driftfleet | 02. | All lies and jests; still a man hears what he wants to hear

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02. | All lies and jests; still a man hears what he wants to hear

Who: (Winter Soldier) Bucky Barnes (

sinistral)
Broadcast: No
Action: Yes; SS Starduck, SS Iskaulit, B'lire
When: From the start of the post-calibrations drift to visiting the new planet

SS STARDUCK
→ Reacclimation;

The time spent aboard the Marsiva had been uncomfortable, to put it politely. Bucky still doesn't believe it, not really, when they're returned to their own ships; it comes with staying awake for the first twenty-four hours just to make sure this isn't a dream or a trick of the mind. Considering the state of his mind, he's not entirely convinced, but it does seem a little bit elaborate to just be a part of the Calibrations.

And if this is truly the ship, if they are truly back to what passes for daily life around here, then it has to start with checking over everything. Maybe he's taking the whole idea of Security a bit too literally but now that he's had some time to think about it, he can only conclude that his presence and assignment here is due only to what he is. What HYDRA turned him into has made him valuable; if he performs his role well, perhaps the switch inside his brain won't be flipped. So for that reason he's combing all of the ships nooks and crannies, looking for anything that might be out of order or out of (what passes for) the ordinary. He won't enter a crewmate's quarters without being asked to do so though; he sees it as too much an invasion of privacy.

When he's finally satisfied and no longer has that activity to occupy his mind, Bucky heads to the workout area in the cargo bay. He doesn't know which former crewmembers had seen to the upgrades of the equipment there, but he's thankful to be able to take advantage of it once more. And, judging by the force behind his punches, to do his best to attempt to break it. There's a lot of frustration to work out, enough so that it's definitely palpable. Call him out on it? Try to keep up? Pity the amount of protein solid he's going to have to consume to compensate for all those burned calories?

SS ISKAULIT
→ Work It Out;

Bucky really only has one goal in mind in coming to the Iskaulit: to push himself in a way he can't with the limited facilities on the Starduck, to force the body into exhaustion since the brain won't accept any other sort of quiet. That it's not the healthiest pursuit doesn't matter. As long as it works, it's fine. And he'll make it work.

He tries to choose odd hours if possible, hours that coincide with the times he'd expect most people to be sleeping and the facility to be empty. It doesn't always work in his favor but as long as there's a heavy bag or a speedbag available he stays, alternating time spent against the bag with weights. And if the facility appears too busy for his liking, he simply leaves with the intention of returning later.

→ Art Appreciation;

Though most of his time spent aboard the Iskaulit is spent in the gym, it's not the only reason Bucky visits. He hardly appreciates heavy-handed attempts at steering his actions but whether it had been the Vision, or the Atroma acting through the Vision, the scene he'd been shown of the mural aboard the Iskaulit has not faded from his memory. That in and of itself is significant enough for him to seek out the mural he'd been shown, to find its location and maybe figure out why it's so important.

Seeing it doesn't bring him any answers.

It's a nice enough work of art he supposes; he's not one for appreciation of the arts, and he's got no skill in them himself. He can draw a rough map though, so the next time he visits, he brings along a journal and starts copying down that section of the wall he was shown aboard the Marsiva, mapping it out in rough lines on the paper. It's not a good drawing, more a diagram than anything else, but it's good enough for his purposes, good enough for him to write down his thoughts (questions, mostly) on the next few pages. And it's a good enough place to sit quietly, back against the wall because even here, in a place that's supposed to be peaceful, he's defensive and closed off more than anything else.

PLANETSIDE
→ Hunting;

It's more than a literal breath of fresh air to get off the ships and onto solid ground again. It's not that Bucky doesn't do well with being cooped up; it's more that the close quarters with others — even his shipmates — and the happenings on board the Marsiva have him feeling like a caged animal. And like a caged animal, his first instinct is to lash out; fortunately, the punching bags have held up against such expulsion of energy. So far, anyway.

Fortunately, this system's planet seems well suited to his kind of stress relief.

He's a regular in the wooded areas both for the exercise of hiking and the action of hunting. Ghosts or supernatural beings or whatever, he'll keep an eye out for them just fine, but it's the more substantial creatures that he makes his prey. People are willing to pay both for pelts and for the meat from carcasses; it seems a good use of his time.

→ Shopping;

Man certainly can't stay in the woods all the time and while Bucky's no stranger to wilderness survival, it'd be foolish not to take advantage of the offerings available via trade. And not all goods are physical; there's certainly something to be said for the pursuit of information, even though little enough of it seems to pertain to anything outside of this world's particular customs. Still he asks, here and there, unsatisfied by the answers but unwilling to stop trying.

He's examining wares at a particular establishment, carefully testing the weight and balance of a hunting knife while keeping half his attention on the conversations of the building's other occupants. It's when he overhears stories of a metallic man that he decides to take his leave; local legend or not, it definitely sounds like something he'd rather avoid being tangled up in and he's glad to have kept the habit of wearing long sleeves and gloves when going planetside. It's just easier to avoid the questions that he doesn't want to answer.

WILDCARD
→ Elsewhere;

Did we discuss something and I forgot? Have another idea? I'm open to almost anything, hit me up via PM or at

sometimesamuse and we'll figure out out. I do write starters in prose but if you prefer brackets I'm happy to match.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Having a new Bucky to help out is one way of working through his grief that he'll never see his old friend again. New friends don't replace old friends, not really, but they can help fill in the gaping holes. Besides, it's always good to have at least two people you can count on to do a murder for you if you get shanked by accident (according to his old best friend Wrath).

"Ah, yes, you'd have a problem with that since the ship is relatively new. The diet's not much of a concern for me, but a few good plants can help ease the strain on the air recycling systems as well as give you a little texture to work with. Some shelving for nonperishables can go a long way - and if we get to somewhere with a bit more commerce, a large deep freeze for fresh meat will do wonders for morale."

It is always good to be able to count on someone to murder for you, and Bucky certainly wouldn't hesitate on behalf of the Vision. Or on behalf of his girlfriend, if it comes down to it. If that says something negative about his moral center, it's really not that concerning to him.

"Right now we're focusing more on preserved goods. Dried or pickled, and the storage thereof. And baking supplies for Escha." He shrugs. "Only four of us eat, and I've had a hell of a lot worse than these gels and solids."

It says Bucky's been through some shit, is what it says. He's got plenty of friends who can deal with situations a little less mortal, but sometimes you just want a ball of coldly competent murder on your side.

"This should provide a good opportunity, then, at least for dried meats. I'll have to see if anyone on my crew would care for pickles." He pauses. "May I ask who you have that does not eat?"

Given their current situation — still somewhat controlled by apparently omnipotent beings — a coldly competent murderer could be an asset. And there's the fact that Bucky would ask very few uncomfortable questions.

"I suppose I should more accurately say I've never seen Connor eat." He shrugs though, because it's seemed a rude question to ask. "Then again, it's not like we have big crew meals or anything, so it could be a matter of timing."

To be fair, he'd be willing to answer those uncomfortable questions. He'd done just that when firing on the Marsiva against the wishes of some of his crew. He didn't become an Avenger to sit idly by while all their lives were controlled by anyone, much less mysterious overlords with obscure motives.

But his expression lights up and he breaks into a genuine smile. "He does not. Unlike me, he is entirely inorganic in nature and cannot consume food. Though you may see him put things into his mouth from time to time." Not gonna explain that one. Mostly because he finds it slightly humorous. "I hadn't realized the two of you were on the same ship, actually. I consider him a friend as well."

If and when those uncomfortable questions come, they will most certainly deal with it. Hopefully that won't be in the foreseeable future but with the unpredictability of their lives, one never knows.

Bucky isn't going to touch that statement either. It's not like he doesn't have his own idiosyncrasies; he's in no position to judge or critique others'. Seeing that the Vision apparently also holds Connor in high regard relaxes him a little bit. "We are. He welcomed me when I arrived, and our conversations have been insightful."

It probably says something that thus far Bucky gets along the best with the inorganic (or partially inorganic) beings.

The Vision approves wholeheartedly of the relationship; Connor's in the process of figuring out who he is as much as Bucky is. They'll probably end up helping each other with that (although, it must be noted, it could end up with some kind of disaster, but hopefully one or both of them would ask for help in that case).

"Connor is the only other android in the Fleet, and as such I have a vested interest in him," he admits. "There have been other, ah, 'computer people' from time to time, to use a broad term, but at the moment it is only the two of us."

He looks away for a moment. "Which is one more than are allowed to exist at home, under current laws."

Assuming that either one of them would seek out help instead of retreating into stubbornness, which could happen. But that's of course only one possibility, and a worse case situation at that.

"Interesting. I wonder if the Fleet has a preference for more organic beings." It's idle speculation only, and certainly not an insult to the Vision. If anything, Bucky thinks that his current companion probably qualifies as more of a person than he himself does. "And if so, why?"

He doesn't quite know how to interpret that action though. People usually look away when they want to hide something, but what that something could be, he doesn't know. "Tell me about these laws?"

"I find it likely," he admits. "There is already a marked preference for humans from early twenty-first century Earth, based upon the demographic information passengers have volunteered over time. And when I first arrived, visibly non-human people were extremely rare." People hardly remark on his appearance these days, except for new arrivals. He supposes he should thank the large number of Galra around for normalizing things lately. "As for reasons why, I'd postulate there was some formative event, perhaps a singularity, that occurred near that point this in timeline's own history that makes it popular as a setting. I've no proof of it, but I also have yet to hear a better theory."

In this case? What he's hiding in the hurt in his gaze, and as such he doesn't turn back to Bucky just yet. "They're called the Sokovia Accords. I don't know that it's happened yet from your point in time, but Sokovia was destroyed by my progenitor - an AI named Ultron."

"It's as good a supposition as any, considering how little information we have to go on." It does serve to highlight how little they truly know about their hosts' motivations, but they've been through that conversational trap before and Bucky doubts there's much to be gained from it now. "With how things seem to happen in the Fleet, there might not be a more sound theory, honestly."

Though if the Vision needs the opportunity to hide, Bucky won't call him on it. That seems cruel and unnecessary both. But he shakes his head, then follows up verbally: "I haven't heard of any of that, but you don't have to explain." It won't mean much to him anyway, and he wouldn't want the other man to waste his time when Bucky has no frame of reference. "If it helps you, the major news story at the time would have been three SHIELD helicarriers sinking in the Potomac, and the exposure of HYDRA as an organization within SHIELD. That was a few days before I was brought here."

"If you come up with or hear any others, I'd be very interested to hear them," he says, sounding intrigued. After all, a diversity of observations leads to a broader pool of theories, and therefore one more likely to stumble upon the truth.

He purses his lips, still apparently feeling the effects of brining up Sokovia, but nods. He remembers reading about all that - it was right before Sam Wilson joined the Avengers, and was the impetus for Natasha to leak all the SHIELD data to the Internet. "You're less than a year out from Ultron, then." He pauses, exhales, changes his expression to an annoyed one. "And not long after that, you're framed for blowing up the UN headquarters in Vienna, by the way." And then his expression turns into a true frown, but one directed at himself rather than at Bucky. "I know now you were framed. I didn't at the time."

“You will.” It’s an easy enough promise to make, because Bucky agrees that the best way to expand on their theories is to discuss them. Their current planet hasn’t had much in the way of new information to glean, but that in itself is a discovery as well, albeit a frustrating one.

The next bit causes his own expression to twist, though he forces his face back to neutral with some effort. All he wants — his truest desire, buried deep in his heart — is to be left alone, to carve out a simple existence where he can’t be used and he doesn’t harm anyone. Even just talking like this he feels naked and exposed; it’s not a comfortable thing. He can’t help the way he glances around, looking for people who might be trying to listen in on their conversation, looking for anything suspicious.

“I wouldn’t blame you for blaming me.” He has no desire to harm innocent people like what the Vision describes, but the fact of the matter is that he’s very much capable of so doing. “It’s not exactly out of the ability of the Winter Soldier.”

No, it's not outside the Winter Soldier's ability, and that had made the accusation easy to believe. But he'd learned more, especially here; had he been able to remember it back home, the Vision likes to think he would have handled things differently and not had cause to travel down a path he now regrets.

"Nevertheless, the accusation was false. You're off the world's radar in my present time, and I imagine you're happier for it." Oh, he has some theories as to where Bucky might be hiding, but he's very carefully never pursued them. He can't lie about something he doesn't know the truth of, after all.

But there's little use in rehashing things from home; he'd mostly been interested at where the timeline was for Bucky, and now he knows so he shrugs to change the subject. "Hm. I wonder if you'd be better at finding clues as to our present situation if I told you what I know so far, or if that would present too much of a bias."

"It is the best option for me." He's thought this through at least; he most certainly doesn't trust himself, and keeping himself apart from others is safest for everyone and everything. He can blend in fairly well; he's pretty sure he can manage to stay an anonymous drifter, moving from place to place and keeping from putting down any sort of roots for too long a time. "It's the best option for everyone."

He pushes away the thought that there are those who would disagree. They don't truly know what he can do, how he can be used.

"It's up to you." The Vision is obviously familiar with his skill set; he would know what Bucky is capable of doing. "I would give you my help in whatever capacity, but I also respect keeping suppositions and theories to a small group. Information gets diluted the further it's spread, and an additional person is an additional potential point of failure."

"I hope it need not always be that way," he says quietly. Because he has seen what the Winter Soldier is capable of: there was the mess in Germany, there were all the years of records, there were Natasha's own personal accounts...and there was the time Winter lost it on the Iskaulit and attacked a dozen people, and only the fact that none of them had been baseline humans had kept them alive.

But he'd also seen how Winter had improved, until by the end he was someone that not only the Vision could trust implicitly, but that he was proud to call a friend. It had taken a long time, but the kernel was there. He hopes this Winter Soldier has the same potential.

He nods. "There are some I would trust with the information easily enough. Kitty Pryde, who has been in a situation much like this one before. Vash the Stampede, who has been in the Fleet since the beginning of the Cycle. Wanda Maximoff, whom I trust with everything I am, each and every day." And he looks at Bucky appraisingly. "And Natasha Romanoff, a professional spy. It would be in the same capacity as her, if I were to share information with you. She is too much in the habit of keeping information to herself to be easily swayed by, oh, a friendly stranger at a bar, for example."

He shrugs, but doesn’t really reply to that. Maybe he’s right in that he’s better off alone. Maybe the Vision is right in that he’s not. The only way to find out is to try living his life and making his own decisions, which is what he’s trying to do. The Fleet (and more specifically its members) don’t exactly make it easy.

“I suppose it never hurts to be on good terms with an assassin.” He’s unapologetic about it because it’s the simple truth of what he is. “If you know what HYDRA made me, you know I can be triggered. And if the Atroma trigger me, they can make me tell them anything I know. I could be more liability than asset to you.” In his mind it’s only fair to warn of the possibility.

"I've seen the results of that trigger." No need to elaborate there. He hadn't been present for Germany, technically, but it had been well documented. And the Iskaulit with Winter...that had been rough. Nobody had died, but there had been bad injuries and many close calls.

"But I cannot let that possibility guide my actions with regards to information. They could override our augments at any time - I've heard of it forcing people to tell the truth, for example." Hell, he doesn't know if any communication is really secure from them. But that doesn't stop him from trying.

"Then you know." They don't need to elaborate from there at all, which is good. Bucky doesn't exactly enjoy talking about it, even though he's pretty sure those skills are why the Atroma have brought him here in the first place.

What's strange, to him at least, is that even knowing that risk, the Vision would still consider him worthy of this little project. "Then I guess my answer is yes. I'll join your information pool, if you'll have me."

"I know." The funny thing is, while Bucky may be used to people wanting him only because of what he can do--those skills are almost never in use here. Combat is rare, political upheaval is rare (although not unknown; he recalls one time when they'd helped start terraforming machines to work again and set a worldwide change in motion). And the only target most passengers are interested in spying on is the Atroma themselves.

He nods, even smiling a little bit. "Gladly. There's a hard copy of a document on the Iskaulit with the information we've compiled so far, and I can send a secure transmission to you of the information Connor and I discovered on board the Marsiva during the Calobrations." There's more, but some of it--the part about the creature--he doesn't trust to any mode of communication that isn't telepathy, and he is not going to ask Bucky if he wants someone inside his brain, even when the someone is Wanda. There are some questions he just already knows the answer is going to be negative, so he doesn't want to ask.

He knows, and still — still! — he'd choose to associate with Bucky. He won't pretend to understand it because he's certain that he's missing something important. And he's not sure if he likes how it makes something twist up a little inside him. This will take a lot of personal examination, and that's something that he's certainly not going to do in the presence of the other man.

Or of pretty much anyone, really.

"I guess I know what I'll be reading on our next Drift." It's as good a use of his time as any, though the presence of the document on the Iskaulit is a little worrying to him. If the Atroma can spy on their daily lives and even their network transmissions, then how secure is anything printed and kept in what amounts to a public space? "You speak of encrypted transmissions but what protection does the hard copy have? At least a cipher, I'd hope?"

Figuring out feelings is hard, okay? He gets that much, at least. Maybe he feels a kinship with someone else who's trying to learn to be a person.

Though at the question he snorts. "None. Though if any of the Atroma or their agents have physical bodies, they have yet to reveal them to us in person."

Feelings are the worst and Bucky wants no part of them, honestly.

"Yet they have ways of recording our every movement. Could they not read over a shoulder?" Perhaps Bucky's being far too suspicious, but he sees it as a vulnerability and his training is in creating — and taking advantage of — vulnerabilities.

"Most likely, I expect. Though I will say I was not here when this particular document was created, so I cannot say whether that was a consideration or not." He seems to be talking about it as more of an academic concern than one of privacy, though. "I simply act as though they have access to all our communications."

"I don't know that I'm comfortable with that thought." He is privately glad that he's started using a cipher in the journal he keeps, just in case. With no clear directive of what the Atroma can observe and what they can't, he's not sure at all that he trusts anything at all. They likely can't be everywhere at once and certainly there are many people in the Fleet for them to observe, but still. "It seems a sloppy lack of caution."

"There's a great deal not to be comfortable with." Goodness knows he's not happy about any of it, and he'll change it if he gets the chance. And...honestly it's good to have someone paranoid around in this case. Just because there are good things about the Fleet doesn't mean he wants to forget that they're prisoners here, taken without consent.

He nods. "Frankly, it is. If I ever need to send you a piece of written information, or if I wish to use an encryption based on something other than the standard ones provided by a Communications officer?" He smiles lightly. "There's a publicly available text of the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I'll use a rotating hex encryption based on the text in chapter 5."

02. | All lies and jests; still a man hears what he wants to hear

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