capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

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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.

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People getting ported out had never bothered her the way it did now. Kate hadn't really experienced losing anything from here until Renee was sent back. Now it felt like a never ending cycle, somehow.

"Porter's a bitch," she said dryly. "Yeah, it does make you wonder what the point is sometimes."

"I dunno that there is a point. Not one I'd understand." Bucky thought maybe time-travelling robot monsters from outer space might think quite a bit differently than he did. It was the only way to make sense of something that didn't make much.

"If it's all just random, it could explain the lunatics she drags in."

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.

"I don't think anything could explain them."

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.

She didn't mean to let the silence linger on the way it did after he had spoken, it just did.

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.

"Maybe not. He was usually real showy, he could never stay underground for too long. But yeah, he's gone into hiding a few times. He's smart until he's stupid."

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.

She watched him intently. She had wanted to go back for the Major, but Dick and the other hostages had been her priority. To find out through the Network the Major and the Doctor had been killed didn't sit well with her knowing once they were back, it was back to square one.

"And what would you do if he or the Doctor were still alive somewhere?"

"I'd try to rope them in, if I could." If he couldn't, he'd kill them himself, and he wouldn't apologize. Bucky didn't say that bit out loud, but it dripped unmistakable in the silence.

What they did to the Major, though, it was a whole lot worse than killing.

"There's no real way of telling, right?" she decided to ignore the elephant in the room for the moment. "ImP-- we usually come back, but if we don't, there isn't a way of knowing if the Porter decided to be merciful and send us back or that we'll stay six feet under."

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.

"There's no telling, you're right. But I'd be more likely to kill him if I thought it would stick."

There. He said it— he meant it too. God, though, he felt a sadness, to say it out loud.

If things had been different, if the BTO had never caught on about her, maybe she would have found herself agreeing. Mannheim was a different story altogether and she had never been proud of that moment, despite everything that was at stake.

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.

"I wouldn't be doing it for anyone. Someone like that, someone who murders people and sets the whole damn thing to music, sometimes you've only got a second to take 'em down." He exhaled, heavily.

"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.

She unfolded her arms finally, leaning herself against the wall and looking thoughtful. You couldn't have those regrets in the midst of battle. She knew even the slightest falter could cost more than you were willing to give.

"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.

"What you hafta do isn't always what you want to do. S'what duty is."

That probably wasn't how the Army would put it. But it's what Bucky had always told himself.

She knew that all too well. "If the Major or Doctor are still alive, there's going to be plenty of people on the lookout."

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.

"Yeah. I know— I know there're a lot of people, who would stop them."

That was the problem. They hadn't just stopped him, had they?

"You going to be alright?"

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.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

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.

She came over, leaning in slightly just to rest a hand on his shoulder. With a little squeeze she hoped was somewhat reassuring.

"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?"

Edited 2012-08-12 21:36 (UTC)

"Yeah, but I've never lived in Gotham," he joked, easing his way back into his easier self.

He only nods at Kate's last comment.

"Lots of lunatics... but not so many Nazis."

Just a whole new brand of crazy, though she doesn't need to say that.

"There's a lot of overlap," Bucky replied. "But maybe not so much as people'd like to think."

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.

She withdrew her hand from his shoulder.

"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.

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