[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

[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.