6540/Falling apart, but reaching out... that's progress.

Falling apart, but reaching out... that's progress.
Date of Scene:	12 June 2021
Location:	Brighton Beach
Synopsis:	Steve proves, once again, that he can't say no to a Bucky in need, no matter how trouble saying yes is sure to bring.
Cast of Characters:	James Barnes, Steve Rogers

---

James Barnes has posed:
    It's been exactly an hour since Bucky fired off a text to Steve from an unfamiliar number. He's counting on his old friend to figure out the message: One hour, meet me at the Pier 8529. Surprisingly enough, the pier in question is still there. It's been rebuilt a few times but it's there. It's the same one Steve nearly drown jumping from on August 5th, 1929. Bucky, of course, jumped in to save him. Fitting he should choose this place out of all of the possible places they share memories.
    ...because Bucky feels like he's drowning.
    He's dressed in an NYU hoodie, running pants and bright white Adidas, so not his style, but that's what he's going for. His hair is pulled back under a Mets baseball cap. He looks like nothing more than a tourist enjoying a sit at the end of the long pier. Even the gloves and the hoodie can be explained away by damp evening air coming in off the water.
    Lili sits nearby, ever vigilante and occasionally letting out a concerned whimper.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve's own disguise is pretty good; canvas trousers, work boots, and a lightweight plaid shirt. The only thing distinctive about Steve is the Harley Davidson he rolls up on, a classic Knucklehead with enough paint wear to be honestly used but tires new enough that it's clear he keeps it well-maintained.

Aviators and a Mets cap keep his features from looking too distinct. The bike's parked and Steve walks up to the bench behind Bucky, pointedly making his boots crunch on some gravel so he doesn't startle the former assassin. When Lili perks and looks up at him, he smiles and clicks twice at the dog, one hand slipping from his jacket pocket in a friendly gesture.

Steve stops behind the bench, looking over Bucky's shoulder at the water. He's quiet for a moment. "You know every time we do these meets, I keep going for my Dodgers ballcap and then I remember-- Brooklyn hasn't had the Dodgers since the fifties. Still doesn't sound right." He chuckles wryly. "'Los Angeles Dodgers'. Hits the ear all wrong."

James Barnes has posed:
    Lili's tail thumps, but it's not as enthusiastically as it usually is when she sees Steve. Her tongue lolls out one side of her mouth giving her he appearance that she's grinning, but... in reality she's likely thinking, in her limited doggie fashion, that help has finally arrived. She whines and climbs to her feet to pad over and nudge his hand.
    "Nothing sounds right anymore," Bucky murmurs, his tone kind of flat and detached. That's never good, it's been a little while since he's sounded that way. "It's all wrong again." Just a beat and he adds, "Thanks for comin'."

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve shrugs slightly, hands spreading inside the pockets of his bomber jacket. It says 'it's no big deal' as much as it says 'I couldn't do otherwise'.

Lili's ears get a gentle rub, not wanting to disrupt her work any more than needed. Finally, he speaks. "You sound like you've got something on your mind, Buck," he says. "I'm guessing it has something to do with what's going on with our mutual friend from the SSR. I hope you're not coming to me looking for answers. I was hoping /you/ might be able to fill in some blanks. I haven't heard from her since the big building went dark. All I've got is some facts and rumors, and a pretty stern order to not go looking into facts and rumors."

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky finally turns around to level his gaze on Steve. Oh boy, this dark circles have dark circles. He's obviously not sleeping again. He looks like shit, truth be told, it's like he's taken ten steps backwards. He's also pale and maybe he's lost a little weight? It makes sense though. Someone with his particular brand of issues having the life he was just settling into and maybe even starting to enjoy again... turned completely upside down by the very people that are the cause of all of his issues to begin with.
    "I know I could bring her out, Steve, if they'd just *let* me." Cart before the horse Buck, bring her out of where?
    He'll get there, to the beginning of it all, it might take some prompting but he'll get there. Right now he's hyper-focused on the issue that he sees as the biggest problem.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve nods, slowly. "I'm sure you will, Buck," he says reassuringly. The big blonde fellow looks around, Bucky's habitual paranoia rubbing off on him a bit.

"C'mon, let's go to the end of the pier. Too many ears here," he suggests.

It doesn't take long to reach the end of the creaking old boardwalk. Between the wind and waves, the cry of gulls and the chatter of children, it's an impossibility for anyone to eavesdrop. Steve situates himself so he and Bucky can talk easily without anyone being able to read their lips at the same time, one hip resting against the wooden guardrail. As much good tradecraft as it is giving Bucky a sense of space and security to order his thoughts.

"You're gonna have to catch me up a bit," Steve tells Bucky. "My intel's so bad that I'm getting educated by the Daily Eagle. At least the Jumble's pretty good." A little amused tone slips into his words, trying to chivvy a little reaction from his friend.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky pushes himself to his feet to follow along, Lili padding closely behind and to the right. She's an intuitive beast, that one, she seems to know that while her presence is wanted here, it's actually Steve's that's *required* right now.
    "Mine isn't much better," he admits. "It's all over my head. At least the part with... that thing Peggy and the others are stuck inside." Now he goes back a little more to the beginning. "The Triskelion's gone, SHIELD has been infiltrated by HYDRA," that last word, that name, it still manages to tumble from his lips in a tone that's always half dread and half murderous rage. His left hand clenches into a fist.
    Lili whines over her person's rising tension.
    A beat, his brain catches up... "You read that crap? I thought you just did those horrible photo shoots and good 'ole boy interviews with them."
    The smile he might have been beginning to crack there fades before it even had a chance. "She's stuck inside this *thing* Steve, like a computer program." He sounds MORTIFIED by it all too. "They can send other people in but they know they're not ... in the real world." He's definitely struggling to make any sense of it. "I wanna go in, Steve, I think I can make her see that where she's at isn't real, just like... she makes me see..." That he's safe, that his nightmare wasn't real, that he's Bucky. "I can make her see that she's *our* Peg, I know I can."

Steve Rogers has posed:
"In... a computer program?" Steve's struggling to wrap his head around that; it's clear he's envisioning something the size of ENIAC and a pile of Peggy-shaped punch cards. "That doesn't make much sense, Buck," he apologizes.

"I saw the intelligence briefs about HYDRA. I've got a friend in the CIA, they're chasing down leads and throwing the biggest 'I Told You So' party in the history of US Intelligence. NATO's security council is going to have egg on their face for years."

He shakes his head in more exasperation than anything, looking out at the lapping water. "But I don't know what you're talking about with the, uh, computer thing," he admits. "Does it have her hypnotized? Can't you just hit a switch, turn it off or something?"

James Barnes has posed:
    "I..." Yeah, it's hard to explain something that he really just doesn't understand, at all. Hell, it was only recently that Peggy get him to try a smart phone and it likely took him twenty minutes to send that text to Steve. Modern tech, obviously not his cup of joe, unless it's weaponry. Bucky puffs out a frustrated breath. "It's like they have whole other lives in there and they believe it's real in their heads. Something about dragging them out forcefully being dangerous..."
    He squeezes his hand into a fist so tight that the damned thing creaks a little. "Steve... they don't go out of their way to explain any of this to me, not with Peggy gone. To most of he rest of them, I'm just their ticking time bomb that they don't know what to do with. The lot of them likely would just a soon I'd fall off a bridge and die..." Tried that once, it didn't work. "The ones that aren't afraid of me or look at me as a liability are *IN* that thing."

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve pauses and thinks through what Bucky's saying. "Okay, so to sum up: Peggy's incapacitated, as are most of our friends and allies. Anyone who's not inside this... computer, they're either strangers or they don't trust us."

He rubs his palm over his chin, then folds his arm over his stomach to support his chin resting in his palm. "The future tech stuff aside, this sounds like Badgastein. Austria," he clarifies. "A bunch of allies stuck behind enemy lines. Of course back then we had the entire IV Corps on call," he concedes with a dark chuckle. "I'm not sure we can exactly roll up on Peggy with a tank platoon. Do you know where she is, then? Like actually ... er, 'using' this computer or whatever it is?"

James Barnes has posed:
    "No," Bucky murmurs. "They don't trust *me* Steve. Most of them on the outside don't trust *me*." Part of that is likely just him being paranoid, but some of it is likely true. "They're stuck in this big... sphere thing." So technical there Buck! His brow furrows, those little lines adding to the intensity of his expression and those pale blue eyes when he finally asks, "Come back with me, Steve? Please... they'll listen to you, you can make them let us go in to get her..." Please. He's never sounded more pitiful, more desperate, more lost and more in need of Steve's help than in this moment with that one 'please'.
    Lili, quiet until now, chuffs a soft little bark. Is that damned dog actually encouraging Steve to say yes?
    "... I know you're not supposed to and I get it if you can't." Bucky wouldn't be Bucky if he didn't offer an out. "I'll figure it out..." You know, if you cant.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve cringes and exhales in frustration, looking away. When Bucky and Lili look back, he's shaking his head in exasperation. It's an expression borrowed from Bucky, when a much younger James Barnes saw a much different Steve Rogers wading into a fight he was sure not going to win.

"Janet's gonna kill me if I miss Date Night this week," he says, and digs his phone out of his pocket. A text message is fired off; Steve's developed a surprising forte with the device. Mostly because it seems to be the only way the enterprising Miss van Dyne communicates remotely. "But on the plus side, if we get in over our heads, she'll probably wreck the place coming to rescue us. Let's get wherever we gotta be, then," he bids Buck.

James Barnes has posed:
    The dark circles under Bucky's eye aren't going away without sleep, but the shadows lurking in them? Well, they clear almost immediately. There in his baseball hat and with his relatively clean shaven face, his hair pulled up in that hat to hide it? Well, it's easy to forget that he's not an eager twenty-something getting ready to ship off to war the next day. Especially when he *finally* cracks a smile. "She'll still kick your ass after," he points out.
    Lili barkbarkbarks. It's a happy sound. YES! Damn, sometimes it's almost as if that dog knows English well enough to speak it if she had the proper physiology to speak.
    "I got the Ural parked down a few blocks that way," he points... that way. "Gimme five and I'll signal and pull out when I see you coming, you can follow me." Just a beat and he adds, "Oh, we got Sharon, she's not in there..." He sounds like he thinks that's a boon, but is it really?

Steve Rogers has posed:
"As long as my bike doesn't get towed," Steve says with a dry humor. He looks sidelong at Bucky and even behind those glasses, there's a cheerful glitter in his blue eyes. He offers the Winter Soldier a handclasp of solidarity and a one-armed hug. "All right. Let's get it done before anyone gets wise," he agrees, and starts walking. "And heads up-- I am /absolutely/ blaming you if this gets me in trouble with my old lady," he reminds Bucky, with a jovial grin.