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So, this is a bad neighborhood. But …..he's worse than the neighborhood, and right now he's kind of wearing that like an invisible sign that says DO NOT TOUCH. His clothes are drab and increasingly ragged, poor enough that he doesn't look like a tempting target…..and the way he carries himself is a warning, too. He's wandering fairly aimlessly, hands in his pockets, shoulders bowed, with a kind of heaviness that only comes from bone-deep weariness.
*
Sofia is, on the other hand, an excellent target. Even keeping to herself and wearing a long coat over her usual skirt and blouse she is still, unfortunately, a distinct figure. She dresses a bit better than the average here, looks unusual ethnically, and is currently traveling alone. It was probably a bad idea for her to come here. A couple of young men nearby seem to have come to this conclusion and are looking at her, then to one another while they consider what they wish to do. For now she walks with her hands on her purse and ignores them. Bucky, of course, is coming from the opposite direction.
*
Trouble behind, trouble before. Of varying degrees, of course. ……it doesn't help that he's had more or less the same thought. Not a lot of chivalry when you're trying to conserve the little cash you got out of a planted cache. He pauses, bending down to feign tinkering with his bootlaces, all the while observing.
*
Snippets can be heard of the two men conversing about the 'hot bitch' coming down the street can be overheard without much distinction. Sofia looks up finally and turns her brown eyes on the guys checking her out. One of them looks up at her. She watches him calmly for a long second. He pauses, almost imperceptibly, before looking over at his friend and shaking his head.
"Nah, she's cool." The ludicrous nature of the statement isn't lost on the other guy who starts to argue. The tension quickly diffuses and Sofia continues on. At one point she bites her bottom lip and murmurs to herself in Spanish, "I really wish work had sent me somewhere else…"
As the brunette passes Bucky manages to garner a smile. Then Sofia pauses, looks him over, and makes a point of looking back. Like she's concerned with the two men behind her. Something has herjust a little tense, at least.
*
He glances up, meeting her eyes levelly for a moment. No recognition there….but he gets up, slowly. A glance back at the men, and then at her, and he's turning to follow her. Perhaps to demonstrate to the two men that they'll have him to tangle with, if they decide to mess with her.
*
After that the guys shut up. When the do Sofia relaxes visibly but she is still wary afterward, shoulders slightly squared. After a moment the woman takes a deep breath and glances back ocne more- to be confronted with Bucky, who is a fair amount taller than she is. She smiles again, slowly. "… Thank you. Whether you meant to chase those two off or not." Sofia's voice is a rich, smooth mezzo-soprano. Pleasant to listen to by most standards, with a hint of an exotic accent or three behind the standard West Coast lilt.
Bucky offers the tiniest suggestion of a smile in return, shy and uncertain. "You're welcome," he replies. There's a note of rusty disuse to his voice. "No trouble at all." He's keeping his distance, as if she were an animal he might startle. "Where you headed? I'd offer to call you a cab, but….I'm not sure they'll venture down here." He coughs, thumps himself soundly on the chest. Getting sick, perhaps?
*
"Oh, I- live a few blocks away. Just outside the neighborhood. I thought it would be alright to cut through but apparently… Mmm." Sofia lets her gaze wander but then those wide brown eyes return to Bucky's face. "It's alright. You don't need to call me a cab. but are you alright? You sound a bit under the weather." She stops now and turns to face Bucky more fully. She studies his face gently. "My name is Sofia."
*
His face looks guileless, a little blank, a little confused. Drugged, maybe? A bit drunk? He shrugs stiffly, gloved palms up. "I'm all right." The accent's Brooklyn, of course. "Name's John, but I go by Jack," he adds.
The thoughts, though, are coldly predatory, even if they're like little floes of ice on a sea of dark chaos. Concentration's hard, shards of memory keep wanting to send him off on tangents, but right now, he's contemplating possibly dragging her into a dark alley and mugging her. There has to be money in her purse, maybe other things that might be useful.
*
"Jack," Sofia repeats back quietly, testing the word on h er tongue. "You should get that cough looked at, Jack. You might feel alright now, but…" She pauses, tilting her head slightly as she does. "Not really my business. Anyway… Thank you, Jack."
Meanwhile, Sofia's thoughts are racing. She's following those memory shards, perhaps even inadverdently tugging them to the fore for Bucky as well given how fragmented his thoughts are. She's having trouble navigating his mind, something which actually intrigues her. If she can learn anything useful…
More discretely Sofia shifts her weight and thereby confirms the presence of her sidearm. There's no reason to actually reach for it yet, but…
*
It's like a movie edited by someone out of their mind on speed, cut and pasted with shaking hands. His eyes go clouded, vague, blind to the present, and unthinkingly, he wraps his arms around himself. As if he were trying to warm himself against bitter cold.
For that's what's come up, a memory of terrible cold. Of lying in a glass coffin like a sleeping prince in a fairy tale, and feeling it consume him. It's not the dreamy languor of hypothermia, but cold that burns worse than fire, an immolation of ice. There are faces beyond the glass, looking in with clinical concern, ignoring the pleas he's trying to utter, pleas that are no more than mouthed words as the lungs shut down. The last sight is of the bizarre beauty of his breath on the glass, creating those little fernlike patterns of frost.
He stumbles back from her with an airless little whimper.
*
"Jack? You're sure you're alright?" Finding out if Bucky is cognizant of what is going on is important. Sofia takes a step closer, her expression one of the deepest concern. For the most part she isn't acting, either. The more she sees the more empathy she finds herself feeling for one Buchanan Barnes. War hero. Backet case.
Sofia reaches out with a gloved hand though her instincts are screaming that she should probably retreat. While she does so she delves a little deeper, trying to make some sense of what she is finding. She's looking for some sign of what they did to cause this mess. Normally Sofia could just undo it. But with Bucky…? That is what she is finding out now.
*
He's not. Not at all. There's a sound from him that's almost a wheeze, as if what she'd actually done was punched him in the gut hard enough to knock the wind out of him. James doesn't withdraw from her touch - her hand lands on the metal arm, that weirdly unyielding prosthesis, under the wool of the coat.
Within his memories - it's layers and layers, as if someone had shattered a mirror and glued it back together and then smashed it again, over and over, with no particular regard for order. No single image, but a myriad of crazed and glinting shards. Most of them are bloody, though. Death after death, faces pale with fear, mouths that plead in a score of tongues.
Having gotten a hold on Bucky Sofia doesn't let up. Not right now. She is stepping up beside him, hand moving to the shoulder that can actually feel something. "Shh. You're okay. I'll help you if I can. Try to take deep breaths.." Those words might not mean much to Bucky right now but she means it. Sofia takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. She'll know if he moves. Not that she could catch him if he ran.
Inside of Bucky's mind Sofia starts to sift through those murders and fragmented thoughts. Outwardly she tenses slightly,even trembling a bit to feel all of this coursing through her mind… Being imprinted onto her own memory, albeit in such a jumble that even she would be hardpressed to sort and follow all of it. She starts to dig deeper. Much deeper. Her goal? Find a happy memory. Something calming. He might have trouble remembering it but if she can drag it to the surface…
Maybe Bucky will get a bit of peace.
*
A happy memory. Or a peaceful one….the most recent. Of course it's Steve, and that absurd aura of calm, good-natured assurance he almost always wears. The pure heart worn openly on his sleeve. The evening after a long, difficult, but ultimately successful mission. They're sitting around a fire in camp, talking idly about what they're gonna do after the war. There's hope. The knowledge that eventually this will end, that right will triumph, and there will be America to go back to. It lasts for a moment, like a drop of water trembling on the end of a leaf……and then the rest of it starts to bleed in, like poison into water.
Mutely, his lips form the name, not enough breath to give it sound, "Steve?"
*
Licking her lips Sofia runs her hand gently down Bucky's shoulder. She's projecting an image of herself. It's a positive enough one really, and it might even be catching. So he can remember she wants to help him… If it even reaches him at all. But with all of that going on… She slips up. It might be the first time but this is such a delicate situation. She doesn't notice the memories poisoning Bucky's thoughts.
As Sofia tries to leave a kernel of a happy memory behind the one she's just brought to the fore is already turning dark. "Do you want to go see Steve? I can make that happen, I think…"
*
That slip is barely more than an instant. But it's enough to return to some version of the present, and Bucky lashes out blindly…..with that metal hand. It's without technique, none of the deadly precision that lets him kill bare-handed, but it's still enough to knock her away from him. He's stumbling away from her, still beset for a little, a dreamer woken untimely and thus into confusion. "Get away from me!" It's almost a screech.
*
The metal hand lashes out and Sofia nimbly shifts her body weight away from Bucky. She's fully aware of herself and well-trained, enough so that the clumsy blow which would still have bruised ribs or broken bones instead just grazes her front, catching at her coat and clothes. The Filipino woman is lifting both of her hands as she takes a few steps back. "O-of course. I just want to help you…" Uncertainty is enough to cause her voice to quaver slightly. In that instant Sofia loses her grasp on the memory she was holding entirely.
*
There's that moment where for a heartbeat or two he's locked eyes on her, whole body tensed. And for that breathless little span, he's not some amnesiac veteran in a ragged coat, different only from those who carry nightmares of Guadalcanal or Utah Beach only by degree, but the killer the Soviets have crafted with such care. But maybe it's the memory she called up that has him holding his hand, turning on a heel, and frankly fleeing.
Steve wouldn't like it if he just crushed her throat right there, would he?
*