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WHO: OPEN
WHERE: Superjail
WHEN: Whenever
WARNINGS: N/A
SUMMARY: Bucky is in jail, people can visit him. Yes, my summaries suck.
FORMAT: Whatever people feel most comfortable with. I'm quicker with quicklogs!

He wasn't a stranger to the inside of a cell. He couldn't be, considering his line of work. It wasn't quite like they made out in the serials– tied up more often than not– but there were times Bucky figured he was a professional P.O.W. What could he say? It was easier to get into a place when they brought you inside all tidy.

This was different. This was more like those nights he spent in the brig 'cause he'd gotten drunk and hit a few too many people. Well, it wasn't like that at all, he knew that, he knew it, 'cept in the fact that he was there to do his penance instead of figuring a way to break out. Bucky thought those were the two different sorts of people stuck in prison. The kind who were spending every second thinking about leaving, and the kind who were spending every second thinking they deserved to be there. Maybe there were other kinds. People who were there for so long the being there had broken 'em. But Bucky hadn't been there long enough for that.

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"Red hair. Real tight black getup. She knows you, I guess. Future you, at least." Tom scrubbed a hand through his hair, a nervous tic of a motion. Trying to think of what to say was difficult. He was no wordsmith on his best day and Bucky was stubborn.

He could give---and had given---him all kinds of forgiveness and it still wouldn't be enough. Tom didn't want it shoved back at him again.

"Wait, hang on, you saw her? I didn't want to know what she looked like."

He clearly wasn't happy, but he was thinking about something besides the number of cracks in the concrete floor and how heavy or light a thing death could be, which made words come a good sight easier.

"Y'know what? Me either. I coulda gone without knowing what she looked like, but she's the only reason I didn't get another bullet in the heart." There was an edge to his tone, a banked anger that still had smoldering roots underneath all the dust he kicked over it. He wanted to be angry. Maybe Bucky'd take anger easier than he'd take the rest of the knot of emotions he had in the pit of his stomach.

"No, no, you don't understand." That hit a note of genuine discomposure. And Tom was still talking about the Creeper Lady and so he was clearly missing the point, and Bucky was taken aback by the anger. 'Cause he thought maybe Tom'd like the chance to talk about something else, too, or— he wasn't sure what, exactly. But no, he'd come here all dead set on talking about bullets and the places they wind up. Well, fine by him.

"What don't I understand?" he asked, brows beetling together. He leaned back in his chair, mouth pressed into the firmest of lines. The anger was the easiest thing to dig his claws into and stick with, the easiest thing to process. If he thought about how goddamn sad it made him to see Bucky on the other side of the glass and atoning for his sins like a real martyr, his heart would probably deflate in his chest and this conversation would fall apart. He hadn't mustered up all this resolve to see him just to act like a runny-nosed little girl about it all.

"She's-- she's my girlfriend. In the future." At least, Bucky was pretty sure that's what it was. Dames had changed, but they hadn't changed that much. "I don't like talking about her or thinking about her or knowing about her 'cause it feels like cheating. Like it's unfair to Gretchen, even though..."

Bucky let himself follow the edge of the countertop. If you looked from the right angle, you could trick your eyes into believing the line of it went on and on forever. A white prison countertop, running a ring of the whole damn world.

"Aw, hang it." There were an awful lot of things in this world he just didn't want. And he figured there were some stories Tom felt the same way about.

"Your girlfriend?"

Tom's voice hit an embarrassing crack, the kind of prepubescent screech that he should have left behind years ago. He leaned into the counter, almost dropping the scratched-up phone, and resisted the urge to toss all the made-up boundaries aside. Him and Bucky, they didn't do jail. The minute they got into a lock-up, they were already figuring a way out. They were trained for it, Bucky especially. It felt all twisted-up and stupid to be sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair holding the phone when he knew that it'd take him and Bucky no time at all to blast their way out of this place.

He was thinking about it without even realizing that he was thinking about it. Judging the security he hadn't consciously scoped out as he walked in, remembering where cameras had and hadn't been, figuring how hot he'd have to burn to scoop his way through the barrier. He didn't have Bucky's head for numbers, but he still knew that their chances were pretty fair. They could bust out. They could go. There wasn't a damn thing keeping them in the City.

And it'd be just like old times.

Lowering his voice, he took a deep breath and repeated his question.

"She's your girl?"

"No! She isn't! That's the problem."

She was from the future, did he just miss that part? Jesus, he'd figured Tom'd know better than anyone about wanting no part of the future. That was the place gum cost more than a dollar. And the place where canes grew and bullets got stuck in legs and nothing turned out the way it was supposed to.

Tom's expression scrunched and flattened. He looked down, more interested in the creases in his slacks than making eye contact. Seemed like neither of them could stand full-on eye contact for more than a few seconds here and there.

"Christ, Buck, this whole thing's fouled up," he said tiredly, and felt the enormity of what this whole thing entailed deep down in his chest. "All of it. I figured the war was bad---and don't you get me wrong, it is---but this? It's all new kinds of bad."

The anger was draining out of him again, edged out by something more complicated. His jaw worked, but no words came immediately.

"I wanna take you back. You shouldn't be here."

"Well, I don't want to leave."

That wasn't true. He wanted to leave this decade real bad. Not because it'd make anything better-- at this point it seemed like the only way Bucky could go was worse-- but it might make things right. If there was such a thing. Mostly, he figured that if it were 1945, he wouldn't need to think so much.

But it was well out of Raymond's power to get him back when, so he certainly wasn't going any kind of where.

"They're not gonna keep you long," he said in a voice that was choked and tight. He hadn't anticipated being brushed off that easy or that thoroughly. He didn't want to leave? Of course he didn't want to leave. "You sure you wanna stay here and be bunkmates with that fat goose stepper Major? Circumstances may be looking damn bleak, but you ain't that man. Rotting in here 'til you do turn into that man is stupid."

It was the closest Tom got to admitting that yes, yes, that man with the ugly metal arm and uglier eyes was Mr. James Buchanan Barnes. It was the closest he could get without bile rising in the back of his throat.

"If I were in here when I did, then maybe you'd be able to walk right now."

They didn't feel like well-considered words, those ones, they didn't come out after a pause and ruminations. But they were what he'd been thinking every passing moment that he'd been here, so it wasn't too unnerving to hear them aloud.

That is the single most uncomfortable truth to ever be shoved in his face. That was really something to say, seeing as war was nothing but uncomfortable truths.

Tom felt claustrophobic again, breathing coming about as naturally as if he were doing it underwater. It was the truth, the worst truth, and he couldn't get away from that. It was too slick. He couldn't get a foothold in the issue to argue from.

"I can walk," he said finally. "What happened happened, but I'm healed."

"Because you're lucky and...someone saved you. Rikki came back, but other people don't. How many do you reckon there are, Tom? How many bodies no one's ever gonna find?"

He was looking at Tom now. Straight-on looking at him. And he wasn't sure if he was trying to push him away or pull him in closer or what the point of all of this was, except maybe just to say something. His hands were sure, pressed against the table, palms wide. His voice wasn't.

"I don't know. Christ, I don't remember a thing."

Tom didn't look away. Maybe he would have any other time---Bucky was one of the only men he knew who could make warm brown eyes look that frosty---but this moment had weight. It was important, even if it was with a plastic phone and wall between them.

"And how many planes have I shot outta the sky? How many bodies in the war? The only difference I'm seeing is that you did it for the wrong side and don't remember any of it. I ain't giving you a blank check for what you did, but I'm just---I'm sayin' it's complicated. It's complicated and we probably won't ever suss it out or fix it. But I didn't think you were the type to just give up on yourself."

"Are you seriously gonna tell me it's the same thing? Because if that's the tack you're keen on, you might as well just quit." He shook his head. "I'm not trying to fix anything. I'm trying to keep the unfixable from happening again. It's about the only thing I can do."

"So you're just gonna quit living?"

He was almost yelling at this point, smoke curling up past his collar as his neat white shirt began to darken into a caramel color. "I'm gonna forgive you, I'm gonna help you, I'm gonna---I'm gonna put it all on the line 'cause you're my friend and I thought that meant something!"

Some part of Tom knew that Bucky was right. This was safest. This was the only thing that could be done. He was being so, so selfish, but didn't he deserve something? All he did was give. His friendship with Bucky was one of the only things that'd kept his head above water since Pearl Harbor, since Russia, since coming to this damn depressing future.

"If you think that that metal-armed son of a bitch couldn't get out of this joint if he put his mind to it, you're fooling yourself. You're better than that, Barnes, and he's better than you. If you're going to sit in here and rot, you'd---"

Tom took a deep gulping breath. He had to calm down or they'd throw him out but he didn't want to control himself. He wanted to shake sense into Bucky, wanted to burn down anything that sat between them. "You'd best believe I'm not letting you do this alone. We're a team, and I've got certain problems with leaving friends behind. You can't get rid of me. I won't stand for it."

"Nah, I know I could get out of here. But not before someone else could stop me, I don't think. It'd take time. And people know what to look for, now." This was a prison especially for people who'd normally waltz outta prison easy. So that he was resting easy with.

"But about the other thing. Quitting living. That was always the deal, wasn't it? Not what the Japs do, running at ships with manned planes. But, the service is still the service. I reckon when I signed up it was just 'cause, well, I'd never thought of anything else. And Steve'd just go on and on about America, and the good fight, and how this was some noble thing, we'd been called to. All the stuff I wasn't much inclined to listen to. That I'd heard dozens of times but knew was just crap. But y'know, it isn't. It's...it's a sight more'n crap. And lately I've just been turning it over and over in my mind. What the hell does it mean, when they call it the service? Why am I doing this? Why have I been the person I've been?"

He paused and ran his tongue across his lips. "I think about it and what I came up with, was, so other people wouldn't have to. And criminy, if I can save lives by staying in jail, then hang it, I'm staying in jail."

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