sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Just don't touch the puffball

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[MINGLE] Just don't touch the puffball

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: 6I Town Hall
WHEN: 7 June, after lunch
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: n/a
NOTES: Please note in your subject line if a top-level is to Mark (or whoever)

I have to be honest, as a botanist, there's a lot about this new, expanded world to be excited about. It seems like almost every time I go out to collect samples, I find something I haven't seen before, and nearly every minute I'm not working in the fields or greenhouse, I've been in Ravi's lab doing tests and compiling observations. Some of the specimens are pretty spectacular, but for a lot of them, the things that make them impressive are also things that could be a problem for the average villager.

Which is why I'm here now, in the town hall, lining up a variety of plants on a long table at the front of the room, some dried, some placed carefully under glass, many seeded in whatever I could find to use as a pot: Sauce pans, old boxes, tea cups.

Early this morning, I left a message on the blackboard in the Inn in big chalk letters:

Seminar on new native plants
TODAY - TOWN HALL - AFTER LUNCH
IMPORTANT INFO!!

In the old place, I used to take folks out one at a time and give them a crash course on what was edible and what was poisonous, but that's just not going to cut it now.

As I wait for folks to arrive (As I wait, hoping folks will arrive), I lay out labels in front of each plant listing what I've been calling it, whether it's dangerous, and any known properties. Once I'm done running my mouth, people can come up and get a good look.

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Learning what plants could potentially kill him seemed like a useful expenditure of his time, and so despite not being the most social person on the planet, Bucky graces the event with his presence. He's two plants down checking out the Clematis when Peter starts talking to himself, and he levels the kid with a look before he even starts looking for a conversational partner.

It's an amused expression, maybe a little judgmental, but captain one-arm really shouldn't be judging anybody considering, "I have no idea what that means."

"Oh, AC is alternating current," Peter begins, and looks up with his mouth open, poised to further explain, only to falter and then pop back to his feet, eyes wide. "Sargeant Barnes! You're here!"

...just like Mr. Barton and Black Widow and Miss Peggy and that Starking Guy. Peter doesn't know whether to be excited or worried. One the one hand, the more people who show up, the better they can put their heads together to try and figure out how to get home. On the other, the more people that are here, the fewer there are back home trying to figure out the same thing, and by Peter's assessment, that's more likely to actually work.

Gosh, he really hopes Mr. Stark isn't next.

"Listen, I'm really really sorry about that thing at the airport in Berlin," he hurriedly adds, gesturing with both hands. "I already told Mr. Barton, I don't know if you know he's here, and Ms. Romanoff too, and Miss Peggy— Not that Miss Peggy was Berlin, I just mean she's here." And he really probably needs to stop talking. He darts a look to the mechanical arm and then back to Barnes' face. "Anyway, sorry."

Sargeant Barnes takes him aback even further than the recognition does, mouth dropping open incredulously. Bucky he gets a lot, James Barnes he gets sometimes, but Sargent Barnes is something typically reserved for government officials or Hydra.

He squints, because the voice sounds familiar but he can't quite place it. At least, not until Peter mentions the Berlin airport, and then recognition floods his features along with incredulous indignation.

"You're that spider kid!" He declares, pointing accusingly. Not that he'd exactly known it had been a kid at the time, but it's not wholly surprising considering the cadence of the voice. Still, he got the absolute crap beat out of him by basically pre-serum Steve Rogers. "How the hell-"

At this point, Peter doesn't honestly know why he's still keeping secret that he's Spider-man. The excuse that they could all get back home is pretty thin, considering that for a lot of these people, home isn't even Earth, or a totally different time. It's instinct, though, to frantically wave Barnes off from saying more.

"Nobody knows," Peter hisses as he steps closer. His expression pinches. "I probably could have led with that."

He dips backward at the frantic waving, as though he's expecting Peter to start some shit or something. He doesn't, not really, solely because the image before him is clearly a teenager. Logically, yeah, he vaguely remembers Spider Kid getting the upper hand of one thrown punch, but even so he's inclined to underestimate the kid's talents immediately.

"Sorry?" He says, although it's more of an uncertain, incredulous question. Part of it still from trying to metabolize this whole situation, partly because he can't imagine what good keeping a secret like that in a place like this is. "So all that- stuff from before, was that you or the suit you were wearing?"

It's his first question and god he hopes it's the suit, not that he has a penchant for toxic masculinity but.

Come on.

Peter rears back, incredulous. "What? That was— It was me," he answers, still careful to pitch his voice low. "I mean, I can't do it now, here, but back then, all that was me. Well... technically the web fluid wasn't me, myself, physically, but I did come up with the formula." On accident, but that's not really relevant.

He hesitates a moment, and then leans in a little. "Did you really know I was a kid at the time?"

In answer to his question, at first all he can really manage is a huff and a crossing of his arms. Debates on a reply, and abandons it. There's really no good way to handle being beaten up by a mathlete with dignity.

~~He's the god damn winter soldier how~~

~~the russians would be so offended~~

"And now we're both here. Small multiverse." He mutters in deadpan, though the observation is valid. Of all the people in the multiverse, what are the odds that tangentially related ones would happen to get randomly plucked?

That isn't an answer to his question, but seeing as how he's having a conversation with the actual Winter Soldier, Peter lets it slide.

"Yeah, it's weird. I don't think it was on purpose, but you have to wonder if it was random or if there was some kind of unaccounted for criteria we all met to end up here together," he says instead. "And why this place? Was it already here?" He lifts his hands helplessly. "There are a lot of questions."

The kid may be ~~an annoying pain in the ass that he will feel perpetually bitter about~~ young, but he's astute at least. It's exactly the thing Bucky himself had been thinking, starting from the moment he ran into Peggy and doubling down as she mentioned Clint, all but solidified by Natasha's sudden appearance. He frowns, lips pulling back into something thoughtful and displeased.

But he doesn't have an answer to provide, and speculating will do them no good. So, like an ADHD train, he changes tracks again. Clears his throat.

"Listen- nobody here... knows about what I did back home, who I was, except, you know." The people that were there. Not even Peggy knows. "That's not... really who I am. So I guess what I'm saying is... I'll keep your thing hush hush if you keep mine. Deal?"

"Oh. Yeah, totally," Peter is quick to reply and nods rapidly, not least of all because it looks like he's irritated a man with a super-powerful metal arm who may or may not wish he could throw Peter into next week with it.

"I wouldn't ever even bring it up," he adds, just to drive home the point. "And like... I don't even really know what you did? Maybe you helped old ladies across the street everyday, I wouldn't know. So, that makes it easy."

Some of his irritation may overlap with amusement, because he's just... such a god damn teenager. His eyebrows arch, sort of dip into a knit, and he can't help the subtle back and forth shake of his head.

"You got in a fight and you don't even know why?" He observers wryly, but then holds up a hand immediately after to stop that conversation from going down. Grumbles out an uncomfortable: "You know what- that's. Probably for the best."

Now that he considers it, Peter probably should have asked more questions— No, strike that, he should have asked more questions to Mr. Stark, because he asked plenty to Happy, and that got him nowhere.

"Yeah, you know, when you're me and Iron Man shows up at your house out of nowhere when you've never even met before and says he needs you to help save the world, you just sort of go with it," he admits with a slight shrug. "What was going on?"

He can't exactly knock the kid for that, he knows more than most people do about Tony Stark, his history, his parentage. Knows his reputation, and knows a starstruck kid from Brookyln (or Queens, whatever the case may be) would jump first and ask questions later if Stark came knocking. Especially one trying to find his place in the world with a persona like spider kid.

"Long story," he grunts, tearing his eyes away and fixing them somewhere on the table. Absently, a metal hand reaches out to touch the leaves of one of the plants. "Long and complicated, and totally irrelevant now, considering the bigger issue."

You know, the big purple man with the fist that murdered half of everything? Funny how it puts everyone back on the same side again.

"...yeah," Peter agrees with a slow nod. Not that he has confirmation that Mr. Stark and Cap made up, or would have, but he likes to think that half of everyone in the universe dying, or disappearing, or whatever this is, would override just about anything, including superhero infighting and Spanish tests.

"So, did you..." he asks with a motion Bucky's way, not quite knowing the polite way to phrase 'crumble into dust,' if there even is one. "Some people here say they just disappeared, no... you know."

Bucky doesn't exactly have confirmation that Stark and Steve are on speaking terms either, nor that were he to see Stark in the wild he wouldn't get a chest full of missiles from that suit of his. He'd like to think Tony would at least wait to murder him until after Thanos has been dealt with, but considering his presence was missed on the battlefield, it's hard to say.

He clearly understands all too well what Peter's asking, because something of a grimness settles over his expression. Yeah, he'd floated away like ashes in the breeze. It had been unpleasant to say the least, watching his limbs disintegrate, feeling the atoms scatter. He nods slowly. "Yeah. No, I know. I did. You?"

"Yeah," Peter replies, glancing down, the memory briefly clouding his vision before he pushes the swell of emotion abruptly away.

"I felt it coming before the others," he says, glancing back up again, steadier relating particulars and facts. "It's a thing I have— Can do. Sensing danger ahead of time. But it didn't really do me any good this time." He sighs with a little lift of his shoulders. "I was with Mr. Stark, but I don't know if it happened to him or not. Was there anybody else, where you were?"

Quietly, slowly, creeping sympathy settles on him. He may be a little bitter still about the whole airport situation, but- damn, he's just a kid. Not only to experience the disintegration but to feel it coming on? For a second, something long-burried rises up in him, a protective instinct he'd solely had for Steve rears it's head. He settles it back down with a tight purse of his lips.

"Yeah. An entire war." He answers darkly. "Steve. Most of the- you know. Team."

The avengers, he guesses, if they're still called that after the falling out. "I don't know who else... I think I was the first, I didn't seen anyone else go."

"Maybe he was okay," Peter says, his expression sober but eyes soft as he watches Bucky. "Captain Rogers. Maybe he made it, since he isn't here." It's a nice hope, Peter thinks, even if there's only so much Captain America could do about any of this. If Cap and Iron Man are still back home, maybe they've got a chance to fix this.

"The wizard I was with, he had one of the stones, the time stone, before Thanos showed up to take it. He said he'd looked at like 14 million possible outcomes, and there was only one where we beat him, beat Thanos." As statistics go, it's grim. But the whole group of them, they're all exceptions to the rule. They're that tiny, impossible fraction of a percent, the zillion to one odds. The kid bitten by a radioactive spider, the soldier with the cybernetic arm.

"Maybe we're in it," Peter continues. "Maybe for whatever reason, being here is the only way."

Bucky hopes so, he really fucking does. He's only just gotten to the point that he thinks he can rebuild a stable friendship with Steve, it would be a cruel twist of fate indeed for them to be permanently separated like this. Even worse, for him to find new life only to find his friend dead. There's a clear flicker of concern that passes across his face, but he doesn't press the point.

At any rate, it gets muted behind something incredulous, because Peter did you listen to yourself? The wizard you were with and the fourteen million outcomes he telepathically watched?

It's too serious a subject to be a smart ass about, fortunately.

"Hope you're right," He mutters instead, eyes dropping, clearly doubtful. He shrugs a shoulder, "Otherwise, as far as afterlives go, I guess this one's not so bad."

"Yeah," Peter agrees with a minute nod, and casts a glance to the room around them, his lips pressing thin as he takes in everyone who showed up for this thing, how normal they all seem as they mill about. "It's not what I would've expected, but I guess it could be a lot worse. At least— I mean, we know each other, kinda. Not everybody's that lucky here."

Heaven and hell aren't concepts Peter puts much stock in, but it definitely doesn't seem like the second option. Then again, he knows it's not the first, either — There's no Uncle Ben.

Another sudden rush of sympathy for the kid floods him; if he's labeling Bucky as someone he knows then he's really grasping at straws for a connection here. Bucky wandered in to having Peggy already, to definitely knowing Clint more than Spider-Kid knows the Winter Soldier. He's alone, Bucky realizes, and a long-dormant protect the kid feeling that never quite went away shimmies to life. He forces it down, but he can't help reaching out to gently clasp Peter's shoulder with the metal hand.

"Yeah," he mutters in a sort of awkward agreement. Lucky. "Well. No hard feelings, then. Maybe we can figure something out while we're here. A way to get back."

So, Peter doesn't want to freak out or anything because they're having a serious heart-to-heart here and that's awesome on its own, but Bucky Barnes is gently squeezing Peter's shoulder with his robot arm like they're pals, and did he mention it was a robot arm, and this is one of the most amazing moments of his life.

"Oh yeah," Peter replies, nodding just a touch too quickly. "Yeah. I mean, all we can do is try. And look out for each other and everybody else."

Good lord, Spider-Kid, it must be so hard to be in your brain. Bucky tries really hard not to look like he thinks Peter's on the edge of vibrating himself into a bunch of pieces. Instead, he gives Peter one more quasi-supportive pat on the shoulder, and then drops his arm away.

"Alright. Well." How do normal people end conversations non-awkwardly? "I'm gonna go... plants."

He gestures vaguely toward the tables, one eye sort of squinting uncomfortably. Good talk.

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[MINGLE] Just don't touch the puffball

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