I'm gonna fight 'em all → ( closed )

[freightcars]

WHO: Bucky Barnes
WHERE: Misc.
WHEN: JUNE 16TH – JUNE 30TH 2512
WHAT: September Catch-All
NOTES OR WARNINGS: violence, adult language, probably dark winter soldiery themes etc

A seven nation army couldn't hold me back

Comments

natasha → back & forth through my mind behind a cigarette

[freightcars]

"You sure you wanna do this?"

He's probably asked three times already since the idea came up; he can't help but quadruple check. They're both uncomfortable with getting their minds tampered with - to make the biggest understatement in human history.

But it makes sense. What he did with those monsters as things were going to hell was ad-hoc. It wasn't trained, it wasn't strategic, it wasn't careful. He can wing it, but that's not his preferred style - technical perfection is sort of the name of the game with what he is, what he does.

Considering who they are as people, considering how much space they can wind up taking and how unpredictable this can be, the apartment wasn't an option. Instead, they've taken up the corporate gym their security firm offers up for employee use. It's late, the place is empty, nobody in their right mind would be working out at this time on a normal basis, let alone in the aftermath of an apocalypse. He's dressed for it, they have enough room for it, the right padded mats in case one of them goes a little too hard. It's perfect conditions. No reason not to, other than that he's being a baby about it.

[bornrussian]

No.

In fact, Natasha is exceptionally sure that she doesn't want any part of this.

"Yeah, it'll be fun," she says, voice breezy as she shoots him a smile that might look excited under the right light. She rolls her shoulders, stretches out one arm and then the other.

Bucky's power needs practice to be useful offensively. Unless he puts in the hours to perfect it, it'll never be anything but a liability. A Hail Mary that could go either way. He needs practice, and she owes him too much already.

And perhaps there's a part of her that's excited about sparring with someone again. They've gone head to head twice, and she only barely scraped by each time. If she's right, he won't hold back (the fact that they're here and didn't just push the furniture out of the way in the apartment speaks to her favor). This is going to be as close to a real fight as they can get without doing permanent damage.

This promise of violence sits beneath her skin like an itch. She hasn't told him or Steve about her little jaunts out to the fighting rings yet. Steve wouldn't approve, and they've been pretty wrapped up in each other lately anyway. It's been easy to get away with twisting the truth.

The space is empty. Ready for them. She's dressed much like him, except her sleeves come down to cover her wrist. He needs skin contact for his power to work, she's pretty sure, so she's going to make him work for it.

Natasha squares her shoulders, hands hanging loose against her thighs, and her expression blanks out. She's ready.

Come at her.

[freightcars]

He can read people pretty well — gotten decent at reading her even, but he doesn't pick up on what's beneath the surface this time. She sells it with her excitement, and it's a little reassuring.

She readies herself. He waits patiently for the signal.

There's no faltering once she gives it. He goes straight in, instigating lightly, ready for immediate defense and retaliation. There's no commitment to the grab he angles for with his left hand, it's more about the setup — he stays light on his toes, waits to see how she counters it, and plans for something real then. It's all about the next move, not the current one.

[bornrussian]

It's the benefit -- or perhaps the drawback -- to living together. Small tells become obvious. Natasha could already pick out Steve's footfalls in a crowd, now she knows Barnes' too. With shoes and without. She knows what he looks like first thing in the morning, and last thing before bed. Of course, that means he knows all those same things about her. There's intimacy there, she thinks.

But Natasha's glad the little white lie is holding. If he's afraid of using his power, this won't work.

Natasha spins out of the way of his left arm. It's the one to avoid. Past encounters have made it clear: Once his metal hand closes around her throat, she's lost. There's no purchase to be found along his metal arm, no way to break his grip, and her reach isn't long enough to grab at something else.

When Natasha fights, she commits her whole body to it. There is no other way. Her body spins around his, elbow coming out to slam against the small of his back with all her momentum.

[freightcars]

He takes the elbow with a grunt, a little radiating pain that passes through. When he twists and he bends, it has nothing to do with the pain and everything to do with trying to get a hand around the first leg she lands on. Loose plan is to rip it out from under her and drag her away from his back. She can do too much back there, she's too quick and too nimble.

[bornrussian]

The grunt sends a brief spark of satisfaction through Natasha. Interrupted by his hand closing around her leg and tugging. Enough balance is lost that she lets herself fall, free leg coming up to kick sharply against his wrist and then his elbow before she tries to twist out of his grasp and back on her feet.

[freightcars]

It works — her foot slams down in exactly the right place to get his grip to go loose involuntarily. She's free, but the next logical move is to get off the ground again — getting pinned down there's a sure game over. That in mind, he tries for the easy shot: left hand out, aiming for her throat.

[bornrussian]

Natasha wastes no time, she spins her now free leg underneath herself to climb to her feet. It's all grace and speed, and unfortunately, he anticipates her move. She's only halfway up from the floor when his hand shoots out and closes around her throat.

Damn.

Before he has a chance to push her forward (and out of easy reach), her hands grab onto his wrist, dropping all her body weight on it even as she aims a sharp kick against his knee. Were the stakes higher, if it was her life on the line, that kick would've been aimed straight at his groin. So, apparently there are some holds barred here.

[freightcars]

If he had time to consider the punch she just pulled (in a manner of speaking) he'd be infinitely appreciative. Without the serum, it's not quite as easy to shake off getting hit in the dick. He'd rather not go through that in the name of sparring.

Her feet slam painfully into his knee, and he at least knows well enough to let himself twist with the momentum so it doesn't overextend. It means he loses his stance on it, though, and that knee hits the ground. He hasn't let go of her throat, that's the beauty of a metal arm, but she's well within range to do something more about that.

He's also not squeezing hard enough to cut off her air, hopefully that's a reassurance of reciprocity.

steve → fixing things doesn't always fix things

[freightcars]

It's been days. Some of them great, some of them uncertain — on those, he's pursed his lips unhappily and fought the urge to ask. Usually failed; say 'em, please. Just to hear them and know that it's still sticking, to feel the relief that it brings. The reminder, the confidence.

His waking mind knows it, or is beginning to know it. His subconscious is digging in its heels a little, maybe just to spite him. Maybe because he's thinking about it so much it's rolling over into his dreams.

The sheets are twisted up. Steve moved back to the couch for exactly this reason. It doesn't help, in the end.

They're in New Amsterdam, but he's wearing the mask. It covers his mouth, it restricts his voice, he can't speak to apologize. He can see, though, and there are no goggles over his eyes. Steve isn't small this time. It's like the overpass, it's like the highway, only the buildings are taller and the cars are different, but the rest is the same.

A knife in his hand. His body moving of its own accord.

The words are in Russian but they translate automatically - maybe the implant working even in sleep. It's sourceless, maybe it isn't out loud, maybe it's just known inherently. His mission. Wipe him — not Bucky. Wipe him, Steve. His own two fucking hands to rip his mind out because he can do that now, his ability, his body.

A dim part of his brain remembers that the words are gone. That they don't work.

Why are you doing this anyway? Why are you doing this, how is this happening?

Evidently they're irrelevant. It's happening regardless.

[fossils]

His throat feels raw like he's been shouting for hours in the way that happens in dreams sometimes.

(They've been here before, he distantly remembers. Not just back then--)

He's standing in the living room-slash-bedroom, the lights off except for the cold blue glow cast from behind the curtains. The silhouette is familiar, always should've been.

His body moves sluggishly, eyes wide in the reflecting light. The knife gets past him without an attempt to block. His attention is irrationally fixed elsewhere, hand reaching forward to dig his fingers beneath the mask and pull.

[freightcars]

The knife sinks in with no resistance, like stabbing into water. It doesn't feel like he's accomplished anything when it lands; there is no blood, no tearing flesh, no sense of satisfaction as it impales into Steve's left shoulder nearly at his pec.

Everything is a little foggy, a little indistinct, except for the sight of his hand on the handle of a knife and the stress he feels flooding every bit of him. His peripheral vision is a blur, he can't even make out Steve's face. He just knows that's who it is.

He can feel fingers digging into his cheek, trying to rip the mask away.

Get it off, please get it off-

Like that's the cause, the source, the trigger that will break it. It holds fast, hard to get a good grip with the tips of his fingers, he'll have to pull with far more effort than what it should take.

Meanwhile, he rips the knife out again and twists it in his grip, going for somewhere more brutal this time — it makes no sense, the objective is to blank his mind and erase his memories, but for whatever reason he's compelled to maim before he can do that. He thrusts the blade up instead into Steve's sternum, aiming for the heart.

[fossils]

The part of his mind convinced of reality shouts in warning, but the truth is he's swimming, his thoughts slowed like he's had too much to drink, his body dulled like he's made of clay. The knife lands with heavy pressure and no pain in his shoulder.

He grits his teeth, three fingertips curved beneath the edge of the mask as he wrenches again, a soundless shout releasing from his throat from the exertion. He doesn't think to stop the blade from stabbing into his chest, his free hand lifted to join the other in attempting to gain more purchase, his back arching as his shoulders and head push back against the floor, a knee bent and pressed into his assailant's middle.

C'mon, c'mon--

Blue pools beneath the knife, oozing as thick as blood and casting that same cold blue.

[freightcars]

Their powers work in dreams, is the thing. It might not have otherwise budged, it's hard to know for sure, but with that glowing blue and that absolute concentration the mask comes loose. It's like pulling out a tooth - resistance, resistance, and then a sudden give. It goes contrastingly startlingly light as it's pulled away from his mouth.

Both of his hands wrap around the hilt of the knife, pushing, dragging it up sternum.

But his mouth is free now to rattle off disjointed, distant, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"

Over and over again, but without meeting Steve's eye. Without looking at his face. Just his hands and the knife and his chest, bleeding out despair and horror. Resignation.

It's already done, he's already done it, he can't take it back, Christ.

[fossils]

When it finally comes loose he can feel air rushing out of his own lungs. The mask falls away, it's importance removed as soon as it clatter to the ground and out of his immediate line of sight.

"It's okay, hey--" he says, calm, as if there isn't a knife shoved beneath his ribs. His hands had fallen back with the force of the mask coming off. One raises to Bucky's hand on the knife, the other to the place between his shoulder and neck. His fingers are coated in the blue light-liquid that pours from his wounds with the beat of a pulse.

"--okay? Don't let go, alright?"

He doesn't know why, or what he means when he says that, and it's spoken with a certainty despite that lack of understanding. It's dream logic, nothing deeper than that. Doesn't have to be. He just knows that with the mask off he'll be okay.

The liquid's an inch and a half deep around them somehow. Feels like he's floating in it despite the weight on his chest.

[freightcars]

A choked sound leaves him; it's okay, hey, like that's what tips his composure precariously over the ledge just a little before it settles back again. Steve's the one with the knife embedded in his ribs, the tip piercing an artery, his blood spilling out, and yet Bucky's acting like he's got the right to hurt here. Ridiculous, absurd, selfish, more than a little pathetic.

The last time this happened he woke up before it set in, and while he's awake he's got his composure together. He's got the perfect walls and the perfect detachment to settle it all to a decent and respectable amount of discomfort.

This is a dream, and most of his defenses are asleep. Most of his logic is gone, along with most of his restraint. Another noise escapes his throat wetly, a clipped sound he tries to strangle by closing everything off. It just expresses itself another way, with a spasming jolt through his chest and his shoulders, shaking twice beneath the strain of it all. Don't let go.

He bows under the weight of it, head tipping forward until it nearly hits Steve's shoulder. Teeth bared at the floor, eyes squeezed shut, but he hangs on still because he doesn't know what else to do.

With stab wounds, you're meant to leave the knife in. The second you pull it out it stops plugging the wound, they bleed out faster. It's limbo, and he's curling around the damn thing like he means to protect it from — what, exactly ?

You can't un-stab someone, you can't un-kill them, and that sweeps through him with a haggardly breathed, "God. I didn't mean to, I didn't mean it-"

[fossils]

"I know, I know--"

His hand slips from his shoulder to the back of his head, giving him silent permission to lean the rest of the way down, to rest his forehead down.

Shouldn't be so calm. Not with the strange wound, the bright liquid draining from him. Not with the weight of Bucky's fear and denial battering him like a storm. But it's like the blade-- he feels only the pressure, not the pain. No matter what hits, he remains still.

"If you start cryin' I'm gonna start cryin'..."

That was the joke. Steve was always more the crier. Ugly as hell, too. Bucky could hold just about anything in.

His hand brushes idly up the back of his head and through his hair. The other hand tightens his grip around his knuckles, the knife. Not pushing or pulling, until it becomes hard to tell when one ends and the other begins.

The blue lights up the room, and they could see each other's faces more clearly if they weren't too close for it. He turns his head slightly, as if to try.

sharing is caring →

[fossils]

They're reclining on the mattress, his back pressed against the headboard. They're watching another scifi flick, they're listening to the news. It's relaxing, in a way that binds him to the present, because they're older and weathered, and it makes him appreciate moments like this more than he ever was capable of back in their teens and twenties.

He gets up to go to the bathroom. Opens the door and walks down the hall until he finds it.

Washes his hands, watching them beneath the water. Glancing at his own reflection, his portrait a blur in the glass. He'll tell Bucky that he can sleep on the couch if he wants to finish the movie. Doesn't think he has it in him to stay up tonight.

Every step down the hall is weighted. Legs bend only to meet resistance, like walking through water. His stride shortens. His back bends. Keeping his eyes open takes force, and for every second he manages, he's stuck in darkness for two more, three more.

He blinks and he's on all fours. He grits his teeth, focused all at once against collapsing entirely.

"Buck--?"

The hallway stretches on ahead of him, but the door at the end is still open.

[freightcars]

Beyond the doorway, the blue light of a television screen. There's nothing on it, it's just flickering through a mimicry of the idea. Blue, shadow, blue, shadow shadow, blue, shadow. He hears something that isn't words. It's noise, familiar noise, but it takes no shape and it feels discordant.

He gets out of bed three times before he gets out of bed. There's a handgun in his nightstand. There's a handgun in his nightstand. There's a handgun-

In his hand, and he's looking through an open door that in reality would lead to the bathroom. It doesn't. It's a blurry blackness, shadowed too close to light that should keep it from being shadowed. Something's in it, he can feel eyes.

He cocks the gun. Clicks the safety off. Only has to do that once because even in dreams that has become as automatic as breathing.

cw gore and stuff

[fossils]

His vision is more darkness than light. He forces himself forward on hands and knees, forces his eyes to open for a split second of hazy-clarity. Another few inches of ground. Blue light from the doorway like a beacon. Calling, beckoning.

His body struggles forward and he loses the feel of the floor beneath his hands, the hardwood on his knees.

His march is slow under the weight and pressure, mechanical now. Once in the midst of darkness behind his eyelids he opens them to see one of his hands, oddly bent and stretched.

Nails scrape the floorboards, cracking and breaking off, though he feels none of it. Sees none of it.

Eyes reflect beyond the dark, fixing on the click of the gun.

Jaws pry apart.

It's the first time in hours that he's able to register feeling, the pressure in his throat as he tries to force sound from it again, his maw dripping and broken from the effort.

It's a wet, garbled sound. Like a faulty radio picking too many signals, like more than one voice squeezed out of the same throat, tearing flesh along its exit. An excruciating moan that drags on and on.

[freightcars]

It creeps in through the dark, through the door open three fourths of the way. It steps forward, he steps back — not out of terror, though fear does buzz at the back of his mind. It's just sheer incredulity, shock that doesn't understand what it sees.

It opens its mouth.

It makes the most god-awful roar he's ever heard.

He isn't in his waking mind, he cannot know or tell the difference. Cannot pick up on subtle clues as well as he ought to. He only sees monster, he only hears hell. He pulls the trigger, and there's a strange delay between that and the bullet actually leaving the chamber. Two or three seconds after he squeezes the pop finally comes. He didn't aim, because aiming is a concept he's momentarily forgotten. It isn't likely to cut cleanly through skull like it otherwise might've.

[fossils]

He's standing in a room in the dark, soundless.

A camera flash —

blue light, a metal arm

— flash —

shots echo underwater, he feels them thud against his thick hide, his eyes are so, so wide

— flash —

mid-leap, forearms extended, wide wide wide eyes more white than blue, jaws straining with another cry

[freightcars]

He pulls the trigger again but it takes too long. The force of it shudders through his arm well after the beast is in the air. In the air, in the air, and he should be able to do something. Should be able to bring an arm up, should be able to tuck and roll underneath. His limbs are slow and sagging and heavy. Everything has a delay.

He doesn't remember getting knocked over. He isn't knocked over. He is just on the ground and it is on top of him, with no place in the middle. He thrusts his left arm up to protect his head on instinct.

There isn't a gun in his right hand. What gun? He never had a gun. He does have a knife, though, because he always has a knife. It's in his boot, and the logistics of how he reaches down to pull it out while pinned like this don't matter. It just matters that he has a knife and he's trying to bring it up but it might just be that his hand is wrapped around a handle but there's nothing after the handle.

[fossils]

( There's no knife, no hand around it. There's a stump, flesh and wiring sheared through by yellowed teeth, elongated throat choking down bits of slender bone and metal. )

He's in a dark room, his pulse pounding, every muscle tense—

( Jaws bear down on a shoulder, snapping through bone as blood fills its mouth again, pulsing )

[freightcars]

At some point he started gritting his teeth, at some point he started baring them. At some point he started yelling through them, primal like a snarl. Pushing back with an arm that goes, pushing back with an arm that goes, no arms to push back, teeth in his shoulder. Wilding on the floor, blood is hot down his neck, arm (don't have an arm) arm is getting cold.

He tries to force himself to sitting and he almost makes it and then he's back on the ground with teeth at his throat, and he tries to force himself to sitting and he--

Sits up so suddenly and enthusiastically he falls out of the fucking bed, throat raw but not sure if he was actually yelling out loud or if he's just hoarse from sleep. He doesn't actually process the difference yet, there is a handgun in his nightstand, and then it is in his hand pointed at...

Nothing. Just nothing, just the dark, like a goddamn moron while his heart beats too fast.

"Jesus," he breathes so low it's barely audible.