silentspringlogs | Part Three: The Drive

Arthur pauses, and his face goes slack for a moment, like he just got slapped.

And then the outrage comes back twice as hard, so intense that his cheeks immediately colour from it and his voice is an instant snarl as he approaches Bucky's voice.

"Fuck you! I am through with fucking waiting! I have tried being patient, I have tried being polite, and none of you people ever fucking do anything!"

He gesticulates violently as he talks, seemingly unaware of the white-knuckle grip he has on the knife. "Do you have any fucking comprehension of how goddamn small my world is when I am fucking blind?! Do you even understand how- h-how fucking isolating this is?! To have to- I have to beg people just to know what the fuck they're talking about in any situation because they don't care that I cannot see it!! I don't know what a single goddamn item in my house looks like, I don't know what any of you bastards look like, I-I don't even know what colour my fucking clothes are! The amount of trust I am forced to give you people, time and time again when nothing you have ever done grants me the same! You all treat me like a fucking invalid when I am one of the only ones of us who is even remotely familiar with this point time, who knows how to act in fucking public-- I am blind, I am not fucking helpless!!"

Edited 2024-03-18 20:56 (UTC)

What feels like an unprompted but perhaps long overdue outburst catches Bucky by surprise. He himself melts down by shutting down, and his occasional outbursts are usually much more violent than they are verbal. He's not familiar with this, nor does he know how to deal with this, and the silence that he usually seeks refuge in starts to become uncomfortable and awkward the longer it stretches after Arthur finishes.

Because the truth is, Bucky doesn't know how small Arthur's world is. He hasn't really... cared. Getting out of Sweetwater, dealing with Doctor Norman, retrieving his vibranium arm, destroying-- whatever they extracted out of him so nobody else gets hold of the supersoldier serum - these things are high up on his agenda. Blending in with the civilians and figuring out his limitations without the serum are about as close to empathy as he's getting. Walking a mile in Arthur's shoes is definitely not in the mission brief.

The only thing that Bucky knows about making the world a better place is what Uncle Sam and HYDRA had drilled into him. Put enemies in his crosshairs and get blood and dirt on his hands. He doesn't-- really understand that he's supposed to start one person at a time. One neighbour who deserves more dignity and respect than he's been accorded at a time.

Bucky breathes out a quiet sigh, which at least signals that he's still there, but he doesn't really know how to respond. He's just as familiar with this time period as Arthur is; if he thought Arthur was genuinely helpless he wouldn't have given him his knife; and to him, Arthur needs protecting. Even with no serum, no metal arm, and his knife currently in Arthur's possession, he could disarm and kill Arthur in a dozen different ways right now if he wanted to. He didn't think being entrusted with his knife and told to wait in the car would be a point of contention.

Given some time to reflect, Bucky might eventually figure out what Arthur is trying to say. He might be able to understand what he has been taking for granted and adjust his own behaviour accordingly. But at the moment he can only see Arthur yelling at him waving his knife around. He can't really see Arthur right now. Not the way Arthur wants to be seen.

"How do you want me to treat you." Bucky keeps the defensiveness out of his monotonous voice and doesn't try to justify what he's said or done, even though he doesn't think he's in the wrong.

Arthur is breathing too heavily as the silence stretches on, enough to make him feel uncomfortable and overdrawn, enough to swallow that down to fuel the heat of his ire, that even when he's just fucking explained himself that Bucky isn't giving him anything.

The knife gets switched into his other hand so he can run his fingers through his hair, correcting the flyaways he can feel when the light breeze changes.

"Tell me things. I need you to tell me what is going on so I can see." It's almost as much a command as it is a despairing plea. And then another flicker of irritation as he snaps, "When was it going to occur to you to fucking tell me anything, in fact? Why the fuck did we stop?"

He won't pretend to understand the rest of what Arthur had gone on about, and he sure as hell isn't going to just start telling Arthur things that he isn't comfortable telling him, but if they're not going to have any heart to hearts and Arthur just wants him to describe things out loud? He can do that.

"I can be your eyes," he confirms with the surety of a trained sniper. He won't just give bearings of course, but he'll need to figure out what's important, what's not, if there even is such a thing as too much information.

"I don't know why we stopped. The car... it was acting up. Think we're at the edge of town. Can't cross over on foot either. There's no-- nothing physically here, but. Something's preventing us from leaving." Apparently the grunting and groaning man-shaped yeti is capable of speech, and a lot of it. He just needed a heck of a lot of effort to get there.

"If I figured this out, I would have told you once we got back on the road," Bucky says simply. "Or if I was spotted, attacked, or arrested, either way you would have been safer in the car. I'm supposed to get you to the hospital. Do you care how I get you there?" His fetch quest said deliver the package to the hospital, extract information about the victim and return the package to point of origin. Not give a sitrep every five minutes or every time they encounter yet another strange Sweetwater anomaly.

Finally, something useful to know about the situation. And apparently Bucky has an entirely incorrect perception of him, one that apparently needs remedying immediately if they're to make any progress as a team. Even one as slipshod and useless as this.

"I'm not safe if I don't know what is happening," he says. His voice is low and even now, but every syllable is stressed like he's speaking to a child that tried to stick a fork in a power socket. "I can't make informed decisions if you lock me in the fucking car without telling me anything." He takes a deep breath, and manages to sound fractionally less irritated. "And if I cared about being safe, Bucky - I wouldn't have broken into the doctor's house, or into his safe. I wouldn't antagonise him to try and get information out of him when I was under arrest, I wouldn't-"

His jaw shuts so hard something audibly clicks, and his scowl returns. "I have done things you cannot possibly imagine, things that have threatened to harm or kill me time and time again, all while blind. But the difference is, I had someone telling me what was there. I can't help," he stresses, again with those long syllables in small words, "if I don't know what is happening." And a sudden furious bark: "Do you understand?!"

"I understand. But I care about you being safe." If they can't keep going down this road, they have some other alternatives they could try to pursue, but if Arthur gets grievously hurt, this whole thing is over. Not to mention, the fact that knowing less is actually more dangerous is still counterintuitive to Bucky. He comes from a time and place where the only people who survive are the people who cower, the people who run away, the people who don't investigate and don't try to find out more about the things they don't know about, the people who lie and cheat and steal and betray and genuinely don't know anything or pretend they don't know anything. He hasn't yet learnt enough about the 21st century to know how much more dangerous ignorance can be.

"I will give you every detail about anything you want. But I'm not going to be your eyes so I can watch you get hurt or killed." Arthur doesn't get to put that guilt on anybody else, even if that's not how Arthur sees it.

"That is not your call to make," he snaps back immediately. "Letting me make my own decisions means giving me the ability to make bad ones, regardless of your opinion of them!"

God knows John had hated him going off on his own course, had more than one pointed out that his stubborn determination bordered on idiocy. But yet. Yet. Every time he would always choose knowing more, no matter what the cost was.

"And if that's not going to work for you, then none of this is going to work at all. We are trying to break into a hospital and ask after a secret fucking murder victim, what part of this strikes you in any way as a safe expedition? If Pollock finds out about any of this we are both getting re-educated!"

You'd think that, after everything Bucky had been through, he would understand better than anyone how important it is to be able to make your own decisions, good or bad, smart or stupid. He should appreciate it - even be honoured that he's being a part of it. Maybe, if he sleeps on this, gives it more thought, he'll come around to seeing it that way. Right now he's-- just thinking it's kind of stupid to be standing here arguing like an old married couple. They're going to get caught like this, and for nothing. They're not even anywhere close to the hospital they needed to get to.

"Well you had a plan. It was going to be discreet." And discreet doesn't mean safe, he knows, but screaming at the obtuse, clueless one-armed guy in the middle of the road is definitely not discreet, and by that token, not safe.

"Can we focus on leaving town now, and argue later."

But Arthur has more argument left in him now.

Still, he can concede that much, and the anger can be tucked neatly back away for later, to tear the throat out of some other unsuspecting bastard.

"Fine. Alright." It's with a heavy sigh, but he tucks the knife into his inside jacket pocket for now, and walks cautiously forward, trying to draw level with Bucky. "Now- what exactly is happening with this- barrier, the town edge. You said you can't cross it, what happens when you try?"

Bucky might be stubborn too, but he is too old and too tired to want to argue, and all things considered he's a fairly well trained pet terrorist. They don't make punching bags to be a lot more patient than they made him. If it gets them out of here, he'll let Arthur tear as many new ones in him as he wants.

"Here." Bucky brushes his hand over Arthur's lower back - he'll get better about warning before touching - and tries to turn him to follow the road straight to the barrier before giving Arthur a nudge to move forward.

"Feel that?" He doesn't expect that Arthur can get more than two steps towards what he assumes to be the edge of town before he starts feeling the physical effects of the barrier keeping them in. Or, actually it feels more like something on the other side pushing them out than something on this side pulling them back in. He's not sure he could break through even with if he was... his usual intact super-self.

The hand on his back makes his skin crawl, which is largely because he has to physically refrain from startling and slapping the hand away, but he'll allow Bucky to turn him in the right direction.

His frown deepens, still feeling like he's being played, but he steps forward cautiously with both hands extended. "Feel..." And his eyes widen, the tension from his anger melting all at once as his entire mood shifts to surprise in an instant. It's kind of hilarious how abrupt the shift is, actually. "Oh, right, I-I feel that."

Nothing physical, but the sense of- of repulsion, like a magnet, metaphorical oil on water because there's nothing to touch but the sensation is very much real. His head tilts, altogether too reminiscent of a dog with a scent, and he leans into pushing against the barrier, gradually putting as much of his meagre weight as he can into pushing before he has to relent, stumbling back a little with the microscopic progress he made.

"...a-and the car- how long were you trying to break through it?" If that much force wasn't able to break it, then...

You'd think after a stern talking to that Bucky would be better about using his words, but. It'll take a few reminders, and likely a few personal experiences, before he gets better about warning before manhandling.

"I didn't floor the pedal. If the engine blows up it'll be a difficult walk back for you." And for Bucky too, actually, but he doesn't yet fully understand the limitations of this body. He's still surprised by how easily he tires himself out, just working in the stables or running himself ragged all day. It'll take him a while to really know his own limits.

"I'm going to scout the perimeter. Can I leave you here or...?" Honestly, Arthur looks stupid shoving at the invisible barrier like a mime on stage, but Bucky manages to sound his usual level of serious-borderline-irritable. Far be it from him to stop him from feeling the air up and putting his back into it.

That gets a slight smirk. He's certainly had a harder walk than a straight road back into town. Hell, if he has his cane he might not even get lost.

--actually.

"Yes, o-of course. Just- can you grab my cane first?" He can't find the car from here without it, and the irony is endlessly frustrating, but at least this way it makes him seem like he's going to stay put.

"Yeah. Wait here." Bucky peels off to go back to the car. He's wondering if it's a good idea to leave it parked far away enough that Arthur might not be able to make a beeline back to it quickly if anything were to happen. But hey, he just went on a huge spiel about knowing the risks and wanting to put himself in danger and whatever. If he won't stay in the car, Bucky will do his best not to lose sleep over whatever happens from this excursion.

The car door opens and closes, and he returns with the cane promptly. The handle is nudged into Arthur's free hand, and Bucky lingers for a few moments before going back to the snooping around he was doing. Mostly he's crouching down and examining any sort of ground covering - rocks or unusually tall tufts of grass or anything that might be able to conceal a device or any traces of a magic spell or ingredients or something. Hard to know what to look for like this, but he's never had any problems finding trouble wherever he goes, so he's pretty sure he'll know what he's looking for when he sees it.

He takes the cane with a small "Thanks." as he straps it back to his wrist - and then almost as soon as he hears Bucky walking away in one direction for his own investigation, he walks in the other, one hand outstretched to maintain his presence against the boundary, the other using his cane to make sure the path is clear for him.

Look, he just wants to see how far this strange limitation goes. And if he has to hop a fence by the side of the road to do it - well, he's not quiet, about the way he grunts and lifts himself with surprising speed over the much more real and interactable barrier, and keeps following it.

Well, Bucky wasn't exactly expecting Arthur to just stand there patiently and wait for him. Not after that-- meltdown. Explosive outburst. Or whatever that was. At least Bucky doesn't hover or tut disapprovingly while Arthur wanders off. He will try to work as quickly as he can without cutting corners or being careless and hope he can get back to Arthur before any unfortunate disaster befalls them.

He can't see any devices or what he would think would be signs of magical interference with their movements. He's not even sure what he's supposed to be looking for to be honest. He's thinking the kind of stuff he reads in fantasy novels, you know? Little leather pouches with weird-- animal bits inside or whatever. Or something that might look like it could have belonged to Wanda or Doctor Strange before.

It takes him a little bit of staring around the ground and toeing a few rocks and tall blades of grass away before he notices first the trail of ants that are also avoiding the barrier. Then he sees the birds.

"...hm." Don't worry Arthur, he'll tell you about it when he's done noseying around.

At least to Arthur's partial credit, he hasn't stormed off for no reason. Certainly a part of it is working out the energy still buzzing through him about the fact he did end up screaming at someone, and that was frankly fucking embarrassing on his behalf to just lose it on someone like that, but...

Well, he just thinks better in motion.

And that means he's already fully aware of the fact that, if there is some way through the barrier, it almost certainly won't be close to the road enough to be visible. Even if he can't tell exactly what he is looking for, but if he hits something interesting it might well be related.

Though he's surprised, actually - he does have some experience with forests, in his life, thanks to the Boys Brigade, though he can't say he's spent much there recently that wasn't running for his life. But it's almost peaceful, in how quiet it is, almost completely silent as a breeze wraps around his shoulders - not even birds or any animals in the undergrowth, startled by a blind limey bastard stomping through the place. And so far, while he's definitely found a few roots or divots on the uneven ground, he hasn't passed through any trees when he stays close to the barrier, or any stumps.

It's all... strange. Surreal in a subtle way you'd have to know to notice.

But his cane doesn't give him any particularly useful feedback, when the ground is so uneven with sludgy grass and muddy snow. So it's a surprise to Arthur when he steps into a deep enough divot that it catches his ankle, and he goes down with a yelp of surprise to slap into the half-melted dirt.

If it's of any consolation, Bucky didn't take it to heart. He'll mull over it more when he's back home, alone, going through the motions of what's left of the day, but for now he's trying to hopefully get on with their excursion.

Eventually when the car is about the size of a toy over his shoulder, Bucky decides he shouldn't venture any further. Especially when he can't see an equivalent lego figurine-sized Arthur anywhere in sight. Maybe he would have heard something if he still had his enhanced, well. Enhanced everything, just about. But Arthur had started in the opposite direction, and Bucky is still oblivious as he closes the distance between himself and the car.

"Arthur?" he calls out once, scanning their surroundings, immediately assuming the worst. Bucky's pretty sure the chances of Arthur keeping a handgun in the glove compartment is next to none and he's not confident he can take on anything more than human. Still, he checks the car, peeks into the window and then makes his way towards the barrier again, scanning the floor for any evidence. Torn fabric, blood, cane, knife, large intestines, small intestines, Asgardian symbols, dinosaur prints--

Or you know. Just normal shoeprints, beyond the gravel where the not-quite-mud-yet starts. Bucky follows the trail at a light jog until he stumbles upon Arthur, clothes a little messed up, just starting to recover from his fall.

"You okay?" Squinting, keeping a safe distance away. He wants to swoop in and help, sure, but he's been rebuked once already. "...what's our codeword?"

It's not paranoia if there are shapeshifting aliens out there.

Frankly it's a miracle he didn't impale himself on the knife in his jacket, but when he hears heavy footsteps stomping towards him he reaches for it automatically, one slipping into his jacket as he pushes himself to his knees - not much of a surprise attack, if it comes to it, but still better than his bare hands - but when he hears Bucky his tension settles a little.

"Purple mermaids," he echoes obediently, and his hand comes back from his jacket empty, so he can pat the area around him warily for his cane. "I'm fine, I just- turned my ankle."

And he's definitely leaning a little more heavily on the cane than is probably advised, his steps careful with a slight limp to them. "I'm going to assume you didn't find anything in your end of things, either?"

Maybe he should give the knife back before he hurts himself...

"You don't look fine," Bucky points out quietly, and he watches Arthur move for a bit before relenting on his compulsive need to step in and help. He'll have to remind himself that Arthur doesn't need it. And eventually he'll figure out exactly when is a good time to lend assistance and when it might be too much smothering or not enough concern.

"No. Well. It's definitely a barrier or shield of some sort, and not something they-- implanted in us or cast on us to stop us from leaving when they brought us here. Unless they got every ant, bird, fish, whatever." Highly unlikely, considering the effort required to maintain that.

"We should head back. Maybe there's something in the local hospital... and maybe you want to. Get changed. Check your ankle." Is this an allowable level of concern?

See, that's a much better description of events! Arthur even manages to look pleased for a moment before he actually thinks about the implications of that.

"That... might actually lend credence to the idea we're trapped somewhere outside of time, a-at least in the sense of this specific place being the sixties."

He doesn't acknowledge the comment to his ankle at all, just limping on with care, trying to stay pressed to the barrier to guide him. His expression doesn't give any indication the pain is even registering; it'll only be later when he's still aware of the pain how badly he stacked it.

"It might even make sense as to how so many people from such different times were able to be collected and reduced in their abilities, but... to what end? Why the sixties?"

"What's wrong with the 60s." Bucky wasn't exactly-- fully there when he lived through this time period, but. He didn't think this was a particularly bad time period. It surely beats the 30s and the 40s. Things were really starting to pick up again after the war.

"You know the doctor's not-- entirely wrong. It's a nice town. Nice people." Bucky frowns and lowers his gaze. He'd hate for Arthur to think that the propaganda got to him, but. Look, he can agree that what's happened to them is wrong. They don't belong here. Somebody's probably got some nefarious shit planned for them and this idyllic life they've been plonked down into won't last forever.

Having had 'captivity = bad' drilled into him for all these years, he's hesitant to speak his mind, so he toes the line with some perceptible reluctance. Is it so bad though? If they could have been beamed anywhere they could have been flung into the middle of an intergalactic conflict with no means to fend for themselves. Or in the middle of a genocide, with no food to eat, and no shelter, disease and destitution everywhere they go.

Of course, just because he's been treated so poorly before doesn't mean that anybody gets free rein to do this kind of thing - to anyone. But as far as captors go, whoever's taken them is actually-- not so bad.

Arthur actually stops, and looks towards the sound of Bucky's voice with an expression of - it would be generous not to call it disgust, but that's more of the undertone to the disbelief and indignation that are much more surface level.

"Bucky, these people live under constant surveillance," he says, his tone once more explanatory but this time imploring him to examine why this is a Bad Thing. "If what we experience ourselves is any indication, these people also face the same threats we do, that if they don't perform to the demand this place expects of them that they too will get tortured into compliance. This threat of- war, of immanent destruction is being used to inspire fear, to cause horrible damage to the reputation of anyone who acts differently, to encourage the notion that reporting these people is the best option, that being complicit in their fucking torture makes you a good person."

The venom is back in his tone despite himself as the bullshit of this place gets to him. "The only reason this place is nice is because it's built on the bones of terror, on obedience on pain of death or worse. And we are trapped here at the whims of this fucking cult unless and until we can find some way to either undermine it or destroy it."

Edited 2024-03-24 01:00 (UTC)

It's hard not to be defensive when Arthur is making that face. Also, Bucky can't help but be a little miffed that some British guy, going by his accent, is preaching to him of all people about freedom. The same kind of freedom that gets pedaled to all these stars and stripes folks that he's apparently concerned about on a regular basis. The same kind of freedom that Bucky had fought and for all intents and purposes died for. That does not exist. That has never existed.

That Sweetwater is the kind of place HYDRA always wanted to build using the same mechanisms that HYDRA knew best how to manipulate doesn't escape his notice. He doesn't want to defend them, but. That doesn't mean he can't see that not all the outcomes are bad.

"This war is real. I was there. I'm not saying that being Big Brother's toys is good for anybody. But you're not doing anyone any favours by coming in with your ideals and 'liberating' this place."

"The only people I want to liberate are our own," he says coldly. "And I'm not so naive as to think we have even a chance of saving the locals. You can only help people that want to be helped, and these people have proven that they are too far gone, time and time again."

If they're so stupid as to let themselves be taken in by this fucking cult, if they weren't strong enough in their resolve to keep trying no matter what, then they deserve whatever the fuck happened to them. But Arthur refuses to let himself be manipulated like that.

"I'm not just going to sit here and let Pollock fucking torture us into compliance." It's a dark, furious mutter as he keeps walking, but it's more of a declaration to himself than a snarl at Bucky. "I am the captain of my soul. No one else."

CW ableism (blindness)

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