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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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?"

I've seen about ten square feet of it and met barely a fraction of the population, most of whom I already knew from home. Still, I give the question its due consideration.

"Honestly, Bucky? I can't say for certain. But from what I've been told, there's no constant influx of evil doers or super powered megalomaniacs looking to destroy the island or its populace. And you're here, and you're you." Not a clone- a doppelganger, or a look a like. Not the Winter Soldier.

"And after the last year or so, I can say I don't think I'll ever get used to it, but... Yeah, I think I could like it here."

'You're you.' There's something about that turn of phrase that gives me pause. I've painted his future in broad strokes... Given him an impression of what's to come without filling in the greater details. This was deliberate. There are things I've done... Things I've lived through... He could not possibly understand... And even if he could, it's not his burden to bear. While I'm in control of my own faculties, at least as far as I'm aware, I don't know that I'm the person he thinks I am. And an answer like that only deepens my suspicion.

There's a moment where Bucky openly stares at Steve, his brows shooting up towards his hairline; while the sentiment itself isn't especially surprising, he realizes after a little more thought, the fact that Steve said as much aloud does beg a rather obvious question.

"Just how many painkillers do they have you on, anyway?"

"A lot," I answer with no hesitation, further testament to just how many that is, absently running a hand over the back of my head.

Bucky snorts, a murmured, "Jesus Christ," slipping through his lips. Stepping towards Steve, Bucky grabs him by the elbow -- the left, he's not cruel -- and gives a good tug to get him to follow along.

"C'mon, let's get you back to bed. Time's up for medically induced confessions."

I fall easily into step beside Bucky, going willingly back to the compound. Not that I'm looking forward to more time spent lying prone, but I made a promise. I'm counting the hours, now, until I can leave the clinic and take up residence elsewhere, and hopefully leave off the painkillers for good.

My comment was no such thing, come to that, although I can see how it's easier for Bucky to think it is. I want to push the issue, reassure him that regardless of the amount of drugs in my system the statement was a true one, but I don't.

"Next time I make a run for it, I'm going during the daytime."

"Next time you make a run for it, it'll be because the army of bored doctors inside cleared you," counters Bucky, starting up the steps to the entrance. He keeps an eye on Steve with his peripheral vision.

"You weren't shot with a frigging BB gun, Steve."

"I noticed," I murmur with a grimace, daring to gingerly rotate my right shoulder a little. The result is immediate, dire pain, but I knew it would be. I'm not done healing yet, and it's the surgery more than the initial wound that's going to take the longest. Then again, apparently the initial wound was fatal, or near enough. I'm lucky. I haven't forgotten that.

"But I'll endeavor to keep it in mind. What are you doing with the rest of your night?" I ask. Anything that isn't 'reading in a hospital bed' will sound pretty good, admittedly, but I'm not just asking out of politeness. I haven't been able to see what Bucky's life here, is, but I want to know.

"I didn't have any specific plans," says Bucky with a slight frown, which is true enough, for all that it sounds incredibly evasive. All of his commitments are in the morning, leaving his afternoons and evenings to himself. Some are more eventful than others, but for the most part, if he doesn't go out to clear his head for a few hours, his nights are painfully dull, either spent playing cards with Jason or getting the occasional drink with Wolverine.

Opening the door for Steve, he steps to the side to let his friend in first. "Why?"

"Just curious," I reply with a faintly amused smile as I head up the stairs.

"There's not you'd call a hopping social scene unless you're a teenager or appreciate the novelty of free strippers," Bucky says frankly, keeping the door propped open with his foot. He's checked out the Catscratch Club in much the same way as he's checked out every other public building, but while Bucky Barnes is as red-blooded as they come, the very notion of a free strip club is unsettling more so than titillating. There are times he's distinctly reminded of the fact that he's from an earlier era than most of the others here; if the past is a different country, the future often seems like a different planet.

"About once a month or so, someone pulls together a big to-do for all ages. Those ones aren't too bad, provided you don't mind what they try to pass off as music."

Edited 2011-04-20 21:52 (UTC)

Free strippers seems like it should be an oxymoron, but I'm not curious enough to pursue it.

"Head Radio," I murmur thoughtfully. There's been some wonderful music in the past fifty years, but a lot of it is still jarring. As talented a young lady as she may be, I still prefer Billie Holiday to Beyonce Knowles.

Shaking off the memory of Tony exposing me to Radiohead for the first time, I look at the ceiling of the hallway we're walking down, already familiar in its total blandness.

"I'll look forward to the next one, anyway. At least I'll be on my feet by then."

"I guess you won't have any excuse to play the wallflower, then," says Bucky with a knowing look. He's teased Steve enough about not having any fun to last a lifetime, and the thought of him getting dressed up in the finest the Island has to offer (which often isn't very fine at all) brings a smile to his face, however slight.

I sigh a little. If there's one thing Bucky has never given up ribbing me about, it's having fun. But, I can see in my peripheral vision, it's got him smiling. So I'll take it.

"We all can't be as winning on the dance floor as you, Bucky."

The comment earns a laugh, and the smile he flashes Steve is as brief as it is genuine; for a moment Buck's whole face lights up, washing away about a decade's worth of aging. It's been a while since he's had any occasion to dance -- at Mardi Gras, he resigned himself to just getting drunk and keeping an eye out on Jason -- but there's not a doubt in his mind that he'd be just as good now as he was in youth. He just needs the right girl to partner.

"Doesn't mean you can't try."

"A good soldier knows how to pick and choose his battles," I counter. Watching Bucky and Toro on the warpath the scant few times we weren't on the battlefield was always something to behold.

Fond memories, but they don't hold a candle to seeing Bucky let go, if just for a second, of everything he carries with him these days. He almost looks like a kid again, with that weight lifted, and though I don't let it affect me outwardly, I have to say: If anything, it reminds me of how daunting a task I have in front of me. Not just getting to know him again, but showing him that he doesn't have to shoulder that weight alone, anymore.

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