7086/Bringing the Past to the Present

Bringing the Past to the Present
Date of Scene:	26 July 2021
Location:	Rural Delaware
Synopsis:	Bucky, just Bucky, shows up. He'll always show up for Peggy.
Cast of Characters:	James Barnes, Peggy Carter

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James Barnes has posed:
    Once Bucky got his confirmation of the meeting time from Peggy he went to work. The first thing; he sent a package to his friend. The contents may have been a little baffling, it's a near perfect replica of an SSR uniform from the year 1944.

    The rest of it, well, she won't see it until she arrives at the predetermined coordinates.

    Sitting on the open tailgate of a 1944 era military transport van is, Bucky Barnes. No, really, it's *Bucky Barnes*. Clean shaven, all his hair tucked under the hat to his own uniform, he looks all the world like that fresh faced kid from Brooklyn. It helps that he's put on some weight since he left the Playground and those dark circles are almost gone from beneath his baby blues.

    Really, if not for the small lines that still crease his brow, it's like stepping into the past. ... he's even smoking a damned cigarette.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Strangely enough, Peggy really looks entirely like the woman he met at the war. The faint burn scars down the left side of her face are all but gone -- her hair is fuller and glossy again. Any wrinkles she got over the last decades have simply been erased. There's even some flush of youth behind her cheeks that wasn't there before. It's like whatever they did to save her turned the clock back straight to the 1940s. It's hard to even realize how much she had changed, though in all little details, until one looks at her now.

She didn't ask too much, she just put on that old uniform with her SSR wings and a pair of T-strap heels. She still works in high heels every day. She got through the war in them, why would she change? As she sees him down the road, a smile blooms across her ever-red lips and a look of some genuine shock. She gives a husky little laugh at the sight of the cigarette, "You know, we really should know better nowadays." She teases him lightly as her fingertips reach out for the cigarette, clearly planning on stealing a drag.

James Barnes has posed:
    The spot he's picked is remote, surrounded by trees on either side of the road. It's so easy to imagine the two of them 'back then' meeting to talk like they so often did when given the chance, the sounds of this battle or that way off in the distance, a threat for tomorrow from the sounds of it.

    Her youthful appearance only gives him momentary pause, nothing surprises him anymore and he figured something *big* must have happened when Phil told him Peggy was okay.

    When he hands that smoke over, that smile he's wearing is a show stopper, it always was when he let it truly shine. "Mission report..." he *demands* in the same mock command voice he used back then, so many years ago, when they would sneak away for these meetings.

    Steve and Peggy share a bond that will never be broken, but theirs lies in lost chances and missed opportunities and coulda beens. Bucky? He was different, the one that knew things, that new about the people like Opal, the secret things Peggy didn't share with Steve. Things she could lament to him about. Mission report. All of it because, "It's okay for your shit to suck too, Peggles. So, give it to me. Mission report."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Looking him up and down a bit longer, Peggy's fingertips reach forward to steal that cigarette before her other hand comes up, the pad of her thumb brushing down the side of his jaw with an approving, quiet sound in the back of her throat. "Far better, soldier. We could put you in front of Phillips like this and he might actually not chew either of us out. At least, not about your hair." Peggy teases him gently, with a warm wink. She then takes a long, deep drag of the cigarette, her eyes falling shut for a few moments against the old, harsh taste of a habit she barely touches any more but, sometimes, it's nice to remember.

She slides up smoothly onto the back of the convoy next to him, her feet dangling down to the ground, heels tight enough that they aren't hanging off the back of her feet. Reason she always used T-straps -- she could run in them. Fight in them. No risk a shoe flying off in combat. "No... certain there is much to report, really. HYDRA tried to kill me. They did not succeed, but we had to... revert the serum they used on me in the 60s. Only way to do that was to steal back the sample of my blood from 1949 and... reset eveyrthing genetically. So they did. It's like I'm... 28 again. But also like I never had a serum to begin with so... I'll age. It's almost a relief." That's the easy things to talk about. But it is a mission report. She gives him a quiet smile, "So, see? No reason to worry."

James Barnes has posed:
    He leans into her touch just a little more than might be rightly appropriate considering the general nature of their relationship, but it's not like physical contact is a norm in his life. ... and it's something everyone needs, craves at some point.

    "Mission report," Bucky repeats, his voice an odd mix of stern and gentle. "That's not what I'm talking about and you know it, Carter." Oh, pulling out the last name even. "I know they messed with your head. I *lived* them messing with mine for seventy years, they're still messing with it. I know enough about it to know they didn't just have you sleeping peacefully."

    A beat, repeated, "Mission report."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The woman is silent for several long heartbeats, taking a deep, long drag of the cigarette again before she hands it back in his direction or she's going to kill the entire thing. Peggy doesn't know quite how to meet his eyes about this. She's done a very good job of just ignoring the whole damn thing, carrying on with work, trying to catch up, and be thankful she's alive. Being asked? Now she's stuck. He didn't even take her dodge.

"It... wasn't real. For all that matters, we were just... sleeping peacefully. And now I'm... back on my feet, back in command, trying to play catch up and make certain no one else sees me bleed. Isn't that what matters?" She asks him softly. She's still sitting quite close, so the outside of their thighs and hips brush against each other. She understands his need for touch. She's happy to give it in subtle, silently comforting ways.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky takes the cigarette back. His legs swing back and forth as he stares out over the treeline for a long long few moments.

    "Not being real doesn't make it feel any less," he points out. Sure, the things they made him do? They were very very real, but there were other moments, other things, other... things he knows likely weren't, that still felt it?

    "The truth of being real or not isn't in the literal words, Peggy, it's how it *felt*. He takes a drag, two, three, the things about gone and a smokey cloud lingers between them for a moment or two before being hurried away by a slight gust in the breeze. "Mission report."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Silence again. Peggy's at war with herself actually telling him these things or keeping everything intensely clutched inside, buried away in a box at the back of her head until the emotions blunt or disappear. That's what she's tried to do and no one else has really pushed, but here he is, pushing. "You... really don't have to do this." She rasps out after a moment, but then her dark eyes look up to him a heartbeat later and she knows he's not going to let her avoid this one.

She drags in a deep, slow breath through her nose and presses her eyes tightly shut. "I...didn't know this world, while in there. It's like they entirely... rewrote my memories. Fifteen years of memories. We..." She takes another breath, this one a little shuddering, the edge of tears she doesn't let herself cry behind it. "Daniel and I... we had three kids. Melly was 12, Lily was 3... Michael was only six months old. I remember... Having these children. Raising them. Teaching them. Holding them when they cried after nightmares. I... I remember Daniel getting to be there to raise his children..W-what a good... Dad he is... Was... I retired from SHIELD so I could raise these kids. Kept my head down. Didn't fight HYDRA."

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky lights another cigarette after stubbing the first out on the metal of the tailgate and flicking it off into the distance. Litterbug! He doesn't care. After the moment it takes to like, it offers it over.

    "...and now it's all just gone," he murmurs quietly, just a soft confirmation - he gets it. "...and you're grieving the loss of something you feel you maybe shouldn't be?"

    He reaches out and wraps one arm around Peggy to pull her a little closer, encourage her to rest her head on his shoulder. Right one, mind, he positioned himself that way intentionally. "... I know what that's like, Peg." For him it was the fleeting memories of people like her and Steve that they would steal away again leaving him with just an empty feeling of *something* missing, but it translates - sideways... to what she's going through.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Peg doesn't fight any of it, she allows him to hand that cigarette over and then leans a bit closer against his arm. Her eyes press shut again, trying to shove the glassy sting of tears back before she dares cry them. She wasn't supposed to sit here crying in her old uniform. She breaths a deep, shaking breath. "God, Buck... Daniel and I -- we would have stayed. We... tried. If those kids where still there, if they hadn't... erased the code in front of us? We'd have stayed. They felt real. That life, those memories... They feel as real and present as this life. I remember raising a little girl for 12 years and she's just.. *gone*. We both still wake up in the middle of the night thinking we hear Lily walking into the room or Michael starting to cry." She admits softly.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky listens quietly to the meat of it, still, just there in silent support for a long time. "Now you're back here, grieving what you had there and feeling guilty about sometimes wishing you where there again..." It's not a question, not at all. It's ... well, damn, he *gets*. Two situations not at all alike, but the same, at least in the feelings of them.

    "It's okay, you know, to want them back, to want to be back there with them. It don't mean you love anyone here less than before. They were *real* to you and the idea that they weren't, that doesn't matter, make it any different. They were *real*. You have every fucking right to miss them, to grieve for them, to wish you could be with them again."

    He shifts slightly, just enough that he can wrap that unyielding left arm around her as well so he can pull her into a right and proper hug. "I forgive you for not wanting to come back, Peggy," he whispers so very quietly, lips pressed to the top of her head in the process. There is really not a damned thing to forgive, but he feels maybe she needs to hear the words; he's no stranger to misplaced, unwarranted guilt.

Peggy Carter has posed:
That deeper hug makes it even harder for Peggy not to cry. It's easy to push emotions back when no one seems to care, but it feels nearly impossible when he clearly does. Peg presses her head against the side of his neck, letting herself bury in deep against his warmth. There isn't a single wince away from his metal arm. She's happy for the embrace.

"I...I know. And thank you. And... we're back. We couldn't s-stay, obviously. Those kids weren't... Real. Reasons I should just... Just drop it. I need to push past it. See that we're all here, alive, together... Hell, if things work out, maybe Daniel and I can even have more kids. But... but right now SHIELD needs me. You need me. Sharon does. Hell, Michael, my actual son, even if he's well and grown... He needs me too. I just need to focus on this world and get back to work."

James Barnes has posed:
    "Can't push past a thing, Peggy, only way past is through," Bucky points out quietly, his embrace never faltering. Through hurts, through is painful as fuck, he knows that, oh... he knows it first hand. "If you try to just leap past, instead of going through, it just ends up in front of you again. Can't live life leaping over it."

    He relaxes his hold just enough that she knows she can pull back if she wants to. "Listen, SHIELD, Sharon, me... Michael, we can all put on our big boy panties while you figure a way through this that doesn't leave you closing it out and trying to ignore something that can't be, yeah?"

    Just a little breath, a beat, building courage maybe and, "Opal caught me. My little side gig staring the Winter Soldier," killing up close and personal? "I'm not doing that anymore." Not to turn the attention to him, mind, but to assure her that... he's okay, he has someone looking out, someone helping him deal with his shit.

Peggy Carter has posed:
A skeptical look crosses Peggy's features as he mentions that SHIELD and Michael might be fine. Peggy shakes her head quietly, "Michael... my actual son, he still rather hates me. Thinks I abandoned him, and I almost did. It's... going to be a long time in coming, trying to repair that relationship. I will try. I am going to but... That doesn't stop because I went through something. SHIELD doesn't either. Besides, I like my work. I need... need it. I need to feel useful. What else would I do? I certainly don't have children to raise here. SHIELD... they are my family. My children."

But as he goes on to say Opal caught him, there is a relief on Peggy's tired, young again looking features. She takes in a deep breath to try and push away any of the last bits of tears that threatened but she never really let fall. She can rebuild her composure again. Focus on him. "Good... thank goodness. Someone needed to make certain you didn't get killed. Or worse. We... we're handling HYDRA. We are. You need to take care of *you*. I'm glad Opal is helping. I'm... sorry I wasn't there."

James Barnes has posed:
    "I'm not hearing apologies for something not your fault, Peggy," her own words, perhaps paraphrased but still, tossed back at her. How many times has she said the same to Bucky over the three years since he's been back.

    "Not saying you quit working either, on all of that, just saying that... you don't work to the exclusion of everything else, of going through it instead of past it. Give yourself a break when you need it." A kiss to the top of her head there. "You deserve it."

    .... "Oh, I'm still... handling HYDRA, just not *that* way," he assures her. He'll never stop trying, in his own way, to defeat the devil. "That reminds me." He pulls back know and removes his hat. That mop of hair is pulled back into a neat man bun style... and damn, he kind of rocks it actually. But there's something else, something that was hidden before. Behind his ears, just at the back of his mastoid bones, are what appear to be cochlear implants? Well, he's not wearing transmitters or speakers so... he didn't deafen himself or something equally insane? Those latter, he pulls from his pockets and hooks them behind his ears before connecting them to the receivers on his head.

    "Didn't wanna spoil the illusion with them before," he explains. "But Nadia came up with these for me. They recognize when... uh..." He really hates that phrase, 'trigger words' so... "...those words are spoken. They filter them and just turn them into some screeching noise instead. Unless they get their hands on me and take them off, HYDRA can't... not anymore. It's a temporary fix, but it's something."

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Oh... Oh thank *goodness*. That's... that's a brilliant fix. And we're never, ever going to let them get their hands on you again, that I can promise. But I owe that woman a drink or dinner." Peggy seems far more happy to concentrate on the good things -- like a temporary fix for that programming they drilled in too deep to his brain -- than thinking about the 15 years of memories in her head from a world that isn't real. Maybe this is how she is dealing, focusing on the good things she still has in her life.

"And... I guess we're all still handling HYDRA in our own ways. After the way we started, should I expect anything else? Maybe... maybe one day we'll get to the point that we don't need to any more. Not like that. But..." Peggy sighs deeply, "Until then, we all just keep fighting. And I like the fight. I like work. It ... means I don't think about what we've lost. Or drive Daniel insane with what might have beens."

James Barnes has posed:
    "Just don't not think about it the point that you don't ... deal with it, yeah?" Man's a master of doing just that himself and it always explodes in his face in spectacularly horrible ways. "I love you, Peggy Carter," Bucky murmurs with a sort of side-long glance in her direction. "... I may not be *there*," at the Playground. "... but I'm still *here*, y'know, if you or even SHIELD needs me for anything. Don't forget that."

    At least he got her to admit her shit sucks too? It's a start. But pushing harder isn't something he'd want to have happen to him, so he doesn't. "I'm workin' with Sharon on that weird artifact case she has. I'll keep her close, promise."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Her arm gently slips around behind his waist, hugging his body a bit closer to her as they sit this close on the back of the old convoy. Peggy's smile comes a bit more gentle, but earnest. "Hell, James, I love you too. I know you're here if I need you but... Goodness, I don't know, you... You look like you are doing better. Actually better. And I don't want to interfere with that at all. Don't want to pull you back into messes when you're finally getting your head above water." She turns her head to kiss his cheek in a sisterly fashion, but clearly warm and caring. "I'm proud of you."

James Barnes has posed:
    "Doesn't have anything to do with the work, Peggy. Me and Sam and Steve? Been what? Four? Five facilities we've taken down?" Bucky can still fight the hell out of some HYDRA, that's a fact. "It was that place, the ... fuck, Peg, do I even know if my *therapist* at the Trisk wasn't one of them? Y'know? It's ... just until, I mean how do I know that *no one* brought over from there is compromised? I was waking up in a sweat expecting someone to be there whispering those words in my ear. Ground's still a little shaky, but I'm here and I'm able if it's needed."

    His brow furrows, a little frown tugs at the corners of his mouth. "If there was a way for me to still carry the shield," metaphorically until they're in the clear... "...and live out here instead of in there? I just need my sock." Whatever THAT means?!

Peggy Carter has posed:
A quiet look of understanding crosses her face, "I can... show you the logs of the operation we did against STRIKE and all the HYDRA loyal there-in. I'd put my own life -- and my people's lives -- that we did manage to clean out all the rats. I am putting that on the line every damn day. And if we didn't? They'd be breathing down our necks. But... trauma doesn't understand that. And did they get someone... ideology wise, but who has never worked for them before? I don't think so, but... Maybe. And clearly they grabbed a few people before we could get everyone in safe houses and tried some programming, or I'd have never been laid up in medical. So... I understand. I wish you'd come back, but I undertand." Peggy squeezes his waist, a bittersweet, tired smile on her features.

"Until then, if I need you, I'll know to call. And you... relax. Take time with Opal, with Sam... With your new team. Keep getting your head on straight. We have a bit of time to breathe. Take it now."

James Barnes has posed:
    The 'new team' comment gets a really long side-eye, colored with a little confusion maybe, but Bucky lets it drop. "Always a call away," he makes sure that's drilled in before he pulls away and pushes off the truck's gate. "I should get this thing back, before..." His little grin is a guilty one, but freakin' adorable truth be told. "... well, I just need to get it back." To the collector he 'borrowed' it from before they realize it's been 'borrowed'.

    He offers a hand to help her down, more out of being raised a gentleman than her having any need for help. "Maybe one day," he'll come back. "Told Phil I'd keep checking though during our last date."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The hand offered in her direction gets another quiet smile. Peggy sips her fingertips into his and smoothly slips down off the back of the convoy. She pulls him into one more hug, now that they are both standing, and squeezes his shoulders. "Thank you, Buck. This... It helped to talk. I'm glad you're not angry with me for... Everything. We'll both get through this. We always do, somehow. But... get back safely. Give Sam and Opal my best." She squeezes his shoulder one last time and then turns on the ball of her foot, starting to walk off into the night again.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky watches her walk away and then stands there for a little while after she's gone. He reaches up to pull the tie from his hair, letting that mop fall back over his face again. It feels good to hide again, really. He sucks in a breath and lets it out slow. Keeping the darkness of his own mind walled off, even for that brief time, it wasn't easy. But she needed Bucky, not that fucked up mix of Bucky and Winter. ... so that's what she got.

    He ends up dropping that truck off about six miles, from the place he 'borrowed', behind a gas station, and then walks the six or so blocks to where he tucked his Ural away.

    By the time he makes it back to the city, that 'other' part of him that he's grown so used to, it's settled back over him like a warm, comfortable blanket.