weirderthanthou | From Siberia to Fandom's Causeway, Sometime Friday

You know, for a second there, Bucky was pretty sure he must've gotten his brain knocked around in his skull even worse than he'd thought. But then the world righted itself again, and there it was: the island.

Looking the same as he remembered it. The same it had always been.

He felt too tired to really feel any kind of way about it, and yet the only word that rolled out his mouth was, "Shit."

Quiet, like a sigh.

"That's another word for it," Jesse allowed.

She turned her head and looked at him. "I don't think anyone's taken over your apartment?"

She didn't want to know many images of ghosts of apartments past Bucky had to flick through in his mind before he even landed on the right one. Basement, Fandom, right.

He frowned. "After this long?"

Jesus, what was wrong with this island?

Jesse shrugged. "You never officially moved out," she said. "No paperwork, no vacancy."

... She might have had something to do with it, yes.

Bucky had his suspicions, but he could get into them at another time. Preferably one where he'd washed all the blood off his face, and his non-existent arm wasn't aching.

And he'd had time to process... any of the past two days.

Actually, that might take a while.

"I don't even have the keys." Wasn't even sure what he'd done with them when he'd left. Maybe he'd just left them in the apartment?

Jesse's expression softened, and yet went a little more wry at the same time.

"Do you want to sleep in my guest bedroom? We can figure out where the keys are in the morning."

Sleep. What a distant concept that felt like.

And yet Bucky found himself saying, "That works." Quiet again, and a little softer too.

Jesse nodded.

"How's your shoulder?" she added quietly.

She resumed walking. The quicker they got to the apartment, the sooner James could rest.

"Like it's got a broken arm attached to it."

At least the serum ever-present in his body was working hard enough that he could actually walk without help, by now. It didn't do shit to the exhaustion, but it helped otherwise.

"Would... aspirin help?" Jesse asked. "Wait. Shit. That's probably a stupid question."

It made Bucky give a huff that... may have been amused? Or just reflex.

He shook his head, either way.

"It's fine," he said. (Her saying the aspirin thing was fine. The shoulder was not.) "I'll figure something out."

Jesse nodded slowly.

"We can take you to the clinic tomorrow, too," she said.

At least MCA wasn't far? She had this weird desire to put him to bed and heat up some chicken soup or something.

That's for flu, not for amputated metal arms.

"I don't think this is something the clinic can help with."

Or maybe they could? He hadn't been around for years, guess they could've gotten someone in that knew how to handle something more than flesh.

"They can at least help you with the pain," Jesse tried carefully, as they turned a corner into their street.

There was not a street in the multiverse that counted as Bucky's right now. And yet here he was, anyway. Rounding the corner alongside her, casting a wary look down the street as he gave her words a vague nod.

It was beginning to set in where he was.

He didn't even know who all still lived here. Hell, he was half surprised Jesse still did.

"C'mon," Jesse said, as they finally found themselves facing the MCA building. She took out her keys, opening the door quickly. "You need a shower, too."

Did she know how much work that sounded like just now?

Bucky followed, regardless. Sooner he was off the street, the sooner he could stop feeling exposed.

He'd feel better if he put in the work. She was pretty sure.

Jesse was silent for the rest of the journey, taking them up to her apartment. That door opened quickly, too, and she held it while she waited for him to step inside.

Bucky slipped inside like a ghost - and then came to a stop almost immediately. Aside from Siberia, it had been a long time since he'd been in a place that was familiar. That held memories.

And the memories from here were as quiet and calm as they had been buried.

He didn't know what to do with it. He just felt something clenching.

"You should get a shower."

Jesse wasn't sure what to do about the stillness - and so she deferred to the idea of action. Literally, in another sense: she closed the door. "I'll get you a towel," she added. "And I'll grab a blanket for you once you're in there."

"'Kay," Bucky heard himself say, swallowing the first syllable but forcing the rest out.

He'd move, in a... in a second.

Shit.

Jesse reached out. Carefully.

Pressed a hand against his shoulder. The one made of skin and bone.

Well, Bucky didn't flinch, at least? Although he did sort of... waver in place a little.

Swallowing something more down.

"James," Jesse said. Quiet.

Bucky considered telling her he'd never really been a 'James'. Not unless, like Steve had said, his Ma had been cross with him. Or a fake psychiatrist was questioning him, apparently.

But it sounded different from her, and so he didn't want to.

"It's fine," he tried, his gaze falling towards the floor. "It's fine."

"It's not," Jesse said.

She gave his arm a little tug. Willing him to face her.

Bucky had a lot of experience doing what was expected of him, and right now he had nothing in the way of fight left in him.

He turned at her urging.

She hugged him.

(She couldn't hug Dylan. But she could hug him.)

... Bucky didn't know what to do with that either.

But aside from making sure she wasn't in any danger of touching the mechanical stump of his arm (he had no idea what the exposed and cut wiring might do, and didn't want to find out) he couldn't make himself do much to respond. It was just...

It was just alien to him. Or like a foggy memory from a past that he couldn't quite understand he was somehow in again.

You know, he hadn't pushed her away. That was good enough.

"At least clean up a little," Jesse said quietly. "You'll thank yourself for it later."

She pulled back and looked at him.

"I might know people who can help with the arm," she said. "I'll try to reach them, okay?"

"Okay," Bucky said. It was the full word at least, this time?

And here was more: "You said... something about a towel?"

"Yeah."

Jesse took his hand in hers. At this point, that seemed the only way to get him anywhere.

She pulled him towards the bathroom.

Bucky knew what to do with that even less. But he still did much the same thing.

He just followed, his gaze flicking down their hands, and up to her hair.

Maybe all of this was a dream.

And into the bathroom. There, she let go.

Jesse opened the cupboard and rummaged around. Towel? Towel.

She held it up for him.

"Shower or tap, your choice," she said. "I'll check in on you in half an hour if you're still in here, okay?"

"Not gonna die in the shower, Jesse," Bucky murmured - and hey, it was an almost complete sentence! He took the towel, too.

"But thanks."

"Better not," Jesse said, taking a step towards the door. "I'll make fun of you forever."

"Least it's a short forever."

He put all of his effort into shooing her off with his remaining hand.

Jesse retreated gracefully, closing the bathroom door behind her.

Hopefully he'd be okay.

'Okay' was so, so relative.

As soon as the door closed, Bucky exhaled with a shudder, slowly letting go of something. You didn't go on the run for two years and just start not packing everything away from public view as soon as your past caught up with you. The previous morning, he'd been in Bucharest unaware any of this was about to happen, that anything was coming to sweep him away like a wave crashing over him.

And now he was here. One arm lighter, but he was here, and he didn't know what that meant for anything. The best he could do was grab hold of what had kept him moving at the facility, earlier: not letting Jesse down.

And right now, that meant slowly and carefully taking off what remained of the tactical jacket, and his shirt. And finally taking a good look at the charred, jagged edges of what remained of the metal arm. It looked like the blast that had taken it off had also cauterized the ends of the wires, good. After getting rid of his remaining glove and pants and boots, he still wrapped the towel awkwardly around the stump just in case, before stepping into the shower and getting the water running.

The last thing Jesse needed was him electrocuting himself in the shower with his own shoulder cap.

That would be a really ignoble end to this entire disaster, yes.

Jesse, for her part, wasn't actually sure what to do now. Eventually she found herself drifting to the kitchen, where she - sigh, yes - grabbed a can of soup and dumped it into a pan.

It was all she had, okay?

Bucky let the water wash over him. It took the blood and the grime and the sweat, and whatever stench of HYDRA was on him (not that he could ever fully rid himself of that). He didn't do much, beyond standing there, with his eyes closed. Carded his fingers through his hair, once or twice, as it matted itself to his scalp and his neck.

Of course, the one issue with closing his eyes was all the images. The fake shrink on the other side of the glass, the fight at the airport, Tony's face watching the video, the blinding white of the blast.

He could only stand it for so long before he had to open his eyes and stare at the wall, instead.

It wasn't long after that that he turned the water off, and began to towel off. Awkwardly, like he was going to be doing a lot of stuff in the near future.

Well. He did only have one hand to do it with, right now.

Jesse's mind drifted off as she stirred the soup. Ahti had reached her twice in the past few days, or the Oldest House had, or... something. Would it be as easy to reach the FBC?

Would they be able to help him?

And would he be able to trust them if they did?

Once he'd done all he could and was dry enough, Bucky stepped out of the shower.

And then he spent what felt like a long moment looking at his pile of clothes, and finding it strangely impossible to put them back on (like slipping on a second skin that felt like it would suffocate him). At least right away. But he had the towel, so wrapping that around his waist would do for a moment. So he did that - awkwardly - then got out of the bathroom, and made his way to the kitchen door.

Cleared his throat.

"Don't suppose you got any spare clothes in a bigger size?"

Jesse glanced over her shoulder. It was an instinctive move.

And uh. She hadn't expected to see that. Exactly.

She cleared her throat. "No," she said. "Sorry. I can, uh. Do a store run tomorrow. Or break into your apartment." Beat. "I do have soup?"

You know what you kind of forgot about when you spent years on the run and only barely treated yourself as a person?

That some other people still saw you as one, and might be startled seeing you half-naked.

It was kind of jarring to remember, suddenly. Bucky nodded his head back towards the bathroom. "I can... put on some of the stuff, it's fine. Sorry."

Shit. Had she freaked him out? "No, it's fine," Jesse said. "Just... I don't have anything but it's fine. You should probably head down the hall anyway, get some rest."

She lifted the pan a little awkwardly. "And have soup."

Bucky did not have enough energy left for freaking out. Best he could do was a certain kind of muted concern.

"In that order?"

"Probably have the soup somewhere in the middle," Jesse allowed.

She turned off the stove and fidgeted around for a bowl.

And Bucky just watched, in silence.

All of this felt like intruding, a little. But she had dragged him here.

And she had shown up after two years.

Bowl? Bowl. Spoon? Spoon.

Jesse poured some of the - cheap, but still - mushroom soup into the bowl. Added the spoon.

She offered it to him. "Guest bedroom is down the hall," she said. "I'll come bring you some blankets, okay?"

"Okay," Bucky said. He took the bowl from her carefully, with as good a grip as his one hand would allow. Meant he had no hands left to hold on to the towel with, so he would just have to trust he'd done a good enough job tucking it into itself that it would hold.

It was such a ridiculously mundane thing to worry about that he might have laughed had he had the energy.

But as it was, he nodded, then turned - also carefully - to head down the hallway.

Jesse ran her hand through her bangs, and realized her hair... was a mess.

We'll deal with that later.

She rushed into her own bedroom to find some extra blankets and a pillow. Okay, the guest room already had a pillow, but she didn't know-- look, who knew how James slept?

Edited 2024-06-21 21:42 (UTC)

On floors, often.

When Bucky made it to the guest room, he sat down heavily on the edge of the bed - and immediately realized the error in his thinking, because he probably shouldn't cradle the bowl in his lap.

Oh, honey.

At least he had a few more minutes to sort out that situation, while Jesse picked a summer-appropriate blanket and that pillow.

She hurried down the hall after that, though.

Knocked, without peeking.

Bucky solved his issue with the nearest available surface. It was fine, he wasn't getting soup on himself or on the floor or anything else.

"Still not dead, it's fine."

There was a nightstand in there, at least. And a desk which Jesse sometimes used.

She thrust the blanket and the pillow inside. (Yep, definitely still shirtless. Awkward.)

"If my guest bedroom manages to kill you after all of that, that'd be pretty embarrassing."

Yeah, Bucky had ended up hunching over the nightstand. That let him keep sitting on the bed, which waa increasingly beginning to feel like a priority.

And yes, still shirtless. And still just had the one arm he was using for the spoon, so any shoving of things at him was not really going to work.

"More surprising things have happened."

Sigh.

Fine. Jesse padded into the room, and put the blankets down on the bed. Along with the pillow.

"I think we've had enough surprises this week," she said.

"Yeah," Bucky agreed, his eyes on the soup. (He'd already eaten about a third. Not letting her down.) He almost hesitated, for a second, then said, "You were one."

"I shouldn't have been," Jesse said, looking up at him. "I don't let my friends down. I've been trying to find you for-- shit, years."

She'd made it sound like she might, the last time they'd talked. But there was something about knowing she'd kept at it in the meanwhile that... Bucky was going to have to process at a later time.

But he looked up at her, finally. And asked, softly, "How did you?"

Find him.

"Called in some favors," Jesse said, reaching up to massage her shoulder now that she had nothing else left to do with her hands. "Spent a lot of time in a lot of Portalocity offices. And... Polaris... helped."

He had met her by now. Might as well bring it up.

"Polaris?"

Of course he would ask. Quietly.

"The, uh..." Jesse gestured at her head. "The psychic resonance that lives in my head. You met her yesterday. In a way."

It took a second for Bucky to figure out what she meant. To remember.

But, oh.

"Is that what you used to... bring me back?"

He remembered something feeling like a ray of light, streaming in.

A cautious nod. "She's very good at... clearing people's minds," Jesse said. "She's kept mine safe for a long time."

Bucky's nod was less cautious, but it was small.

"She helped."

There was no other word for it.

"I'm glad," Jesse said softly.

Some of the awkwardness had slipped out of her expression.

"She's-- she's a very good friend." And I'm glad you get along.

Bucky's gaze fell to the next spoonful of soup.

"Glad you can trust your head."

He really meant that.

(He could not.)

"How's yours?" Jesse asked.

Edging towards the door, but subtly.

The best, most reassuring thing Bucky could offer was a shrug.

He'd just leave it at that.

Jesse nodded slowly. "Well, I'm going to let you rest for a while," she said. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

Bucky nodded.

"Okay," he said again. Hesitated - or just went quiet for a second before speaking again. You decide. "Thank you."

It didn't cover it, but it'd do. For now.

Jesse managed a little smile. "Thank you for coming back with me," she said softly.

She reached for the door handle.

"Good night."

And closed the door.

Bucky looked at the door for a long moment, after. And then he made himself finish the soup.

And wondered whether he would actually sleep.

From Siberia to Fandom's Causeway, Sometime Friday

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject