IC Inbox

[advanced]

This is the IC inbox for Bucky Barnes at Riverview.

Network name: user.name

This is the place to contact Bucky over the network. Contact by voice or text is perfectly acceptable, and there is no need to plot with me prior to posting in this inbox.

Note: As of the end of December 2017, Bucky has no phone, he has destroyed it. Consequently, this inbox can only be used for in person interaction. You are still more than welcome to post here without plotting with me first.

Comments

text, un: jb.barnes / pretend this is backdated oops

[anotheroldsoldier]

What the hell, Barnes?

un: user.name

[advanced]

How the hell did you get this username?

[He's been so damn careful not to attach his identity to it at all, barely using the network other than to stalk it.]

voice; (@ellie)

[pundemic]

[she sounds bored.

and very much like she's been at this for hours.

look, running through the entire list of everyone in this fucking place and asking all of them are you Mark? has gotten old fast.]

Hey. If your name's Mark, it's Ellie. Meet me at the place we made arrows. It's not urgent, just. Something you should know about? Thanks.

[She's been saying that to all of them, because she knows he's a dude that appreciates his privacy and it prevents him from needing to reply. Sooner or later she'll hit the real one.]

@user.name; text

[advanced]

[Of all the people he might not mind having this name, and who he doesn't think will tell anyone, she's on that short list. Which is why she'll get a reply not long after she's sent that.]

I'll be there. Thirty minutes.

[signifies]

[ Clark doesn't get occasion to use his super-speed often. He listens to Bucky every day, however, he's rarely tracked him.

When Bucky steps out of his safe house to go for groceries or another errand, one Kryptonian tries his hand at being sneaky. He nearly trips an alarm. There's so many of them and probably a few motion sensors. Clark hopes he hasn't made Bucky feel threatened by his intrusion: he came here to leave some freshly baked pie and home-cooked food. The post-it note stuck to it is signed with the S

You're friends now. Deal with it. ]

[advanced]

[It does freak him out when he gets back and finds a random pie and some food just waiting for him. But the S at least tells him who has come along and left these things.

He eats them pretty quickly, washes out the dishes, and leaves them in the same spot. They'll be there for Clark to collect whenever he wants, though Bucky will no longer use that safe house ever again.]

[signifies]

[ Clark bumps into him "accidentally" on one of the days Bucky's at the market. He slips something into Bucky's pocket and is gone before Bucky can ask him what he thinks he's doing. It's a beeper which can be used as a watch strap or as a decorative bracelet. Press it and it emits a sound at a frequency only Clark (and maybe Jon) can hear. ]

If you can't shout for me, use this.

[ The note is signed with the S. ]

[advanced]

[Once he's calmed down from being bumped into and read the note, he doesn't bother to track Clark down because it seems self explanatory.

He doesn't wear the bracelet, but he slips it into one of his inner pockets so that it's safe and always on him. Thanks for the present, Clark.]

[signifies]

[ Another day brings a new food delivery. Clark shouldn't have been given free rein over his new kitchen: he can't be trusted with this power.

He waves to Bucky cheerfully from the sky before landing. Clark holds out the recycleable bag filled with sealed boxes, wrapped to keep them warm. ]

Hey. Hope you like blueberry.

[advanced]

[Bucky has a few butterfly bandages stuck to his head where he got hit by the car the other day, but the wound is small and already healing. Otherwise he looks relatively content for him.]

I'm going to get fat if you keep doing this.

Action

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar waited until his ribs were more healed up after his fight with Dodger to seek out Bucky again. He was getting better, but he still had a lot to learn. His brush with death had shown him that. Not that Ivar was especially afraid of dying, at least not in battle. He'd go to Valhalla in that case and be reunited with his father.

But he was still here for now and he recalled Bucky had told him he would teach him how to shoot a gun. So he decided to track the ex-wife assassin down. Ivar's great talent lay in his ability to get inside the minds of others and know what they were going to do. He'd seen Bucky enough to know some of his thought patterns.

A man that paranoid wouldn't be found just walking down the street, not if he was going so far as to steal food. So Ivar went for the most remote and abandoned buildings in town, the ones no one would think of going to. The first two held nothing but broken glass and rats, but the third held signs of someone recently being there. He looked around, but saw no one. That was no guarantee with someone as silent as Bucky.]

Come on out. I know you're in here.

[advanced]

[Bucky's impressed.

He saw Ivar coming and, though he could have slipped away, he didn't. It is a feat in and of itself that Ivar has managed to track him down this closely, and he semi-trusts the Viking not to be looking for him for the wrong reasons. He's up in the rafters of the building when Ivar enters, watching and waiting silently.

He almost stays silent.

A few seconds pass, but then he drops to the floor on silent feet right next to Ivar.]

How'd you find me?

[ text ]

[signifies]

[ Clark had given him a missed call first to check that the phone was working properly, and so Bucky would be able to physically see the number.

Now, they can text. It's Clark's preferred method of communication on the network. Not only can he consider his words before he sends a message, but the fewer people who see his face, the better. ]

здравствуйте. Как у Вас дела?

[ It helped to live with a KGB agent for a month. ]

text;

[advanced]

[There's no reply for about ten minutes, and (if he's listening), Clark might be able to pick up the sound of Bucky's heart going faster in fear. But it calms relatively quickly, and only after it's back to normal does he respond.]

Я не знал, что вы говорили по-русски.

[ text; post event ]

[signifies]

How are you doing?

text;

[advanced]

[The reply is a while in coming.]

Fine.

[Except he's really not.]

[ text ]

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

Is that offer to work on my deplorable aim, still on the table?

[ Yes, he keeps confirming that James hasn't changed his mind. ]

text;

[advanced]

[Now isn't the best time. He's still reeling from what happened to him in the past month, as well as the loss of Steve, and he knows he's a hell of a lot less stable than he should be for lessons like this, than he should be for even just spending time around people.

But god knows he wants the distraction desperately.]

Yes. When?

video @ellie

[pundemic]

Hey, watch this!

[She has that guitar, and a grin on her face. She plays the opening rift to house of the rising sun. She's a bit shaky on the chords, and there are odd little breaks in the rhythm here and there, but it's obvious she's been practicing her ass off. If the calluses on her fingers didn't speak for her, anyway.]

Pretty good, right?

text;

[advanced]

[He very nearly doesn't respond to this, he's really not doing well since Steve went back through the portals and this world messed with his head again. But the guitar reminds him of doing something nice for someone else, and he's more fond of her than he is of most people here, so he does end up replying eventually.]

Better than I could do, that's for sure.

[How did she figure out it was from him? Was he that obvious?]

Can you play anything else?

action

[fingerstripes]

[ For all that Dick is really never not inclined to worry, he hasn't been in a rush to go on the hunt again for James. What they have is still tentative. Still fragile. Given the hell he'd been through himself, the pieces he'd had to pick up in the aftermath, he can only imagine that it's worse for him by tenfold.

Finally though, concern outpaces thoughtful tact. Looking is never the way to find him, so instead Dick perches conspicuously on a crumbling rooftop outside Quarentine. He's working on a hunch and not a certainty, so he's settled in for the long haul. He opens a small packet of yogurt and starts eating. Slow, unhurried. ]

[advanced]

[Dick is a sensible person who's getting far too good at Bucky hunting, which is why he only has to wait for about an hour before he'll see a familiar figure slipping through the ruins below.

He's on his way back to where he's camping at the moment to check on his bandages, really hoping everything has healed up properly because he doesn't want to face Stephen Strange while he's stealing from the hospital again.]

[ text ]

[signifies]

Hey, are you free?

[advanced]

[It takes about an hour for the response to come through.]

Yeah. You okay?

[ voice message | un: jkent ]

[supersweet]

Hey Mr — I mean, Bucky.

[ Still weird, but he's trying. ]

Uhm, are you doing okay and stuff? I thought I'd call.

text

[advanced]

[He told Jon to call if something was wrong, but trust a Kent to use it to check up on him. Like Father, like son.]

Any particular reason you're asking now?

un: redwidow; text

[krasnaya_vdova]

Have you seen Steve? He didn't show this morning and he's not answering my texts.

[It comes late morning, after she'd given Steve time, and then debated if she was over-reacting or if something was wrong enough to use the username James had given her.]

un: user.name; text

[advanced]

He's gone.

[Just that, just the two words, before his phone is getting turned off to prevent having to answer any more messages.]

[a note]

[krasnaya_vdova]

[She keeps her eyes open, especially watches out for James, so she knows a couple places where she can leave him a message and be reasonably sure he'll see it. It's a piece of paper, handwritten in an easy script, hides it where it's out of sight but where someone familiar will catch it, the crack of a door or the widow. She doesn't use his name on the off chance that someone else finds it.]

I've got something for you.
Find me when you have a chance?

A.

[advanced]

[Although he doesn't like anyone figuring out where he's staying, her doing it makes it itch less under his skin than some of the other people. It still takes a couple of days before he shows up, walking next to her when she's out like he always does if he has to go and find someone.]

You left me a note.

text

[kumkani]

Tony Stark said that you are here.

Are you safe?

text; yesssss

[advanced]

You have the wrong number.

[He doesn't recognise this username, and he knows for a fact that he hasn't given his number out to this stranger. It still sets him on edge, though.]

voice; un: redwidow, post-pierce

[krasnaya_vdova]

Are you okay?

[Her voice isn't panicked- she's too well-trained for that- but there is something a little clipped about it, worried. She needs to make sure. Knowing that there's hydra here, he's her first priority. Making sure he's still safe.

She rates this as enough of an emergency.]

[advanced]

[The message will bounce back, the number is no longer in service. He's gone to ground after meeting Pierce, and that means changing literally every way to contact him in case they were compromised.

It's about five days later when he finds her, whenever she's somewhere alone and unlikely to be observed, a voice comes from the shadows.]

I need to talk to you.

action | the next morning after their fight, after getting his boo boo treated

[madeupnames]

[THOUGHT YOU'D BE RID OF ME!!!!

Well, whatever happens next, he figures there's no point in keeping a distance.

Besides, he needs to make sure that Bucky wasn't actually hurt by that throw — because Peter's got a sense for scale, at least a little, and he knows it smarted something fierce. He didn't mean to toss him so hard (but, you know, panicked spider powers). So with that in mind, he forgoes being delicate about this and makes his way where he knew Bucky was staying last. It's the crack of dawn and barely even light out.

He admittedly hasn't been able to sleep much after that mess anyways. Mainly, he's listening for Sasha, 'cus it's easier to hear the dog than the sneaky assassin dude.

He's not Spider-Man, though. He's in his usual over-sized school sweater and converse, backpack full of both a spider suit and medical supplies slung over his shoulder (Mr. Barnes probably has a lot of medical stuff, because he's... him, but he figured he'd bring it anyways). And — yeaaah, he's got a pretty swollen eyebrow that is mottled with interesting colors and stitched up where it'd split from a headbutt-punch combo; it speeds faster through the healing process than the average human, and in a day or two it'll be like it never even happened.

He wonders if Mr. Barnes heals faster, since he can eat so much and punch so goddamn hard.

Anyways. He should see what the hell the guy was talking about.

Even if he totally tried to punch him in the back of the head over it.]

[advanced]

[Bucky lost a lot of time that night to remembering all the other people that he attacked that way who didn't deserve it. That kid had just been trying to do the right thing, even if he needed to know when to back off and when to keep going, and Bucky had laid into him because he was too scared to share the truth.

Maybe he is still partly the monster he's afraid to be.

He's on his feet the second he hears someone enter his space, definitely not relaxing at all when he sees who it is and the state that he's in. Fuck, he looks like he's gone several rounds with a combine harvester. He's just a kid, and Bucky did that to him.]

...you shouldn't be here.