Her fingers clench on the rifle for a moment. Her teeth grind against each other tightly enough to be painful. Something inside her goes taut with tension immediately when he calls her by name. Tries to strike up a bond with her. Some of the others tried that - the difference is that her and this one have actual shared experience, however brief.
She was part of the invading army. She very nearly would have been part of Thanos' second victory in this timeline.
Perhaps that feeling in her chest is shame, not anger.
There's a stretch of silence. Then, almost too quiet in the space of the warehouse:
"Yes. I'm aware of your strength and your skill. As you are of mine. You must know you do not frighten me."
Not a question, that. The organisation of... SWORD dispatched him, so he must know what they know. Which she suspects isn't half of what the wider galaxy knows of her, but is admittedly more than she'd have assumed humans being able to gather together from what little exposure to her they had. Humans are known throughout the galaxy for being strange - and perhaps that tendency to underestimate them is why they, in the end, bested Thanos where the galaxy at large failed.
In the end, the retrieval mission doesn’t go how his superiors envisioned it.
SWORD is likely going to be beyond pissed, but Bucky saw too much of himself in her — a haggard creature with no one else to turn to — and he’s spent years on the run himself, and so it’s somehow easy enough to back to that life. His pardon’s fucked, but it also means that leash around his throat being neatly severed, no longer accountable for monitoring and check-ins. It wasn’t so long ago that SHIELD itself was hunting him, the entire world watching him for for a crime he hadn’t committed—
So, like, sue him, he’s reluctant to let this woman die for something she isn’t responsible for, either. She’d fought in the Battle for Earth. She hadn’t sided with Thanos. Shouldn’t that mean her being counted alongside all the other heroes instead of being treated like she was radioactive, hauled back to Area 51 for questioning, as if she were still with the Mad Titan?
This was probably a bad idea — but then again, Bucky’s always been good at jumping facefirst into bad ideas. So here he is on the run again, with another stranger. They’re in yet another safehouse, yet another dark room. He’s leaning on the same network that he and Steve and Natasha had used over the years: spycraft and caches left behind, addresses jotted in his notebook, even though it feels like he’s picking over the ashes of his friend’s intelligence network. Nat’s not around to use it, after all.
(Sam’s the only one, these days, to still have Bucky’s unlisted phone number. Just enough contact that Bucky knows he can reach out if it gets really fucking dire; not so much that the other man will wind up in hot water with SWORD. They pretend they aren’t still in touch.)
And over the days, Bucky’s been slowly realising that there’s a hitch in Gamora’s shoulder. He’s trained to read body language and he can tell that there’s something paining her, just like how she can tilt her head and hear the quiet machinery whirring away in his vibranium arm. She’s just a hair-trigger slower on the draw, seems to favour one side.
“Did you catch a bullet?” he finally asks, one night, while he’s rummaging through the cabinets for some food. Gamora hasn’t been bleeding as far as he can tell, but there’s still something wrong. He’s pretty sure.
It’s been several months of living on the run together. Surviving in a cabin in the woods waiting for the heat to die down, then eventually cobbling electronics together into a makeshift interstellar radio, Gamora tinkering with the innards of the machinery, modifying it for a long-range call, eventually flagging a ride to safely hitchhike her way off-planet.
E.T. phone home, he thought, remembering a movie night with Sam’s nephews —
And when that craft descended and the choice came to stay or to go and she extended that invite, he’d said, Yeah, sure, what the hell.
Which is how they find themselves here: dropped off at a dive bar at the other end of the galaxy, on the edge of Ravager space. Having to scrape by and make ends meet by by whatever means necessary; which for Bucky, sometimes means doing dishes, sometimes being a bouncer for the bar, sometimes picking up more unsavoury jobs like roughing people up. (Being a loanshark’s enforcer is tamer than being an assassin, at least.)
Best of all, Gamora doesn’t have to stay cooped up in hiding anymore; people don’t double-take at the sight of a green woman out here. Mostly, Bucky’s the one the bar patrons goggle at, doing about-turns, sometimes pointing and snapping a photo of him. Humans aren’t too common around these parts.
But it’s a living, and neither of them have to look over their shoulders anymore; SWORD’s jurisdiction ended far away, in Earth orbit. Bucky’s been relishing this chance at a real second start, without having to walk around in the rubble of his memories and his past self, living in a New York which looked both familiar and uncanny and strange at the same time. Life in space is, frankly, fucking cool, and he knows Gamora’s saving up for her own ship.
And there’s a common stardate in this particular quadrant, based on the nearest set of binary stars in some complicated calendrical math which he can’t follow, but tonight is apparently what counts as new year’s eve here. So they’ve both got the night off, and he’s enjoying it accordingly; refills in hand, Bucky slides into his seat next to Gamora at the bar. Pushes her drink over to her. He’s started to learn which ones she likes. The alien liquor usually fizzes and smokes in unnerving ways, but at least it punches through his amplified metabolism.
“Here’s to one more year alive,” he says, lightly.
It hadn’t seemed likely for her back when they’d first met, behind the scope of a gun in an abandoned warehouse.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
the road so far —
MEET CUTE
Her fingers clench on the rifle for a moment. Her teeth grind against each other tightly enough to be painful. Something inside her goes taut with tension immediately when he calls her by name. Tries to strike up a bond with her. Some of the others tried that - the difference is that her and this one have actual shared experience, however brief.
She was part of the invading army. She very nearly would have been part of Thanos' second victory in this timeline.
Perhaps that feeling in her chest is shame, not anger.
There's a stretch of silence. Then, almost too quiet in the space of the warehouse:
"Yes. I'm aware of your strength and your skill. As you are of mine. You must know you do not frighten me."
Not a question, that. The organisation of... SWORD dispatched him, so he must know what they know. Which she suspects isn't half of what the wider galaxy knows of her, but is admittedly more than she'd have assumed humans being able to gather together from what little exposure to her they had. Humans are known throughout the galaxy for being strange - and perhaps that tendency to underestimate them is why they, in the end, bested Thanos where the galaxy at large failed.
"You're not as unkempt anymore."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
wrap!
can you see my scars, can you feel my heart —
SWORD is likely going to be beyond pissed, but Bucky saw too much of himself in her — a haggard creature with no one else to turn to — and he’s spent years on the run himself, and so it’s somehow easy enough to back to that life. His pardon’s fucked, but it also means that leash around his throat being neatly severed, no longer accountable for monitoring and check-ins. It wasn’t so long ago that SHIELD itself was hunting him, the entire world watching him for for a crime he hadn’t committed—
So, like, sue him, he’s reluctant to let this woman die for something she isn’t responsible for, either. She’d fought in the Battle for Earth. She hadn’t sided with Thanos. Shouldn’t that mean her being counted alongside all the other heroes instead of being treated like she was radioactive, hauled back to Area 51 for questioning, as if she were still with the Mad Titan?
This was probably a bad idea — but then again, Bucky’s always been good at jumping facefirst into bad ideas. So here he is on the run again, with another stranger. They’re in yet another safehouse, yet another dark room. He’s leaning on the same network that he and Steve and Natasha had used over the years: spycraft and caches left behind, addresses jotted in his notebook, even though it feels like he’s picking over the ashes of his friend’s intelligence network. Nat’s not around to use it, after all.
(Sam’s the only one, these days, to still have Bucky’s unlisted phone number. Just enough contact that Bucky knows he can reach out if it gets really fucking dire; not so much that the other man will wind up in hot water with SWORD. They pretend they aren’t still in touch.)
And over the days, Bucky’s been slowly realising that there’s a hitch in Gamora’s shoulder. He’s trained to read body language and he can tell that there’s something paining her, just like how she can tilt her head and hear the quiet machinery whirring away in his vibranium arm. She’s just a hair-trigger slower on the draw, seems to favour one side.
“Did you catch a bullet?” he finally asks, one night, while he’s rummaging through the cabinets for some food. Gamora hasn’t been bleeding as far as he can tell, but there’s still something wrong. He’s pretty sure.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
🌌 new year’s eve.
E.T. phone home, he thought, remembering a movie night with Sam’s nephews —
And when that craft descended and the choice came to stay or to go and she extended that invite, he’d said, Yeah, sure, what the hell.
Which is how they find themselves here: dropped off at a dive bar at the other end of the galaxy, on the edge of Ravager space. Having to scrape by and make ends meet by by whatever means necessary; which for Bucky, sometimes means doing dishes, sometimes being a bouncer for the bar, sometimes picking up more unsavoury jobs like roughing people up. (Being a loanshark’s enforcer is tamer than being an assassin, at least.)
Best of all, Gamora doesn’t have to stay cooped up in hiding anymore; people don’t double-take at the sight of a green woman out here. Mostly, Bucky’s the one the bar patrons goggle at, doing about-turns, sometimes pointing and snapping a photo of him. Humans aren’t too common around these parts.
But it’s a living, and neither of them have to look over their shoulders anymore; SWORD’s jurisdiction ended far away, in Earth orbit. Bucky’s been relishing this chance at a real second start, without having to walk around in the rubble of his memories and his past self, living in a New York which looked both familiar and uncanny and strange at the same time. Life in space is, frankly, fucking cool, and he knows Gamora’s saving up for her own ship.
And there’s a common stardate in this particular quadrant, based on the nearest set of binary stars in some complicated calendrical math which he can’t follow, but tonight is apparently what counts as new year’s eve here. So they’ve both got the night off, and he’s enjoying it accordingly; refills in hand, Bucky slides into his seat next to Gamora at the bar. Pushes her drink over to her. He’s started to learn which ones she likes. The alien liquor usually fizzes and smokes in unnerving ways, but at least it punches through his amplified metabolism.
“Here’s to one more year alive,” he says, lightly.
It hadn’t seemed likely for her back when they’d first met, behind the scope of a gun in an abandoned warehouse.