[Bucky's still not entirely comfortable with the whole talking in the brain thing, so he'll follow the line of Steve's link to the living room. He's dressed like he's about to go somewhere, hair tucked up under a hat, left sleeve pinned. To top it all off, he's actually showered.]
Lookin' for a coin. Know where we can get one? [Half a smirk.] I'll buy us hot dogs after.
[ As easy as the mental link makes passing information, he's less than bothered about the switch to normal conversation. As Bucky approaches Steve stands up from where he's seated on the couch, taking in his friend's groomed appearance. He returns the smirk with a lopsided grin. ]
Sounds fair. [ Bucky comes to him with this deal knowing full well how many hot dogs Steve can put away. He glances up, brow pinched as he thinks. ] We should head to the flea markets. [ They might luck out there. Coins are kind of a rarity in a place that mostly uses digital currency. People consider it a hassle.
Tipping his head toward the door he starts walking over to grab his coat from where it's hanging. ]
[Hey at least here in Concordia, Bucky doesn't have to worry about Steve eating him literally out of house and home. He swears Steve has some kind of hollow leg where he stores all the extra food.
With a nod, he follows Steve over to the door. Luckily, Bucky doesn't really need a jacket unless he wants to hide his pinned sleeve. Even then, it's more of a hassle than not.]
Those in Subspace? [He remembers finding Bellamy in one on a bad day.]
[ With the the jacket zipped up he presses the button for the elevator, giving a nod, but with a quick frown it appears that he changes his mind. ]
There are, but we'll be better off sticking to the ones closer by. [ In his haste to get out, he almost forgot about the security checks they'd have to go through to use the train, and taking the car down there is asking for it to get stolen. All the markets are pricier on this block, but the pat downs aren't going to worth the extra pennies saved.
Stepping inside the elevator as the doors open he cocks his head to one side. ] What d'ya need a coin for?
[Bucky hasn't done much exploring the city on his own, but he remembers meeting Bellamy in a shop containing a series of odd trinkets and baubles. With a nod, he follows Steve into the elevator and leans against the back wall.] Sam gave me his.
[Reaching into his right pocket, Bucky produces the air force challenge coin Sam gave him to help in grounding after an episode.]
Said I can get free drinks from him with it. [He shrugs his left shoulder.] But that wouldn't really be fair. I don't even drink.
[ The floor numbers start going down, his gaze settling on the coin. Ah - that kind of explains things from the morning Bucky woke up. ]
You don't? [ A flicker of surprise before he catches himself, turning away to frown at the closed doors. His mental walls hold back dozens of memories that overlap the same scene, the pair of them seated at a bar or standing at a club, getting drinks for girls. Drinks for themselves, sometimes held to a bruised cheek and a wince with a laugh.
There wouldn't be much time for that with Hydra.
The elevator doors open to the ground floor and he steps outside, hands in his pockets and expression thoughtful. ] Well, I guess we better find something with a bird on it...
[Bucky blinks down at Steve at his answer, at the surprise that flares through the link. Oh. Sure, Bucky had vague memories of bars, but nothing too solid about whether or not he used to drink. Nowadays, the idea doesn't appeal in the slightest. Losing control of himself could result in the death of someone, anyone, not a target but an innocent civilian. He can't risk such a thing for the chance of diluting the guilt for a few hours.
Nevermind that he doesn't deserve such a thing, anyway.
He nods in affirmation and directs his gaze down to the floor, amending,] Not anymore.
[Another piece of evidence that he isn't the Bucky Steve remembers, maybe never will be, hell maybe never was. For a moment, he lets that weight crush him down, lets it sink his spirits, bring his confidence back down to an "acceptable" level. Weapons weren't equals. Weapons weren't allowed to keep memories.]
Yeah. He seems to like 'em. [Birds, he means.] Said he was pararescue.
[ A brief pause and he glances over at Bucky, giving him a light elbow to his friend's side. ]
For lunch we should get these drinks - they're kinda like milkshakes. [ The same way the hot dogs here are really 'kind of like hot dogs', and no alcohol.
Call it Sam's influence, but Steve lets his mental guards down a bit, a porthole open. A lot's changed since Bucky first arrived. Back then every change in Bucky was a punch to the gut, a reminder of the horrors he'd been put through - and that in some way it'd been Steve's fault. For failing him.
Since then there's been a slow shift. Some of that's from Sam, some of it's from his own growing confidence with his symbiotic abilities. A lot of it is just because of the simple fact that it's enough to have Bucky here, awake, alive. He doesn't need to hide his guilt when it's no longer at the forefront of his mind.
And anything that's different about Bucky, none of that is enough to change the person that Steve believes is at his core: a little bit of a jerk, and a damn good friend. ]
[Bucky glances back over to Steve at the nudge to his side. One thing he definitely needs to improve upon is hiding thoughts and emotions from Steve. He hates seeing how little things continue to affect his friend, how life becomes just a bit more difficult for Steve every time Bucky opens his mouth.]
Are they like the hot dogs? [Because honestly, the hot dogs weren't quite hot dogs, but close enough to serve Bucky's faulty memory. Milkshakes sound good, if they're on the same level as Concordia's hot dogs.] We'll get both.
[Decision's already made. If Steve wants milkshakes, then they're getting milkshakes.
Before them, the doors sweep open and Bucky steps out into the street, taking in the bustling bodies.]
[ A nod as both an answer and agreement, heading out from the lobby to the street. Pedestrians walk around them with purpose, he shifts into step with the foot traffic with a general destination in mind. ]
Platform Twelve's a good start... [ Half talking to himself as he weaves around people. It'll take them a good twenty minutes to hoof it there if they want to avoid the security checkpoints at the train stations. Fifteen if they're quick. ] Hope you don't mind stretching your legs.
[ Most people avoid eye contact as they pass. Only a child holding his mother's hand fixes a stare at Bucky's pinned up sleeve. ]
[Bucky doesn't mind at all stretching his legs, but being around strangers draws more anxiety under his skin. He keeps his strides short, half a step behind Steve--- a habit he can't quite shake yet. Avoiding eye contact is easy enough until he catches a kid staring at the place where his arm would be. He pauses and glances to the sleeve, to the fabric hanging loose where there should be bone and muscle and metal. Sucking in a breath, he locks down the bubbling acid in his chest as he looks away and does his best to resume his gait.
It doesn't help that he killed a young boy about the stranger's age. No witnesses.
Maybe this expedition isn't such a good idea after all.]
[ Bucky'll find that Steve is intentionally slowing his gait, trying to walk at his friend's side instead of letting him trail even that half a step. Habit, he doesn't really do it consciously.
A sign catches his attention, a florist, but he keeps walking. They can hit it on the way back - so long as Bucky doesn't mind the quick stop. ]
[A couple times, Bucky finds himself walking side by side with Steve again, leaving him a bit puzzled. His gait is awkward for a few paces before he regains a mind enough to ignore the lack of distance between them. The florist's sign catches Bucky's attention as well and he pauses.]
[Bucky feels like he should be surprised, something from the past pulls so strong that he can hardly catch his breath. Two girls.
He remembers a woman dressed in red and he felt... invisible? Like nothing more than a poster on the wall while Steve, broad-shouldered and slicked-back hair, grinned at him.]
There was one, back in the day, wasn't there? Wore a red dress.
[Except wait. Broad-shouldered Steve isn't the current Steve. Bucky tries to remember other details.] Dark hair? Did you meet her? Said something about... waiting for the right partner?
[He's hoping some piece of this rings one of Steve's bells, but he also provides the shaky image mentally. The features keep changing, though, as Bucky can't quite keep the details nailed down.]
[ Red dress? A flicker of confusion and his expression turns thoughtful. There'd been a parade of girls back then, all of them courtesy of Bucky's insistence on double dates.
The image reaches his mind along with the words waiting for the right partner - recognition hits him. Like with Ilde, Steve carefully takes hold of the picture, using the shaky features Bucky paints as a base, reshaping them into a clearer portrait of the woman in question. ]
Agent Carter? [ Deep brown eyes focus in his mind, sharp and smart and understanding. There's a sense of fondness in the way he paints her, slipping into his voice. ] She was at Camp Lehigh, ran us through basic. [ Tests. ] She's something.
[ Is? Was? In Bucky's time she'd have to be in her nineties... ]
[A hundred faces swirl through the canvas until Steve grabs hold and stabilizes the image. Steve paints in the details and Bucky does his best to memorize them. Bucky can hear the fondness and sense it through the bond alike. Agent Carter. With the solidified image, he places her in a smoky bar, Steve at his shoulder, and a sense of being overlooked, of feeling like Steve. How the hell he ever wanted to be noticed by anyone is a mystery to him, but he doesn't argue with the memories collecting around Steve's scaffolding.
Steve saved him, lugged him along through a burning factory--- the factory he caught pneumonia in--- to escape. The smoke burns along the edges of his vision before it transforms into the pub, sitting side-by-side and that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, I'd follow him. The woman in question, Agent Carter, interrupts their conversation, but in his memory he doesn't mind too much.
Bucky's not sure if he likes this memory or not, almost like he's sitting in a movie theatre watching it on a far away screen than in his own head.] Was she?
[He doesn't have many memories of her outside of this one.] You liked her?
[ He grips onto the memory of the bar, letting the smoke become the scent of cigarettes, the burning heat softening to a warm glow - familiar details even if he's never been to the exact place Bucky shows him. And the rest - he sucks in a breath, taken aback by the sight of Agent Carter in that red dress - the way she's looking at the man with another version of his face. ]
I - admired her. [ She treated him the same as any other recruit, that meant a lot, she didn't take shit from the guys that refused to give her the respect she deserved. A woman like that - he wishes he could've had the chance to get to know her better. Maybe he did, but - he raises both eyebrows, furrowing them. ] Did you?
[ He feels that sense of being overlooked that lingers in the memory, a sensation not his own. ]
[Admiration. Makes sense to Bucky's limited scope of memories. At Steve's question, Bucky draws the memory up to the surface. In it, he feels overlooked, invisible and, in the memory, he hates that. In the memory, he's also some young thing with a trim haircut and smooth face--- a far cry from Bucky's current state. But sitting here with Steve now, Bucky feels much the opposite. He doesn't want the attention of- what was her name? Carter?- or anyone's, really. While he's grown to enjoy Sam and Steve's presence, he usually doesn't go out of his way to meet with them, excluding today.]
I don't know. [He replies, biting one edge of his lip. It's always a little difficult to get a context for his memories.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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( Nope. ) [ There's a wordless explanation, a sense of place - he's in the living area flipping through the news on the screen. ] ( Need something? )
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Lookin' for a coin. Know where we can get one? [Half a smirk.] I'll buy us hot dogs after.
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Sounds fair. [ Bucky comes to him with this deal knowing full well how many hot dogs Steve can put away. He glances up, brow pinched as he thinks. ] We should head to the flea markets. [ They might luck out there. Coins are kind of a rarity in a place that mostly uses digital currency. People consider it a hassle.
Tipping his head toward the door he starts walking over to grab his coat from where it's hanging. ]
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With a nod, he follows Steve over to the door. Luckily, Bucky doesn't really need a jacket unless he wants to hide his pinned sleeve. Even then, it's more of a hassle than not.]
Those in Subspace? [He remembers finding Bellamy in one on a bad day.]
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There are, but we'll be better off sticking to the ones closer by. [ In his haste to get out, he almost forgot about the security checks they'd have to go through to use the train, and taking the car down there is asking for it to get stolen. All the markets are pricier on this block, but the pat downs aren't going to worth the extra pennies saved.
Stepping inside the elevator as the doors open he cocks his head to one side. ] What d'ya need a coin for?
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[Reaching into his right pocket, Bucky produces the air force challenge coin Sam gave him to help in grounding after an episode.]
Said I can get free drinks from him with it. [He shrugs his left shoulder.] But that wouldn't really be fair. I don't even drink.
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You don't? [ A flicker of surprise before he catches himself, turning away to frown at the closed doors. His mental walls hold back dozens of memories that overlap the same scene, the pair of them seated at a bar or standing at a club, getting drinks for girls. Drinks for themselves, sometimes held to a bruised cheek and a wince with a laugh.
There wouldn't be much time for that with Hydra.
The elevator doors open to the ground floor and he steps outside, hands in his pockets and expression thoughtful. ] Well, I guess we better find something with a bird on it...
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Nevermind that he doesn't deserve such a thing, anyway.
He nods in affirmation and directs his gaze down to the floor, amending,] Not anymore.
[Another piece of evidence that he isn't the Bucky Steve remembers, maybe never will be, hell maybe never was. For a moment, he lets that weight crush him down, lets it sink his spirits, bring his confidence back down to an "acceptable" level. Weapons weren't equals. Weapons weren't allowed to keep memories.]
Yeah. He seems to like 'em. [Birds, he means.] Said he was pararescue.
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For lunch we should get these drinks - they're kinda like milkshakes. [ The same way the hot dogs here are really 'kind of like hot dogs', and no alcohol.
Call it Sam's influence, but Steve lets his mental guards down a bit, a porthole open. A lot's changed since Bucky first arrived. Back then every change in Bucky was a punch to the gut, a reminder of the horrors he'd been put through - and that in some way it'd been Steve's fault. For failing him.
Since then there's been a slow shift. Some of that's from Sam, some of it's from his own growing confidence with his symbiotic abilities. A lot of it is just because of the simple fact that it's enough to have Bucky here, awake, alive. He doesn't need to hide his guilt when it's no longer at the forefront of his mind.
And anything that's different about Bucky, none of that is enough to change the person that Steve believes is at his core: a little bit of a jerk, and a damn good friend. ]
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Are they like the hot dogs? [Because honestly, the hot dogs weren't quite hot dogs, but close enough to serve Bucky's faulty memory. Milkshakes sound good, if they're on the same level as Concordia's hot dogs.] We'll get both.
[Decision's already made. If Steve wants milkshakes, then they're getting milkshakes.
Before them, the doors sweep open and Bucky steps out into the street, taking in the bustling bodies.]
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Platform Twelve's a good start... [ Half talking to himself as he weaves around people. It'll take them a good twenty minutes to hoof it there if they want to avoid the security checkpoints at the train stations. Fifteen if they're quick. ] Hope you don't mind stretching your legs.
[ Most people avoid eye contact as they pass. Only a child holding his mother's hand fixes a stare at Bucky's pinned up sleeve. ]
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It doesn't help that he killed a young boy about the stranger's age. No witnesses.
Maybe this expedition isn't such a good idea after all.]
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A sign catches his attention, a florist, but he keeps walking. They can hit it on the way back - so long as Bucky doesn't mind the quick stop. ]
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Did you want to go in?
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[ Eyes forward again he ducks his chin down. ] There's a girl. [ He tilts his head the other way. ] Well, two girls... sort of.
[ A hand rubs at the back of his neck, a wrinkle at his brow and a wry smile to go with it. ]
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He remembers a woman dressed in red and he felt... invisible? Like nothing more than a poster on the wall while Steve, broad-shouldered and slicked-back hair, grinned at him.]
There was one, back in the day, wasn't there? Wore a red dress.
[Except wait. Broad-shouldered Steve isn't the current Steve. Bucky tries to remember other details.] Dark hair? Did you meet her? Said something about... waiting for the right partner?
[He's hoping some piece of this rings one of Steve's bells, but he also provides the shaky image mentally. The features keep changing, though, as Bucky can't quite keep the details nailed down.]
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The image reaches his mind along with the words waiting for the right partner - recognition hits him. Like with Ilde, Steve carefully takes hold of the picture, using the shaky features Bucky paints as a base, reshaping them into a clearer portrait of the woman in question. ]
Agent Carter? [ Deep brown eyes focus in his mind, sharp and smart and understanding. There's a sense of fondness in the way he paints her, slipping into his voice. ] She was at Camp Lehigh, ran us through basic. [ Tests. ] She's something.
[ Is? Was? In Bucky's time she'd have to be in her nineties... ]
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Steve saved him, lugged him along through a burning factory--- the factory he caught pneumonia in--- to escape. The smoke burns along the edges of his vision before it transforms into the pub, sitting side-by-side and that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, I'd follow him. The woman in question, Agent Carter, interrupts their conversation, but in his memory he doesn't mind too much.
Bucky's not sure if he likes this memory or not, almost like he's sitting in a movie theatre watching it on a far away screen than in his own head.] Was she?
[He doesn't have many memories of her outside of this one.] You liked her?
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I - admired her. [ She treated him the same as any other recruit, that meant a lot, she didn't take shit from the guys that refused to give her the respect she deserved. A woman like that - he wishes he could've had the chance to get to know her better. Maybe he did, but - he raises both eyebrows, furrowing them. ] Did you?
[ He feels that sense of being overlooked that lingers in the memory, a sensation not his own. ]
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I don't know. [He replies, biting one edge of his lip. It's always a little difficult to get a context for his memories.]