thecapitol | Twenty five, don't recall a time I felt this alive (open)

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Twenty five, don't recall a time I felt this alive (open)

Who| MCU!Bucky Barnes and YOU
What| Bucky's back in the Capitol and dealing with things
Where| Anywhere around the Tribute Center, specify the location of your choice
When| After arena 12 goes boom
Warnings/Notes| The usual with this guy

Waking up was easier this time.

Maybe it's because he'd accepted and waited for death to come rather than fighting against it as he had before, with the same resignation and understanding of what was going to happen that had made it easier to go into the ice when his missions were done. He can count it as a bonus that waking up in a warm bed was far more pleasant than from the cryostasis tank.

Bucky gets up calmly but still with the feeling something is wrong, more than just how weak his limbs feel again after living a month with his full strength back. A feeling that persists as he heads for the shower first, then irritably shaves off the beard he always wakes up with and is coming to loathe, discovering at the same time that the brand has now gone from his cheek. Venturing into the kitchen area yields leftover casserole from the fridge which he wolfs down quickly before heading out of District 1 with Toro the tribble safely in his pocket. He needs to see his friends, check for himself that they're still here and make sure no more of them have vanished like the first Widow did.

He goes down to District 9 first, then down to the common area to start working his way upwards, choosing to take the stairs rather than the elevator as he moves through the training and district levels before finally emerging up onto the roof. There he habitually heads for his favourite spot to try and let the cold winter air blow out the still persistent cobwebs in his head.

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He didn't really think about it. It wouldn't be unusual behaviour for him to let himself into Steve's room and remain there, sitting and waiting with a sniper's patience. Today though it seems he's in a slightly more sociable mood, willing to remain in the same space as another person until Steve returns.

His eyes are on his lap until he hears the sound of Nill writing and raises his gaze to look, registering the question with mild surprise. Some part of him had expected her to ignore his presence.

"Coffee." it takes a moment for him to answer.

Truth is he likes both, but company and context count for something on when he drinks which. Right now, after so recently coming back to the land of the living, he feels like coffee is a better choice. He could do with the energy.

sugar and cream?

He doesn't seem the best at questions, but he sort of seems to be doing better than the last time she spoke with him. Whenever she seems him around without Steve he always looks a little more lost than usual. Not that she makes a point of watching him much - she's barely in her own suite as it is. But it's good to see whenever she does catch glimpses of it. If she can make his wait a little more pleasant then she's glad to do it.

"Sugar, please." he's developed something of a sweet tooth since his escape from HYDRA. After years spent being fed the most bland, nutrient efficient foods they could make (usually in the form of bars or protein shakes), the miracle of flavour is one he enjoys greedily. Once his stomach got over the shock of eating anything that had more taste to it than wallpaper paste, that is.

He remembers throwing up a lot for the first couple of weeks after the helicarriers.

Can do. Nill holds up a finger, a pretty easy gesture for 'give me a few minutes', before she sets her notepad aside and stands, heading into the kitchen immediately.

It doesn't take very long. Bucky will probably hear her putzing around the kitchen while the coffee is brewing. She's back soon enough with a small tray, just big enough for a sugar bowl, two mugs, and a plate of cookies. She sets it down on the coffee table, and passes Bucky his mug, before grabbing her own and a cookie and sitting back down again.

She added some sugar to his coffee, but Nill has no idea how intense his sweet tooth is. If it wasn't quite up to par he could add more as needed.

He nods and keeps watch, not relaxing back into the sofa even though he knows this as a largely safe place. Bucky leans slightly forwards, letting his arm rest across his thighs with either his eyes or his ears paying attention to where Nill is and what she's doing. It's not that he has reason to distrust her but neither does he have explicit reason to do the opposite. Deeper than that it's the training that was worked into his bones by his handlers, almost impossible to let go of.

Bucky looks up when she comes and takes the mug in his right hand with a nod a quiet, "Thank you." when he takes a sip, after blowing on the hot liquid, it tastes just fine.

His eyes go next to the plate of cookies and the realisation that what he ate before leaving District 1 is not going to keep him going forever. It takes a moment to work himself up to ask, "Can I have one?"

Nill's already taken a few bites out of her cookie by the time Bucky asks permission of her. It surprises her, but not because she thinks he wouldn't want any - it's more the realization that needing to be given permission to eat something in front of him was probably a byproduct of whatever it was that made him the way he is now.

Her expression softens a little as she nods, though she moves to write again, notepad balanced on her knee so she doesn't need to set her coffee aside. She holds it up when she's done, as always.

you can have as many as you want.
if you're hungry I can make you something too.

Bucky waits patiently for Nill to be done writing, ignoring the impulse to simply reach out and take one. Not that she can know but there is progress in the fact that he actually asked her if he could have one at all, instead of assuming that he would not be allowed. Rewind a few months and Bucky would not have even considered the possibility and instead would have endured any hunger he felt as long as necessary.

"These are fine. Thank you." he takes two at her permission to have as many as he likes. Still, Bucky doesn't want to risk overstepping his bounds, "Did you make them?"

He trusts the food made by the Tributes more than anything the Capitol provides.

Instead of writing a response Nill smiles slightly and nods. An easy enough question to answer, but the question of whether she made them or not brings to mind the matter of when she made them, and she's not sure exactly when that was anyway. Her sense of time has been a little funny since getting out of the Arena. For a moment she looks slightly embarrassed.

they might be a little stale.

That almost makes him smile. As it is his lips twitch for a moment before he lifts the first cookie to his mouth and devours it in the space of two bites.

Nill's assessment isn't entirely wrong but as far as Bucky is concerned it doesn't ruin his enjoyment of the treat at all. He has eaten far worse than this and the only thing that really matters is that Nill is the one who made them. "I like them."

The second cookie goes down much the same as the first before he lifts his coffee to his lips and taking another sip. He looks considerately at Nill for a moment longer before speaking up again, "How long have you been back?"

Her expression brightens a little, both because they tasted relatively okay still and because he actually liked them. It must not have been that long since she made them, which was... good? Maybe? (Should she be concerned by the uncertainty in her own sense of time?)

She decides to take it as good, and not linger on the other thoughts it brings to mind. Or she does, anyway, until Bucky asks a question that applies to it directly. her wings flutter for a moment, and it probably takes her longer to figure out a reply than it should.

someone said I died at the end of the 3rd week.

Week zero, week one, and week 2; it was longer than she would have expected, but at the time she had no idea how to tell how long was going by. She's not entirely sure when she woke up after the arena either, only that she stopped at the bar right away and ended up drinking enough with Linden to knock her right the fuck out later and leave her hungover.

did you just get back?

He nods in understanding. By his mind that's impressive enough for an arena which had turned into a literal bloodbath and been so short lived compared to many others.

"Yeah. I made it to the end this time." Made it to the end and didn't win, which was fine by him, he hadn't been looking to win in the first place. Bucky considers it his purpose to see Steve or one of the others become the last man standing, he won't let himself win until his friend is out of the arena's first.

It's turning out to be frustratingly difficult task.

Thinking about it reminds him of something. "You smoke, don't you?"

the winner this time is a very nice person.

She doesn't know whether or not Bucky intends to win at some point or if that's not on his list of priorities, but maybe knowing that someone decent made it out of the Arenas this time would help a little. Nill knows little of the other off-world victors, but the Signless had deserved to get out. It was good.

At the question her wings flutter again, slightly confused, but she nods. Had he seen her smoking before? She couldn't actually remember.

yes. mostly at night.
why?

"I killed him once."

Not the best opener, to be sure but he has a point with this that matches up with Nill's. "He was still kind to me." his hand absently touches his pocket where his tribble is sleeping, soaking up the warmth of its owner after a month-long absence. "Not everyone would be."

It was the game, it was the rules and Bucky didn't take much from the arena out into the Capitol with him, he was good at compartmentalising that way. Even he knew the power of holding a grudge though when someone harmed you or another you cared about. He'd tried to kill Black Tom for a reason this time around.

"I used to smoke. I remembered in the arena." it's not surprising if she didn't see him when he saw her, going unnoticed was part of his training. "I thought about trying it again."

She's a little surprised by the statement, but the follow up puts it in a better light, makes the point he was trying to get at easily understood. She's not quite sure how she should feel about the fact that Bucky killed the Signless, but...

Perhaps it's cruel to think as much, but whatever was done to Bucky has left him a simple man, at least in motive. If he had killed the Signless there was likely a reason. Maybe there was someone he wanted alive more. (Maybe it was Steve.)

She writes up a response easily enough, but there's obvious hesitation in her expression as she regards the paper. Eventually she adds another line and passes it over.

I have some cigarettes and a lighter in my room if you want to try it.
what do you mean by 'remembered'?

It seems like an odd thing to just forget about, or to remember. The wording reeks of memory fuckery, and she honestly hopes that's not the case, because no one deserves that.

She's struck the nail on the head unknowingly. Bucky went into arena's with a simple goal of keeping Steve alive so that he could win, so that he could get out of the arena's and not have to die anymore. He's fighting a losing battle every time, though, whether he realises it or not.

Protecting Steve was one of the things he was certain that he should do.

"I was told it might help me remember more things to do it." he says and then realises as he reads the paper that Nill doesn't know about his memory problems. Now he has to explain it to her, which is never easy for him to do.

Bucky picks up his coffee cup and takes a swallow before he doing so, like a man downing alcohol to give him bravery. "Before I came here I was," owned by "with a group. They would wipe my memory after every mission I did for them." he looks up at her, eyes intent but unfocused on the present, caught up in what was the still recent past. "I don't remember most of my life."

Edited 2015-02-23 00:57 (UTC)

For someone that doesn't actually know Bucky or his circumstances terribly well, there's probably a lot more understanding in her expression than there should be. And though Nill certainly didn't know any of this, it's not surprising, either. On the contrary, it offers explanation for many of the things she had wondered about Bucky and what caused his particular brand of brokenness. The fact that he's still going is amazing. If it were Nill, she doesn't think she would be capable of it; she's enough of a basket case just with the handful of things she can't remember.

The hesitation before she actually manages to write is obvious, but it comes easier after the first sentence.

the next time there's an arena like the last one I may be able to help you if you can find me.

There's a fine line in what she wants tributes to know and what she doesn't want the Capitol knowing. While she knows at this point preventing them from this knowledge is unavoidable, she wants to keep it as vague as possible. Whatever doubt that can be painted will only help her. But hopefully if he understands that she might be able to do something in a powered Arena, then... maybe she could actually do something for him.

I smoke on the roof most nights. if you're awake you can join me.

While she enjoys what company she's accustomed to in the late evenings/early mornings, if additional company can be helpful to someone then she'll never turn it away.

He doesn't understand that kinship in her expression. Bucky still has problems reading people something, or processing where those thoughts and feelings come from. Most people he's grown close to have taken a lot of work to get through to him, to the point he can forge a connection that makes him understand. There's something in Nill's face and he tries to read her expression, wondering what is behind it.

"You mean..." he thinks for a moment, what about the last arena was and what part of it could be repeated. Then he has it, powers. The fact Nill is being vague about what she has that can help him also makes him quickly catch on that it's not something she wants widely known, not to the Capitol at any rate. If she told him it here they would know, they would see what she wrote on their camera's.

Without being able to ask for clarification Bucky realises he is going to have to decide whether to believe her or not on faith alone. Nill has not been unkind to him before, he has no logical reason (beyond the fact that the arena can only allow one winner) to doubt her, yet.

If there is a chance, a real chance that she could help him with his memory, then shouldn't he try? It would be better to take a risk than live with the gaping holes in his own head, knowing there was a possibility to fix it that he was too afraid to take. He finds himself nodding, telling himself there was time yet for him to consider doing it because who knew how long it would be before the Capitol allowed them their powers again.

"I'll remember." he says, "Both. Thank you." Bucky doesn't sleep much so the chances of him being awake are optimal. "It's... it's kind of you to offer."

When Bucky is wise enough to not address that entirely out loud, Nill tilts her head slightly, a small smile on her face. He catches on without too much effort thankfully, and the ability to piece those things together as far as she can tell is probably an improvement for him to some extent. The Capitol had to know about her illusions, or at least think she was capable of hiding herself from others, and the telepathy had been obvious in the Arena. What wasn't obvious was the extent to what she could do, and she'd like to make sure the Capitol remains relatively unaware of that.

you're welcome.
did you still want to try a cigarette now?

"Not now." he shakes his head, shoving the rest of the cookies in his hand into his mouth and chewing them with relish. They really are good. "Another time, thank you."

He feels okay but he wants to see Steve, first and foremost, before anything else. Smoking was prohibited within the building (and he wasn't sure how strictly that rule was enforced).

After he licks the crumbs from his fingers he finishes his coffee as well, "I'm going to wait in Steve's room." as he says it he tries to soften his expression, to assure Nill it's nothing she's done, only that he wants to be alone in a familiar space to think things over.

Nothing about her expression or posture indicate that Nill takes the preference of an empty room over her company as a slight. Her smile is as gentle as ever, and she slides the plate closer to him, already writing a response.

you can take them with you would like.
I should be here a little while longer. let me know if you want anything.

He looks down at the plate, at her words and then slowly nods, even relaxes just a fraction at the show of kindness from this woman. Some people seem to show kindness so easily, as if it is natural as breathing, even to those they don't really know.

"Thank you." Bucky picks up the plate and stands, heading through the common area to the personal quarters and Steve's room.

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Twenty five, don't recall a time I felt this alive (open)

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