Escape Attempt.

[onlyforthedream]

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.

Comments

[onlyapassenger]

"I'm in no position to judge," says Bucky, unconsciously mimicking Steve's posture when he runs a hand back over his own head, coming to a rest on his neck. That he still considers the War the good old days himself removes any sort of objectivity he might have had, after all; it probably is terrible when it comes right down to it, but while Bucky's adapted well enough to the modern age, that doesn't mean he feels all that comfortable there.

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"What a waste," I mutter, still wishing for that gratitude, that relief. It doesn't come. All I see is Bill Foster's wasted body, being lowered into a hole by a crane. Everything both sides went through and it took a Skrull invasion and an attack on the realm of the gods to get the thing overturned. The people who wanted it put into place undid it themselves with shortsightedness and ego, which is almost always the way of things, but even knowing that...

My head aches with the sudden onslaught of scenarios I can't help but run. if I was even half decent company before, this officially marks the end of it.

[onlyapassenger]

"You don't know the half of it," says Bucky, equally as quiet, and he moves to stand. He came into the conflict as an outsider; while he lived through the chaos he's merely describing to Steve, he can't help but think that it affects his old partner more than himself. True, Bucky started to establish himself in the existing order before he arrived on this island, but there's a history with most of these people he's lacking, for all that he likes them well enough (even Clint Barton, frustrating a bastard as that man can be).

"But I think I've said enough for tonight."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I don't respond for a minute. The weight of this new information is unexpected. It shouldn't be, maybe, but it is. I don't move from where I'm seated, elbows on my knees, one hand folded into the other, gaze locked ostensibly on the floor but in actuality untold miles away.

"Good night, Bucky."