Owner	Pose
James Barnes	Chaos, even the aftermath of the battle to hold the Sphere is insanity, but the aftermath of battles often are, aren't they? Bucky is losing his collective shit. Seriously, he's closer to falling apart completely than he has been in a very long time. ...it's seriously a wonder that he's spoken Sam's name once. It doesn't happen again. Not even after the door shuts to the supply room and muffles the sounds from outside.
Sam Wilson	There's no way Sam's any good out in that mess any more. His hands are shaking, the tingling lose of sensation is slowly traveling up his left arm from his fingertips, and he's still bleeding sluggishly from the neck. Which are all individually bad things, but cumulatively... he's been better.     But the thing is, so long as someone else needs help, Sam is a massive hypocrite. He gave Bucky the whole spiel about at least playing the part of actually taking care of yourself not 24 hours ago, and here he is, sublimating his own needs for someone else's. His therapist had hounded him on that in her patiently stubborn way: "You give too much of yourself to everyone around you, Sam, and don't keep enough for yourself. You can't be everything for everyone."     He really has to make another appointment with her soon. Unless... shit, he'd made the switch to her after he started working at SHIELD. She was recommended to him by someone on the job. What if she's HYDRA?     Shelf, shelf, put it on the shelf, it's a future-Sam problem, not a today-Sam problem.     Sam gets Bucky tucked away into that side storage room, where it's quiet, and the smell of smoke and blood and gunpowder isn't quite so strong. He gets Bucky sat down on a crate and puts both of his hands on Bucky's shoulders. He squeezes--well, he can really only squeeze with one hand right now, and in a stroke of hilariously unfortunate circumstance it just so happens to be the hand that's on Bucky's metal arm--so okay he doesn't really squeeze. But he bends down a bit and makes eye contact. "Hey, Buck, think I lost you there for a sec." His voice is clear, not loud but firm. "You with me now?"     They're both covered in blood and grime from a protracted battle, and on Sam's part he's upright mostly by sheer force of will (and worry). But for now, he's still standing. And they're both going to be okay.     Maybe that's just what Sam is telling himself, over and over in his head like a mantra.
James Barnes	There's no return eye contact from Bucky, nothing. His lights are on but no one's close to being home. Vacant, thousand yard stare, man wouldn't it be nice to see a glower from him about now?     He's trembling though, violently enough that it's a wonder he doesn't vibrate out of the chair. ...he's also cold to the touch, but Sam's only touching metal anyway.     It could be that not all of this is mental, but a huge portion of it is... the mental is just being made more difficult for him to come back from by the blood loss and the concussion and the bullet wounds and the... well, falling like eight stories after being shot in the back twice. Just all of it.
J'onn J'onzz	In Hank Pym's lab, J'onn had been sitting quietly, reading, a cup of herbal tea in hand. For him it had been a mostly quiet day, though there were ticks and twitches across his mind from various sources out of his reach. He was used to the little shimmers, the passing images and for the most part had reached a place that he could ignore them. <<"Longing.">> The voice was strong, echoing through his mind and he looks up from his book to see the past, to see the darkness. <<"Rusted.">> It was happening again, right now, it was not the past, it was the present. <<"Furnace.>> No, this could not be happening, already he was searching, his mind reaching out across the millions and billions, reaching further and further.... <<"Daybreak. Seventeen...">> The tea cup slipped from J'onn's hand ans he locked onto James' mind, he had him, he know were he was and what he was, and what was happening.
Sam Wilson	No response. Not that Sam had been expecting much, but he'd been hopeful what with Bucky recognizing him, at least for a moment. He shifts his hand up so that he gets some skin to skin contact, his fingers against Bucky's neck, and pulls his other hand back to shake it vigorously before mirroring the position on the other side. "I know you're in there, and it's going to be okay. Do you know where you are? Talk to me. Everything's going to be okay, Bucky, you're going to get through this."     There are other things he could try, other methods for breaking someone out of dissociation, but a lot of what he practices is done in conditions that are... not... this. The edge of a battlefield. Bucky's still *wounded*, dammit, and Sam is kicking the hell out of himself mentally for letting Bucky convince him he was alright. Stupid. Should have known better.     His good hand crests the back of Bucky's skull carefully, searching, and finds what he's anxiously expecting: matted blood. The guy fell eight storeys, and it's not like Sam forgot, but he watches Steve and Bucky (and a bunch of the other more-than-human people he works with) through themselves into danger and shake off the worst of it like it's nothing.     This isn't nothing. "Come on, Bucky, talk to me. Just give me something."
J'onn J'onzz	J'onn would pay for the window he just went out at speeds that likely shook the lab, he would pay for the damages done but this, this could not wait. He kept a firm lock on that connection sinking deeper into James' mind but stopping himself from becoming a part of it, from living in the pain. He could see it, feel it, but to achieve what needed to be achieved, he needed to keep control. The sphere, he has no idea what it is or the point of it, he knows only that it was under attack, but finding it, following the tendrils of thoughts to locate it and James, it took time, and by the time he managed to locate the last tendril he was at the Sphere and the fight was over. The aftermath was not what was in his mind, there was this blank dark, confusion. He had no idea what he was coming into but that also did not matter. Phasing through the walls was easily as one walks through air, he merely appeared in the room with Sam and James.
James Barnes	When Bucky snaps, it's always in one of two directions, this is really the better of the two. It includes less stabbing and violence. He's just locked inside his own mind, in some horrible memory or another.     Unfortunately for J'onn, he can see where Bucky's stuck.     Sibera -     They call it medical testing, it's nothing short of torture and currently it's been going on for hours, almost the entire day in his mind's eye. By this time the Winter Soldier in the dream isn't even screaming anymore. All he can do is make a pathetic, mewling little sound when they drill a hole into the thick bone of his femur for the fifth time today.     Cuts, all different depths and lengths line cover the tops of his legs and his calves, each is marked with a number. How fast did it clot, how quickly did it really scab over, how fast do the holes they drill in his bones begin to show new growth... How long can he be deprived of fluids before his body starts to suffer, samples are taken of everything... it's not the first time and it won't be the last, it's just that today's focus seems to be his legs. He has no clue there's a Martian in the room.
Sam Wilson	This isn't working. Sam has no idea how long it will take for Bucky to come out of this, and none of the methods he's familiar with--at least ones he can easily put into use here--are working. Meanwhile Bucky could very well be bleeding out internally from the bullets Sam let him *walk around with* inside him.     He knows enough of Bucky's history that he's sure as hell not going to try to render medical aid without Bucky's clear and unequivocal consent.     So Sam really is at a loss as to what to do. Except stay. Stick around for the long haul.     He's still up in Bucky's space but he's leaning more against the crate now, one hip to the edge of it, his good hand on Bucky's shoulder. It takes him probably longer than expected to notice J'onn's presence in the room, given Sam's generally exceptional situational awareness. But at one point he looks up, blinking fatigue from his eyes, and there J'onn is.     Sam yelps, a flash of panic across his mind, and it's only that J'onn is a familiar face that he manages to not go flailing for a weapon that Sam doesn't even have on him right now. Which is stupid of him. Another thing to put on the shelf.     "Uh," he starts off with, then clears his throat. "J'onn. You're here." There's a question in there somewhere but Sam's having a hard time pulling on the thread to find it.
J'onn J'onzz	It is not intentional that J'onn knows who Sam is, a friend to James, a good friend. Thoughts are often powered by emotion, and the stronger the emotion the harder it is for J'onn to block. Right now, whether it showed on the outside or not, there is emotion flowing through everything. "Forgive my intrusion Sam Wilson, but I am needed here," he states even as he steps over to James, leaning to look the man in the eyes, searching deeper into his mind before standing again. "I do not have Sgt Barnes permission, in fact I expressly promised that I would not enter his mind, but he is trapped. Trapped in the past, in a memory, living it over. It is a result of being activated by HYDRA again. No one should live like this," he looks to Sam now. "Do you consider yourself a good friend to Sgt Barnes?"
James Barnes	His eyes still aren't focused in the here and now when he starts screaming. ...and struggling and kicking... It's not violence, it's not him trying to hurt anyone, it's Bucky trying to get *away* from something.     They've moved up, to his pelvis, the wing of his ilium and they're drilling through it, slowly. Poor J'onn has a front row seat to the sound of the drill, the smell it of the bone heating as it spins through it, the blood splattering everywhere and the horrible agony of it all.     ...and the casual conversations happening in Russian, the laughter... it's just a day in the office.
Sam Wilson	Sam's brain is racing a mile a minute but his actual thoughts are slow; there's just a lot of static in-between, filling the spaces. At least at first, as he stands there, trying to parse what J'onn is telling him.     It gets through eventually, and he looks from the martian standing before him to the supersoldier sat beside him, and Sam takes in one breath. Inhale-two-three-four hold-two-three-four exhale-two-three-four hold-two-three-four. Sam drags the raging chaos of his mind into order and squeezes the hand hanging limply at his side into a fist, tight enough that his nails dig into his palm, leaving crescent marks.     Everything slides into focus. It's not the adrenaline rush of flight or of combat, but one he's just as familiar with: the crystalline clarity of a rescue op, his task to heal, to help.     He can do this. Whatever this is. Whatever the hell Barnes needs, because Sam's not going to leave a partner behind again.     "I can't say for sure what Bucky thinks, but yeah--yes, I do. He's my friend."     Sam looks back in time to see the first of Bucky's flailing coming his way, and that's not so unusual--it's more common than one would think, how often patients might fight back against someone trying to help them--so he manages to duck out of the way before he gets knocked out. "Bucky!" he says, too loudly he knows, and then Sam firms up his voice while dimming the volume. "Bucky, you're here in--" Fuck he has to think for a moment, he doesn't even know, "It's June 20th, 2021. You're in," under but Sam ignores the semantics, "Manhattan."     Unless Bucky looks like he's going to hurt himself, Sam resists the instinctual (and incorrect) urge to try and restrain him.
J'onn J'onzz	Under normal circumstances, J'onn is emotionless, stoic, a man of calm and intellect. As he stands there the only indication of what his mind sees comes in his eyes. At first they are as stoic as they always are, but as the images shift, a single tear, just one, forms in the corner of his right eye. "I cannot reach into his mind Sam Wilson, but you can," he reaches over and place his hand on Sam's shoulder. "Find him, bring him back." That moment is when Sam gets a free ride into James' mind, to bring him back, because J'onn can't. Loophole, leave it to the Martian to know one.
James Barnes	When the drill finally punches through the other side of the bone, the Winter Solider in the dream actually chokes on a small sob of... relief? Fuck, at least the drilling is over? The pain of the drill being pulled back out the way it went in is ... more bearable? And it's over faster.     Sweat, fear, urine, burning bone, burned flesh, those are a few of the scents that will great Sam - the smells are always the first things noticed right?     The Winter Soldier is laying on a tilting table, he's nude with a blanket folded over his private bits... why they care? Who knows? Russians are sadists but prudes? He's panting and whimpering and writhing from the pain he's in.... All Day Long, he's been drilled and cut and poked and shocked and prodded. ...and it shows.     "Should we leave him while we eat dinner or clean him up first?" The voice a woman, in Russian... she's just out of The Winter Soldier's sight at a desk writing notes.     "Leave him," the man next to her replies. Both are wearing white lab coats, the woman's hairstyle puts this somewhere in the 1950s.
Sam Wilson	Though Sam is familiar with the concept of telepathy, knows people who can practice it--well, maybe it's better to say knows of people who can practice it--it's not as if he really understands it. Which is a strange thing to consider, given that so much of Sam's professional (civilian) life revolves around the mind.     So, maybe it's ignorance that leads Sam to only nod once when J'onn suggests he should be the one to help Bucky. "Whatever I have to do," he promises. And yes, sure, he doesn't know the true breadth of what that promise might encompass, but the truth of it still rings true in his mind.     And then he feels a strange sensation, like his feet are swept out from underneath him. That sudden moment of weightlessness before the drop that people have sometimes while they're trying to fall asleep.     He doesn't know where the hell he is.     Sam blinks, unsteady on his feet as the blur over his eyes fade and his surroundings come into sharp focus. It's a lot to take in. Sights, sounds, smells, even the taste of the air and the feel of it against his face and hands. He feels a bit like he's just been punched in the gut, or maybe kicked upside the head is more accurate.     "What--," is all that manages to slip out of him before his brain comes speeding up to the truth and crashes right into it, flattening like a pancake. He sees Bucky, he does, but his brain's instinctual defense mechanisms don't really allow him to process the sight of his friend on his back in the middle of the room, clearly fresh from a new bout of medical torture. What's more important, his brain decides, is the threat in the room, and he steps forward to put himself between Bucky and the scientists.     They probably have insignias on their scrubs and labcoats, but it doesn't really matter if they do. Sam would be able to peg them as HYDRA either way.
J'onn J'onzz	J'onn follows Sam, touching Sam's mind instead of James. The pain and suffering the horror that James is living, these things are dampened in Sam, so that he can think and focus. >> You must speak to him. << Sam hears in his mind, that same exceedingly calm voice that is J'onn. >> Pull him from this moment in his past and back into the reality of the now. <<
James Barnes	"One last one before we go then?" the woman asks. It's the man that walks around and out of the little room the two of them seem to share as a workspace. He still hasn't noticed Sam because he turned his head back to tell the woman, "We'll clean him tomorrow when we do the lung capacity tests." Which likely translates to keeping him under water until he passes out?     The man turns, spies Sam and ... stops. He's holding what looks like some sort of skewer in his left hand. "What in God's name where they going to use that for?     The Winter Soldier hasn't seen Sam yet either. He thinks he's alone save the two scientists. He spits out in Russian, "What did you forgot what to do with it?," when the man stops, "Stick that thing up your ass, or better... up hers..." He spits in the man's direction, but falls short due to distance. Defiant even after all that...
Sam Wilson	The scientist turns and comes face to face with Sam, the distance between them closing in. Sam smiles, though really it's little more than the thinning of his lips into a tight line. "Hi," he says. What comes out is a sarcastic, "Privet," and then Sam smashes his fist across the man's face, hard enough that even his own knuckles smart. He follows it up with a solid kick to the scientist's chest, aimed to knock him back against the desk and the woman seated at it, two birds for the price of one.     He lets out a shuddering breath, and then nods to the voice he can feel in his mind. "Yeah, I got it." Here's to hoping that J'onn can hear him.     "Stay the hell down or I'll use that to take your temperature rectally," Sam bites out, and resists the tempetation to do more damage. Not while he's here. He needs to focus.     He backs away and comes out into where Bucky can see him, his hands lifted like he's trying to soothe a frightened animal. It's maybe an unfortunate implication and not one he's doing intentionally, but everything about this situation screams de-escalate. "Buck, it's me. It's Sam."     Deep breath, Sam. Use the tools at your disposal.     "This isn't--" No, don't say real, because it is real. Or at least it was. Bucky lived it, and it's sure to feel real now, with the weight of experience behind it. Sam has the training, he knows better, come on. Get it together. "This isn't happening to you right now. It's a memory. You're in Manhattan with me, underground. The Sphere, do you remember? It's the 20th of June, the year is 2021." What else. More detail. He needs to remind Bucky of where he actually is. "We're in that side room off the first floor, with the extra supplies. I need you to work your way back there with me, okay? Do you think you can try?"     He's inching closer as he speaks, arms still posed non-threateningly, watching and waiting.
J'onn J'onzz	J'onn can more than hear him, he can see and feel everything that is happening... not by choice. To create the link from Sam to James, he had to link with Sam, which means everything there is his to touch. He is however, exceedingly careful to only touch the lines of thoughts leading to James' mind. He is not going to be popping out of this moment knowing Sam's more private and intimate things... he loathes that, and thus the reason for the promise to James in the first place. For now he just watches, while beyond the minds his other senses keep watch for anyone to come along outside the room. They'll find they can't open the door. Locked? No. J'onn is merely holding it closed.
James Barnes	When the woman hears the commotion and looks out into the that horrible room, she hurries and locks the door to the little work area. So much for being loyal to one another.     A click... an old intercom system, room to room. "Longing, Rusted, Seventeen..."     Can Sam talk him in before that tenth word his spoken? The Winter Soldier's eyes widen with the first word, oh he knows that's happening. "Who the fuck's Bucky?" he demands of Sam. "It's 1953!"     He struggles against the way he's bound to the table, not with simple straps, that would never hold him, but with thick steel bars across the top of his head, his neck, his chest, his hips, his legs and his ankles.     "Daybreak...     The struggling intensifies, he's breathing in panted gasping breaths. "Run, get out of here!" he bellows at Sam.
Sam Wilson	Sam's eyes lift towards the ceiling, gaze landing swiftly on the intercom speaker. And even though he's only heard those words once before, it was enough. He knows what they are now.     He crosses the space to Bucky's side in just a couple of steps and then he puts his hand on Bucky's shoulder, or arm--wherever he sees the least amount of damage, the least chance of causing more pain. "This is a memory, you're stuck in your head! You--fuck!"     There's no time. None. He should have come up with some kind of plan instead of decking that HYDRA scientist, the one that isn't even real, the one he decided to vent his own feelings on rather than thinking about what Bucky needs. That's on him. Sam's gotta do something NOW to get Bucky out of this, because he can tell they've gone off-script, and he has no idea what the hell that means.     "We were just at your shitty apartment, remember?" His voice is rising, both in volume and in pitch, trying to be heard over the sound of the trigger words while fighting down his own panic. He has no idea what's going to happen if the voice on the intercom finishes, but Sam's not afraid for himself. No. And he's not going to let HYDRA, even the specter of HYDRA haunting Bucky's memories, win.     "You're reading the fourth Harry Potter book, the one where they go to the Quidditch World Cup," Sam had only read a few chapters in last night and that's all he's got, he doesn't remember any more details. "I harassed you about pizza! Come on, Bucky, you need to wake *up*!"
James Barnes	Deranged, wild baby blues widen... "Sam..." Barely a whisper and so fucking confused.     That's all it takes though, that one moment of realization of self, that moment of 'I do him and that means I must be Bucky' and the dream snaps away because...     He's waking up in the real world with a startled gasp of a breath that is followed by another and then more. It's pretty clear he's hyperventilating, struggling to ... what the hell just happened.     He can still *feel* the holes they punched through his legs, the cuts... all of it, but it's fading quickly, just phantom pains left by the nightmare.     Bucky is hurt, bleeding, exhausted, pretty hungry, he's just wiped the fuck out. Is it any wonder when he says, "I feel like shit..." It takes about two blinks of an eye before he passes right on out cold? He didn't even have time to notice J'onn... but who really thinks this is going to be the last time this happens?
J'onn J'onzz	As quickly as Sam had been dropped into James' mind, one would expect the retreat could be just as fast, however J'onn doesn't want to just yank him out. So he does so carefully, winding back to allow Sam a little time to adjust to the reality of being back in his own head. Removing his hand from Sam's shoulder he steps back, "You both require medical attention. Allow me to take you both to your medical facility."
Sam Wilson	Everything goes fuzzy again, but at least it's without the dropkick to his awareness that being forcefully pushed into Bucky's mind came with the first time around. Sam blinks, bleary, before he looks at J'onn.     And then, immediately, down to Bucky. Who is unconscious, which doesn't actually tell Sam much, but he's not thrashing any more, not screaming and trying to get away from the bad things happening in his head.     Not actively in this moment, at least.     Sam wouldn't be back out if it hadn't worked, right? That's gotta be it. Has to be. At first he thinks it's relief that makes his legs shaky, but in truth, it's not, not really. It's a combination of blood loss from the gunshot wound in his neck, the various bruises and injuries he's suffered, the lack of sleep and proper nutrition and the cycling pattern of fight-flee-fight-flee his mind's been put through since he was attacked by HYDRA out in Puerta Vallarta over a week ago, now.     The crate he's propped up against makes a good guiding surface for Sam to slide down to the floor against, and then he's looking up at J'onn, mouth parted and eyes narrowed in confusion. "I think this is," he raises a hand to flail in a loose gesture to the storage room, which is in fact filled with whatever surplus medical supplies someone had managed to pilfer from SHIELD before they went underground, "Uh, it."     He reaches up to work at the clasps on his tac jacket, then struggles to pull down the zipper beneath. All he needs is just a little bit of room to breath, and once he manages it, it feels like his lungs expand to their full capacity for the first time in his entire life.     Sam's not even aware when he passes from awake to unconscious. There's no sudden creeping darkness at the edges of his vision; he just slumps, and he's out.