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

[communish]

WHO: Bucky Barnes & others
WHAT: Catch-all, open & closed starters, continued TDM
WHEN: April
WHERE: Free Cities, Nocwich, maybe Horizon
WARNING: None yet, but discussion of violence seems likely with this guy.
OTHER: Brackets and prose are both fine.

ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ's ɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴏɴ ᴀɴʏᴍᴏʀᴇ
ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ᴏᴜᴛsɪᴅᴇ ɪs ʙᴜʀɴɪɴɢ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀ ʙʀᴀɴᴅ ɴᴇᴡ ʟɪɢʜᴛ
ʙᴜᴛ ɪᴛ ɪsɴ'ᴛ ᴏɴᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴀᴋᴇs ᴍᴇ ғᴇᴇʟ ᴡᴀʀᴍ
ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ɢᴏ ᴍɪsᴛᴀᴋɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴏᴜsᴇ ʙᴜʀɴɪɴɢ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀᴡɴ

Comments

OPEN; Cadens (The Sarstina)

[communish]

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.)

[catholica]

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."

[communish]

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."

[catholica]

"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."

[communish]

"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."

[catholica]

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."

[communish]

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."

[catholica]

"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."

[communish]

"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?"

[catholica]

"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."

[communish]

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?"

[catholica]

"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."

[communish]

"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."

[catholica]

"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.

[philancer]

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."

[communish]

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."

[philancer]

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?"

[communish]

"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?"

[philancer]

"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."