I didn't mean for it to happen

[wearingthestars]

WHO: Billy, Tommy, Bucky/The Soldier, OTA
WHERE: Temba, YA House
WHAT: The aftermath
WHEN: Early June
WARNINGS: TBD



The Return & What Follows (for Tommy)

Billy screamed, and the world dissolved. The Shadow had shielded him from the worst of it, assaulted by those memories in a non stop barrage for however long they were in there, but now he remembered it all. He dimly registered he was back in his calibration room, hoping he'd managed to release the others before he collapsed heavily onto the floor. He shouldn't have been able to perform that level of magic here. And whatever had allowed it abruptly cut it off with his return, utterly drained from the experience.

He was unconscious, in and out of nightmares for days before he finally jolted awake in a cold sweat, practically tumbling from the bed in his race to the bathroom to retch.

What had he done?

Avoidance [OTA]

Even after he awoke, Billy didn't want to leave the house. He was ashamed and scared, and used the excuse of resting for far longer than was true.

A few faces managed to hunt him down there, and it wasn't like Billy could turn them away, eventually relenting and breaking down a few of those barriers.

After that it was a little easier to venture out. It took a few smaller outing before he was able to get as far as the Hospital, but there at least he could focus on work.

(For Bucky/The Soldier)

Billy knew he probably wanted to stay hidden away as much as he did right now, but after what they'd been through together in the other world, he trusted the man to help him with this. Tommy and the others would refuse, but he was confident Bucky would understand. And he needed to apologize.

His magic was still weak, but it led him to the general location where he was meant to be. Billy couldn't quite meet his eye when he found him, swallowing thickly and looking uncomfortable.

"...Hey. Could we talk?"

Apology- Network- Text

I can't begin to make up for what I put you all through this last month. I had no right, and I'm so sorry you all got caught up in this mess.

I know that doesn't begin to make it right.

They did something to me. Like Calibrations...but worse. I don't know how. And I'm not trying to make excuses for what I did but- I'm scared they'll do it again. To any of us. I thought people should know.

Comments

[sinistral]

"That name doesn't belong to me," he said finally. "And you don't need to owe me." He paused, because despite what happened in that other world, Billy had wanted to know the man behind the shield. "But maybe you can know me. Instead."

He nodded gravely, fingers exploring the surface of the collar. "I can promise you that nothing will stop me, if it comes to it." A beat. "And I will keep this promise between us."

[wearingthestars]

Ah. Billy started to nod, ready to accept that as The Soldier properly distancing them, glancing up in hopeful surprise at the follow up.

"...I'd really like to. If you'd let me," he agreed, that smile growing a little.

Between whatever just happened to him, and the rage bugs, there's far more chances for Billy to go rogue than he'd like to imagine. It helped knowing there were people out there who would make sure he didn't hurt anyone. "Thank you...Soldier," he stumbled a bit over the name and flushed apologetically.

[sinistral]

"I can try." He looked at Billy for a long moment, but there didn't seem to be anything behind that smile save for caution. And a seeming expectation of not being wanted — or was that the impression of the other world bleeding in? "I'm not good at it," he warned finally. "Just so you know."

It was the truth, as far as he saw it. Social skills were definitely lacking, though he could pretend for at least a little while.

"You don't have to thank me," he replied, choosing not to acknowledge the verbal fumble. Billy was trying. "It is not an easy thing, to ask someone to disable you. It's worse when you know how powerful you can be, and how much you can hurt the person trying."

He looked away finally, turning his gaze in the direction of the entrance. They were alone, but he still didn't trust this place. "They've proven that they can do it once. That means they can do it again. That knowledge can be hard to reconcile."

[wearingthestars]

"I'm not great at it either," he offered a bit shyly. Not for the same reasons exactly, but they'd made friends fast enough before...some part of that had to be based off real compatibility, didn't it?

"I mean...it's a lot to ask of someone." Not easy for either of them.

Billy followed Bucky's gaze, looking a bit anxious, but it didn't seem as though there was any immediate threat looming. "...this place kinda sucks, huh?"

[sinistral]

Maybe they could at least be friendly. Anything more, the Soldier would have to work up to. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad. He could allow himself to have this without negative consequences.

Maybe. It remained to be seen.

"Not when you know what you'd risk by not being contained." The city had been fairly harmless, for the most part. But that didn't mean, should it happen again, that they would be so lucky.

"It does," he agreed, turning his attention back to his companion. "It is made worse by our captors. I don't trust them."

[wearingthestars]

It could have definitely been worse. Billy's brows creased a bit anxiously, and he nodded, knowing what he was capable of if things went wrong. Tommy was still scarred because of that rage bug. And he'd killed Tony, even if it was just for a moment...

"I wanna trust the Agrii, but I don't trust whoever's...pulling their strings."

But that's not exactly uplifting talk.

"...You don't hang around the rest of us much," he noted, not exactly accusing, but curious.

[sinistral]

It could always be worse; that much was practically a universal truth. But the Soldier learned long ago not to go courting the worse possibilities, as they had a nasty way of coming to pass. And thoughts of those possibilities could more one down to the point of inaction when action was needed.

Freedom and choice: two powerful forces, but only when actually used.

"Then you're smart, at least." The Soldier didn't bother to hide his disdain for the Agrii. "Either they're playing at being manipulated, which makes them the opposite of our allies. Or they're actually being manipulated, which makes them a liability." He paused. "Or they're the equivalent of children playing with technology they don't understand." Not that the possibility was mutually exclusive to his other suppositions.

"I don't," he confirmed, deliberately not answering the unspoken question. Either Billy would ask plainly, or he wouldn't. But he would ask a question of his own in the meantime. "Does that bother you?"

[wearingthestars]

Billy gave a small snort, not sure if that was true. He was regularly too trusting, and had got bit more than enough time to still be as stubbornly hopeful as he could be at times.

"...No. I mean...I get it? The Billy you met in there was...pretty much me. Just...no powers. I dunno how much you remember, but...I wasn't exactly a social butterfly." Not that he suspects the Soldier is shy exactly, but he understood the impulse to hang back. "I just...I dunno, I thought after so long here that must get...lonely?"

[sinistral]

Between the two of them: one too trusting, one too distrustful. Together they almost approached normalcy, or whatever passed for it in this place.

"I remember it," he confirmed quietly. "All of it." Better than he knew his own life. How much of that, of the life he remembered as a younger Bucky Barnes, actually echoed his own life? He didn't know, and he got lost for a moment in his own contemplation of it.

"You don't bring a gun to the dinner table," he said finally, "unless you mean to shoot it."

[wearingthestars]

Any luck and they might some good habits from one another.

That quiet tone drew Billy's guilty expression out again, not sure if that was good, or bad, but it definitely seemed to affect him in some serious way.

He looked genuinely confused a moment, head tilting before he frowned, "...Are you supposed to be the gun in that analogy?"

[sinistral]

Good habits? Don't know her.

He didn't notice that guilty expression, too lost in his own thoughts. Maybe it was a good thing; maybe not. The mere fact of being comfortable enough to get lost in his thoughts was a novel idea.

To Billy's question, he might have given the impression of rolling his eyes without actually rolling them. "Why do you think you're here?" he asked in lieu of answering. "I mean you, specifically."

[wearingthestars]

Billy hesitated, and maybe it was naive, but he despite the obvious implication of the question he answered- "...to help people."

He wasn't doing a great job of it right now, but...

He frowned a little, and glanced at his fingertips. Was that stupid? Were they just using him like some kind of tool?

[sinistral]

Perhaps contrary to expectation, the Soldier nodded. That was likely why they were all here, in the grand scheme of things: to help the Agrii, or whoever was behind them. What they didn't know was the big picture.

"I was a member of the Drift Fleet, before being brought here" he explained quietly. "I've never met you before, nor do I recall reading your name in the crew logs." He paused; Billy could probably tell that he was trying to find the words to explain. "I know of, or have met, four other Bucky Barnes."

[wearingthestars]

Billy didn't entirely seem to be following, but it was clear he was trying to understand. The Drift Fleet was a confusing thing, one he'd never really gotten a clear handle on to start with, and maybe that was why he looked so uncertain.

He knew the mind fuck that came from being confronted with other versions of yourself, though probably not quite as intimately as the Soldier, but to Billy's initial interpretation- more versions of him being pulled cemented that he a hero. Didn't it?

"Is that bad? Beyond the obvious...being a total mind trip kind of bad?"

[sinistral]

"Why bother to bring something broken, when you can have something better?" he countered. "Unless you specifically need what the broken thing can do."

Therein was his belief in his presence here: the skills of the Soldier, the assassin, were useful to their captors. For the rest, they just grabbed another person, another version. A less broken version, one who was a person instead of just a weapon.

[wearingthestars]

Oh. Billy's brow creased into an immediate frown.

"You're not-" he started, breaking off as he remembered distinctly how frustrating it was to hear that when you felt that way down to your core.

"...Why do you think you're broken?" he rephrased, chewing on his lip to try and keep too much of his own emotions get wrapped up in that.

[sinistral]

"I am," he replied calmly, as if stating a fact. And it was a fact, at least in his eyes. "I am what HYDRA made me: an assassin. A weapon to be controlled, to be pointed and fired as needed. The Winter Soldier."

He shrugged and shook his head. "Just the Soldier now. Another Bucky took the name Winter. It's not mine."

[wearingthestars]

"Well...is-" Billy wet his lips, not sure he was at all the right person to be dealing with stuff this heavy, he was hardly a professional. "...is that was you want to be now? HYDRA's not here. You don't have to be that if you don't want," he posed. It wasn't as simple as that, he knew, but it was a start.

[sinistral]

"It would be dangerous for all of you if I forgot what I was." He fell quiet for a long moment, hands passing over the collar Billy had given him. Perhaps Billy might understand some of it; he knew that no one would understand the entirety of it.

"Everything HYDRA put in me is still here. Including their control." He paused, then gestured to his own neck. "In the Fleet, we were implanted with control units. The Agrii seem to be using the technology that the Atroma had. That means they can trigger me too."

[wearingthestars]

"That's not what I asked," he noted, but he wasn't going to push.

Billy looked to his neck at the gesture and frowned softly. Obi-Wan had come to him to try and get help for Echo and some sort of mind control implant. But sharing that commonality didn't feel like it was his to give. "Maybe we can stop it? Make sure no one can trigger you?"

[sinistral]

"It is what you need to know," he countered. The knowledge might save a life one day, for all the Soldier knew.

"The unit cannot be removed without killing me." The Atroma had the ability to bring people back from the dead, but he kept that to himself. He wasn't sure if the Agrii knew how to do it, and he didn't want to even voice it on the fear they might decide to try. "And even without HYDRA's influence, it can be used to obtain complete control. There is no way around it. People have tried."

[wearingthestars]

"People with magic?" Probably, Billy didn't know who all had been picked up by the Fleet in that time, but much as Billy's power levels scared him at times, this could be exactly the sort of situation where they were actually useful.

Or maybe he just wanted to be able to offer a real solution.

[sinistral]

"People with magic," he confirmed. "And technology. And both." It was a dim prospect, knowing he'd never be free of the thing.

"But it gives me at least some knowledge of the Atroma, and we know they've crossed paths with the Agrii. That could be important someday. Or perhaps it's my wishful thinking." Not that he was given to flights of fancy, but still.

[wearingthestars]

Billy wilted a little, huffing out a breath through his nose. Okay, so that was maybe a dead end, but they could figure something out. And even if they couldn't, he shouldn't have to live his life in constant fear of being used.

"Yeah, you seem like you're just lousy with wishful thinking," he teased reflexively, and then ducked his head apologetically. Maybe they weren't really there yet. He shouldn't be teasing.

[sinistral]

Billy really didn't need to worry himself about it. The Soldier was self sufficient; he could provide for his own survival outside the community. He was fine.

"It is not something I'm accustomed to doing," he admitted haltingly. "Wishing. Wanting." Still concepts that were foreign to him at times; he knew he struggled with even basic wants. But foreign too was the idea of being teased in a friendly manner, and he didn't quite know what to do with it.