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[It's not the same as before where he'd woken up with a light breeze on his skin causing his too-long hair to dance across his forehead, and the sweet, dry smell of fruit trees. No, it's blue light and too much wind. There's nothing normal about that. The communication device strapped to his hand is cold. Bucky's used to not remembering things, but the long hall and unfamiliar faces tell him something's off. There's a million explanations going through his mind and none of them make any sense except one and he doesn't want to think about that.

Bucky goes through the motions. Steels himself while he's checked out. Signs the contract. Lets someone take him to his room and then walks the halls. Now back in his room, he clicks on the MID. His face is half-hidden and voice low. He wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't necessary. He's combed every inch of this goddamn ship and he can't find Steve anywhere.]

I'm looking for someone. Tall. Blond. Loves America.

[It's risky to put it out there. He doesn't know these people and trust isn't something he gives easily. But he needs to find someone he remembers. Someone from Wonderland. Someone from back home. Everything is muddled and this place looks like something his mind has made up.]

His name's Steve.

[There's a brief pause.]

If someone could tell me what the hell's going on here, I'd appreciate it.

[The feed cuts off.]

[ooc: this bucky is a crau from another game. he thinks that he never left his previous game world and that it is during an 'event'. i'm so sorry if he confuses anyone.]

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Every time there's an event in Wonderland, I go lookin' for Steve first.

[He's his best friend, he has to make sure he's safe.]

Just cause we're in space doesn't mean I'm gonna leave him defenseless.

[Bucky frowns, his confusion mounting by the second. There's too much going on and he feels close to an edge he hasn't been near in almost six months.]

To mess with me? To hurt Steve? I dunno. [He takes a breath.] He looks like my mirror. The one the queen made. Short hair, thinner than I am now. You look more like me and I don't know what the fuck is going on.

Wonderland? Is that where you're from?

[ Everything about him tells him that this guy isn't lying, and Bucky's still struggling to wrap his mind around it. He feels like he's missing a lot of things here -- for one, people trying to kill other people don't say things like that.

He feels a growing curl of dread in the pit of his stomach, and what if -- what if this was from another world, too? If he had a younger him, why not another him just like him? Or why not a clone implanted with memories? ]

What's the last thing you remember?

Sort of. I showed up there after T'Challa and Steve put me under.

[He says it without thinking it through first but something's not right. Bucky's letting the other him get under his skin and he can't seem to help it.]

I've been there for a while. The last thing I remember is going to sleep on the couch in Steve's room. Then I was coming out of that machine onto the ship. [He takes a breath.] We used to have events. All the time. We'd go to sleep and wake up in strange places. But it'd always turn back to Wonderland.

If I'm not in Wonderland then where am I? [His eyes flick up, meeting Bucky's through the MIDs.] If I'm not in Wonderland then that's not my Steve and I left mine back there alone.

You're on the Moira. [ They don't work this way, when they kill. There's always something dead behind the eyes no matter how convincingly they lie, and Bucky instinctively is aware of the fact that the other him isn't. It's all in the way he talks about Steve, about this other land.

His frown deepens, but he can't quite help an involuntary twinge of sympathy. ]

Why did they put you under?

[ If I'm not in Wonderland then that's not my Steve and I left mine back there alone. And that's the kick, isn't it? Bucky still doesn't wholly trust this person, but something about that rings so instinctively genuine, the loneliness and the worry. They've never abandoned Steve, until now. Until Bucky left him blood-soaked and waterlogged but breathing on the bank of the Potomac.

So maybe they do abandon Steves, after all. ]

Who's T'Challa?

I told them to.

[Bucky's frown deepens, and he lowers his hand to his side, out of sight. A part of him wonders if this is like the younger version of himself. The one that had been in Wonderland before him and had been from before he'd fallen from the train. Steve had trusted that Bucky and had trusted him, too. If this one was anything like it, though further in the future, then maybe it was Bucky's job to figure that out.. then protect him.]

They said those goddamn words. I hurt a lot of people.

[He lifts the MID back up.]

A giant cat. [A soft, almost imperceptible sigh.] King of Wakanda.

A good man. He put me under until he could get whatever HYDRA put in my head back out.

[ Bucky's blood runs cold, turns to ice in his veins. They said those goddamn words, and in this moment he knows better than anyone else that this isn't a clone out to kill Steve. No, this is him, another him, this is something else entirely.

He doesn't know who the King of Wakanda is, but perhaps in another world HYDRA have found Bucky and used him, and he knows shame and guilt when Bucky refuses to look at him. There are monsters still in his head, in both their heads, a ticking time bomb with those words as the detonator. ]

Then you shouldn't be here. [ He says quietly, his heart gripped by something cold, something painful, of ghosts and demons and the greatest of them all is inside them both. ] You should have stayed under. [ And it's as much to himself as the other him, but he would understand, right? The hate they carry for themselves, the shame, the pain, the horror and the guilt.

He had hoped to rebuild, to gather the tattered remnants of what he was, to find it in himself, but Bucky's words bring home the truth: he's never going to be rebuilt. Not this way, not when it's still inside him. ]

We've killed and hurt too many. [ We. ]

I don't want to be.

[Assumptions are nothing now. This is him. Somehow. A him that knows what he knows and feels how he feels. Bucky's never wanted to see all his flaws and pain and guilt laid out right in front of him - breathing and talking and hating himself as much as he does.]

I didn't have a choice.

[Bucky swallows, angling his MID, and he hates the way his voice sounds. No the way the other him sounds. It's too much.]

I'm gonna sound like Steve, but hear me out. [He still struggles to believe this and he's not so sure he ever will, but.] We didn't do those things. Someone else pulled the strings.

The thing is, Buck- I don't know what to call you. What should I call you?

[Bucky? But he's Bucky.]

But we did them.

[ Bucky says flatly, because who do you think you're lying to? He knows how the other scrabbles, uses the same things Bucky tries for himself -- but they're lies. No matter what Steve says, or what anyone else says; they know better. He says it again, and makes sure it cuts through all that the other him is trying to tell himself. ]

We did them anyway.

[ And this is the truth, isn't it? He watches him and knows exactly how he's struggling to come to terms with it, all the sins remembered and forgotten. It wasn't them, but it was. Bucky's his own worst enemy, and perhaps the both of them are starting to understand this now. ]

Bucky. [ His name, he'll cling on to it hard, because that's the first piece of himself that was returned to him. ]

[Bucky sobers, expression going dull and eyes blank.

Lying to himself had never worked before, but sometimes, when Wonderland was calm or when Steve would smile or when someone who knew he was the soldier wanted to be around him with no fear, yeah, Bucky'd been lulled into a sense of ease. He'd never forget what he'd done, his guilt and the nightmares wouldn't let him, but there were times when he'd push it deep enough that he could take a breath without feeling himself crack.]

We did. That'll never leave us.

[He can't make himself look away, to break the contact between them.]

Then we're both Bucky. [Because he can't lose that either.] You don't know T'Challa. When are you from?

[How much does he know that the other Bucky doesn't?]

[ There. There it is. He's seen it so many times before because he's lived it, all the buds of hope, crushed before it ever blossoms because he's unworthy of all of it, any of it. They both know this, too. It's possible to function without hope; grim determination that powers their days -- but Bucky is guilty of that same thing, too, lulled into a sense of ease, knowing that others aren't hunting him down like an animal.

It's an exceptionally fine line to straddle, to want to achieve full autonomy after it'd been stolen and wrenched away from him -- and to know what he's become.

Bucky doesn't look away either; that admission brings him no pleasure, only an awareness that they can never bury. ]

Left the States. Romania was on the agenda before the Moira happened. Early 2015. You?

Edited 2016-10-22 05:31 (UTC)

Was on my own for two years, then spent about half a year in Wonderland.

[So he's got about two years on him rounding up, though not all of that was spent back home. There's a lot he thinks he should share and some he's not sure Bucky would even care about.]

A lot happened between your time and mine.

[Bucky doesn't know where to start. He doesn't want to do this over the MIDs.]

If you meet me somewhere to talk, I'll show you my arm.

[ Two years, and that's what he'll look like? That Bucky looks slightly older, and he wonders if it's the same timeline after all; he's been to too many damn worlds not to consider that a distinct possibility. Does he go to Wonderland after, too? Does he leave Steve behind again?

Does he find what he's looking for? Two years, and the thought of it is heavy like stone. ]

Simulation Room. You know where it is.

[He doesn't, but Bucky will find it quickly enough. He's been here a few hours and has the map on his MID.]

Be there in five.

[For some reason, he's more nervous to see the other Bucky than he would be to meet Steve. He supposes nobody likes to look in a mirror too closely.

When he gets to the simulation room, he goes in and stands off to one side. He has his arms hanging loosely at his sides, Sugar sitting by his feet, and his hair knotted in a bun at the back of his head. He'd purposefully not put on a uniform so Bucky could see his arm - the metal smooth and missing the star.]

Hey.

[ He's there promptly, unnerved by the knowledge that there's another him on this ship, the guy who looks absolutely identical to him -- that's the reason why people hate being on their own, isn't it? You're forced to face the real you, the one no one else sees and knows, not even the ones who love you most.

He takes in the other man, his stature, the way he has his hair pulled back, the cat at his feet. Howls is asleep for the night, which is better for him that all this. ]

Hey. [ There's no star on his arm, and that's immediately where his gaze goes. He's on the alert, wary and careful, keeping a distance between them even though he knows if either of them really went for a kill, a few paces isn't going to get in the way at all. His arm looks... different. Like it's brand new. ] Scraped it off, or got a new one?

[ Is that what will happen to him? ]

[Bucky sees no reason to lie. They both know their past and if this is going to work, he has to be honest with him.]

Neither. Both. [His eyes flick up.] Tony did it. He found out what we did to his parents. Can't really blame him for being upset. [His mouth is a hard line.] In Wonderland, a doctor made me a new one. It's not like the one you have. It's weak and it's mine.

[Taking a small step forward, he lifts and rotates it so Bucky can see it. HYDRA played no part in his replacement. He didn't have to worry about what was inside it anymore.]

I don't want to fight with you. Promised my best friend I'd try harder.

[Bucky averts his eyes then, opens his mouth and closes it. Not this Bucky's Steve, his own, but somehow it's all the same.]

[ It's weak and it's mine. And that's what matters, right? That it's his, and it wasn't implanted onto him against his will, without his knowledge. He knows what that means, and when this Bucky knows the one thing only he himself knows -- well.

He swallows hard, the truth of it sinking in. He's him, pure and simple; and he tells him the inevitable, of course, and a part of Bucky welcomes it and tires of it all at once. ]

I don't want to fight anyone.

[ He admits quietly. But things always end in fights, and that's the cold hard truth of it. They will come for him sooner or later -- if not HYDRA then one of the many he's wronged, and obviously law enforcement who will see him as a threat to security. He swallows hard when Bucky brings up Steve, how Bucky had reacted when he thought he was the threat. No assassin, no matter how good, can replicate that instinctive need to protect. ]

Try harder to do what?

[Bucky didn't do that anymore. If it came down to it, he would fight, but as long as he had a choice, he wasn't going to.]

Then we're not going to fight.

[Everything. His conversation with Steve had been hard, but it'd given them the chance to figure some things out. He'd promised a lot of stuff that night.]

To - [It should be easier to say this to himself than anyone else, but it's more difficult. Almost like he has to be completely honest because there's no way to lie.] Not beat myself up all the time.

And to let people in.

[Bucky reaches down to pick Sugar up, holding her in his arms carefully. All of it was easier said than done, but he's been trying.]

Funny sayin' it this way, but if I can't let you in, then who can I?

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