[for Jason] brothers on a hotel bed

[onlyapassenger]

It's been two days since Bucky brought an unconscious Jason back to the hut they shared, and nearly four since Bucky fled from the very same place, too distraught from the events in Moscow, imagined and otherwise, to stick around. Leaving, though, had turned out pointless; his guilt chased him around the whole of the island, inescapable and intense

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[prodigaljaybird]

Jason feels like he had a truck drive over him and park right on his chest, his body stiff and heavy, asleep and aching in strange places like he hasn't moved in an age.

He'd been...at the Manor, afraid of his own bed and curled in with Lux instead who, by some miracle, had allowed him near her, but the voice calling to him isn't hers, and the ceiling, when his eyes blink open, is familiar. It's not the home he left, but it still feels like that, like home.

"Bucky," says Jason, sitting up all at once, propelled past his own fatigue with the realization that Bucky came back. It takes his eyes only moments to adjust, to find him, but it feels like forever. "You're back."

[onlyapassenger]

"Woah, take it easy," says Bucky, turning on the spot with his hands held out in front of him. It occurs to him that he ought to turn on a light or something, but he almost feels better about having the conversation that promises to follow in the dark. Maybe it's cowardly, but that's more or less how he feels for having run in the first place. At the time, though, it had seemed like the best option at his disposal; he'd been confused, angry, and highly armed, though the guilt ensure he wouldn't do anyone harm, except, maybe, himself. Even days after the fact, it's hard not to take Jason's simple greeting as a blow to his conscience.

"You've been out for days."

[prodigaljaybird]

That's insane, but so is waking up in Gotham, so is sitting down to play cards and blinking into a Soviet medical bay instead, and from the way Jason feels, he can easily believe it. His throat is dry, but not tortuously so, and his stomach feels hollow enough that Jason knows he'll be eating everything in sight as soon as he's moving again.

His head hurts, brain equal parts sluggish and on fire to sort everything out again. He knows he went to sleep in Gotham, and before that, his old cave, and now he's here. "Did you..." he says. Bucky must have brought him here, but - "You weren't asleep, too? What the hell is happening?" He doesn't want to get upset, he's felt enough of that in the last handful of days to last a lifetime, and Christ, he needs to get off the ride for a while. "Why is it making us do this?" he murmurs, and then, even more quietly, because he doesn't even know where Bucky's been, "Are you okay?"

[onlyapassenger]

The kid's bombarding him with questions, but it's only the last that finds its target, giving Bucky a moment's pause before he so much attempts to answer any of them. That he's got a few of his own is, apparently, besides the point, though why Jason cares if he's okay is chief among them. Bucky doesn't like to make a habit of agreeing with the bad guys, but given all that he's done, it doesn't make sense to him that everyone's so quick to forgive and forget.

"Whoever runs this place is a sick bastard, that's why," he says, raking a hand back through his hair. "Don't know why the hell I was spared. Didn't think this place was into giving breaks."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason pulls his legs towards his body, realizes he's huddling and swings them out instead, over the side of the bed until they touch ground. Bucky hasn't answered his question, and cagey as Bucky acted for that whole damn temporal loop, Jason knows this is only more of the same.

"You didn't answer my question," he says, testing his own weight against the ground. He's not sure what he means to do, but shaking Bucky still isn't off the table. "Where'd you go?"

[onlyapassenger]

"I was hoping you wouldn't notice," Bucky says dryly, heaving out a sigh as he lets his hand -- his right, not his left -- drop back to his side. In spite of his tone, however, he'd been sincere in that hope; Bucky Barnes is not a man who likes to discuss his feelings, ever, and while he knows he owes Jason an explanation, at the very least, there are certain parts he already has every intent of glossing over.

"I went..." he starts, trailing off. There was no good answer for where he'd gone. Mostly, he just kept on the move; he hasn't slept much since they returned, catching only the odd hour here and there. He's exhausted, but what little sleep he's managed has been plagued by nightmares. "...elsewhere. As much as there exists an elsewhere on this piece of rock."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Why?" It's not like Jason hadn't noticed the way Bucky wouldn't look at him, even early on in the fucked up temporal loop they'd been caught in itself. A part of him hadn't even been surprised when Bucky rode away, but he's still pissed, underneath it all still afraid that a part of it is his fault.

He was fourteen when Bruce began to reject him after he'd let that fucker, that rapist fall to his death. And now Jason's killed at least fifteen men in succession, to survive, he knows, but that wouldn't have been good enough for Bruce. Who's to say the excuse is good enough for Bucky? "Is it...I was trying to keep her safe."

[onlyapassenger]

"...what?" he asks, brows furrowing for a moment in confusion, though it's dark enough that the expression's likely lost in translation. The realization about what Jason means by that comes to him about a second later, and soon enough, Bucky's shaking his head. While he would've preferred to take care of those soldiers himself -- while he would've preferred to have gotten out of there without a single shot fired -- the circumstances hadn't allowed for it. What happened, happened; he didn't necessarily like it, but war was never easy.

"No," he says, voice firm, and brooking no further argument on that front. "Jesus Christ, Jason."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Then why?" Jason asks. He finds he can stand just fine, and he does, still in the stupid sweatpants he'd fallen asleep in two night ago, and he should feel stupid, maybe he even does, but not because of what he's wearing. He feels stupid because he doesn't get it, why even in the dim light Bucky looks like this is all somehow of his own making.

"You didn't come back. You only..." A second realization dawns on him, not nearly as happy as the first. "You came back because you thought I was sick."

[onlyapassenger]

"Oh, my God, you are such a teenager," Bucky mutters under his breath, irritation slipping into his voice in spite of everything, and he presses two fingers to the bridge of his nose. Jason has every right to be confused and to throw accusations his way, but that didn't mean he wasn't about to defend himself in some capacity against some of the kid's more ridiculous notions.

"I came back because I don't like running away from my problems, especially when there's no good place to run to. I clean up my own messes."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Bullshit," Jason exhales, and maybe this is his stupidest idea yet, choosing this of all things to throw back in Bucky's face, but he's been through an awful lot in the last few days. "You barely even let me help you back there, and when it was over you just...you just left, Bucky. When would you've come back if people weren't - " His throat closes up, but Jason swallows it down. "Weren't trapped in some stupid dream?"

[onlyapassenger]

"Because I clean up my own messes," he repeats, slowly. "If I get people thrown into a storm, you're damn well right I'm going to be the one who pulls them out. And for your information, I'd already stopped by the house before you fell unconscious to drop off Virgina. If you hadn't ran off to sleep in your cave, maybe you would've noticed."

[prodigaljaybird]

Maybe Jason deserves it, but he doesn't get it, stretched too thin and miserable after Gotham, after Russia, to do anything but stare at Bucky. He hadn't known Bucky would come back, how could he? Bucky was an immovable force, he was everything, and then he'd gone away. Jason could hardly stay in a place he wasn't sure he belonged anymore, not when the whole of it had been defined by Bucky.

He swallows, thick and heavy, thinks that landing here after that loop had been one hell of a storm, and the only one who'd been around to weather it was Tim Drake.

[onlyapassenger]

"I needed to think. Get my bearings," he explains, his voice a hell of a lot more level than he feels. The way Jason's looking at him right now makes him want to go crawl into another hole for a while, but it's that very same look that keeps him glued to the spot.

"I left because my head was the mess. If I'd known you take that as a sign to move house in under a day, I would've..." He trails off, at a loss for words. After another moment of silence, he looks down and away. He'd brought Jason back here because it had been practical; for all Bucky knows now, though, maybe that stupid cave is where the kid really wants to live. Maybe he overstepped his bounds.

"My point is, I was never going for good. If you want me to, then that's another matter entirely. I've put you through enough hell, it wouldn't be unwarranted."

[prodigaljaybird]

"It wasn't a day," Jason murmurs. He'd waited through the rest of the day and a night before going to Tim, hadn't slept until the cave, hadn't eaten but for what little mango he could choke down at Tim's, and it's no wonder his body feels so uselessly weak.

He sits back down, eying Bucky in the darkness. People leave him all the time, and maybe Jason doesn't enjoy bleating his every feeling as soon as he feels it, but he's learned to do it anyway, to take advantage of someone's presence because they probably won't be around long to hear him. "I want to be here," he says, "and you to be here. I thought it was - " Jason sighs, pushing a hand through his hair. "I thought maybe you wanted it to be over, but I don't." Bucky's eyes are open, but it's too dark to tell whether he's meeting Jason's yet. "I'm not scared of you."

[onlyapassenger]

"You should be."

It's a fact, as far as Bucky's concerned. In a universe where people could rewrite reality with just a few little words, he was considered among the most dangerous men on Earth. His actions as the Winter Soldier necessitated the development of LMDs -- Life Model Decoys -- because powerful men around the world were afraid they'd be his next target. While he killed Jason in a pain-induced rage, he knows, deep in his bones, that he could do it again just as easily in his right mind, provided the circumstances called for it. He pulled the trigger on a man with Steve Roger's face; there's little he wouldn't do if it meant saving lives.