[GP/EP] Check-in Day

[st_oneswidow]

The woodwinds in her collection were for noodling mostly, and the violin was for memory of her family, but when Curnen really wanted to play she turned again and again to her guitar. This would probably always be her best instrument. It was the first of the month, she’d been here over a year, and it was probably a check-in day. So she sat on the lawn with her instrument in her lap, sending out a subtle magic to call anyone stranded in their little world this way.

At one point, though, she set aside the guitar and turned her face to the sky. For just a few minutes she required a different kind of magic.

It had been a week now since Scanlan had vanished in the battle. And Pike, too, though Curnen honestly couldn’t have cared less about her going away if she tried. Still. The two of them were family to people very dear to her, people who missed them. And Scanlan had been her friend. You marked something like that with a song.

Of all the money that e'er I had
I spent it in good company
And all the harm that e'er I've done
Alas, it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

It was a traditional Irish goodbye, a farewell to friends said with love, drinking, well wishes, and the hope of meeting again. She couldn’t think of a better one for the occasion. And as she sang she twined her magic into her voice in a new way, sending the song to any ears that needed it, ears of those who knew and missed the departed. Not all of them might understand it, not all of them knew what she was, but she didn’t particularly care about that right now. The song was more important than the hiding.

Once the last note had dissipated she picked up her guitar again and resumed her work. If there were anybody out there, they had to know where to go.

Comments

Assigned Threads

[st_ranger]

All he had wanted was to buy some plums. Then suddenly, his face is on a newspaper and he's sure that people would come looking for him. While nobody was staring at him directly, the skin on the back of his neck crawled enough that he knew he had to get moving. Never stay in one place too long.

Of course, he had been there. It always ended up in a fight, even if he wanted to try to help him be otherwise. Come with him. Get out. Let the good Captain save him. There was no saving him. There was no going back to the way that things used to be between them. He saw what the museum said. He remembered snippets. There was a reason he'd pulled Steve out of the river, but he couldn't be the man Steve wanted him to be.

Suddenly, they were compromised. Men breached the dingy apartment, coming in through the door and the windows. Bucky turned, lifting his dirty mattress and using it for cover. His arms swung violently and he upended a table, watching it fly to the door in an attempt to block it and buy them some time. Swing right. Swing left. Block. It came as second nature to him.

Buck, stop! You're going to kill someone. Bucky shook his head, staring at the man in front of him. How badly did he want all the memories, the flashes in his mind to be true. Pushing the Captain to the ground, Bucky made a fist and punched the floorboard. Reaching in, he pulled out a black backpack and tossed it out the window. "I'm not going to kill anyone."

Bucky turned and punched a door, watching it fall to the ground and stepping over it. His eyes narrowed and he took a running leap, off the balcony and landing on a rooftop, dropping and rolling right next to his bug-out bag. Bucky grabbed it and turned right, taking another running leap off the roof to the next one.

Instead, Bucky blinked as he looked up from the pavement where he had landed. Suddenly, he wasn't in Berlin anymore. The former asset moved slowly, stalking the road as he tried to take in his surroundings. His good hand reached up, pulling the cap down lower over his face. It wasn't long before he appeared in front of something very pink. He frowned, not sure what else to do but go in.

He was slow, stealthy as he opened the door as little as possible and slipped through it. He wasn't sure where he was, but as long as there was nobody trying to capture him, he'd deal for now.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_makemeastone]

Run. Hide. Don't let them find you. Hurts. Hurts to remember. No. No... No... Two by two hands of blue. Always coming.

Wto was running? She couldn't tell. For the first time in a long time she didn't know if what she was remembering and feeling was hers or belonged to someone else. Someone... Him?

She knew when she saw him enter the lobby that it was his, AND hers. Running.

But not here.

"They don't come looking here." She might be talking to him, or herself from her spot perched on a chair near the front desk. Trying to convince herself.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_ranger]

The voice startled him. It almost made him feel bad that he had not seen her right away. It wasn't as if she had snuck up on him, since she was just sitting there. His eyes narrowed and he almost wasn't sure if he should approach, but he did.

A young girl she was, but that meant nothing. The widow of black had also been a young girl once in the room of red. Looks could be deceiving.

"Who doesn't come looking here," he asked softly. His grip on the strap on his shoulder tightened as he glanced around the room. The more he came into it, the more he mapped it in his mind. Windows. Corners. Strategy. Exit routes.

His eyes were drawn back to her and he couldn't help but be curious. He didn't smile, but his guard lowered a fraction of an inch. That was like a smile for him. "Where's here?"

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_makemeastone]

He shouldn't feel bad, people frequently didn't realize she was there. Sam said she skulked but the truth was she was very good at being still. And people just didn't notice because mostly people couldn't be still.

But she was good at hide and seek.

"Madonna Inn." Count ten. Olly olly oxen free. Is she seeking or hiding? Her hands fluttered around her head as though flicking away something flying around her. "Where precisely is harder."

[st_ranger]

"Madonna..." He blinked, staring around. The hotel didn't look religious in nature. Or opulent and covered in gold. His head tilted and he did a full three sixty, before looking back at her. It had been bad form to put his back to her, he knew, but there was also enough distance between them that he could have stopped an attack if he wanted to.

If he had to. He didn't want to. He didn't do that anymore if he could help it.

Slowly, he took another step closer to her, then another. He wanted to see what she would do. It was a cat and mouse game. Beside him, his metal hand flexed slightly.

"Country of origin?" She had to be able to tell him that, didn't she?

[st_makemeastone]

He could have tried to stop an attack. She was quicker than she looked, and possibly more dangerous. But she didn't want to anymore either. So they had that and running in common.

She hopped gracefully from the chair to the floor, landing lightly like a cat so she was standing almost but not quite too close and looking at him with wide knowing eyes.

"Unknown. Outside space and time. Disconnected. Can't go home again." A pause because she knows this isn't an adequate answer but it really is hard to explain. "We come. We stay. There will be a room."

This time she looked over at the front desk and Darryl, "Automaton. Can't answer questions but he will have keys."

[st_ranger]

The scary part about that was that he understood what she was saying. Well, most of it. He didn't flinch when she moved closer to him, but his shoulders did tense. He prepared for an attack that he expected to come. The way she looked at him made him feel like he was on display.

Like the museum.

"Keys..." Bucky stepped away from her and moved over to the desk. As he did so, he was greeted and handed the keys to his room. Dark eyes stared down at the number, before turning to look back at her. "He's a robot," he murmured.

Slowly, with great hesitance, he moved back over to her. "Can't go home. Outside space and time?" He shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around it. "Will they come for me here?" He doubted she would have the answer, but she had the others, so it wouldn't hurt to ask.

[st_makemeastone]

Not a robot, or she didn't think so since the staff weren't blanks the way a robot might be.

But that wasn't the important bit of what he's said.

"My monsters haven't come for me."

[st_ranger]

Bucky stared at her.

Really stared at her.

"You're on the run too." It wasn't a question. He swallowed, wondering who and what she was running from. Was she from the Red Room? Was she HYDRA? He took a step back, shaking his head. He would not be put under again. He would not become that soldier.

He took a deep breath, letting out out slowly and trying to stay calm. "What monsters?"

[st_makemeastone]

"Didn't want a girl, wanted a weapon so they went in and took bits... Two by two," she almost sank into herself, terror thick in her voice and darkening her eyes, her physical response visible as she trembled. "Hands of blue."

She squeezed her eyes closed the heel of one hand pressed against her forehead the other started a rythmic banging to the back of her head as though trying to force the images out. Then she shrieked and started to babble as she retreated back to the chair. "Two by two. Coming. Always coming.. but not here. Here is safe. Safe. Coming."

[st_ranger]

Bucky stepped forward, lifting his good hand to tentatively raise it and place it on her shoulder. "Hey," he said, a bit awkwardly, glancing at her. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he didn't want her to hurt herself. It was as if the HYDRA programming was kicking in for her. "No. Don't... Do that?"

He frowned when she started to shriek. "Stop. Uh, please?" He tried to give her shoulder a squeeze. He shook his head. "If we're safe, they can't come here. You... You said safe."

[st_makemeastone]

She didn't push his hand away, that was probably a good thing but he would be able to feel her trembling beneath the hand.

"Safe." She repeated the word. And then again, "Safe..."

When she looked up at him through a veil of hair her face was tear streaked but the wildness had faded some. "They aren't here but they're still in here."

When she tapped her head this time it was lightly, rather than with painful intent.

[st_ranger]

Bucky frowned. "They're in mine too." He still wasn't sure that they were speaking about the same they to each other, but he knew what she meant. His metal hand raised and he gently tapped his temple. "Words. Not my words. Can't hear them." If he did, he wouldn't be himself. And that scared him. He didn't know what he would do if it did happen. That was why he ran. Why he hid.

"Look. Um. Is there a place... Drinks or food? We talk... About this place?" He sighed. "You said that we're safe here. So... You're safe. Just breathe."

He never expected he would be a comforting presence to anyone. If someone had said that to him, he'd laugh in their face. And then he'd be shocked, since he hadn't laughed in a long time either. "Don't cry. Please."

Bucky / Tony

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

For his first arrival day from the other side, it was just enough to draw Tony Stark from his Lair of Research--that being, of course, his room that he had little use for beyond utilizing as a workshop and the occasional caffeine crash nap. He had been more obsessive since the injury to himself and to his armor, leaving it on the fritz. Functional, but unreliable. Like a car that you could start without knowing if it'd pop a flat along the way.

Despite all that, it was useful to keep an eye on the goings-on of the Madonna Inn, especially on a momentous occasion. New arrivals, new faces to add to the database. Since F.R.I.D.A.Y. was disconnected from any useful cloud data, he had been accruing his own notes on each guest. Nothing weird, it just paid to know who you were dealing with.

Trying not to look too conspicuous, Tony studied himself in the lobby mirror. His glasses (nanoparticle composites) hid the bags and the thermos of coffee in hand would keep him alert enough for the next hour-or-however-long it took for people to trickle in. He smoothed his hair back. If something was worth doing, it was worth preening for.

In the reflection, Tony caught the outline of someone meandering aimlessly about. Welp, there was the lucky pick of the litter to hit things off with. Not without sweeping the bangs back, first. Few things communicated lack of preparation than constantly adjusting the 'do mid-conversation.

let the awkward begin

[st_ranger]

The young woman in the hotel, she had explained things to him and made him understand how things were around here. Well, she had done so the best that she could. His mind was still going to need a little time to wrap around the information. It wasn't every day someone was just plucked out of time and space. It reminded him of those dime store sci fi novels he used to read with Steve when they were kids.

He blinked, frowning at the sudden memory. He still wasn't used to all the things flashing back to the surface of his mind. He would have to pull out one of his journals and jot it down.

Before he could, however, he saw another person in the lobby. Bucky turned and jumped to the right, hiding behind a column, eyeing the man in the mirror. His eyes widened and his shoulders tensed at just who he saw. Dark eyes moved from his glasses to his bangs. Maybe he had not been plucked for just any reason. Maybe he was in hell.

Bucky took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He needed to do this. He could do this, couldn't he? Especially if he was going to be stuck here for an indefinite time. He couldn't avoid Stark forever. He didn't remember every bad thing he'd done as the Winter Soldier, but he did remember a few. Two in particular. His eyes closed and he sighed. He really hated his past.

Reluctantly, Bucky stepped out and approached him. His hands hung loosely at his side. His shoulders were tense, unable to push down the nerves he was feeling. This man was Steve's friend, someone who meant a lot to him. He'd done his research. The Captain and the man of Iron. The team fighting together. Bucky didn't want to be a part of that, he knew he never would be.

Standing there, Bucky waited to be seen. He wanted to say something witty, to address Stark, but the words didn't come to him. So, he waited.

Re: let the awkward begin

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony blinked, and the man was gone. He squinted--a ghost, perhaps? Ah, well.

Oh, he was back. Tony adjusted his frames by the side.

Still catching sight of him in the mirror, there were faint alarm bells going off in his head at register of the man's gait, his hair, his down turned head. Tony stilled like an animal under predation as they grew louder with every step of his approach. Gooseflesh broke out on the back of his neck, trailing down his arms. This was no ghost.

And when a flash of the man's features caught Tony's eye, he didn't even need his scanning function for it to sink in. The memories played out in an instant before his eyes and he was spinning around, raising his arm in automatic self defense, back flush with the wall. A high-pitched whirring filled the air as his repulsor charged, aimed right as his torso. He was vulnerable, save for the gauntlet having formed over his right (non injured) arm, and he knew it. Deja vu, right?

"James Buchanan Barnes." Tony's voice was as still, as clear, as could be--the name utterly bitter on his tongue. He had to be sure this wasn't some hallucination on his part. He sincerely hoped it was.

[st_ranger]

A ghost. That would have been a good way to describe Bucky Barnes. If he had his choice, he still would be a ghost. He didn't want to be here, plucked out of his time and place with no say in the matter. He didn't want to be stuck here with no way to return home.

At least, he thought, nobody would find him here. Right? Wrong.

Dark eyes watched the man in front of him. He could see the shift in him, the way his body language changed and the facial expression shifting right before him. He watched as the man recognized him, followed by the fear and anger. It was always there.

A shiver runs through him at the sound in the room. The quiet is broken by the noise and he raises his hands as well. While Tony's are raised in self defense, Bucky's hands are raised as if he expects to be captured.

"Tony Stark," he murmured. "I... Please. Don't."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

'Please?'

Tony's eyes narrowed. His armored hand didn't waiver.

"Year and date. Last thing you were doing before you got here." His palm gathered more energy--surely enough to put a hole through the wall.

"Start singing."

[st_ranger]

The former soldier stood before him, staring at the hand in front of him and wondering if he could get out of the way in time. All mental calculations told him that he probably could not, at least not without being winged in the process. He remains very still, knowing that even the slightest waver could cost him deadly.

He didn't blame the man for wanting to kill him. So many people were after him, even if he didn't blow up the Accords in Vienna like they thought he did. It always ends in a fight, doesn't it?

"2016," he said softly. "Bucharest. I... I was hiding. I... I was trying to buy plums." He blinked, but did not move.. "My face was on a newspaper. The Captain found me. Other people were there. Soldiers. Wanted me dead. I..." A small sigh slipped out. "I jumped. One minute I was falling out of a window, onto a roof, then another roof..."

His voice trailed off and he took a breath, letting it out slowly. "Landed in a road. Road brought me here. I... I didn't blow up that building. I don't do that anymore," he murmured.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

If Tony had not lived the events himself, Bucky would have appeared the rambling madman.

'He's worse.'

If he acted now, the Winter Soldier wouldn't have time to see the way Tony could hardly lift the thermos past a few inches in his left arm, or the way he bore weight to keep pressure off his mending ribs. He had taken the man on once without the benefit of his full suit, but that was with backup. He could say nothing about his chances now--he was essentially limping prey.

"Merry Christmas from 2017." He kept himself talking to silence the devil on his shoulder. His conscience was clawing at his skull, reminding him what would happen if he started a bloodbath here and now. "I know your future. Yours and Roger's. And your past. Try hiding anything and I'll put you down." There was a forced clinical element to his voice, but his blown pupils betrayed all emotion coursing through him. Even with the benefit of a full year to process their encounter, seeing the face of his parents' murderer brought him back to that awful moment in Siberia.

"You're looking a little pale. A little shaky. How do I know where good 'ol Bucky starts and HYDRA ends?"

[st_ranger]

Slowly, Bucky lowered his arms, his eyes still staring into Tony's. He didn't move other than that, didn't want to. He could see that the man before him was beyond angry, bordering on trembling. That is not something that he wanted to deal with. He didn't want to be that person anymore. If the man was hurting, Bucky didn't see it. Not right away. His arm was up and he was facing right at Bucky, so the soldier didn't even try to blink.

"The future," he said softly. "That makes sense now. What she said. Out of space and time..." So, this place was like a way station for people from all different spots. Past and future. His head tilted to the side and he stared at Tony. "I don't want to know the future. Don't tell me." If he hurt Steve, he didn't want to know about it.

How did he tell Stark that he was always pale, always shaky. There wasn't much money for food rations when you're on the run.

"HYDRA..." He frowned. "There are command words. Phrases. The soldier won't come out unless someone says those words. I... I was programmed." His eyes narrowed and he stared at Tony. "I'll never be 'old' Barnes. I don't... I don't remember everything." James shook his head. He hated this. He had been better off alone.

This was why he was hiding. Maybe Tony should put him down? Maybe he wasn't worth the fight? "I didn't mean to come here..." But it was too late now, wasn't it?

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Everything Bucky was confessing, Tony Stark already knew very well. There wasn't a thing about the man Tony didn't know, aside from where he had run off to during his escape with Rogers.

"Scared of the truth? You don't get a pass." The assassin was trying to make requests now? "I didn't get a pass. Not from a first-class seat view of my parents' 'car crash.'"

Tony didn't get a pass from the truth of their deaths. He didn't even get a pass from the truth of his own. Trying to make peace with those facts, now he had to do it in the company of the man who slaughtered his family and whom Steve Rogers turned his back on him for? It was beyond cruel.

'For both of you.'

Tony grit his teeth.

That niggling voice would just not shut up. His arm was minutely trembling with the weight of it all.

[st_ranger]

Bucky Barnes had the grace to look ashamed. He winced at the words Tony Stark threw at him, words that he knew he deserved. He'd done his research when memories started to surface. While he had no control of himself, he could not argue that it was his actions that caused the death of Howard and Maria Stark. HYDRA had seen him as a threat and an enemy, so they had him eliminated. The flashes were dark, violent and he tried not to dwell on them. He didn't remember every death, but he remembered those.

His eyes narrowed, staring at Tony, watching the tremble in his arm. "I don't do that anymore," he stated a little more firmly. He didn't want to have a fight here. And yet, it always seemed to end in a fight, didn't it. His shoulders tensed, he wondered how long Tony would be before he'd have to put his arm down. Soon, it would be too heavy. Soon, he'd have to move and that's when the Winter Soldier would have reacted.

Bucky didn't want to react.

"I'm sorry," he stated. "I... I can't... I'll never..." Bucky sighed. There were no words that were going to make up for what he did, nothing that he could utter to make it right. It was cruel, what this place had done, plucking him here when it knew Tony was here, just to make the man suffer. No matter what the young woman had said, this could not be a mere coincidence.

"I... I don't know what to say."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Apologies? Sympathy? The devil on his shoulder laughed, and Tony felt sick.

"Then don't."

Tony wasn't out for excuses. He wasn't out for pity, much less from the man before him. No, no, no. He was out to get home. And James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier, whoever the hell he was--he was just another wall to smash through. A massive liability with a slippery grip on his sanity.

Letting this man know rest was a decision not of emotion, but of pure practicality. Tony steadied his hand.

'Decisions that, honestly, feel like the right things to do at the time. Then you realize that you're lying to yourself--'

There was that voice again, throwing his own words back at him.

'--and the whole reason was because you really, honestly, just cannot help yourself because of how damn good they would make you feel.'

He clenched his fist. The glow of his repulsor died.

'Like murdering the man who killed your parents and stamped a giant, lingering black mark on your psyche.'

He brought his fist back into the mirror behind him. The sounds of shattering glass were distant and muddled.

[st_ranger]

It was the glass shattering that did it. Bucky jumped back a few feet, hands in front of him as if he felt like the glass was going to come out at him. It wasn't and he knew that, somewhere inside. The sound, still, echoed in his mind and triggered him to react. The only hope he had was that his jumping backward and putting more distance between himself and Stark made Tony realize he didn't want to be a threat.

Far from it, in fact.

He couldn't blame the man for the pain that he had, couldn't take it away. All he could really do was just react, at least until he could get away to his room and hide. He didn't know why the hotel had decided to test him like this, but it had. He wasn't enjoying it.

"I... I'll just go." He didn't know what to say. Tony was telling him not to say anything. He felt like he was at an impasse and he didn't know where else to turn. Any questions he did have about this place, Stark wasn't going to be the man to answer them.