No Plan. Great.

[thestaremaster]

WHO: Bucky Barnes, OTA
WHERE: Temba woods
WHAT: Not dealing with feelings
WHEN: Early October
WARNINGS: :|



This Bucky kept to himself much like so many of the Buckys that had graced Agra 10 over the years. It was possible few had noticed any absence at all, though they may notice that his mood had certainly soured. His words were few and far between, and there seemed to be a permanent sort of glare set in his eyes.

He busied himself most days with hard labor, disappearing into the woods and felling trees. Whether you went out after him or happened upon him by chance, it wasn't hard to miss once you stumbled into the clearing he'd made.

From the looks of things Bucky could just about clear cut this whole forest if this mood continued. There were piles of logs and debris in various states of finish, and the loud sound of each blow of the axe echoing out in an impatient rhythm. One that halted abruptly, glancing back to acknowledge your presence briefly before he continued without a word.

Comments

[in_extremis]

The clearing was particularly striking from above. It had started as a subtle change, a small enough shift in the treeline that Tony hadn't noticed. After a couple of grounded days, though, and a straight shot up into the sky, he didn't even need the small alert on his automatic topographical scan, or the waveform the shivered with every strike of the axe that vibrated through the empty city. The Iron Man slowed his rocketing upward charge, twisted toward the sound, and eventually pitched to the side and started to drop, swooping back down in between the hollowed buildings to burst toward the anomaly.

As he got closer, and it was clear that there was only one person nearby, or at least only one that was carrying his communication device, Tony should have probably backed away again. Bucky would have heard him already, miles away probably, maybe the damage was already done. It made no real difference then if Bucky could see him, too, if the Iron Man still kept its distance, hovering over the clearing and glancing around at its ragged edges, and casting a circle of warm, yellow light down on the busy lumberjack like a streetlamp in the quiet twilight of the forest.

[thestaremaster]

After a few more swings, Bucky's axe stilled again, rolling his shoulder with a sigh and looking up a the Iron Man as he sat the tool down. It was harder to pointedly ignore a person in a rocket suit. Or maybe it was all of Sam's pestering with Redwing that had him so particularly attuned to an eye in the sky.

He stepped away and stooped to collect his water, sitting on one of the felled logs, giving Stark his moment to approach if he was so interested.

[in_extremis]

For a moment, it seemed like Iron Man might not have been all that interested. He drew up a little higher, craning his neck to peer back the way he had come into the city over the trees. They both knew that he knew that Bucky was out here, doing...whatever he was doing, maybe that was all he needed to convey. Conversely, Bucky didn't really need to tell Tony why he was out here. Tony understood that impulse. It would have been nice if that actually meant they didn't have anything else to talk about.

He dropped, with a final halting burst that scattered the leaves and needles that Bucky's work had knocked loose, betraying his reluctance to actually touch down. On solid ground, the suit powered down to silent, but the move he made to pull off his helmet was aborted and he planted his hands on his hips instead. "Cayde's expecting me at the Deep End soon. Poker night. So," he reported, throwing a glance around at Bucky's clearing, letting them both calculate how much it might look like a convenient gravesite, and if it actually was far enough away from the city to keep the Hunter off the trail.

[thestaremaster]

Bucky breathed a poor attempt at a laugh through his noise, tipping his bottle in acknowledgement. His knuckles were banged up, as though he'd been having a go at the trees with more than just his axe.

"Right," he nodded faintly, and glanced back towards the city, "...wouldn't want to keep him waiting."

[knightlyperformance]

"...you plannin' on building a log cabin or something?"

Sure, maybe it was a bad idea interrupting a guy with an ax and a clear need to chop things, but Marc doesn't look too concerned. He knows a guy deep in thought when he sees it. Really deep in thought.

"I know the weather's been turning an' all but I don't think deforestation's gonna help those pink guys any time soon if they want a place to get back to."

[crystalmaster]

Radley definitely stumbles on him one day, and he pauses to watch for a moment.

"Hi," he greets. "... That's a lot of wood."

He hasn't met Bucky, and he likes to know all the people there. He can see Bucky doesn't seem communicative, however. Somehow Radley seems to end up encountering such people and trying to make friends.

"I'm Radley," he ventures.

[plate_builder]

Well, this wasn't what Reeve had expected when he'd set off into the woods outside of Temba to start evaluating trees for felling and then breaking down into boards. His month of learning carpentry on Eorzea had furthered his desire to see the task done, and today had been the first day he wanted to start. Getting as many logs into storage so he could work them over the winter as possible had been his goal.

And it seemed someone was beating him to it.

"Have you specific intentions on these logs? And experience working them?"

He's tempted to just see if the man has a hand saw lying around so he can start working the branches off.

[in_extremis]

Iron Man tipped his head in return, the slightest cant of his helmet that seemed tellingly loud from the inside as the metal shifted and the focus of his cameras clicked and flared at the edges of his vision. His shoulders wound up briefly in tension, then drooped with a guilty sigh that didn't make it past the faceplate, Iron Man staring steadily ahead while Tony cut his focus aside to a battered stump. He hadn't figured out the apology yet, he was working on it, he should have factored this breakdown into the schedule.

"He wouldn't want you out here like this," he eventually said after an uncomfortably long pause. They probably weren't talking about Cayde anymore. "More importantly, he'd never forgive me if I left you, and, listen, I've got enough apologies to make, I don't need this, you know, it's hard enough with him, without this."

[thestaremaster]

He was met with a long stare, that gaze the only proof for a short while that Bucky had even heard him. It dropped after a moment, and he distracted from having to speak a moment longer by taking a long sip of his water.

"We don't know yet," Bucky said finally, though obviously he had some thoughts as to how it would go, given all...this.

[thestaremaster]

"...Just prepping for the winter," Bucky countered after a long look, though glancing around he saw maybe that excuse didn't hold up as well as it had when he'd started. He lowered the axe with a frown, setting it into a nearby stump and moving to take a seat.

"Might've got a bit carried away..."

[thestaremaster]

"...it is," Bucky acknowledged blankly, not especially personable. But at Radley's introduction he paused again.

"...Bucky," he returned, waiting a beat to see if that was enough to sate the other man's curiousity.

[thestaremaster]

"Mm?" Bucky paused, glancing around like he hadn't really considered it. "Uh...firewood, I was thinking," he answered, though there was clearly too much for that all ready.

"Help yourself," he welcomed, shrugging a shoulder, "Not a lot. Know how to split 'em. That's about it."

[plate_builder]

That's a passable use, and Reeve won't argue to it.

"I learned when we were on Eorzea, and I was hoping to fell some myself, to make us lumber to work with. Still..."

He's not going to deny the man his project.

"Have you a hand axe or saw? I can clean off these branches for you, so they can be used for kindling, or even just whittling."

[crystalmaster]

"... I haven't seen you around," Radley says. "What ship are you on? I'm on the Bishop."

[in_extremis]

Okay, so Bucky had heard, but there was no evidence that he was actually listening. The rattling feedback sound that Iron Man made was Tony sighing, and he gave an awkward and entirely ineffective squeeze as he hooked a hand around the back of his tense neck, and craned back the way he had come again. He could still bail. That move afforded him a sweeping glance over the work Bucky had done again, though, and not just the obvious marks it had left on him.

"Sure, right. This is you expressing your optimism," Tony observed, with a lethargic flap of his free hand at the felled trees. It took another breath for him to push his shoulders back, hands still working in subtle contortions to find his words. "One of the things that people don't really talk about, when they're sitting in a circle and drinking shitty coffee and you know the person sitting on either side of you already can't have a worse opinion of you, in that circle we talk around the ways that we punish ourselves. It's out in the open, but we're not talking about it, because if we did we'd have to talk about all of it, and there's already enough hypocrisy happening. Steve wouldn't do that, though. Asshole. Takes everything head on. Got an answer for everything."

[knightlyperformance]

Marc's lips pulled in the suggestion of a smile, or at least a lopsided one. It didn't quite make it either way.

"Yeah, a bit," he agreed as he cast a look around at the slaughtered trees. "Somethin' on your mind?" Clearly, all things considered. This would be the first time he'd seen anyone lost in thought chopping wood though.

[quark_assassin]

Dustin's come looking for Bucky. He's never met the guy, nor is he even aware that Bucky is the source of the clearing; what he does know is that someone's cutting down trees near the eastern edge of Temba and has been for most of the day.

How does he know this? Because of the noise. It's constant. Dustin would've been minding his own business in his shop, carefully soldering tiny components onto a salvaged breadboard, when the telltale CRASH of another felled tree echoes around the abandoned strip mall and breaks his focus. Sometimes he even hears the more harried chopping of an axe leading up to it. He keeps waiting for it to stop.

Hours later it hasn't, and Dustin's had enough. The teenager comes stomping into the clearing with a fury that far outstrips his slight stature.

"Goddammit you're loud!" he spits. "Do you have to do this here?! You're driving me insane!"

[thestaremaster]

"..." Well Bucky couldn't exactly deny that now, could he?

He listened to Tony, mulling over his words. He snorted softly at the assessment of Steve, lips curling faintly for a moment, and he lifted his gaze.

"He doesn't really. That's the worst part, he just acts like he knows what he's doing," he noted fondly, sure Tony was well aware. Steve never really grew out of that completely. And apparently it was a universal Steve trait.

"...Before this place. I'd finally started working towards figuring out who I was without him. And then he shows up here and, now- ..." Bucky broke off with a sigh. It felt like what little progress he'd made was gone.

[in_extremis]

Tony returned the soft laugh, and a tilt of his helmet that barely concealed the dramatic roll of his eyes. It might have been an act, but the first person Steve always had convinced was himself, then he made it everyone else's problem. Even in this frustrated posture, though, Tony heard himself wondering, "Why would you want that?" Of course it had been hard without Steve, flung in the middle of the universe and trying to get a bunch of innocent people home, but it hadn't occurred to Tony that learning to live without him was even a possibility. Who he was without Steve was a much worse person.

[thestaremaster]

"Nothing important," Bucky denied with a shrug, though it wasn't a very convincing lie when seeing just how much he'd done.

"What are you doin' out here?" he asked, turning the focus back on Marc to avoid answering.

[thestaremaster]

"I've been-...where ever it is they send us some times," Bucky explained, frowning at the lack of memories. Those blocks of time just...gone. Far too familiar a feeling.

"Twin Roses," he answers a bit distantly.

[thestaremaster]

"...I wouldn't," Bucky answered honestly.

"It wasn't my choice. Steve-" he sighed and gave a shrug of understanding, "He...gave up everything for the world for so long. After everything...Steve deserved to have the life he missed out on. I wanted him to have that."

[thestaremaster]

There's more than enough to do both. Firewood was honestly more of an excuse than anything, but Bucky doesn't bother to press. Reeve's welcome to it if he wants it.

"Mm," he nods, a man a few words, and nods his head towards the tools he's scrounged up, neither refusing nor welcoming the company.

[thestaremaster]

Dustin's met with the long stare of a trained killer.

The silence that stretches out is nerve wracking, especially considering the man is wielding an axe. Not that he needs it.

Inwardly, Bucky is amused- if a little surprised- by the reaction. He can't remember the last time someone spoke to him like that without getting to know him first.

"...where would you suggest I do it?" he asks with a deadpan look.

[in_extremis]

For a horrifying moment while Bucky shrugged, Tony braced himself to find out that was how Bucky was going to tell him Steve died, which still felt more rational to Tony after Bucky instead suggested that Steve just walked away. The Steve that was in this place before had done something similar, though, hadn't he? Maybe Tony didn't actually know him that well.

"Without you?" seemed particularly outlandish. Losing Bucky had always been the hardest thing for Steve to cope with. Tony was pretty sure he hadn't really minded leaving behind the war and the cabbage soup.