you?"

"I will," he promises. "Count on it." He's delighted at the thought of the two of them getting to know each other, and it shows.

"I'll keep an eye out for him next time I come in," she says. "Sharon, too."

Her tone's a little cooler with that second name, but – well – Zinda just wants to talk to her.

He can't fail to miss the shift in her normally warm, cheerful tone.

"Zinda."

"Well!" Zinda sniffs, just a little.

"Toyin' with your affections is one thing; turning you in to get jailed is a whole other story, and frankly neither of 'em sound all that good."

Edited 2021-10-13 00:00 (UTC)

"Toying with -- what?" He looks completely caught off guard by that.

"She didn't - she didn't do anything like that. And I told you, she had to turn me in."

"She made you think she'd gone for someone else, didn't she?" Zinda says, warming to her subject, then looks slightly mulish at his protestations.

"I'm sure she thought she did," she says, every indication being that she, Zinda, is sure there was some other possible way, one that didn't involve jail cells.

"I just think it wouldn't be such a bad idea for me to have a chat with her."

Somehow he's deeply certain that'd be a talk that would not go well, given how protective Zinda's acting, and that he knows Sharon still blames herself for so much of what happened in Berlin.

"Hey." He pushes his coffee aside so that he can turn to face her. "It wasn't like that. I could tell she and Steve were becoming friends, and I thought there was a chance there could be more. He's a better man than I am. I told her to think about it. I wanted her to be sure. And then--"

Belatedly, he realizes that explaining why he'd been so sure she'd made her choice might not actually help, and stops talking there for a second before he switches tracks.

"When I was activated - she nearly died trying to stop me, Zinda. She knew just how dangerous the Winter Soldier was. She had to keep me from hurting anyone."

Zinda's eyes narrow. "And then?" she prompts.

The rest – fine. Though she still isn't sure there would have been a problem if he hadn't been turned in in the first place.

"And then I was sure," he evades. "But it turns out I was wrong."

"Why were you sure?" Zinda presses.

It's not that she hadn't liked Sharon, or that she's forgotten the way his face lit up when she asked if he was happy, but...

He's too good a man to leave dangling on a hook, and that gal oughta know it.

Bucky sighs. "Because when she brought Steve's shield, and all the rest of the gear we'd need for what we were going to do, they kissed each other goodbye," he admits. "So I thought she'd made her choice, and that it was the right one. I was truly, truly happy for them both."

"Steve and I talked about it, later. Before - before anything else. He's my best friend," he says, simply. "I'd never do anything to hurt him."

Zinda's eyebrows arch nearly into her hairline.

Sure, it's one thing to be able to date around – she'd gotten a whole lot of pleasure reading up on Women's Lib when she'd gotten back home – and maybe, who knows, Bucky hadn't cared all that much.

But if he had – and she had the gall to be jealous of Zinda? "Uh-huh," she says. "I can see why you'd think so."

Edited 2021-10-13 01:04 (UTC)