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Entry tags:

[closed]

who: Bucky & Ava, Ivar, Natasha
what: Memory share.
when: During the event
where: Dreamscapes mostly, maybe some in-person threads around the city.
warnings: Violence, brainwashing, Winter Soldier things.

[ooc: Prompts below. Nothing open but hit me up at

nekky if you want something with Bucky during the event or just generally in October.]

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[This isn't his memory. There is a sense of the familiar and a sense of the not to it, some of the scenery vague and blurry when he tries to look too hard, to figure out what is going on. Logically, he knows. It's been happening all week when he sleeps, but even the Winter Soldier can't avoid sleep forever. He just wonders what he'll see this time, when he spots Natasha across the way.

Hopefully she knows that he didn't choose to be here. He wouldn't purposely invade her privacy like this, knows what it's like to have it done to him and hates the thought.]

What is this?

No, no, no. You should leave.

[ But of course he can't. He isn't controlling this. She isn't either.

In the dream, the memory, whatever, Clint approaches, with a grim look on his face. It's an expression he's never worn well. Natasha does remember this, clearly, but she's kept it locked up— a room in her house she hasn't cared to visit. Clint takes her hand, awkwardly pausing: "'Tash," he says. "I'm sorry. But they've… he's…" Whatever it is, Clint is having a hard time thinking his way around it. He blinks once, twice.

"Bucky's dead. We think it was Zemo. Steve and Zemo, working together." He says it like a bitter joke, and doesn't laugh.

Natasha cannot feel her face. ]

[He opens his mouth to say something, make some crack about how he would leave if he could find the exit, but- that's Clint, far too grim, too serious, and Natasha... Bucky falls silent, staring at the pair, the dream, the- the memory, and.

Everything screeches to a halt. There is water rushing in his ears, but no, no water, it's all in his head. Zemo. Steve and Zemo? That doesn't sound real, it sounds like a nightmare, but this- he's been through enough of this shit this week to know it's a memory, something that happened.

Oh. So this is what she wasn't telling him. His expression hasn't changed, but he's a little pale as he watches the memory play out.]

I think you need to tell me what's going on. Natasha. Please.

Steve has been with HYDRA. Undercover, a mole. [ She anticipates the next question, and adds. ] The whole time, he says.

[ She doesn't look at Bucky— she knows he won't believe her, not right away. She doesn't look at the memory either, at Clint, lost like they all were, trying to make his face look kind. She can't watch herself, the breakdown she knows is coming. ]

Damn. [ It isn't much more than a whisper, held under her breath. This is all a secret she'd intended to keep. ]

That can't be right. [He whispers, eyes glued on the scene in front of him, the way Clint and Natasha interact, fixated on their words with a sickening horror dawning in the back of his head.] Steve wouldn't- He wouldn't work with Zemo. The shit that whole family put us through, he- he wouldn't. [He scrubs a hand over his mouth, reflexive, anxious. It's hard to rattle Bucky Barnes, but this...

He keeps watching.]

[ Natasha doesn't say anything— neither one of them can. In the memory, she falls onto Clint's shoulder, sobbing, her knees buckled. Watching herself, though, she keeps herself straight. It's terrible to watch herself come apart like this, but still somehow easier than looking at James.

In the memory, though, Natasha looks up at Clint, whose face is battling it's own demons. "He has to pay for this," she says. "We have to stop him." ]

[It's a trainwreck, and he can't turn his gaze away. Nice to know she mourned him, at least, he supposes, but- that's a bleak thought, edged in hysteria that doesn't bleed through to his outward expression. He seems... distressed, sure, but not near to panicking, even if he might want to. He would, if he weren't so well-trained.]

I don't understand any of this.

Then don't try to.

[ James wasn't stupid, but "thinking things through" wasn't exactly his strong point. Maybe that would save him. She didn't honestly know what it would do to him, knowing that Steve was a traitor. Maybe that was what really killed him. Maybe he hadn't been able to fight back. ]

Just… forget this is happening. Forget that it happened.

[ Because it did. It happened to her. ]

[When he finally speaks again, his voice is rough, betraying the struggle going on in his head.] You know I can't. [It would be easier if he could, but who can really forget witnessing a discussion about their own death? Their death by the hands of their best friend, nonetheless.]

What really happened? What's going on with Steve? At least tell me that.

He's been working for HYDRA this whole time. From the beginning. That's what the intel says.

[ It was difficult to believe, even though she had been living it. And she had been living it. Natasha can't meet his eyes. ]

That's what he says, too.

That- [From the beginning? No, that couldn't possibly be right. Bucky would have known. He would have seen it. They were practically in each other's pockets during the war, Steve couldn't have hidden something so massive from his partner.]

Natasha, that sounds insane. I know Steve. He's not HYDRA.

Yes. That's what everyone's been saying.

[ She hadn't wanted to believe it either. Years and years, and for Natasha to suspect nothing?

But that had all changed when James died. ]

It hasn't helped.

Something else has to be going on with him. Magic, or mind control, or something. [He just can't believe that his best friend is HYDRA, but at the same time... This is a memory of Natasha's. Something that actually happened. He's not sure how to reconcile that with the things he heard and saw because it can't be true, and yet.]

Even if he- He wouldn't work with Zemo. He wouldn't... kill me.

It isn't mind control. We tried… [They'd tried a lot of things, because of course, no one had wanted to believe it. ] Telepaths, magic spells. Every protocol any one of us could think of.

[ Just remembering all the meetings they'd had, puts something raw into her voice. They kept trying to find some thread of hope to follow, like a line of fire through the dark. And it had only worn them all thinner, made them vulnerable. Easier to exploit. ]

Someone's always tryin' to build a better brainwashing device. [But it sounds weak, even to his own ears. A grasping at straws from a man who doesn't want to believe the worst of his best friend, his brother.

But at the same time, he knows Natasha is thorough, and the internal warring is evident in his expression. Even now he's not exactly trying to hide his thoughts from her (it would be futile anyway, she knows him too well).] I don't know what to say. I- It's Steve.

Yes.

[ Her voice, then, is not kind, exactly, feeling. For an instant, she lets herself feel the contradictions of the moment, the sadness of losing a friend, losing James, the sharp needle of betrayal, every raw and bleeding thing she's denied herself for months so that she can keep going with the resistance.

But then she pulls her stoicism back. ]

There is— Tony and Clint, they had a new theory. About the cosmic cube.

[ She knows he hates the cosmic cube. ]

[He looks at her searchingly, almost, wishing he could tell what she's thinking right now. It has to be hard, to lose Steve to that, to- well, he doesn't really want to think about the effect his own death might have on her. He's not stupid enough to think it was easy to take just because they aren't together.

And then she mentions the Cube, and his blood runs cold.] What's the theory?

That someone rewrote the timeline. Possible, of course… [ It wouldn't be the first "Nazis win" alternate universe that the Cube created. ] But impossible to test. [ And at this point, Natasha has been burned too many times to make believe there's a way to make everything normal. People are dying. People have died. That is her reality. ]

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