IT’S A CONDITION OF YOUR PARDON.

[thestaremaster]

WHO: Bucky Barnes, OTA
WHERE: Calibrations
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: Calibrations
WARNINGS: All of them, PTSD, Graphic violence, torture, amputation, brain washing, gaslighting




The wall opposite the one you walk in through is trees. Birch trees. Wallpaper, maybe a large painting…it doesn’t really matter. It’s peaceful. Through vertical blinds you can see glimpses of the city outside, warm light streaming through.

It’s an office room, cozied up a little with these touches, but still formal in the way all these spaces are. This is a room where secrets are spilled and notes are taken, until the hour ticks away and you’re released back into the world outside. Which makes it an appropriate enough space for this.

There’s a white couch against the wall, and Bucky sit’s there stiffly, gloved hands folded in his lap. In front of his is a black leather chair waiting empty, a notebook perched on the arm of it.

If you care to take a seat and flip through the book you’ll see a few notes to help prompt you.

Rule 1.
Rule 2.
Rule 3.

Of course, you could pose your own questions if there’s something else you’re interested in knowing. Or, if you’re not so interested in playing the roll of doctor as you are in investigating, you might find a different book, red with a star on it, hidden away in a filing cabinet. There are some strange words written inside.

Comments

[usedtobesmoller]

Steve is almost relieved as he walks through the door. Ever since he'd seen that stupid hallucination of Bucky asking for his help, he's wondered if he is okay. But here he is. Sitting on the couch hale and....well. He doesn't actually look all that great, but at least he's here and in one piece.

"Buck!" Steve goes forward before remembering that this place isn't actually a room. It's Bucky's mind and the person in front of him is part of that. He pauses and looks around, confused. The empty chair is a pretty big hint about what he's meant to do. He sits in it gingerly and picks up the notebook.

"Buck...where is this?"

[thestaremaster]

Looking up at his name, Bucky's stiff posture softens at the sight of Steve, and he offers a lopsided smirk with a nod towards the window.

"S'Brooklynn, can't you tell," he teases, obviously stalling. He sighs and corrects- "...It's a doctor's office. Someone I gotta see to talk about...everything."

[usedtobesmoller]

They'd just started talking about this and Steve isn't comfortable just diving into Bucky's mind without his full consent. But then again, he's not sure what else he can do here. Just sit and stare at him?

Who would do something weird like that?

He looks at the notebook and takes a deep inhale.

"Are... Is it these rules you're talking about? What's Rule 1?"

[thestaremaster]

Bucky frowns and looks at his hands.

"...Nothing illegal," he recites. Behind him the trees are replaced with various jumping memories.

Bucky as a young teen stealing medicine Steve needs.
Bucky with longer hair- grabbing a running motorcycle and toppling the rider to steal it and escape his pursuers.
Bucky placing a tracker on a car.
Bucky asking Sam if he could explain a hypothetical...

They're jumbled and quick, jumping from one to the next without warning and reason, like Bucky is thinking back over various instances but trying not to land on any one in particular.

[usedtobesmoller]

The memories flash quickly but Steve is hypnotized by them. The medicine... Steve had always thought Bucky stole it. It is different to see it, though. And then all the other things. The long hair and the strange man... The guilt on Bucky's face that Steve knows all too well, no matter how much he tries to hide it.

He blinks, surprised and not all at the same time. He offers Bucky a gentle smile.

"Having trouble with that rule?"

[thestaremaster]

He breaths a soft laugh through his nose, and again, relaxes a little. This is Steve after all...

"Always have," he allows with a grin. It breaks off after a moment, and he glances away.

"...you really want to know these things?"

[usedtobesmoller]

Steve leans forward in the chair, keeping eye contact the whole time. He wants Bucky to know this is serious. The most serious he's been in a long time.

"I already told ya, Buck. You can't tell me anything that's gonna change what I think of you. I know you. Future, past, upsidedown. Whatever. I know you. And yeah, I wanna know what happened.

"I wanna know everything."

[thestaremaster]

There's a half dozen decades or more that Steve doesn't know, and Bucky doubts he'll feel the same after he sees, but nods.

"...I'll show you anything you want to see," he agrees.

[usedtobesmoller]

Steve has never felt so powerful and powerless at the same time. He doesn't want to force this out of Bucky but at the same time this is the best opportunity he'll have to show he isn't just hot air about what he said.

Steve inhales deep and holds it as he thinks. Finally, he gets out:

"Show me why you were being chased. The motorcycle... What was happening?"

[in_extremis]

This place was clean, with a kind of corporate impartiality that Tony was comfortable with, serene without too much humanity cluttering the visible surfaces. As though he hadn't seen Bucky at all, Tony glanced around, working his jaw and taking slow, rocking steps, like he was assessing the real estate value of the space. When he did acknowledge the room's occupant, it was a muttered, "You should have warned me, I feel under-dressed." It was the kind of place that could leave him feeling severely underarmored without a suit (tailored, not forged) and maybe an important phone called scheduled to take him away quickly, and Tony was going to have to put on a confident show before Bucky realized just how serious he was.

He came to a stop next to the chair, one hand alighting carefully on the back of it, and his calculating stare settled on Bucky finally. It was a narrow, cold scrutiny, with the hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth that dared Bucky to stare back as long as he thought he could handle it. "James," he greeted, still watching him closely, looking for any revealing twitch to follow. "You keep your secrets very orderly."

[thestaremaster]

"You could always go change," Bucky countered in a low voice, watching Tony while trying to look like he wasn't.

His lips twitched into a smirk at the use of his first name, reminded of the doc in this setting, and he shrugged a shoulder, looking around. He very pointed turned his attention back to the chair. That was where he was supposed to go. Nothing else to see...

"Stark. You can thank the Doc. I have nothing to do with it."

[in_extremis]

That quick look around didn't seem to linger anywhere in particular until it was intent on the chair, making Tony slowly scrape his lip between his teeth with a flicker of irritation. If that was where Bucky wanted him to go, it probably wasn't all that interesting. "No doc here," Tony pointed out, glancing away like he might be searching for one, "so must be a little bit of you."

There was no way someone's darkest recesses were filed away in an orderly fashion in one of these dream-spaces, but there wasn't too much else taking up room in the office. Sauntering in a watchful arc, like a cat stalking his sensible office furniture prey, Tony continued, "Unless that's what you meant--I could throw on a lab coat, you could pull your pants down. I have very gentle hands."

[thestaremaster]

Fair enough. Bucky glanced around with an almost shy look breaking through. It wasn't what he expected either. But he guessed he felt...safe here. Able to share things in way he couldn't outside of this room.

He breathed out a faint laugh through his nose. "You sound like Howard," he teased, and then an apologetic smile, knowing no one liked to be compared to their parents, least of all Stark.

[in_extremis]

Yeah, the accusation wasn't a new one, and was getting harder to ignore. There was the slightest defensive lift of Tony's shoulder, and his smile in response was hard and brief, and he was much happier to turn his attention aggressively to the filing cabinet to find something that might make Bucky flinch in the same way.

It was files, unfortunately, which didn't make for a particularly flashy parry, leaving Tony rifling through them as he said, "He was always much cagier about you. Even when I asked him, it would be--you two were a unit, 'They were real patriots. Knew what it was like to be a real man.'" Hello, what was this? Not a file full of papers, but a small, bound book, enticingly red among the white and tan. Tony plucked it up curiously.

[thestaremaster]

Bucky's nose wrinkled, wondering when it was Howard turned into that. Or maybe Tony's Howard had always been that way.

He stiffened as Tony pulled the red book free, and the room shifted. It was cold. Dark. Still an office of sorts. Or a bunker. And it seemed to be old Soviet.

Bucky's couch had been replaced with a chair, and his breath came quick.

"You don't want to look at that..."

[in_extremis]

In a rare instance of not being compulsively contrary, Tony took a cautious step back from where the filing cabinet had been, book still in hand but arms raised stiffly like he thought if he moved too much it might disturb the already charged energy of the room they had been plunged into. With a careful glance around, he was almost inclined to agree. Still holding the book aloft, very aware that it was a threat now, he looked toward Bucky and assessed this new chair with the same cold calculation that he had the comfortable office, and offered the alternative, "What's about to happen?"

[thestaremaster]

"You're going to meet the Winter Solider," Bucky answered, lifting his chin to meet Tony's gaze with a hard stare. "Is that what you want?"

[deal_me_in]

"I dunno what I was expecting but this probably wasn't it," the Hunter says by way of greeting as he looks around, eyeing the furniture and the tree motif in the critical way one would an art piece at a gallery.

He looks over at Bucky and then the empty chair before making a beeline for it. It looks cushy and expensive, of course he's gonna plant his metal butt in it.

[thestaremaster]

"Me neither," Bucky offers with a shrug, surprised by his brain's choices, but then he's never had a very firm grasp on it since everything that's happened.

Nothing happens at least when Cayde sits. Bucky's mind may have constructed a calm room, but it's secrets wouldn't reveal themselves without being asked.

"Comfy?"

[deal_me_in]

"Oh, very. Wish they had one of these at that store," the Exo says as he wiggles himself into the thing like he's trying to wedge himself into an imprint. It's purely without a thought that he picks up the notebook sitting there on its arm, flipping absently through it. He pauses on a page, squinting.

"Rule 1? Did I miss a preface or something..."

[thestaremaster]

"Nothing illegal..." Bucky recites reflexively, and behind him the trees shift to show a longer haired version of Bucky, closer to Soldier in appearance. He's with Captain America and Black Panther, the sound of sirens in the air as countless police and special forces surround them.

War Machine lands and points his repulsors at them, ordering- "Stand. down. now." Around them countless guns train on them.

"Congratulations Cap. You're a criminal," War Machine says as Cap puts his shield away.

The Bucky of the memory looks distressed but defeated as they forces swarm in, forcing him to his knees where he complies, and is forced down onto his belly as they secure him, not fighting.

[deal_me_in]

"Oh, I dunno, illegal's kinda fun depending on the circumstances-" Cayde starts before noticing the shifting image. "Ack!" he flails, snapping the notebook shut although he can't quite stop looking at the memory that plays out. He knows that Bucky, the Soldier who unlike the one sitting there on the couch is all serious business.

"Sorry- forgot how this crap worked." He shoves himself up from the chair as though it had personally offended him. "Can't even deface someone's notebook without having something happen." He seems particularly disgruntled about that, even as he eyes the rest of the space in a new light.

[thestaremaster]

Bucky gives him a look, like he's mocking him for not expecting that to happen, but a bit of humor helps lighten the mood at least, lips quirking faintly.

"Imagine that." He looks around in consideration. "...No one says we have to do what they want. We can see if that phone works. Order a pizza?" he muses, doubtful it would actually work, but hell, it's his head, right?

[deal_me_in]

"What, I'm serious! It's been how long since the first time we got thrown into this kinda thing!" Cayde flaps the notebook around before slapping it down on the armrest where he found it. "Anyway I don't remember anything triggering by phrases." He looks around, over at the desk and then at Bucky before he goes sidling around it. Hey, he's game if the man of the headspace is.

"Doubt whoever owns this office has a pizza place on speed dial but hey, lessee..." he says as he gives the phone an experimental tap with a finger before picking it up.

[thestaremaster]

There's a dial tone at least, and no memories seem to be triggered.

Bucky's head tilts in question. Is it working?
"Can you dial zero for an operator? Is that still a thing?"