onlyforthedream | The Truth Hurts.

It's been three days since I've seen Bucky, and that's enough. I leave the house with the sole intention of finding him, preferably without bringing Natalia or Jason into it- what's about to happen is between the two of us, and I don't want to answer questions, nor do I want to set him up to be asked any. By all accounts, the influence that caused people to speak out against their will should have passed, and I find myself somehow disinclined to wait around for Bucky to come to me. I find Virginia in her stall, which is all the evidence I need of his return, and set off for the house, hoping to find it empty of anyone but him, for convenience's sake. When I don't find him there I strike out for the beach. Bucky's not an easy man to track, and I'm more counting on the general region, knowing his schedule, and the size of the island than anything so obvious as a telling trail of partial footprints and snapped palm fronds.

I can hear the ocean through the trees though I can't see it yet, and it's pushing through some low hanging vines and stepping onto a relatively clear swath of dirt that I find him.

"Bucky."

Threaded | Flat

"Steve."

At the sound of his old friend's voice, it's hard for Bucky not to want to run again. Though he bears no physical traces of his sojourn spent roughing it in the jungle, having already used the morning to clean himself up, the mental ones haven't yet disappeared. He's still angry for being manipulated by this island's invisible forces, his skin all but humming with it, but the bulk of his ire is directed more squarely on himself, and the fact that he outright told Steve he'd be lying to the man whenever the time would come for them to speak after the puppet strings had been cut anew.

Casting a glance to the immediate area, Bucky can't help but feel like an animal; they're surrounded by trees at all sides, not a prison, per se, but enough of a barrier to produce a nagging sense of claustrophobia. There are plenty of ways out of here, sure, but none that come with consequences he's ready to live with. He's unwittingly painted himself into a corner, yet Bucky knows he needs to stand his ground.

His shoulders squared, he turns around to face Steve, and summons up a smile that'd make the Cheshire cat sit up and take notice. He holds his hands out to his sides in a careless shrug that belies just how much he doesn't want this conversation to happen.

"So, this is it, huh?"

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