abraxaslogs | [Open] And outside, the world slipped over the brink

The first thought in his mind today, maybe the first thought in Bucky’s mind always, is just- why does this shit always happen to me?

During the war, Namor used to give him grief for how often the bad guys seemed to kidnap him. Said they probably spent more time saving Bucky than fighting Hydra. And yeah, he was being an asshole, but he kind of had a point. It’s been maybe a week since Bucky decided to take down the Outer Circle for using him for the last 80 years, and it’s already happening again. He’s so goddamn tired of this.

By the time Bucky arrives at the Barracks and changes into his uniform, he’s still wet, and he’s still pissed off. He’s not usually one to shy away from a fight, but he backed down after the first attempt to steal a guard’s sword. Trying to fight a room full of guards naked and disoriented didn’t seem like a good strategic move. What he needs is time to regroup and find some allies. But that’s easier said than done.

Don’t get him wrong, people will be looking for him. Given how badly he left things with Steve, there might even be an APB out for him. But as far as all of the Avengers know, Bucky is on the run. Nobody has reason to believe he was kidnapped, and nobody will be looking for him outside of Earth-616.

Fuck.

Wandering outside and looking out on the military training grounds around him, he feels faintly (frustratingly) at home. He was raised on one of these, cut his teeth on the obstacle courses at Camp Lehigh, sold stolen cigarettes to soldiers to pay for bottom shelf whisky and dented cans of corned beef. Before he ended up being pulled into a war that wasn’t really his to fight, and spending the next several years in the barracks. This is just history repeating itself (first as tragedy, second as farce.)

“Fuck.” He breathes through his teeth, sitting on a bench near the obstacle course and dragging the heel of his boot through the dirt. He wishes he had one of those stolen cigarettes right about now.

Edited 2023-04-11 17:17 (UTC)

There's a very distinct look to new Summoned. They're the only ones, for example, who go around glaring at the fixtures; the scared ones are most common, that watch everything like it might bite. All of them have loaned uniforms of the wrong fit, and too-new boots pulled from requisitions, freshly cleaned.

Shepard leans against the wall at the edge of the training field, not far from Bucky's seat, and watches people move, thoughtfully. Another crop of Summoned; it wasn't hard to guess who. New faces, same expressions. Fuck he says, and she's barked a laugh before really meaning to. Yeah, buddy, that about sums it up.

"Suck it up, Princess," She opines, full of casual disregard. He's taller than her, and broader— most people are. Between that and the obvious cybernetics, a sensible person might consider a more tactful approach, "Welcome to Cadens. Might as well get used to it."

Shepard has never been accused of tact, and only rarely of being sensible.

As a normative thing, Bucky's not as volatile and dangerous as his reputation suggests. He doesn't have the same qualms as other "heroes" about violence and death in service of the greater good, but he doesn't like them. He's not Bullseye. He's not even Frank Castle.

Which is lucky for whoever this is.

Bucky's eyes snap towards her from under a deeply furrowed brow, his expression particularly surly. Truthfully, the proverbial storm cloud hanging over his head is so incongruous with the beautiful spring day unfolding around him that he seems a little petulant. Probably fitting, since he was a teenager the last time someone called him "princess" or told him to suck it up.

"Welcoming committee leaves something to be desired." He grouses, leaning back against the bench to get a better view. She certainly doesn't look much like his old drill sergeant, but if she lost a few teeth and really committed to smoking lucky strikes, she'd kind of sound like him. "Though I guess you don't seem like a local."

"Well fortunately, I'm not the actual welcoming committee," Shepard, with her faceful of scars and a complete lack of intimidation, crosses her arms and returns his regard blandly. Glare all you want, buddy, you're going to have to get a lot meaner than that, "You'll have to take a walk down to Cadens proper for that. My name's Shepard."

She's stopped calling herself Commander Shepard, and she's not sure exactly when. It's an ugly thought, to realize it— but that's something to unpack later. Right now she's got a surly bastard to cope with.

"Do they actually tell you anything much these days, or was it still basically just a slap on the ass and an army-recruitment pamphlet?"

"Barnes." Bucky regards her with a nod, sticking his hands in the pockets of his new uniform pants and blowing a slow breath through his nose. He doesn't bother to extend a hand in greeting, mostly because he doesn't get the impression that she's one to stand on ceremony, which suits him fine.

He'd heard some mention of Cadens before, though he had little idea what to expect from it. He supposed it couldn't be much less fun than here.

"Pretty much the same talk you got, from the sounds of it. Some nonsense about warring factions. A threat that if I tried to fight the guards again, they'd throw me back in the void. Otherwise, a whole lot of nothing."

"'War' is pretty generous," Shepard sneers, watching him hunch in and feeling some sense of tenuous safety out of that. Stupid, of course, but hands in pockets was an explicit lack of threat— she can't help being human, "Maybe my standards are a little off, but I wouldn't call a few decades of border bandits and one covert bombing a war."

Wars have battles, and bloodshed. Wars have timelines and supply lines and lines drawn in the sand. Wars mean the destruction of cities and displacement of civilians— if they survive at all. Whatever bullshit is happening between these three stupid nations on this godforsaken planet in the back end of this nowhere part of the galaxy...

...A war ain't it.

"They're so full of shit," Shepard mutters watching a cluster of men, natives in the Free Cities uniform, go jogging by on their run. There is a conspicuous lack of eye contact, "Glad I'm not the only who threw a punch. But they'll feed and house you, at least— for a while. Could be worse."

In the days after Bucky’s arrival, some of the wind has started to go out of his anger sails. (Don’t get him wrong, he’s perfectly capable of maintaining anger over long periods of time, but it’s been brought down from a boil to a simmer.) The magic dampening his powers is slowly starting to fade, if his running speed this morning is any indication. And he’s starting to feel a little more comfortable here, with emphasis on “a little.”

Bucky can be found wandering around Cadens, curiously observing the residents and trying to get a feel for the city where he’ll be spending for the foreseeable future.

Although he’s been trained to blend into his surroundings — usually by studying the people around him, learning their patterns, and trying to mimic their behavior — he’s not exactly a social chameleon. (There’s a reason the KGB nicknamed him “The American.”) Without a dossier on the Free Cities to guide him, Bucky seems particularly out of place — if the guards eyeing new residents suspiciously wasn’t reason enough to take notice.

He's likely to be found looking faintly lost while curiously inspecting Cadens landmarks, poking unfamiliar plants in the park, trying to figure out how to barter with local traders, and refusing to ask for directions.

Edited 2023-04-10 17:50 (UTC)

As soon as Steve had been able to, he'd left the hospital in Cadens and returned to the Sarstina to finish the last of his convalescence there. This has been way too much to spend as a patient, being fussed over by friends and medical professionals alike, and he's eager for the return to (relative) normalcy.

He'd only just reclaimed a room back at the inn before he was taken, but it seems that Sam had held it for him. Not that he would expect anything else.

Steve isn't content to just sit around in the inn, though, and he eventually sneaks out to go on a walk and really stretch his legs for the first time in a month. He's not back to the routine morning run with Sam yet, but within a couple of days, maybe.

After so long spent in that cavern, there's something nice about just being around normal daily life again, which is why he ends up wandering toward the markets despite not really wanting to buy anything. He would have been happy to just drift through and people watch before moving on, but then he spots someone. Someone strikingly familiar.

It isn't just the cybernetic arm, but that also catches his attention. There's just something about the stranger that makes him feel not like a stranger at all, as Steve watches him go back and forth with one of the merchants.

He knows about the multiverse, having even met someone from another universe (Wanda's son) who'd quickly recognized him as Steve Rogers, if not his Steve Rogers. That's one thing. Staring at someone and knowing deep in his bones that it's Bucky Barnes, if not his Bucky Barnes, is something else.

And before he knows it, he's been staring at him for a good twenty seconds.

Bucky's years of paramilitary training -- first as an army recruit and then as the Winter Soldier -- had taught him to recognize and pay close attention to certain things. He was very quick to spot movement and recognize change (be it a break in a visual pattern or a deviation from a routine). He could usually clock a person who was in disguise or otherwise out of place. And he could almost always tell when he was being watched.

As the newest resident in a small fantasy village, and one whose cybernetic arm had become a lot harder to hide since the fountain lost his luggage, he'd felt eyes following him all day. So far, it had been no cause for concern. Mostly soldiers who seemed (rightly) to regard Bucky as a potential threat, or curious locals who wanted a better look at the bionic man. But this was different -- a pair of eyes were fixed on him, and while it wasn't registering as a threat, it still made the hair on the back of his neck stand at attention.

Slowly, so as not to draw attention, Bucky averted his gaze to chance a look in his watcher's direction. And he spots the person he most -- and least -- wants to see.

A one-two punch of sudden relief and impending dread hits Bucky in rapid succession. His best shot at getting out of here alive is probably a rescue party. But since their last encounter involved Bucky shooting Steve, fighting him to a standstill and then fleeing the scene, Bucky's not so sure a rescue mission is what Steve has in mind. Every time Bucky does something like this, something he knows Steve hates, he's a little worried there won't be a next time. One of these days, he'll come to bury Bucky, not to save him.

Bucky quickly scans the marketplace for an exit strategy in case things turn dicey, deciding on a path that would take him from a nearby donkey cart to a low thatched roof and away from the center of town.

Steve is stronger than Bucky, but Bucky is faster -- or he was, anyway. Given how long it took Bucky to clock him, he could be at a considerable disadvantage.

"Steve?"

It doesn't take all that long for Bucky (and Steve isn't questioning it at this point, he just knows it's him) to realize that he's being watched. When their eyes meet from across the crowded marketplace, there is an immediate flash of recognition on Bucky's face, but also wariness, like he isn't entirely happy to find Steve here of all places.

To be honest, it reminds Steve of when he first tracked Bucky down to that apartment in Bucharest. He'd tried to act like he didn't remember a thing about Steve, but there'd been little tells, even if the underlying emotion had also been dread at what would come next.

And, well, to his credit? What came next had been a giant mess.

With no further context to pull from with this Bucky, Steve has no clue where they might stand. Is this Bucky's memory also spotty? The metal arm says a lot on its own, especially since it doesn't seem to be the Hydra model.

And then comes his name in a voice that's just a few degrees off of what he was expecting. It's weird, there's no doubt about it, but Steve decides to just trust his own instincts on this. So he crosses the distance between them in a few quick strides, nodding in confirmation.

"When'd you get here? It's..." He cuts off, glancing around them for a moment and nodding to the merchant, somewhat awkwardly. "Well, for me it's been a while." This is surreal, but he's still glad to see him, his hands twitching with the urge to reach out for a shoulder clap or something, but not knowing if he should assume that kind of familiarity. He realizes he hasn't shaved yet and his hand comes up to his beard for a moment, wondering what Bucky will make of it.

Sephiroth has been a member of the Free Cities military since practically day one in Abraxas. With Fort Wilbridge being nestled in the confines of Cadens itself, his daily duties usually involve guard work — patrolling the city streets and alleys and businesses along his usual route. With time comes familiarity, and with familiarity comes the ability to pick out those who stand out among the natives. Usually, those that look lost every other month or so means one thing: new Summoned have arrived, trying their best to acclimate to a new world, city, lifestyle.

Some do better than most.

During today’s patrol, he finds yet another, looking particularly lost. From where he stands, his eyes track him for a moment, wondering if the man might ask anyone at all for directions. Another citizen. A shop worker. A guard.

When an indeterminate amount of time has passed, Sephiroth finally approaches, and speaks up in a bland manner when he’s near enough.]

You’re lost.

Later, hearing that it’s a common haunt for the other Summoned in town, Bucky heads to The Sarstina. Cutting a deal with Mag, Bucky spends most of the afternoon fixing some broken chairs, nursing a few beers, listening to other patrons chatting, and generally trying not to wear out his welcome.

After a beer or two, he’s a little more talkative, and inclined to rope anyone who seems willing into a conversation about what happened here that has the guards so on edge.

He will also ask questions if he hears anyone mention Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Stephen Strange, Matt Murdock or Wanda Maximoff.

Since there’s not much you can do around Cadens without any money in your pockets, he might strike up a conversation with other residents about work that’s available in town. (He doesn’t exactly lead with this, but he’s not particular about that work being honest or safe. He spent most of his childhood starting fights and fencing stolen goods, and he’s certainly not above it now.)

Edited 2023-04-09 23:48 (UTC)

His recovery's been going well and he feels stronger day by day. Today, he's felt well enough to go out and take a walk, make sure he's getting stronger since he can't really do anything else until he has enough energy to walk around.

He'll consider this a good day and reward himself with a drink. There's someone unfamiliar in the bar when he steps in, fixing a few chairs. It's a heartbeat that he hasn't heard before and though he can't see the other man, he has a feeling he's new.

He orders his own drink and then takes a seat at a table near his work.

"Didn't know that many chairs were broken."

Bucky shrugs. In truth, most of the tavern's furniture is in pretty good shape and just needed some minor repairs. But Bucky grossly overstated the extent of his chair-caning experience when he made his pitch to the owner, so here he is. He's done worse for less.

"Well, they weren't before I got here. I'm heavier than I look." His lips quirk slightly, but he doesn't look up from his task until he's finished weaving another cane strand through the seat. (He's not aware that his looks really aren't factoring into Matt's assessment.)

The man looks vaguely familiar - there's a lot of that going around - but Bucky's not sure if it's just that running into someone he knew (but didn't know) has just made him hypersensitive to even minor similarities.

"Think the one you picked is safe."

"Good thing. I busted just about everything else in my body but my ass a few weeks ago. I’d like to save that."

He sounds light, amused as he makes the joke and sits back. He listens to the man's voice, the heartbeat, not picking up anything too familiar. People arrived in this place all the time so it wasn't all that surprising to find someone new.

"Guess you can't be too careful with chairs."

"Seems like there's a lot of that going around." Bucky frowns slightly, tying off the strand and reaching for another, though he isn't especially focused on the task now that an alternative's presented itself.

Bucky's been reliably informed that what the hell happened to you? isn't a nice way to begin a conversation, but it seems like this guy is giving him an opening.

"How'd you get hurt, if you don't mind my asking? The more I see of this place, the more it seems like I missed some shit."

It's a question Matt doesn't mind answering. It's not exactly a secret around Abraxas.

"Recently, some religious zealots kidnapped a bunch of us and dumped us in a pit. Tried to make us convert to something, cursed us, starved us, and just generally wrung us out to dry."

Not a fun time.

"A lot of it's still being sorted out, I think, but it was basically that. We were held for a few weeks."

Bucky isn't sure what kind of answer he was expecting, but it wasn't 'religiously motivated pit kidnapping.' Maybe it should have been, given the circumstances of his arrival in this world. Probably best to just start expecting the unexpected.

"That kind of thing happen a lot around here?" Bucky asks, abandoning his project and taking a swig from the pint glass he'd stashed under the table. "When I got here, they mentioned a war, but they didn't say anything about offering us up to Cthulhu."

"I've only been here a few months so it was a first for me."

And hopefully a last. He'd really like to avoid a repeat of that happening again. It wasn't a great time and he'd felt pretty hopeless for awhile. He shrugs.

"The war's something that's been brewing for awhile. I don't know if it's going to happen anytime soon but every day seems to bring the factions a little bit closer. A few months ago, Thorne bombed another city in the Free Cities. So, you know, it's not great."

"Sounds pretty fucked up. The kidnapping thing." Bucky offers, remembering for a moment that most people aren't kidnapped often enough to have a ranked list of their best and worst abduction experiences-- but not quite remembering how to have a normal conversation. "Sorry."

There. Saved it.

"Bombing sounds par for the course with a war, I guess. Casualties?"

"Yeah, unfortunately."

That's how bombings went, wasn't it? He's quiet for a few seconds.

"There were casualties and refugees which is what I tried to focus on. Rehoming those from Libertas in Cadens and Aquila."

Some of that was still ongoing.

"But they've been rebuilding for awhile. Libertas isn't in terrible shape."

Bucky wouldn't think that a place like this has the technology for bombs, but he certainly isn't an expert on pre-industrial warfare. He doesn't even consistently remember the Alamo.

"Probably the right thing to focus on. Not much you can do for the dead but avenge them." There's the barest hint of sarcasm in his intonation on the word avenge. Bucky loves Steve, but he's not exactly sipping the Avengers kool aid.

"Seems like you know a lot about this place. You from around here, or just been here a while?"

"Been here awhile. Not as long as some people but long enough to know the ins and outs."

Until this place surprised him. He makes a face and offers a hand.

"Matthew Murdock. It's good to meet you."

"Oh, shit." That is a name that Bucky knows. It's hard to spend a lot of time in New York without hearing about Daredevil. And it doesn't hurt that Matt is one of Natasha's ex-boyfriends.

"I know you. Well, I know one of you a bit." Bucky and Matt haven't spent a lot of time together, but he was once brainwashed to murder Daredevil, so you know. They've met. "Bucky Barnes."

"The name...rings a bell. Steve's friend?

His experience with Bucky is more distant, a name that he's heard in passing, a news report on television, something like that. He knows of Bucky but he can't say he truly knows him.

"You know me? Or one of me? That's a first for me. Usually no one knows me."

It's always Matt knowing them.

Sylvain is more accustomed to being behind the bar most afternoons, but considering he's still sporting a number of bandages and still-healing wounds and bruises - not to mention his hands and forearms bound up like a mummy - Mags has shooed him away anytime he tried to do anything other than lift a mug or piece of silverware for himself.

Which has him making a face as he abandons the bar entirely, mug carefully held by bandaged fingers, and heads across towards one of the empty tables. And a figure working on some broken furniture that he doesn't recognize. He's really behind on catching up with new faces, having been gone so long and then stuck in the hospital in the aftermath.

"Need a hand?" he offers as he sinks down and then glances at his obviously bandaged fingers. "Uhh. That was probably a poor choice of words."

Bucky raises an eyebrow, assuming the stranger's made a joke about his arm. "You know, I think I've heard that one before," Bucky starts, the corners of his lips curved upward in the hint of a wry smile. Can you give me a hand had been one of Barton's favorite bits, until Bucky took it off and smacked him with it. But everyone gets one free one.

It takes Bucky a moment longer to realize that he's actually talking about himself, although it shouldn't have. Like several of the people he's seen in town, this guy seems to be in pretty rough shape, from the still-visible bruises on is exposed skin to the bandages laced around his arms.

"If you think you can hold this steady while I weave the cane through, I won't say no. But I'd also take a conversation, before I get bored and start chatting up the chairs."

He realizes too late that his comment could have been interpreted in more than one way and oops. Apparently, his tact is really out of practice after being stuck in a pit for a month. He's typically more observant than that.

But he shifts slightly on his chair and reaches out for the frame with a crooked grin. "I think I can manage that much, at least. I'll feel guilty if I just sit here and talk at you while you work. Mags putting you to work, I take it?"

"Truthfully, I'm not sure if she actually needs the help, or she's just throwing me a bone. Seems like the chairs have held up fine with a few broken, uh. Bendy straw things." Yep. Bucky had definitely exaggerated his expertise.

"You work around here, too?"

"In exchange for room and board, yeah." Sylvain grins as he braces the chair against one knee, keeping his hands out of the way of where the other man was working.

"Usually I'm behind the bar or clearing tables when I'm down here. Although I've been banned from both, currently, so here I am. Maybe she's throwing both of us a bone. Or just trying to keep us out of her hair."

(Continued from here)

Bucky is neither a wizard nor a super genius, so he knows less about the multiverse than some other Avengers. His only direct experience involved a particularly surreal meeting with himself from another timeline. (And Loki was involved, so he's still not entirely sure it happened.) But he knows enough to accept her explanation with a shrug of understanding.

“Well, shit.” Bucky nods, crossing his arms over his chest and regarding her with a curious smile and renewed interest.

He didn't know Wanda well back home -- enough to recognize her if he saw her, not enough to piece it together without the visual -- but he knows her by reputation. Having largely slept through the House of M, he doesn't have the same issues with her that a lot of X-Men and Avengers seem to have. But he knows enough about her, and about what she can do, to know that he should be careful with Wanda. She’s one of few people with the juice to create something like this, which gives him pause. But she's also one of few people who could do something to help.

He also knows Steve and Wanda had some kind of thing for a while, but he's never seen fit to ask about it, and he's not going to start now.

"Yeah. I know who you are. And I know-- well. I know Billy, if that name means anything to you." Bucky had gotten to know the Young Avengers, including Billy, pretty well during his time carrying Cap's shield. He never quite understood Billy's powers, but there was nobody who knew more about the multiverse than Billy did (including that self-important pain in the ass, Richards.)

Edited 2023-04-10 16:41 (UTC)

And there he goes, saying a name that would put her on anyone's good side any day, even if the memory of Billy brings back more regret and pain than actual happiness. It is underscored by the fact that he is no longer in Abraxas, as he had been a few months before.

"I think Billy knew just about everyone." He had knowledge of the Avengers and beyond, and it does not surprise her at all that Bucky knows him. "He was here for a while."

The ease comes thereafter, Bucky's demeanor now something wrought in real familiarity. Wanda had never been incredibly close to the one from her universe, but they had been allies, friends by association.

Wanda puts her hands in the pockets of her skirt, offers a small smile in return.

"You're going to meet a lot more people who seem vaguely familiar, but I don't know if you want me to ruin the surprise for you."

TBA

[Open] And outside, the world slipped over the brink

OPEN; Arrival (Barracks/Training Grounds)

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OPEN; Cadens (Exploring)

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OPEN; Cadens (The Sarstina)

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CLOSED; Nocwich (for Wanda)

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CLOSED; Free Cities → Horizon (for Steve)