sixthiterationlogs | mild A:IW spoilers in option a.

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mild A:IW spoilers in option a.

WHO: Bucky Barnes
WHERE: spawn fountain, inn, butcher shop
WHEN: 05/27 & 05/28
OPEN TO: all
WARNINGS: A:IW spoilers in the first section, adult language and potentially traumatic themes referenced.

a. arrival;

It's a jarring transition, a sudden awakening from nothing to drowning in a microscopic instant. It's only through the sheer control he's got over his own body that he doesn't gasp or inhale, his eyes bug out and his limbs flail, kicking upward with the fury of a strong survival instinct. He'd been dust only a moment ago, he thinks. Phantom limb sensations in the wrong arm as they spread like ashes in the breeze, and then darkness. The weight of his arm is like an anchor, pulling him down, aligning with gravity, and it feels heavier than usual despite the fact that water is meant to make people feel weightless.

After a desperate eternity he breaches, heavy metal arm flinging over the coarse edge of the fountain and gripping. Then he gasps, lips parted, hair sopping, floating and breathing and nothing else at first. The water around him stills before he begins phase two, hauling himself over the ledge and onto dry land.

It's an ungraceful roll, his back against the raised edge and a grunt when he falls off of it and onto the pavers below. His hair falls like seaweed around his head, collecting grit and dust from the ground beneath him. His heavy arm lays askew to his left, but he doesn't seem to care. His chest rises and falls, and if he were to be attacked right now he'd be the most vulnerable, easiest target on the planet. He doesn't care about that either, he just breathes, trying to process what feels like two minutes and a lifetime all at once.

b. the inn - later that day;

Several hours and a fair bit of scouting after his arrival, his mind sets a few goals he needs to accomplish for basic survival. secure shelter; gather rations are the orders from a deeply mechanical, deeply russian voice that he now recognizes as fragment of himself from a darker time. It's right this time, so he doesn't alienate it and instead pairs it with a more normal human alternative. He heads for the inn, hoping like hell he can convince them to put him up and feed him for the night. Luckily, it seems like there's a sort of lackadaisical economy here, a sort of socialist provide what you can, we barter, nothing costs money Wakandan style that suits his current predicament.

He settles at a table in the farmost corner, eyes sharp and alert, hair falling on either side of is face like it'll keep him from being recognized by anyone too familiar with the FBI's current wanted posters. Crappy disguise, but wherever this place is, it seems out of touch. It's a gamble, he thinks, and everything about his posture states he's expecting to have to bolt any second. He even startles uncomfortably when someone comes around to take his order. Not exactly the most inviting visage.

c. soap up - the butcher's, day 2;

On the second day, when the ceiling doesn't cave in around him and no federal agents burst in to have him put down like a dog, he starts to settle down. The utilities are worlds away from Wakanda or even his time in Chechnya, but they ring in a nostalgic feeling from Brooklyn a long time ago. Sadly, they're lacking in things like shampoo and basic necessities, so he packs his bag, dons his scrubs, and heads out in search of a rumor he'd heard about soap being stored at the butcher's.

The bell tinkles behind him as he enters, lips parted, curious. It's bizarre, this whole place is, and he's doing his best to take in every piece of it. There's a part of him, too, that feels bad for taking and not giving, but the only thing he has to barter with are the clothes on his back that aren't even his. As such, he does his best to slink silently toward the soap stock in an effort not to be observed taking something he can't afford to replace.

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When Benedict notices the new arrival skulking through the Inn doors, he can't help the instinct to stare. Extending out the sleeve of his scrubs shirt is a bright glint of metal, and not just some fancy jewelry, either.

The man's entire arm looks to be made of steel.

Oddly enough, Benedict's first reaction — even after over a year on the Surface, where iron rot doesn't seem to be much of a thing — is concern that it's not copper-clad, what if he's not diligent with his cleaning and rust starts to set it? A metal arm will do nobody any good if it's so brittle that the slightest of impacts will shatter it.

He pushes those thoughts away and instead focuses on practicalities. Kate and her crew of kitchen helpers have finished the midday meal some time ago, but there is still enough left to dole out into a bowl, which is exactly what he does, carrying both it and a mug of herbal tea into the common room and making a beeline straight to the stranger. He looks wary, uncomfortable with his surroundings, and considering Benedict has never seen him before, that's not much of a surprise.

"Hello," he says mildly as he approaches, careful not to sneak up behind or beside the man. "You missed luncheon, but there was enough stew leftover for another portion."

He places the bowl on the table and then pushes it towards the man, doing his best not to loom over him.

She's on her way to the inn, mindful of the fact that she's coming to borrow supplies yet again, but there's a lot of new things out there to map and explore and the loss of the canyon means that Peggy's starting over again at ground zero. What she doesn't expect is to stumble to a stop when she sees the man sitting at a table. The arm makes it absolutely clear who it is, something she's still growing used to.

She's practically feeling the whirl of a carousel, given how often Barnes seems to continue popping up in her life. It seems so very long ago, sharing a roof with this man, like a whole other lifetime (though for him, she knows, it was).

"Barnes," she says evenly, scanning his face, puzzled. He looks like he's eager to be anywhere but here, causing her to roll her eyes. "Don't look that pleased to see me, then," is her mildly annoyed comment on his sitting stance.

Sam was bored as fuck. But then again, the sun had risen in the east today. At least, as far as she could tell. Truthfully, since her little accident at the feast, she'd been doing as much as possible to stay indoors. Which, you know, wasn't too hard when there was no one waiting for you anywhere, anyway.

Where the hell did she have to go?

Her skills in self-pity had been steadily improving. She was pretty sure they were on par with her sketching at this point.

She certainly fucking practiced them both enough.

And was, in fact, practicing them both as she sat criss-cross applesauce on one of the inn tables, a sketch in her lap, her fingers black with charcoal. At least until she glanced up and noticed the man who'd come in. When you didn't talk to anyone, you noticed everything. So Sam recognized a n00b when she saw one. A cute n00b, in that dark and broody sort of way. But a n00b, nevertheless.

Her lips parted slightly. He looked like he was having just as much fun as she was. As much fund as you could have in this fucking clown rodeo. Angry and stubborn though Sam was, she wasn't above compassion.

At least, she hoped she wasn't.

Despite the fact that Benedict made a point to stay well within is visual range during the entire approach, it does nothing to ease the wariness Bucky wears around himself like a cloak. His shoulders stay hunched and tight, jaw set, brow furrowed. That being said, he's starving, and the contents of the bowl before him earn Benedict a point or two of Bucky's favor. Slowly, carefully, his right arm reaches out to curl around the bowl and pull it a little further toward himself like he's defending it from potential theft.

Eyes flicker from it to the stranger before him, assessing, looking for any mark of threat. Any indication that he's dosed the contents of the food with something unpleasant. Searching for weapons or scars or anything. After a cautious minute, he grants the other man a slight nod. "Thanks."

If Benedict is expecting much more by way of introductory conversation he'll be left disappointed, because Bucky develops a sudden preoccupation with avoiding eye contact and taking up a spoon. Every few milliseconds, though, his eyes shift enough to keep the stranger in his peripheral vision, the awareness never really waning.

Though by now he's been welcomed and well-fed, he still hasn't shaken the skepticism of his surroundings. That much is proven when he startles at his name, thighs tightening, one hand pressing against the table like he's going to use the momentum to stand himself up. There are only a handful of people in his life that know his name and aren't hostile, and this one doesn't sound familiar. At least, not recently familiar.

When his eyes settle on her, though, there is the tiniest flash of recognition, and then parted lips, a luck of puzzlement like he's trying to piece something together. He's seen her before, he knows her, but there are decades worth of people he knows but doesn't really know that he as to shift through before it hits him.

When it does, his eyes widen, and he loses the look of a deer ready to bolt. They've met, he knows her, he knew her before in another life and a red dress. More than that, in a uniform, he thinks, and the question that leaves his mouth isn't a greeting but rather a husky, "What year is it?"

He considers sitting — he hadn't been invited to join the man, after all — versus remaining standing — he didn't want to loom over him in a threatening manner — before deciding sitting is the lesser of two evils, and pulls out a seat. He doesn't lean in close, though, keeps himself angled in such a way to hopefully avoid presenting himself as much of a threat.

"You're welcome" he replies honestly, giving him a close-lipped smile to avoid showing off his canines.

"I assume you're new." He doesn't wait for confirmation, even busy as he might be with his self-appointed tasks, he would have known if a man with a metal arm was seen out and about this habble. "I would say welcome, but nobody is particularly pleased to be here. Well...except, perhaps, for Peter." What a strange young man. "My name is Benedict. My wife, Kate, helps run this inn. There are rooms available, if you need a place to stay. May I ask your name?"

He notices her; it's hard not to. First of all, he's scanning the population of the inn like the goddamn unabomber or something, but on top of that she's got a head of hair that naturally draws the eye. When their eyes lock a normal person without unresolved issues and stupid habits might look away, but Bucky braces himself for a threat, a spark of recognition, the slightest hint that she's about to whip out a cellphone and contact NSA.

A long, tense moment passes wherein he realizes he's probably being creepy, or drawing more attention to himself than he needs to simply by being overt about his suspicions, and so he tears his eyes away and deliberately drops them to the table beneath him.

It may come across as hitting on her, or maybe is this dude gonna follow me home and make me put on lotion and then stab me in the shower. He's not really so sure of his general vibe these days.

The people who come here have a terrible habit of asking questions that she honestly has no answer to. "Well, it was 1947 when I got here, but seeing as I've met several people from a far-flung future past that, I honestly haven't the foggiest idea," she confesses, as much as it pains her to admit that she's without intel.

Exploring takes a backseat and she tucks her map in her back pocket, eyeing him warily, trying not to let that little voice in her head pipe up and remind her that sometimes, when Barnes arrives, Steve is in his shadow. This isn't the time and place for her to be so selfish, not when he clearly looks confused.

"What year was it for you?" she asks, because that question can easily go right back at him.

No one ever hit on Sam. She knew she had the sex appeal of a barbecue fork. So she figured it was something else making him look at her that way.

No idea what, but it wasn't like she was a fucking social scientist.

The social sciences were largely hokum, anyway.

But there was no reason to be a bitch.

Sam uncurled her long legs and swung them over the edge of the table, slipping off and onto her feet. She made her way over slowly, running her thumb over her fingertips, looking at the charcoal mess. Well, it was a good excuse not to shake hands. Or something.

"Hey."

Claire hasn't really done a walk-by of the fountain in some time and that day, it isn't deliberate like it usually is. She's looking for the moose family she's taken a rather fond likeness for to make sure the little one is doing alright and it's been since they all arrived again here since she's last seen them.

Doing so puts her on the road that passes by the fountain. Even lost in her thoughts can't keep the nurse distracted from the sounds of water sloshing about and someone gasping for air. Claire sees someone and moves faster towards it and the person on the ground.

"Hey," Claire moves to over, takes to a kneel and tucks her hair behind an ear to get a proper look at him and notices the metal arm right away. Yes, that's a lot of concern on her face, but she'll wait until he opens his eyes and looks at her before trying to explain things.

His eyes flicker back up as the other man sits, but he tries not to be too unwelcoming in his gaze and posture. He can't quite shake the stiffness, but he can at least try not to look like he's about to pole-vault over the table and tackle the other man through a chair. It is a relief, though, to hear the generous man with the food also happens to run the inn, and to be offered a place to stay. It's all far easier than he was expecting, and satisfying the soldat's requirements for safety take some of the edge off of the situation.

"Bucky," He offers, figuring his real name in the face of generosity is the least he can offer. Besides, James Barnes is a wanted criminal, and not very many people know the nickname. For the first time, he locks eyes with the stranger, and what he sees takes him aback. The 21st century offers some weird aesthetic changes, but almost none of them involve almond shaped pupils. It brings up a half dozen curiosities that he pushes down in favor of a bigger question; "Where is here?"

Shot in the dark, if he had to guess, maybe Oregon?

Having lived as a soldier for years, Benedict is intimately acquainted with the kind of haunted, wary looks this stranger is projecting, even though he can see him make an effort to relax a little. He has seen Guardsmen return from tours of duty missing limbs, forever changed, and he has seen what such service does to them and those around them.

Every day he reminds himself that he is lucky his service left him with only some mild burns and a single gunshot wound.

"Bucky." If it is an unusual name, Benedict doesn't seem to realize, and his smile widens encouragingly. A smile which falters a little at Bucky's follow-up question, and Benedict even goes so far as to heave a beleaguered sigh. "Your guess is as good as anyone else's.

"We used to be somewhere else," he continues, looking over towards the windows that let in the weak afternoon light. "And now we are here. Same buildings, same people, different location. Nobody seems to know if we are even on Earth." Forget about which Spire they might be near. Benedict has stopped asking people what Spire they came from; he's come to learn that he is the only one here who has even a passing understanding of such things, and his looks already make him alien enough to the others. He doesn't need to rub that in by talking about cities in the sky.

It's not the answer he was expecting, he's half prepared to hear that whatever happened to him on that field catapulted him back to where he belonged; 1947 wouldn't be an unwelcome sight, all things considered. His lips purse into a fine line as he studies her, befuddled and perhaps a bit displeased. It's not directed at her, though, she's a beautiful sight, an echo from the past and in a way that isn't quite a reminder of how much time has lapsed since home. She's youthful, she's like him and not a relic broken down by age.

He's not exactly a trophy winner for appropriately handling emotional conflict, though, and so he does his best to internalize the broad spectrum of thoughts she's bringing him. It's visible only by the way a muscle in his jaw seems to twitch and pulse for a second.

"Twenty eighteen," He answers finally, after a long moment, flexing the fingers of his metal hand. Curling and uncurling them absently.

"It's, uh-" He starts, then falters. Shakes his head a little, grimacing at himself at how lame he's about to sound, and finishes with, "been a while."

When she approaches, he keeps a neutral composure, an external blank slate. Internally, though, he's a calculating mess of trying to figure out whether he should leave, apologize, or decipher an ulterior motive. If she thinks he was interested he'll have to gracefully exit the situation without biting off more than he can chew. If she starts a conflict, he thinks he can frisbee his bowl at her in a way just strong enough to buy himself an out. If she- if, if, if, if.

And all she says is hey, to a mind reader the situation might seem comical. One of his eyes twitches a little, a muscle underneath it pulsing a little, an involuntary tick that show is uncertainty only if she's observant enough to catch it.

"Hi," he responds, and if it's a little jagged, a little rough coming out of his throat, well, that one's out of his immediate control. He offers an approximation of a tight smile to make up for it. It doesn't look particularly pleasant either.

His vision swims better than his body just did, and when it focuses it's on a face hovering over him. There's no denying his reaction is defensive, a bug-eyed, parted lipped startlement crosses his face a split second before he reacts, muscle memory and reflexes kicking off on their own accord. That metal arm shoots up, though not quite as quick as usual because it's heavier, somehow, and unyielding fingers wrap themselves around her throat. It's tight enough to put pressure on her windpipe but not quite hard enough to bruise anything, and it's not something he even means to do. It happens, and his mind's two steps behind processing the whole situation.

Unfortunate for him, then, that it's time to restock Kira's bathroom. One apparently never knows when they'll be teleported deep into the woods, forced to contend with decrepit tree houses and hike for miles without any shoes--he's not coming back from the next round of bullshit without the components of a hot meal and a bath.

More unfortunate, in the wake of that abrupt disappearance, Aurora's taken to herding him between places. He'd point her at the goat, but it digs its own heels in and never seems to actually go anywhere--leaving the black shepherd every ounce of juvenile energy with which to throw herself at a new smell in the dusty building. The man gets all the warning of scrabbling claws on hard wood, a soft woof of greeting, and Kira's reluctant, "Can we not?" before the young dog is at his back, dropping her head between spread paws and wagging half her body in greeting.

"Sorry," Kira says, coming up behind her, one hand dropped in indication: "Aurora says hello."

At his smile, the teeth stand out as well. He's seen a lot of what the world has to offer in the modern day and age. He's been to black tie events in New York and underground raves in Hong Kong, he's seen the subcultures of Tokyo all by way of mission locations. He's seen everything pierced and everything tattooed and he's built a certain profile in his mind for the types of people who make those aesthetic changes to their person. Benedict's other features seem to contradict the personality type for someone that invests in contact lenses and teeth alterations, he seems older, more tame with regards to fashion and accessories than what Bucky might expect. If this is a trend, if this is normal, it's outside of Bucky's scope. He scans the other man again to reassemble a picture already put together and, nope, still doesn't add up. Maybe they're not add-ons. Maybe they're not fake.

Or maybe he ought to mind his own business and focus on the information being passed to him.

It causes a gentle knit in his brow as he processes it. It's not the strangest thing he's ever heard; alien invasions and infinity stones top it, but it may be the strangest thing he's directly been affected by. He chews the inside of his cheek, eyes narrowed, considering.

"You wake up there too? The fountain?" And then, more importantly, a threat assessment, "How many others?"

Trauma nurses got this sort of reaction far more than they cared to admit. Restrained by a cybernetic arm, however, is definitely a first. Her reaction is one most would have and as soon as her neck is grabbed, Claire's eyes are big and both her hands go to grasp the arm; instinct.

But there's a look in his eyes, a confusion in them that has her realising that he was a whole lot more than just another new person. There was something going on in those eyes that was far more intricate than all this being just another jarring experience.

She lets go of his forearm and holds her hands up so he can see she means him no harm. Trying her best to swallow, the nurse tells him, "You're not the only one that's arrived in that fountain. I did, too."

Claire wants him to know first that she's not the one that brought him there. Course, he might not believe that but it's a start.

She approaches and sets herself down at the table, her brow furrowed as she watches him, debating whether she ought to tell him that though it's been some time, it hasn't been as long as he thinks. If she doesn't tell him, Peggy suspects someone else will, though.

"You're from the same time as the others I've met, then," she deduces. "Sam and Clint and others, who have come and gone." It's as good as a segue as she can muster. "You've been here before," she informs him. "Not just once, but twice. Wearing those same scrubs," she says, staring at the navy blue. Her own navy blue scrubs are back at the house she shares with Stella, but she still remembers those early days when they were all she had.

"I take it you don't remember any of that, though," she says, her gaze not having dipped to his arm once.

Her words seem to take a moment or two to sink in but when they do some of the wildness in his eyes calms, and he releases his grip slowly and carefully. His palm presses flat against the pavers beneath them, and he uses it to push himself back a few inches, lifting his shoulders off of the ground, some sort of midpoint between sitting up. Guilt at the assault and wariness of his situation settle in his chest in equal measure, and probably read like a book on his features.

"...Sorry." He says, a soft and chastised mutter, a rasp in his voice from the heaving and exertion. Eyes flicker from her to the fountain, and then to the landscape around them, completely lacking in recognition, confused and displaced. "I don't- what the hell is this?"

Now that's a new one; there aren't a surplus of dogs in Wakanda and even fewer in the markets of Chechnya or Romania. The only experiences he's had with dogs in the last few decades have been fending off bites with a metal fist and a sharp cry. It takes him aback to see one so excited and not trying to rip his face off. After a small beat of consideration he dips, squatting down and holding a hand out to the excitable pup.

"Hey," He says in greeting, a softened sound he's surprised to hear come out of his own throat. A little late and only after he's already vulnerable he thinks to ask, "She bite?"

He recognizes the names with a bit of a start; both of them had helped him escape Berlin, he owes them more than his life for helping Steve smuggle him out. Though he may not be the biggest fan of Sam personally, he recognizes an ally for what it's worth. Especially in unfamiliar terrain. Any hope he may have felt is promptly eradicated, though, crushed with her next statement.

Lips part absently, a gentle disbelief that he doesn't actually bring himself to voice. He'd protest, but he's far too intimately familiar with the fact that his memories aren't really all that intact. His eyes drop down to his scrubs for an instant, like seeing them will spark something, but only blankness follows. Great. Another gap, another hole he has to fill and another bottomless bucket of opportunities for him to have fucked up here already and set himself up for contention. Just when he was starting to come around to the idea of a clean slate.

"No," he says with definite undertones of resignation. He clears his throat, working out the falter threatening to rise in his follow up question. "Did I..."

Do anything? Hurt anyone? Kill anyone? That kind of information is at the top of his priority list and can dictate his next moves.

"Indeed I did, over a year ago now. There are few of us early residents left. The others have either disappeared or have arrived later on."

It takes him a moment to calculate just how many people live in this habble now, a number that is constantly fluctuating. Eventually, he feels he has made an accurate enough tally to answer: "Between forty and fifty."

Bucky's focus on Benedict's teeth and eyes hasn't exactly gone unnoticed, although the newcomer has done an admirable job in not staring at him, a far better job than some others have managed. At the beginning, when they were relocated here and his features had returned to what they had been his entire life previous, he had been terribly wary of the reactions of those around him, absolutely terrified that they would be frightened of him and think him monstrous. But now, he has grown much more comfortable with the whole idea, and it is what allows him to give Bucky a knowing smile and extend a hand in something like an invitation.

"Go on, ask." He uses that hand to gesture at his face. "I can see you are trying not to."

Forty or fifty people; what are the odds that they know him? What are the odds that he'll have to stay in hiding? Push comes to shove, forty or fifty is a number he can probably handle, perhaps not all at once but should the need arise it's not an inescapable situation.

His lips twitch a little, perhaps the ghost of an apologetic smile. Hypocritical, isn't it, for a man with a metal arm to point out the unusual features in another person. He'd at least put in a token effort not to bring up the obviously stand-out features, but since he's given the window, what the hell. Might as well.

"You- uh-" He nods vaguely, gesturing to Benedict's face but more specifically meaning his eyes. "Those real?"

Leaning back to give him some space, Claire watches him. Not suspiciously and not because she thinks he's going to try and hurt her, but because she wants to decide how best to help him, which is basically all she's been doing in this world and before that in her own world. A world they share, unbeknownst to either of them.

Claire offers him a soft look and shakes her head. "I wish I could tell you, but everyone that arrives here comes through that fountain and we can't be sure who it is, or what they want us here for."

She looks him over. "You're not hurt, are you?"

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mild A:IW spoilers in option a.

b, the inn

b

Inn

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Arrival

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lemme know if this isn't okay and I can change it for sure

c. soap up

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nope, don't touch a thing

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