kore_logs | Blood pounding in my eardrums like a battle cry.

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Blood pounding in my eardrums like a battle cry.

Who: Bucky + ?
When: Days 138
Where: The Halls outside his assigned room and onward
What: Phones are for patsies.
Warning: Violence, language, fighting

The message on the phone went, for the most part, ignored. There were bigger concerns for Bucky to deal with than a stranger on the radio comms and one of those was finding where Steve and the other Commandos have vanished to. They had been preparing for the mission to intercept the train. It was a dangerous mission, but then, so were all of their missions, and the boys were crazy enough to keep on going.

But this mission was important, and more than that, they had a deadline. That was what kept him pushing on, even after waking up in a room with too much steel. Far too sterile. He had jolted awake in a panic, with wild eyes on his surroundings. For a few heart-stopping moments, the soldier had been certain he was back at the Hydra base. Fighting guards trying to strap him back down to a table.

It was enough to get his adrenaline racing and his nerves on high-alert.

Which meant that the highly-trained and dangerous soldier was walking the halls like enemy territory. A dangerous battleground. Armed only with a broken piece of chair frame and the race of his pulse, he searched for a way out, keeping radio silence to avoid getting detected sooner.

Whoever grabbed him, had to have been after all of them. Which meant Steve and the other men had to be here somewhere. They had to be.

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It had been two days since Steve had woken up in the facility. Two days of figuratively beating his head against a whitewashed wall as he'd tried to figure out why and how he was there. The other prisoners hadn't been much help, if any, at all and he had found himself getting increasingly angry at the fact that most of them seemed to not care about the situation that they were in.

In fact, anger was something that had seemed to have latched onto him and hadn't let him go, taking everything to higher and higher levels of frustration. He'd found himself preferring no company as he'd set about trying to map out the changing halls and the key areas. He'd taken to making the rounds every odd hour in an attempt to see how much had changed. He hadn't gotten much sleep since getting there, his mind refusing to shut down until he'd found at least a start to a solution for this problem.

Which was the only logical explanation for the fact that when he turned the corner and saw a man in the hallway about fifty feet ahead internal alarms started going off. Steve stopped in his tracks, squinting slightly in an attempt to get a better read on the figure ahead of him.

It couldn't be.

And yet he couldn't make his feet move another step. The likeness was too real. Too painful. He clamped his jaw shut. Was this one of the ghosts that he'd been told about? An experiment administered by those in charge.

No. He wouldn't let them use this against him. Hell no.

"I'm right here," He said, his angry voice carrying down the hall. "What do you want?"

The worst of it was, Bucky was still wearing that same dark uniform. The exact one Steve had last seen him wearing on that train. Unfortunately for Bucky, he had no idea Steve was here or that the man might think he was dead. Hearing his voice was a wash of relief that got cut short by that angry tone.

He had thought Steve would be happier to see him. He had been searching this place top to bottom looking for him. Maybe it was something else that had his nerves flared, just like it was for Bucky. Maybe that almost accusing voice had been directed at someone else.

"Steve!" There is a hint of hope in his voice, when he looks down the hall to catch his best friend's attention. If he ignores the tone and the look Steve is giving him, he can push through this. Maybe he's just pissed off they were derailed from their mission. Or frustrated with how they left things back before they set out for the mission.

"I've been looking all over for you, pal, what's going on?"

Steve's feet moves him forward, every detail of the man before him growing more and more clearer the closer he gets. The uniform, the set of the soldiers, down to that look on his face. How the hell did they know every detail? Had they looked inside his head. Had they poked around his heart and found the most tender spot.

He refused to give them the satisfaction of reacting any way but in outrage. Even if seeing Bucky again like this had been the stuff of seventy years worth of dreams.

"Yeah, I bet you have," Steve says, his expression hardened into an unmoving mask of hate. His eyes dark with anger. "If you think I'm going to let you use him against me, you've got another thing coming."

This thing - this projection - looks so real, so solid. Steve can't tell if it's his eyes playing trick on him, or his mind. For all he knows this thing isn't even here. He stops a few feet away, crossing his arms over his chest.

"What do you want?"

Something in Bucky's chest sinks with that expression. Cold. Harsh. The look Steve got when facing down a bully or their enemies in the war. It was the look that meant Steve meant business and wasn't fooling around. He stopped in his tracks, lowering the broken metal in his hands. Letting it slip loose before dropping it to lean it against the wall. Not quite to the floor. If something is up he might need it, and unarmed in a Hydra base, Steve or no Steve, is an uncomfortable feeling.

"To get out of here. Steve, what the hell. What's going on."

Don't look at him like that. Steve. Don't. Bucky's forehead furrows, eyebrows knit as he steps to the side, away from the weapon. Fingers twitching uncomfortably.

He's exposed here, raw and unsteady. The rising pulse, the twisting knots in his gut. In his head he can hear his own screams on repeat, feel the hard metal on his back. The coursing pain. The madness of isolation. All of it gets shoved down where it won't make him an easy target. Shoved away until he can deal with it a long time and way from now and here.

Hatred. That's the look. The look Steve has never once in his life directed at Bucky. They had fought plenty. All friends did. Especially two as concerned for each other as they were. But it was never hate. That anger had never been pointed at him.

He can't reconcile this. It's a nightmare. It's something from the hell of his mind. Projecting from his paranoia that Steve wouldn't want or need him around now that he could fight all his own battles.

"Where are the others? We've got a train to catch."

Edited 2013-12-04 07:12 (UTC)

If Steve was in his right mind, he might have asked himself what a ghost needed with a weapon, but the only thing on his mind is how the person who made this thing up somehow managed to capture his voice.

It's perfect. It's the one that he's heard screaming in every dream since the fall. It's the one that used to joke with him. Used to yell at him. Used to get him through the tough times. This can't be real.

Steve isn't even listening to what he's saying. Not really. It doesn't matter, in the long run. Whatever they want from him they're not going to get. One principle alone, not to mention that they've stooped to this to get it. And if their only aim is psychological torture, he refuses to play along.

At least until he says that last sentence. Steve's eyes snap up and meets that of the ghost head on. He can feel the blood pounding in his ears, all the pain and anger and sorrow building up and coming to a head inside of him.

Who the hell did these people think they were?

And then the dam is broken and he's moving forward suddenly with a yell, reaching out to push through this thing. This thing that wasn't even there. He wanted to rip it to shreds. He wanted to reach in and rip out it's heart. He'd had enough of this.

He was not expecting his shoulder to connect with something solid, the momentum sending both of them crashing to the floor. Or to feel, a living, breathing thing underneath him as he scrambled to get away from it, his eyes widening in shock.

Shock was what hit Bucky, too. Shock and a battering ram of a human that was his best friend. The force of the blow knocked the air from his lungs and cracked his back against the ground. That was going to be hell, later. Bucky was so confused, caught off guard, that he hadn't even tried to dodge. He had not expected this, couldn't have, But when Steve scrambles back, so does Bucky, making a grab for his weapon.

What did Hydra do to Steve. What had they given him to make him react this way?

Gripping tight to his makeshift weapon, Bucky shakes his head to one side. This isn't good. He needs a way through to Steve. He'll fight him if he has to, but he can't do any serious damage. Assuming he even got that chance.

Well. Maybe he could, but he wouldn't.

Jesus, that had hit hard in more ways than one.

"Stand down. I don't want to have to hand your ass to you again, pal, but I will if it comes down to it."

If Steve comes at him again, he'll be getting defensive swings from the metal and a whole lot of attempts at gaining distance between them, without ever turning his back.

Solid. It's solid and real and talking to him and Steve can barely believe his eyes. The shock quickly fades into a confusion and then a kind of horror as he watches his best friend pick up the weapon and brace himself for a hit.

"What are you?" Steve asks as she scrambles to his feet, using the opposite wall for support.

It's not bad enough that there's something that looks like Bucky, there's something wearing his face. Using his voice. Walking around in the world and pretending to be him.

Steve is breathing heavily, unable to catch his breath. It's almost like when he was younger, but it's not an asthma attack. It's pure rage at the thing in front of him. At the joke someone's trying to pull on him.

He moves forward quickly, knocking the bar to the side with as much force as he can muster before reaching out and grabbing that jacket, staring into those eyes.

"You picked the wrong face to steal, pal."

The punch that follows packs more satisfaction than Steve's felt in a very, very long time.

Okay, so this is quickly going all the wrong ways. For a split second, Bucky drops his guard for his confusion, and it's a moment too long. What are you? The hell does he mean by that?

But Bucky doesn't get the chance to ask because the next few seconds are a blur. Steve comes at him, all fury and rage like Bucky has never seen before, and even raising the bar up to prepare to fight back, regardless of his misgivings, does him little good.

It's knocked away so hard he thinks he heard something in his hand crack, and the bar goes skidding away, not that he intended to really use it on Steve. The next thing that happens leaves white spots in his visions, the punch a harder hit than any he has taken before and if Steve wasn't holding his jacket, would have knocked him back on his ass again.

As it is, it has him gasping for air to breath and struggling to twist out of his jacket and away from his friend.

He chokes on his words, violently pulling out of the jacket, sprinting back to grab the bar with the hand that isn't ringing numb, and Steve's hit had bent it. Reminding him of that punch Schmidt left in Steve's shield.

"Steve, stop. Jesus, you're not thinking straight."

He coughed up another lung of air, moving back as he spoke.

"They did something to you. Got in your head. It's me. Drop the fists before you hurt yourself."

Because even as things were getting more and more serious, Bucky clung to what made him, him. Because maybe eventually he'd find the right thing to say to snap Steve out of this.

Edited 2013-12-05 10:05 (UTC)

It moves fast, slipping out of the jacket and dodging Steve's grasp. It goes straight for it's bent bar and holds it up as if it is going to be any protection whatsoever from Steve's fists.

The sound of panic in Bucky's voice sends chills down Steve's spine. How? How did they get everything so right? It brings back so many memories. All of the times they fought side by side.

Bucky's not supposed to be on the receiving end of Steve's blows. He's not supposed to be standing here at all, he's gone. Steve watched him fall. His scream reverberating inside his head and his nightmares.

"It's not you," Steve says, the mask of hate breaking for a split second to show a still very raw pain. It may have been seventy years since Bucky's death, but for Steve it's only been months, weeks, days. The future has been a distraction, a band aid, but what he hasn't gotten is time to deal with the loss of the only person who stood by him when he wasn't Captain America.

"You're not him," he says, this time gaining conviction as he drops the jacket and moves forward. "You're a poor excuse. A trick. You have no right."

If Bucky had actual context for that pain he might have been able to talk Steve down faster. Might have known the right things to say, or do, to calm him down. But he was flying blind here, and grasping for what little reason he could find. He didn't have much to go on beyond his assumptions that Hydra had them and was playing some sick game.

The voice and tones aren't the only thing that rings true of Bucky. After all, it IS him. His moves are the same. His defensive reactions so similar to ones Steve would have witnessed time and again. And he is moving. Trying to keep one step away from Steve. One step ahead of the game.

He's not armed, and even if he was, what would he do against Steve? No. Words have to be his go to, and while he could be the charmer, they didn't exactly talk things out. They understood each other and they talked around things, not through them.

"No right to what? Be me? Steve, you can see me with your own eyes, or did all that serum go to your head and blind you? I'm supposed to be the one taking the stupid with me. Don't take it all back at once, pal."

Come on, Steve. Don't do this. He practically pleads his words, though all the pleading is in his eyes, not his voice, whic remains steady and light the whole way through, if a bit hoarse from the bruising to his lungs from that last punch. Is that two cracked ribs? No more spinach for Steve after this. Ever again.

The anger snaps back like a rubber band moving him forward and tensing him for another hit. The voice, the tone, the moves all of them are things that could've been pieced together from footage. But it's only a copy. Only an illusion.

Until Bucky says something that this Bucky couldn't have known about. Steve's step falters and he stills, staring at him. "What did you just say?"

He needs to hear it again. That thing that Steve had told him on Bucky's last night in New York. The anger is edged out by confusion and nostalgia. Words that no one but Steve could know.

Unless everything was in Steve's head. It wasn't, but that was a possible explanation. Still, whatever he had said seemed to be getting through to Steve, and Bucky stopped his retreat, not breaking eye contact with his best friend. He shook his head slowly and forced a small, crooked smile through everything else..

"I said you can't take the stupid back all at once. Doesn't work that way."

Come on, Steve. Snap out of it.

The color drained from Steve's face as he stared back at the figure of his lost best friend. It was impossible for him to actually be standing here and yet, here he was. "It can't..." Steve started, but stopped himself, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"Bucky Barnes is dead," Steve said, his mouth suddenly bone dry. It was the first time he'd actually said it out loud and he felt like he'd just lost some kind of battle within himself by doing so.

Steve took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clenching his hands at his sides. "He's gone."

Steve looked away, unwilling to share his grief with... whatever this was. He cleared his throat, his voice dangerously low.

"How did you know to say that? Who are you?"

This isn't such a different stance than when Meja had first traversed the building, over and over until she realized that the hallways kept flowing into each other and the inner layout of the place is impossible. But impossible is a familiar backdrop for the Valkyrie. These days, she doesn't have too many destinations in mind when she leaves her room with Roland the white lab rat on her shoulder. The presence of the rodent takes the place of Muninn. A poor substitute, but it's something. And the rodent is fast endearing itself to her.

One aspect of the mixed company is the Meja no longer glamours her battle gear to look like anything else. She's still an odd sight, however — in her white cloak, silver epaulets, gleaming bracers, armored boots, and the garb of someone who works in a very different culture than most. What's more immediately noticeable might be her two short swords, strapped to her back, and the daggers in her belt, which gleam just as much as her armor. But she walks casually — at the moment, she's on her way to check on the plants she and a few others are growing.

Whatever he was expecting to find here, it wasn't this dame. He immediately goes into the offensive before he can think about it. Between this place having him on edge, triggering his memories of the Hydra base and a whole lot of not good emotions to go with it, he's also been wandering long enough to get frustrated on top of it.

Whoever she is, she's armed, decked out, and not in any uniform he recognizes.

"Halt, wer da!"

His German has actually improved quite a bit during the war, But Bucky tenses, stands like he belongs here, rather than the panic he was in, keeps his eyes forward and the weapon behind his back.

If this is Hydra, she must be one of their people.

["Halt! Who is there?" - Apologies for the German, he thinks Germans have him as a POW again.]

German, oddly enough, is one of the languages of Midgard that Meja doesn't speak. She stops dead in her tracks and frowns, staring down the corridor at Bucky. He looks like he means business, whatever his business might be, and she doesn't recognize him. He's not decked out in a white lab coat — that's something.

"Hello." She decides on English, her voice lightly accented in Norwegian. "I apologize, but I don't speak German. Do you need assistance?"

Lately, it seemed like everyone around here was out to rip each other's heads off. Garrett had found it easier to stay out of harm's way by avoiding confrontation altogether. When he scented a new person, he immediately dropped his staff and shifted into his fox form. If it was someone else who was looking for a fight, he wanted to be able to run.

Cautiously moving forward, he caught sight of Bucky. The way he was holding that piece of wood showed he meant business. Unlike a real fox, who probably would have turned tail and ran, Garrett stood stock-still, one paw still raised up in the air. Only his nose quivered as he sized up the man, the ruff of fur standing up on his neck betraying how tense he felt.

A fox in the base? Bucky watches it, eyes constantly rising and darting to his surroundings before back down to the animal. In a place like this, he wasn't willing to drop his guard or his weapon. But the fox was even more confusing. Where did it come from. How did it find its way in here?

Slowly, carefully and without sacrificing his balance if he had to make a dash for it, Bucky lowered himself to the ground, hands resting on the floor, one of them on top of his makeshift weapon.

"Hey, pal... What are you doing in this place? Did you wander in?"

Another quick glance around, muscles tense, ready to bolt.

"Did you come in from outside? Wonder if I can get you to show me the way back out, what do you think? Are you just as lost as I am?"

He kept his tone low and even, listening and waiting for other voices, the sounds of footfalls, anything. He was talking to a fox. Well. He had done worse. It wasn't that different from talking to himself.

Edited 2013-12-04 09:01 (UTC)

One of Garrett's ears flattens to his head while the other stays forward, listening to Bucky's tone of voice. He crept closer, mindful to stay out of striking distance. This man certainly had a lot of questions. He must've been even newer than Garrett himself was.

He opened up his muzzle to answer Bucky's questions, but the conversation he'd had with Meja his first day came back to him. Not everyone here had come from a place where talking animals were considered ordinary. Hell, even back home, most ordinary humans were still superstitious, regarding Skinwalkers with a mixture of fear and anger.

Garrett closed his muzzle, instead shaking his head no to the last question asking if he's lost. His paws tense up, ready to dart away at the first sign of trouble. A fox that can understand what someone is saying is weird, but perhaps a little lower on the weird scale than one who flat-out talks.

Bucky doesn't try to pet the fox, to his credit. It isn't a pet. It's not some stray dog he's going to win over with kind words, and he has nothing on him to offer a wild animal. But he lifts his hands off his weapon and the floor to rest his arms on his knees. It's the best gesture he can offer a thing that shouldn't even technically be capable of that level of reason.

But then he nods. The fox nods and Bucky's eyes widen in surprise in spite of himself. Great. He's having a conversation with a fox. An actual one now. It isn't even one-sided. Either he's hallucinating or it's some kind of crazy German spy fox, which would have sounded ridiculous to him up until he actually dealt with Hydra. Now it actually seems more feasible than a man with a red skull for a face. They had sniffer dogs. It wasn't that far of a stretch.

He might have asked a few less questions if he had expected the animal to respond.

"Well that's... new. Can you understand me?"

Well, that went better than expected. Perhaps this new man is from a place where strange things are not so strange. Garrett shakes his head in a firm yes, with an emphatic snort from his muzzle that seems to suggest that his full answer is "Yes, of course I understand you."

He dances back a few steps and scrapes the floor with his right paw's claws. "Pay attention." He doesn't quite meet Bucky's eyes, the instinct of a challenge to fight too ingrained in his mind. He cocks his head at a questioning angle. "Who are you and where did you come from?" The message is none too clear.

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Blood pounding in my eardrums like a battle cry.

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