strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check-in Day

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

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.

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Bucky laughed, a small chuckle coming out, the first honest and real one he'd had in quite a while. He couldn't help but smile, imagining Loki flinging knives at this imaginary brother of his. If that didn't define sibling rivalry, he didn't know what would. Most siblings do fight, but with knives?

His smile faded when Loki kept talking. "Wait, what?" He swallowed, his good hand reaching out to press palm side against the wall. Three others were from his world. And Steve was one of them. Did that mean he was from Loki's world too? He froze staring at Loki in shock. Steve was here? "Uh... Huh. Um," he stammered. "Yes, that... That's his name."

The laugh was a win. If someone like Bucky was comfortable enough to laugh, it represented progress. Or it meant he'd decided Loki was funny, which was an entirely different kind of win. People often forgot that 'funny' didn't mean 'not dangerous'.

At the slight noise and halted footsteps of the other man, Loki stopped and turned. He spared a glance for the hand on the wall, but otherwise didn't remark on it directly. If this was new information, good: better than being taken by surprise. "I haven't had a lot of direct contact with Captain Rogers myself, and unless he arrived at the same time you did, he's not one of them. There's my brother and a fellow by the name of Tony Stark. Or Iron Man, if you're willing to indulge him. And you for three. Again, allowing certain assumptions to stand as true."

For Bucky, it was a small combination of them both. Loki had amused him. And while he wasn't sure that he was comfortable with the man beside him, it had been a start.

Until he said Steve's name.

"Four," he said softly. "I... I met a kid. He... He knew me. From the future, I think." His words were broken, stilted almost as he struggled to find the right words. "Fought me. Fought Steve. Fought for Tony..." Bucky shook his head slightly. Reluctantly, he lowered his hand from the wall and resumed moving forward with Loki. "He's here too. From... Our world, I guess." Even if Loki didn't know the kid, the kid had known him.

"Said there was a video... Of us fighting." He frowned. He still wasn't sure he wanted to see it. "I... I don't remember anything he said. From the future..." He glanced up at Loki. He really didn't know if he wanted to run into Steve or not. "Let... Let's go get that drink."

"Four," Loki agreed pacifically, making a mental note to keep an eye out for this 'kid'. Not that it was a problem, but because he was curious. Anyone from the future might accidentally provide details that Thor wasn't inclined to talk about. Loki didn't need to know yet, but more information was never a bad thing.

"And yes, let's." He continued leading the way up to the fourth floor, where there weren't many rooms - the comparative isolation of the Sky Room was another bright spot, in Loki's view - and into the Sky Room itself.

The exit to the balcony, with the roof overhanging slightly, was obvious; he didn't bother to point it out. Instead he beelined for the little wall-nook by the bed to retrieve two small glasses and a bottle. Whiskey, probably. It likely didn't matter much. "Feel free to explore or what-have-you. I personally find the roof most calming."

"With possibly more to come," he said softly. Bucky followed Loki up to his room, taking in everything that he saw, he also mapped out where to run if he felt the need to. This time, however, he didn't. The room was no different than his, Odd colors and layout. At least he didn't feel like he had to run just yet. The corners of his lips twitched and he made his way out to the balcony.

His head nodded in agreement. He can feel the feeling of calm as well. At least he was blessed that, with his gifts, he couldn't hear someone else's thoughts too.

"I..." He shook his head. He really didn't want to explore Loki's room either. It wasn't a safe house, it was his room. There should have been some small modicum of privacy. "Done enough for today," he murmured.

"Fair enough." There were enough different ways to translate that that Loki didn't bother. Instead, he poured a generous amount into each glass and made his way out to the balcony to offer one to his guest. "Last time I was imprisoned, it was a box with one glass wall. A sort of museum display, I felt. Humiliating, really." More than just being imprisoned, the sense of being on display had been aggravating. "Before that, a glass tube over a very long drop. I rather enjoy reminding myself that I can't actually see the walls of this one."

Bucky nodded his head. "I was..." He shivered, the memory still one he did not like to recall. He glanced over at Loki, raising an eyebrow at him.

"HYDRA imprisoned me. Frozen. Take out to complete mission and then return. Wipe. No memory." His voice was soft, quiet as he told his tale. "Poked. Prodded. Wiped. Repeatedly." He hoped that his story was making sense, as he really didn't want to go into too much detail. He would, however, if he had to.

Bucky took the glass from Loki, staring down at the amber liquid. "Walls not seen, but at least there is more room to breathe."

That much alteration should have negated his usefulness to this HYDRA group long before. There was only so much any person's mind could bend and twist without breaking outright, as Loki knew very well. That Bucky had any discrete personality at all was genuinely impressive. But he just nodded; compliments were suspicious sorts of things, and he wasn't trying to crank that back up quite yet.

"Four hours in all directions, I'm not sure if anyone told you. Roughly a kilometer up, I've been told. Though of course I can't fly, so it's nothing to me." Loki sipped his drink, then continued. "All walls have holes and cracks somewhere. I intend to find them, in time."

Bucky sighed and stared out in front of him. HYDRA had used him their own personal weapon and asset. When the mission was over, he was taken care of and prepped for the next mission. He never remembered doing it. He'd been housed in ice so many times that it all blurred together, even now. He really was much stronger and more resilient than even he was aware of.

"It was mentioned." His hand trembled as he lifted his glass and took a sip. "Go out, come back. Go up, come back. Can't get far." Bucky shrugged his shoulders, looking over at Loki. "If they exist, you have to find them. Probably very remote." And yes, he was offering his help if Loki wanted it.

"There are always holes." Asgard, for example. Most had believed that the only way to other realms was via the Bifrost, but Loki had explored the edges of the realm and found the paths elsewhere. They were difficult and dangerous, most of them, but they were there.

This place would be no different. There was always a way out. "I wouldn't mind the company. That arm of yours doesn't have any sensor apparatus, does it?"

"Holes." Bucky took a sip of his drink, staring out in front of him. His mind whirled. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to get back home. "Maybe find a way to send the others home and I just stay here," he muttered more to himself than to Loki directly. He really had been torn up by his encounter with Tony. His grip on the glass tightened when he thought of himself staring down the barrel of Stark's repulsor, so to speak.

His eyes narrowed and he stared down at his arm. "Yes," he murmured. Bucky closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the Winter Soldier knowledge. It was still in his mind, but the brain had become foggy with the Bucky memories coming to the surface. "There are sensors for stabilization. Balance and accuracy for throwing," he murmured, remembering how he had thrown Steve's shield with ease. "Sensory array. Undetectable by metal detectors. Able to hide weaponry from being detected."

His eyes opened and he looked back over at Loki. "Can any of that be useful?"

It seemed mostly internal - highly useful, in certain circumstances, but in terms of external detection.... "Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm loath to disregard any possible advantage." If nothing else, Bucky would be more than decent backup, on occasions when he needed a quieter companion than his brother.

Thor was many things. Subtle wasn't generally one of them.

"If you'll take my advice, never stay in a cage if you have the opportunity to leave it behind." There was something almost bewitching in the idea of being somewhere untouchable and untraceable... but there were many such places in the universe, surely. There was no reason to stay on one so pink. "But I'm sure we'll have time to convince you to my point of view on that."

Bucky nodded his head slowly. "I... I'm not sure I want to go back." His head tilted to the side and he stared at Loki. "There were people looking for me." He shrugged his shoulders. There would always be people be looking for him, no matter where he went.

Glancing down at his metal hand, Bucky flexed it, making a fist and letting it out slowly. It was his arm, something he couldn't change about himself. He wasn't sure what Loki meant, what he'd been asking about in regards to his arm, but it clearly wasn't what Loki wanted.

"I have the feeling we have lots of time. We're both stuck here," he said softly.

"No need to go back. Go somewhere else. That's what I intend to do." Whatever he and Thor agreed, the simple fact that the man refused to give him warning about what was coming meant that the safest thing to do was run. Nothing personal, just reasonable reaction given current information.

"But yes. Plenty of time." There was always plenty of time, and it was important to be patient in prison. Be patient, find things to occupy the time. But still, the more time that passed, the less peaceful one could be about it. At least it wasn't solitary confinement. "And at least we're not completely surrounded by definite enemies." Completely surrounded by possible enemies was, of course, both different and a constant.

"They always find you." Bucky shrugged and took another sip of his drink. He turned to Loki. Being on the move was not a bad thing. He'd gotten good at it, to be honest. Didn't mean he liked it, though. Just once, he wished he could find a place and stop running. He wished he could just be left alone.

This place may be a prison, but could he stop running here?

Bucky frowned at Loki. "Enemies. Not surrounded, but I've already run into one of mine. Wanted to shoot me," he murmured. Bucky slugged back his drink and reached out to pour himself another. They may not be surrounded, but he sure didn't like running into Stark on his first day here. "Time is an illusion," he said softly. "It's a constant. What is one day for one person is one year for another. Watching people die. Not easy."

Not surrouneded? "You're an optimist. That's fun." Loki turned to put his back to the balcony railing and lean on it. He rarely cared about people dying; a trick he'd learned over the course of a fifteen hundred year life. There were exceptions, of course, but by and large death was easy. Even, on occasion, his own.

But saying so out loud would hardly endear him. The point about time was more interesting anyway. "And it's more difficult here. People stuck in a past, or a future, or a different universe entirely. Perhaps fortunately, all the old rules apply. When faced with multiple options, we don't have to know. We just decide."

"I..." Bucky frowned. Was he an optimist? "The... The old me was," he said softly. It was hard to describe it and not sound complicated or confusing. "I... I guess?"

He gazed up at Loki. "Decide." It made sense, in a way, but it also confused him more. He wasn't sure how he felt about being here. It was hard to wrap his mind around it. Part of him wanted to go to his room and never come out. Then, he wouldn't have to run into Stark that way. "What rules?"

"People are always people, wherever and whenever they come from." It was the only rule that mattered. Whatever people knew, or thought they knew, as long as one bore in mind that they were adversaries in almost all cases, it was easy to step back, look for the cracks, decide what was true in the moment, and go to work. And they were often childish about time - Thor was almost certainly a case in point. "Time happens one thing at a time. If someone says 'oh, you did this' and you didn't or haven't yet? You decide. Agree with them, fight them, whatever. What hasn't happened isn't real unless you let it be."

By the same token, whatever had happened was real, but you still had choices. Excuse it, own it, whatever. There was a list. "People think truth and reality are immutable things, but they really, really are not."

Currently, Loki had opted to philosophize at a confused one-armed man. Likely not the best decision he'd ever made, but he did like talking.

Bucky really did try to keep up with Loki in the conversation. Some of the words made sense, but some of them? The words were deep and they went right over his head. Loki had been practically going philosophical on him and that just wasn't Bucky's world. Steve had always been the smart one of the two of them.

Bucky was kind enough not to just ask the man if he liked to hear himself talk. Since, clearly, he did.

"Like..." Bucky frowned. "This place. She... She said time and space, not here. Stuck?" He glanced up at Loki, his brow furrowing. "So... Stark came from my future. He knew things I had not done yet," he murmured. "To him, it's real. To me, it's... Not?" Did that make him better or worse than how Tony saw him. He wasn't sure. "But... We're stuck here. So, I... I can't fix it or change it. And he'll still feel the pain of it, even if I didn't do it..." Bucky was half talking to Loki and half talking to himself, trying to understand and work it through in his own mind.

"It's... It's like the East River. It flows. It's constant. Always moving. You can try to block it, but it would have to be a really big rock," he mumbled.

“If there’s nothing to be done, there’s nothing to be done. His feelings, his problem.” Unless it was useful to take them on in some way, but mucking around in emotions was tricky, difficult, and generally had very little real payoff.

Time did flow like a river, sometimes; Loki couldn’t play with it himself, but he didn’t need to in order to understand that he refused to be bound by anything but his own decisions. “Or a multitude of small rocks.” Or a ditches sufficient to bleed it away.

Not a bad metaphor, all things considered. “I’d concentrate on keeping your own head above water. If we’re talking rivers.”

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

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