driftfleet | 001 ✪ video/audio

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001 ✪ video/audio

Who: Jim Barnes
Broadcast: Fleetwide video + audio
Action: Iskaulit.
When: August 20th.

[ The video flicks on to a spacious room, spans it from left to right, then top to bottom. There's a door off to the right side, and the camera follows it to the adjoining room, similarly large. Again, left to right, top to bottom. Both rooms are spic and span, empty, with wooden floors. And then it switches to audio. The voice is brusque, but amiable, with a moderate Brooklyn drawl. ]

Nice place for a gym. There could be a dojo next door, so it's all in one place. I've got a few sandbags to hang up, and some mats we could use. There's a notice outside for schedules — I know a lot of you folks have been offering training. The room's big enough, and there's plenty more like it on this ship.

Anybody else interested?

[ Anyone wandering the Iskaulit or looking for Bucky after the broadcast will find him humming as he puts up the sandbags. He's dressed very simply in the ship's jumpsuit, with no left sleeve. The left arm whirs in tune as he works. ]

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[ The Iskaulit, for lack of a better word, is big. Hallways lead off to more hallways, the walls cleaned of the blood and debris that they'd found when they'd first boarded the ship. It's eerie, and mostly empty at this time of day. The only sound is their footsteps, and the echo of others murmuring as they do their own exploration. ]

Find anything your speed yet?

[A noncommittal sound of thought at his question.

Rogue was starting to realize that her half-formed hope that Jim would forget why he was exploring the ship with her was poorly founded.]

Maybe. The ship's construction's kinda weird, isn't it? It's like... there's somethin' about it nudgin' at the back of my mind that's just a bit off.

[Almost like she's in a hive or an anthill or something...]

[ Very poorly founded. Sorry Rogue, but he grew up with Steve, there's no one as capable of making him back off. ]

Yeah, aliens built it, so I figure it'd feel weird to the rest of us.

[Well, she wouldn't have offered if she hadn't meant it.

...didn't mean that she wasn't gonna put it off a bit, though.

She gave him a sidelong look.]

Look at you, sayin' that all casually. Talkn' about being on a ship built by aliens the same way you'd talk about baseball.

[ He chuckles. ]

It's magic that really makes my head spin.

Yeah?

[Curiosity, but a touch of caution too. When she thinks of magic, she can't help but think of... someone she really shouldn't be thinking of anymore.]

All this, [ he waves his hand, over the walls ] we used to read about. The House of the Future, Car of the Future... you know Jules Verne, don't ya? Dreamin' a'goin' to the moon... but magic? [ shaking his head ] Wavin' your hands and setting something on fire? I've seen it and I still don't believe it. S'gotta be some kinda science.

[That make Rogue laugh, just a little, in quiet appreciation.]

Guess that depends who you're talkin' to - an' what ya mean by science. I know some people who'd say it's one an' the same... an' some people who'd say it's one an' the same plus more.

[A shrug.] Real magic? That's straight outta my league. But it's the same as everythin' else, really. [As beautiful and terrible and amazing and versatile as it was.] It's just a tool, an' ya gotta deal with what it leaves behind.

[ Don't break his brain, Rogue. ]

Yeah, Thor'll probably have more'n a few words for me if he heard me say that. [ he lifts a shoulder, and shrugs ] Maybe it'll rest easier some day.

[Wait, what?]

Thor?

[She knew he'd... gone forward in time, but... she hadn't known the whole thing happened for him. She'd tried not to think about it, actually, since she knew so much more about at least one of those timelines than was fair.]

[ See this is what happens when he relaxes around someone. He frowns at her. ]

Yeah I — went forward in time and ended up with the Avengers. Long story short. Six of us: Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor, Hulk, and me. Fought off an alien invasion to break us all in.

[She didn't like that he'd delivered that with a frown, didn't like that he felt that... what, this was something he had to be defensive about? If he fought of the Chitari, he should be proud, no matter what world he was in (or who he had been fighting against).

She wasn't sure what to do. The story of the Avengers wasn't hers, not really, but she knew it intimately well. If Rogue was hesitant about sharing her own stories, she was infinitely more so when it came to someone else's.

Undecided and unclear as to the right thing to do, her brow furrowed and the silence stretched for a moment. Then something softened around in her eyes, and Rogue decided she couldn't very well keep this from him. Not and be honest. Not and try to be what she'd said: friends.]

I might've heard a story like that once.

[ No war is anything to be proud of. He's fought and killed for the Allies, and now for SHIELD, and none of it feels worth it until he's spending time with Sam's family who've graciously opened home and hearts to him. There's no good meaning in a life with so much destruction in it. There's only ever the regret of the necessity. ]

Yeah? I'd like to hear it sometime.

[ He gives her a sidelong glance, but doesn't press the matter further. ]

[ Killing might not be something to be proud of, she would agree. But not standing by, not letting other people be killed when there was something you could do to stop it? ...maybe that might not be anything to be proud of either, but... Rogue felt it was the only thing. At least she could still look in the mirror.

HOWEVER, since she doesn't know that he's thinking along these lines, Rogue just... briefly touches the back of her neck where the barcode from Luceti remains.]

It was in the place I was - before.

[She didn't want him thinking that it was her home that had come under alien invasion. He wasn't her replacement anything.]

Think ya might've heard it already, actually. Could be wrong about that, though - hard ta tell when so many worlds run parallel. Reckon mine's a sight different than yours, though we've got some things the same.

[There's a choice there, if you want it. More about the story, the place she was before? Or more about her home? It's only there to take if you want it... though in a way, not asking is a choice as well.]

[ Her touching the barcode reads as a nervous gesture, so he doesn't look too closely. ]

Go on.

[ He's here, and listening. ]

[So then the choice was put back to her, and Rogue fumbles. She's not good with explaining things, not comfortable with expressing what she knows. So she goes for what's hers, because at least in that way she is making no one else vulnerable but herself.

And she is trying to trust Jim, even if this might lead someplace she is afraid to go.]

Some worlds... some Earths... seems like there are a couple of things that always stay the same same in that they were, or are, or have been. My world's got a Tony Stark - but he sure ain't Iron Man yet. [And she would have mentioned Steve Rogers next, except she is not a complete idiot and has managed to put two and two together to get four. She doesn't need visual confirmation of what mentioning a man's (probably dead, certainly lost) best friend can do. She's seen enough loss.] An' then there's SHIELD.

[SHIELD which he sure hasn't mentioned yet. SHIELD which she sure doesn't sound like she belongs to, but her voice does carry a certain tone of knowing.]

So -- no Avengers yet, but. A bunch of the ingredients. An' a little more, besides.

Edited 2015-09-14 15:37 (UTC)

[ It's perhaps, the gentlest, simplest way to say she knows things she feels she shouldn't. truth is: he's stopped caring. The Bucky of the history books feels like another mask he can wear. Some performance to step into. Another man, who doesn't hurt nearly as much, who does these unbelievable things that people ascribe to him. In the end, it's easy to be what people expect. ]

[ It tangles up when she does thoughtful, completely unasked-for things like this. ]

What's the "little more"?

[She stops walking and looks at him directly. There is no other true answer but this:]

People like me.

[And she watches him, she listens, and she waits.]

[ He hums. ]

You folks got a name?

[A flicker of a smile, more pained amusement lightening her face than an actual quirk of her lips.]

Several. [Freak. Spawn of the devil. Demons. 'Mutie.' Threat. But she was in it now, best see it through.] Most common's 'mutant.'

[She watched and waited still, yes, but -- best to see it through.] Ya want the long version or the slightly less long version?

[She wasn't ashamed of who she was - of what she was, sometimes, but not of being a mutant. She was afraid, always, of the reaction of others when she told them. She couldn't help it, especially if they were a person she'd grown to like. Rejection was never pleasant, but it was a feeling she was used to... and it settled things. Really - best to know.]

[ That expression very nearly makes him tell her to stop, that he's seen enough to guess what's coming. ]

Mutant.

[ He rolls the word in his mouth, carefully. ˈmjuʔn̩t. Tongue sticks on the last letter, that has a breath after; a sound of disgust. ]

I can fill in the blanks.

[ Different enough to be hated, feared, and persecuted. The world never changes, even across universes, but he's too tired to be angry, and instead, entertains a deep, stabbing sorrow for her and what life must've been like. ]

Whatever they call you, they're wrong.

[ His tone brooks no argument. ]

[...he never acted quite in the way others did. She didn't expect (or tried not to), but it certainly jarred what was normal. She'd had to explain this several times, and no one said anything like that.

She stared at him for a moment just... trying to put his response someplace that made sense. Her face slowly softened by degrees as she came to the quiet understanding that she would have to let him stand completely on his own. She liked that. A lot. It was... it was just good.

She shook her head slightly. She stance subtly relaxed, becoming more fluid although she didn't really appear to move.]

You're somethin' else, Jim Barnes. Don't worry. I learned a long time ago not ta let anyone else give me a name.

[She tilts her face up to meet his gaze more evenly, the faintest hint of a smile dancing in her expression. She'll accept your assessment because it resonates with, harmonizes with her core, and for a moment she meets your eyes and lets you see that.

The pain is not so raw right now. She has had nearly five years away from her Earth, five years among people with supernatural powers and abilities who also tended to be ridiculously accepting and kind. It was enough to give anyone hope. She wasn't looking forward to going back, to picking up the banner again and trying, living and bleeding and dying for a world that hated and feared her... but she wasn't going to shrink away from it either. There was still hope. She'd seen it. And as far as she was concerned, there wasn't any other way.

She let him see that too, if he could read it in the quiet set of her stance, the light in her gaze, the faint hint of determination in the set of her mouth.]

[ He's wading in the river and feeling the pull of an ocean tide, all the way out here. ]

Ain't nothin' special, [ he says, gruffly. ] just what they always shoulda told ya.

[ And they should have. She and Peggy and Steve and everyone like them, unfairly pushed aside or pushed down. But the world's not predicated on fairness, just the opposite. Rogue's warm towards him but it's greeted with stoicism before he looks away, jaw set in an old, icy anger. The Winter Soldier wasn't born in the trenches; he came into being in the alleyways of Brooklyn, frozen in place until the War swallowed Bucky up and spat him out. It's the anger, that a man nurses, spreads like a parasite across his skin. He wouldn't go to war over this. But he'd walk into Hell to find the people who tear her down. ]

[ (The fact that it's not vengeance she needs, but patience and acceptance, is a lesson he's still trying to learn.) ]

You shouldn't have had to suffer. I'm sorry.

[Again, this wasn't what she expected. He looked away and she tilted her head further, not quite stung but... listening.

He'd been angry when he spoke to her before and she'd missed it. She didn't miss it now.

This was deeper in him than she'd thought, deeper and... old. It wasn't personal, as he said, 'ain't nothin' special.' It actually had very little to do with her, was that it? Well, that... made a certain amount of sense. After all, it was such a unique response, such a certainty in him (not questioning, not looking for information, instant... defense. drawing of a line. not where he stood, so much as... moving to stand in front of her, a shout of defiance against what he heard said against - not just her. who then?) that was really the only thing that made sense.

Stung a bit, but it was a good shake back to reality. She had been wrapped up in her own pain, caught up in it, and grabbed hold of the consistent kindness he offered without paying attention. She should know better.]

Like anyone should have ta suffer. [The sass was old, habitual... but carried that touch of gentleness with it.]

Hey. [She shifted a little to the side, trying to catch his eye.] Look at me.

[ He exhales, explosively, and looks at her. ]

Yeah well, I figure those of us who coulda carried a little more [ a quick glance at his left arm ] should've.

[ But it has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with how anger and guilt mix and make the worst of poisons. ]

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