nobody likes kate kane (
gevurah) wrote in
capeandcowllogs2012-08-07 10:51 pm
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Entry tags:
(no subject)
WHO: BUCKY and KATE
WHERE: Bucky's apartment
WHEN: evening of 8/7
WARNINGS: maybe angst.
SUMMARY: blond friends get ported out and Kate checks in on Bucky.
FORMAT: prose to start then whatever.
Carol's port out had come as an unpleasant surprise and as selfish as it might have been, Kate had felt genuinely bad for the tension she stirred up and almost wanted another chance to talk to her again. A voice in the back of her head had jeered, "Great job, Kate Kane. Another bridge you burned." But if she wasn't coming back a second time, then it didn't do any good to obsess on it for long. She would decide on a souvenir to bring back for Carol, drop it off at Avengers mansion when she got back and that was that.
At some point, it had occurred to her she hadn't heard from Bucky in a while. When she thought about asking Kate for a number, she remembered the state of his microwave at the apartment and figured a cell was out of the question. Stopping by unannounced didn't feel too right, but she head straight up to his door and knocked anyway.
WHERE: Bucky's apartment
WHEN: evening of 8/7
WARNINGS: maybe angst.
SUMMARY: blond friends get ported out and Kate checks in on Bucky.
FORMAT: prose to start then whatever.
Carol's port out had come as an unpleasant surprise and as selfish as it might have been, Kate had felt genuinely bad for the tension she stirred up and almost wanted another chance to talk to her again. A voice in the back of her head had jeered, "Great job, Kate Kane. Another bridge you burned." But if she wasn't coming back a second time, then it didn't do any good to obsess on it for long. She would decide on a souvenir to bring back for Carol, drop it off at Avengers mansion when she got back and that was that.
At some point, it had occurred to her she hadn't heard from Bucky in a while. When she thought about asking Kate for a number, she remembered the state of his microwave at the apartment and figured a cell was out of the question. Stopping by unannounced didn't feel too right, but she head straight up to his door and knocked anyway.
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"Oh, hi." Bucky was surprised to see Kate standing there, after the swing. Tired, was what he felt, and that he felt strangely. It wasn't late. "You can come in if you want."
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"You really need a cell," she joked. She didn't look like she was joking though, mostly due to wondering if she had come at at a bad time.
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He went to the kitchen, and rummaged through his icebox. "You want anything?"
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It wasn't a total lie; Kate had only briefly spotted him when she and Khisanth were en route to where the hostages were being kept. She had to focus on the mission at hand back then, although a part of her might have felt guilty not checking up on him right after.
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It was a swing and a miss, really, a cheap distraction, and he knew it. Bucky was never very good at coming out and saying what was churning him on the insides. After a moment though, after wrenching the bottlecap off with the corner of the table, he spoke again.
"Gwen's gone." There, that was part of it.
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Not that she knew the nature of Bucky's relationship with her, but there it wasn't hard to feel bad he had lost a friend or pick up on the lack of enthusiasm he had greeted her with so far.
"I'm sorry." It's automatic and she figured he might not want to hear it. "You okay?" She knew the answer already and was almost waiting for him to crack a joke.
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Losing people, he meant. He'd been doing that his whole life.
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She was plenty certain she wasn't imagining or exaggerating it. Of course, she had been out of touch with people herself. Maybe half the reason for this visit was just out of her own self-guilt lately.
"Even if they're back where they belong... it's fine to miss them."
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It was time to change the subject. "What about you?"
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Except now that he had directed the topic on her, she actually had to pause and search for words. "I don't know," she let out a quiet sigh. "Look, Bucky... I just wanted to check in on you before my flight on Thursday. If it's a bad time, I can go."
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He came out of the kitchen and sat down on his sofa. More relaxed, it seemed like. It was obvious enough that he didn't want her to leave.
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Lately, it had felt things that were hers and hers only had slipped through her grasp and into the wrong hands. Dent showing up at her apartment, Nill knowing Kate's nights were spent more than just dancing... She didn't like the lack of control and Renee's port out, followed by Vic and Carol's was a bitter reminder.
"Carol's gone, too." She finally said.
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"It kills me, how this place can take us from anywhere, anyhow, and right back again. And we don't get any say in it. What a rotten deal."
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"Porter's a bitch," she said dryly. "Yeah, it does make you wonder what the point is sometimes."
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It's too bad Dent was still at large, somewhere. He was someone who Kate wouldn't mind being chucked back to Gotham. Not like he had any power there, from what she remembered.
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After a second, he added— "The Major hasn't come back yet." That was what'd really been eating at him. Gwen being gone was just gnawing at the hole that'd already been there.
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She thought they had things in common, and of course, they had their differences. A long time ago when she was still a cadet, what happened in the front lines of battle wasn't something she was going to regret. (Not unlike her father, as much as she didn't want to think about his obvious lack of regrets in life.)
"If he has, do you think he would announce it?" Crazy as the Nazi bastard was, she didn't know his M.O. the way Bucky could have.
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The thought of the Major going underground was a lot worse to him than him being permanently dead. So what Kate said cheered him up, some. Probably not in any way she meant to.
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"And what would you do if he or the Doctor were still alive somewhere?"
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What they did to the Major, though, it was a whole lot worse than killing.
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Kate had never had spoken to or met the Doctor, but she had heard enough from Nill to make her blood hot. While she didn't kill, she didn't believe people like that deserved much mercy.
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There. He said it— he meant it too. God, though, he felt a sadness, to say it out loud.
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But things had gone the way they did for a reason, she figured.
"You don't know that." That's where the problem was in this world. "And who would you be doing it for?" It wound up sounding a lot more suspicious than she intended, but for once, Kate wasn't able to read him. People could be selfless. Then again, people could change.
It didn't feel good to question another soldier, though.
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"It wouldn't be the first time I killed a Nazi." He could remember the first time— he was sixteen, and for a second it was like his mind didn't know what his wrist was doing. It caught up to him, though. And for a clean day, no matter where he looked, all he could see was dirt.
Here was the scariest thing James B. Barnes knows about killing: it gets easier.
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"I figure," she said, almost too quietly. She didn't look at him when she spoke. "I know—" Now she had to make it a point not to look at him when she corrected herself. "My parents were in the service. My... dad still is."
She didn't have to spell the rest out.
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That probably wasn't how the Army would put it. But it's what Bucky had always told himself.
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Maybe Bucky didn't hold the same faith in them Kate did. She said it firmly, anyway. Any rumor she heard, she would be out there herself.
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That was the problem. They hadn't just stopped him, had they?
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She could say a lot of things, if she knew what would stick, but ultimately it was up to Bucky. Bette had mentioned a few times she felt Kate was cold that way.
What could she say to him? Kate just didn't know.
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He'd always turned out fine before, right? It was just… old stuff, old feelings he'd managed to swallow, seeping back in. The war was over. A long time ago. But Bucky couldn't help but keep fighting.
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"You'd think living in Gotham would prepare you for things like this. Or whatever it is." Not machines capable of dragging people into the next dimension, obviously. "Whatever happens, we just have to soldier on, right?"
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He only nods at Kate's last comment.
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Just a whole new brand of crazy, though she doesn't need to say that.
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Of course, the worst the Nazis did happened behind the fog of war. No one was fighting them because of their camps, they were fighting 'em because od Pearl Harbor. Because Uncle Sam told them to. But not because they believed Hitler was deep-down evil.
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"Yeah, I guess." It was discussions like this that the memory of the plane and Beth slipping from her grasp crept into her thoughts. She could talk about all the mass murdering psychos from Gotham, but Beth had been one of them... somehow.