onlyforthedream | Escape Attempt.

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bucky

Escape Attempt.

It's been over a week since I woke up in the clinic on this island, and I haven't set a single foot out of doors. Well, that ends tonight. I like to think I'm a patient man, or that at least I have the ability to be one, but it's really gone on long enough. It takes a minute of standing to get my legs under me, really under me. I'm creaky after being bedridden so long, but after a few steps across the floor, I feel practically limber again. Reaching for the scrubs is painful, sure, but I've felt worse. I pull them on, as silently as I may and more gingerly than I'd like, and move back to my now vacant bed. I bunch the sheets tellingly over each other and ride them up the pillow, just in case one of the doctors pokes their head in for a cursory glance. Anything more will reveal my absence, but then, I'll be gone so there won't be much they can do.

I'm not trying to set off for anywhere in particular, anyhow, although I would like to look at the ocean at night. I just need to breathe fresh air. I pause by the door, crouching a little and ducking out of the light cast from the hallway. Someone wanders past in the direction of the kitchen. I wait a few moments, then step out into the hall, straightening up and walking with a nonchalant ease-

The wrong direction, apparently. I arrive at a door that opens into a room with a jukebox, a pool table, some sofas and a bookshelf and a piano, but no door that leads outside. It's late enough that it's largely empty, some people on the far side of the room passing a news reel between them and talking. Not wishing to draw attention or interrupt, I back out of the room on silent footfalls to try the opposite end of the hall, turning back the way I came.

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He might as well have come out nowhere; even before his time with the Soviets, Bucky Barnes was a master in stealth, operating as an advanced scout behind enemy lines, and despite the enforced vacation, he's been careful not to let those skills fall to seed. Sometimes this means following Jason to raves just to make sure the kid doesn't do anything stupid; tonight, it means keeping an eye on his oldest friend, someone who shouldn't be wandering too far from his bed, given the circumstances. Arms folded over his chest, he affects a casual posture that belies his concern, his brows arching upwards as he looks up at Steve, his expression simultaneously unimpressed and smug.

"Lost?"

God above, but Bucky can move like a ghost. I don't startle, but I have to bite back a sigh. Straightening to my full height, which isn't nearly as drastic an advantage with my old partner as it used to be, I lift an eyebrow.

"Can you blame me?"

Were their positions reversed, with Bucky the one laid up in the Clinic, there's not a doubt in his mind that he would've pulled a similar stunt by now, if not earlier. Rest just isn't something that's ever come easy to him; he's lost count of how many fights he's rushed into still recovering from the last one, but then, he's always pushed his boundaries that extra mile, struggling against the limitations of circumstance. He's lived and died by that attitude, with no signs of losing that edge anytime soon.

But their positions aren't reversed, and from the other side of the equation -- healthy, if not whole -- he's capable of sounder judgment. Whether he listens to that judgment, however, is another matter entirely. Their situation is a complicated one, burdened by all of the things Bucky refuses to say, but there are certain habits that are easier to fall back into than others. He cants his head to the side in mock consideration.

"For getting lost?"

Edited 2011-04-15 05:49 (UTC)

As quick with a line as a tommy gun. My mouth sets into something almost like a smile, however tight, and I start past him, lightly and very briefly clapping his shoulder with my left hand, not brusque enough to be shrugging him off. More inviting him along.

"For getting out of here."

Bucky moves fast, first falling into step with Steve before, very quickly, cutting him off again, planting himself in the middle of the hall to halt their progress.

"Nope, but I might anyway," he says frankly. "Need I point out you just underwent major surgery?"

"That was over a week ago, Bucky," I say with a well reasoned tone. It's true after all. It may not have that much bearing on the situation, but it is, technically, true.

"I just need to stretch my legs."

"Of course you do," says Bucky, not looking particularly convinced by the argument. Maybe because it's one he would've used himself; he tries not to see through his own lies when he can help it, but hearing one of his lines come out of Steve's mouth makes it all but impossible. He gestures between the two of them.

"Shouldn't this be the other way around?"

"Not if you have to get shot first," I reply mildly, starting forward again.

"I'm fine, Bucky, really. A breath of fresh air, a few minutes on my feet and I won't pull a single stitch. Promise."

His expression darkens for a moment, a shadow flickering over his face, but he recovers quickly enough, stepping back in time with Steve's step forward, not yet giving up his ground. Good as it was to see the guy on his feet after the events of last week, there's a part of him that wants to play it cautious; the risk of infection's high, he's inclined to point out, but he's sure Steve knows that as well as he does, and he's not about to add insult to significant injury.

"A few minutes, and we don't go out of sight of this building," says Bucky after a moment. "Deal?"

As far as offers go, this one is fair. Bucky's concern is familiar in its lack of sentimentality- Yes, during the war, he was touted as my sidekick, but that really wasn't it. We looked out for each other. We had to. Of course I felt a kinship for each and every soldier we fought beside, but there's camaraderie and then there's family. As much as they could, the Avengers became that for me, Sam became that for me, but it was never...

Well, it was never the same. Regardless of the years of distance between us and all that's going unsaid, that will probably go unsaid for a very long time, there's still that.

Having Bucky at my back should be nostalgic, but it isn't. In what I fear is a rare sort of moment for me, this feels very much in the present, removed from time though we may be.

"Deal."

"Then let's get you the hell out of here before someone else isn't fooled by the bunched bed sheets routine, huh?" Bucky suggests, turning to lead them in the right direction. In the moment, he's reminded of similar antics he pulled in his youth at Camp Lehigh, sneaking in and out of buildings after hours, acquiring items for trade and a reputation that'd earn him the attention of the brass. There's an innocence about the situation he can't shake, but it's one that makes him feel old rather than nostalgic, a distinct reminder of just how much things have changed since those years.

"It's not exactly up to Nick Fury standards."

Edited 2011-04-15 19:42 (UTC)

"Well, it wasn't exactly meant to hold up under scrutiny," I reply, following Bucky's lead. It feels great to just be moving. The tightness in my side and shoulder, the dull radiating pain, it's all easy to deal with, to set aside. Even something as simple as walking down a hallway- I know it shouldn't be this gratifying, but that's what hard bed rest will to a person, I guess.

"I should hope not," Bucky says with a snort. His eyes are focused on the hallway stretched in front of them, but he's consciously aware of Steve at his side, his attention rapt for any signs of discomfort, any show that this is as bad an idea as reason is telling him it is.

"Otherwise I'd say you're slipping, old man."

If this conversation had happened any time before last week, my answer would have a been Not hardly, and it would have been without hesitation.

But the truth is, I might be. In fact, I already did. I slipped, and the consequences of it are half a community of superheros no longer have someone to follow in what is, without question, a fight for their lives.

"We'll see," is all I say, taking in the doors off the hallway, the people I can see through them, as we walk with unerring attentiveness. It's the first I've seen of the place, and being out of that clinic is just such a relief.

"Well, your sense of humor's intact," Bucky mutters under his breath, pushing through the Compound's main door. He's met with a rush of cool air, the temperature having dropped off for the night, and the hairs on his arm stand up on end in a way that isn't all together unpleasant. A part of him's glad for the dark; the blood stain left on the steps from last week's events is near invisible in the moonlight. Holding the door open for as long as he can while still moving forwards, he darts down the stairs. With a vague gesture as if it to say, here it is, he turns around to look at Steve, his gaze scrutinizing, expectant. The change in mood didn't escape Bucky's notice, after all, though he's not especially surprised. Things between them were never going to be easy, not after all these years, and he can't shake the idea that he misspoke before, even if he's no closer to spitting out an apology regardless of this realization.

The moonlight illuminating the jungle around the building creates an alien landscape. I step down until my feet hit dirt, taking in the deep blue shadows and the slices of white light filtering through various types of frond and vine. The space around the steps is largely clear. A wooden boardwalk juts out of the ground and leads off through the shadows, its lit torches casting stranger, softer, warmer shadows.

The air is thick. The air conditioning in the compound all but sterilizes that very specific feeling of island, of being surrounded by water. The night air is perfumed with a thousand plants I don't know, and for a moment it's all so disorienting that, if I were anyone but who I am, if I were any younger, had seen any less, I might be worried about keeping my feet under me.

I breathe deep, let the warm, thick air fill my lungs.

"If I hadn't believed it already, this would just about do the trick," I say, walking out a little further from the concrete steps.

"You know what they say," replies Bucky, looking away once whatever arbitrary checklist he's got running through his head has been satisfied. He hangs back as Steve continues forward, giving him some space. Neither of them are strangers to prolonged confinement; a little bit of room goes a long way.

"Seeing is believing."

I tip my head back to look above the trees and honestly, I can't remember the last time I saw so many stars. Even in the remotest parts of the French and German countryside, the sky didn't look like this, and I wonder if it's true, what everyone here says; that there is nothing else outside the island. When I was first given my mission by the war department, when it was explained to me that I would have no brothers in Operation: Rebirth, that I was going to be the only one, there was a brief moment that felt... like this one.

A staggering realization of what it means to be alone. Where is the rest of the world? Or is just a globe of water with this microscopic speck of land on it? After a few moments I look back to Bucky.

"It's beautiful."

Obvious a statement as Bucky realizes it to be, it's not quite the assessment he's expecting, and he makes no attempt at hiding his surprise; around Steve, there's no point. As partners, they needed to be able to read each other like a book, to work together like a oiled machine.

Bucky's been on this island for months, now, and he's not sure he's once described it as beautiful. Strange and disorienting and a bit of bastard, yes, but appreciating the environment for its aesthetic value isn't something he's ever really done. He looks around them, and he sees escape routes and tactical advantages and the phantom image of Steve's unconscious, bloodied body as they brought him to the O.R. Bucky blinks, and shakes his head, trying to see what Steve sees; compared to a Soviet bunker, just about anything is beautiful, but this place represents no greater freedom than Russia did, even if he's mercifully in control of his own mind.

"You're the artist."

I smile fleetingly, and move around the clearing a little, looking into the shadows as far as I can- which is, admittedly, a substantial distance. Still, the jungle is thick, and though the island isn't, I've been told, very large,

"Apparently, so is whoever designed this place. As gilded cages go, it's... well done, what I can see of it. Then again, 'stone walls do not a prison make'," I say. People often forget the second half of Lovelace's rhyme, but the point is, if your mind is free, if your soul is free, then that is the truest freedom a man can achieve, regardless of his physical circumstance. Bucky knows, better than anyone I have ever met, the importance of that, what that means. He had literally everything taken from him, for so long. I know the nature of this place must chafe, for him, but I can't help but wonder- and it's not as naive a thought as it might seem- if there's a reason we're here.

The Russians knew that one, too, I want to say, but the words don't come out... I'm not sure they need to. My captors kept me locked up in my own mind, and Steve... Steve made sure I remembered that. Here, I'm in control of my actions... In control of my hands... Yet I've still been locked away at the whims of our mysterious wardens... Trapped in a memory I couldn't escape 'til I changed it. But at least, then, I had a choice.

For a brief, fleeting moment, it's hard for Bucky not to feel like a kid again, as he listens to Steve; it's the one aspect of his old partner's legacy he struggled with the most, the charisma of Captain America, the ineffable quality that makes people listen to what you have to say. He's grasped at it a few times, but not yet with consistency; his position with the ITF attests to as much. Idly, he wonders if those who quit wouldn't have stuck around for Steve, but then, Bucky always intended to take up the shield in his own way. No one could be Steve Rogers; all who've tried, failed.

"What'd Lovelace have to say about concrete?" Bucky asks, casting a glance behind them at the Compound. "Sure sticks out like a sore thumb, doesn't it?"

Edited 2011-04-17 15:10 (UTC)

Turning to regard the building from the outside, it's more obvious. Bucky has a point, though the question that gets begged, then, is why?

"It does, at that. Looks like a bunker. It was here before any of the residents?"

"Yeah, it was found a few weeks after the first documented people arrived. The day of its discovery is something of a local holiday," he explains, like every day isn't something of a local holiday. "It has its uses, even if it's awfully convenient."

It is. But if there was anything hostile about it, they wouldn't keep the clinic there, or people's rooms, or, from what I understand, the bulk of the island's supplies. Convenient, but harmless. Not what we're used to.

"Strange," I murmur, shaking my head a little.

"Like everything else," Bucky says, eyes narrowing as he stares at the Compound a moment longer, then turns away. He's seen stranger, of course, but there'd always been some kind of explanation waiting around the corner; this place has yet to afford anyone the same luxury.

"Of all the places I'd thought about hanging my hat, I can't say something like this ever made my list. Think you'll like it once the docs give you the okay to get out of Dodge?"

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