From Siberia to Fandom's Causeway, Sometime Friday

[weirderthanthou]

The last couple of days had been eventful.

But the moment they spotted an opening to leave, Jesse and Bucky took it. Jesse's first instinct had been to walk until they found the nearest Portalocity station, but somehow the universe - or the Oldest House - had intervened.

They walked, and the world slowly warped around them. The smell of pine trees permeated the air, hot coals and warm coffee. For a moment, it was as if the ocean itself lapped gently through the skein of the heavens around them, washing away the taste of rough and jagged Russia.

Then that, too, faded.

And suddenly there was asphalt under Jesse's feet, the school's spire towering not far from her view.

"Huh," she said quietly. "Thanks, Ahti."

[[ for him, and nfb ]]

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[shapethecentury]

"Least it's a short forever."

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

[weirderthanthou]

Jesse retreated gracefully, closing the bathroom door behind her.

Hopefully he'd be okay.

[shapethecentury]

'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.

[weirderthanthou]

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?

[shapethecentury]

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.

[weirderthanthou]

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?

[shapethecentury]

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?"

[weirderthanthou]

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?"

[shapethecentury]

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."

[weirderthanthou]

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."

[shapethecentury]

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

"In that order?"

[weirderthanthou]

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

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

[shapethecentury]

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.

[weirderthanthou]

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?"

[shapethecentury]

"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.

[weirderthanthou]

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?

[shapethecentury]

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.

[weirderthanthou]

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.

[shapethecentury]

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."

[weirderthanthou]

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."

[shapethecentury]

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."

[weirderthanthou]

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.

[shapethecentury]

"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."

[weirderthanthou]

"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."

[shapethecentury]

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.