poly_chromatic | ( v i d e o 48 )

Entry tags:

captain america - bucky barnes

( v i d e o 48 )

[ Half an hour of trying to get a clear set of his own fingerprints and Bucky kind of has to admit defeat. It was hard to notice at first, the way he didn't leave marks in the condensation on the milk bottle, how the brass of the door didn't have his vanishing handprint. He doesn't feel sick, is the think, but there's an off feeling in his stomach all the same.

So he leans back in his chair before he starts the feed, a furrow between his eyes. ] So I know a lot of you guys are real sick right now but has anyone noticed anything kinda ... unexplainable? [ He breathes out of the corner of his mouth and then rubs a hand over his brow. ] Things that don't make sense but ain't like an illness.

[ He could have hidden this if he wanted, pretended it wasn't happening. But with everything that's been going on lately he wants to make sure. ]

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[Sure, she sounds terrible, but as if that's going to stop her from checking on the closest thing she's got to family around here.]

... You okay? What's happening?

I don't really know how to explain it, Gin. [ He makes a noise, checks his prints again. ]

You don't sound so good.

Yeah, well. [She laughs and it turns into a nasty cough.] Clearly I'm... trying my hardest to give you a heart attack.

Try and explain... please? Want to make sure you're—okay.

It's nothin', Weasley.

[ Except it feels like it is. He broke a cup this morning because it simply passed through his hand. ]

Nothing like what the rest of you guys are struck with anyway, I feel fine.

Don't lie to me.

[Though she has no right to call him out on that. She's been lying to him for months about feeling fine, too.]

I'm not sick.

[ He feels like that's important. He doesn't feel ill. He just feels ... absent. ] It's just something kinda strange is all.

Magic?

[The question comes after a pause, either for thinking or for drifting.]

Was it... [Fuck, thinking hurts.] Must be?

I don't know.

[ He can't stop watching his hand on the desk, wondering if it'll spread or not. ] It's just the City playing a mind game is all.

This—

[She interrupts herself with another cough with the force behind her words, chokes out: ]

—isn't a mind game.

You at the hospital?

[ Hello Ginny, why are you so concerned with him disappearing a little when you sound like you're dying. ]

Yeah.

[Because she doesn't know how this is working, how this is happening or why. But she can't express that because the coughing takes over and excuse her, she's shoving her device under her pillow and muffling the rest of this in her blankets until it passes.

And then she's back, breathless and tired but raw.]

Tell me.

It's nothing.

[ It brings him back, the worry gnawing at his gut and the sound of someone coughing up their lungs, unable to catch the next breath. It makes him think of damp rooms and how useless he felt, how useless he is. ]

Shouldn't a doctor be with you or something?

[It's not nothing, she wants to yell, because the City's falling apart. They can't ignore anything strange or out of place, not now. She has a bad feeling about all of this. But she can't express any of it because she can't catch her breath enough to say all she wants to say.

She sucks in a breath and suppresses the cough it triggers (and coughing makes her pounding head hurt even more) and bites out,]

Why? It's nothing.

[ A little more sharply than he intends. ] You sound like you're a half a second away from your lungs collapsing. Call a nurse, kid.

[Not today, Barnes. She feels truly awful and he's not answering her questions and everything hurts, so: ]

Bugger off. [Curling her hands into her blankets.] 'M fine. Always am. Always tell you that. And you never—never believe me.

That's because you're a shitty liar.

[ His voice sounds strained. ] I can tell when you're not, Weasley. And being difficult isn't going to get you anywhere so call a damn nurse before I have to do it.

Wouldn't've gotten through the war if I was a crap liar!

[She ignores the rest, the words scraped out of her sore throat and her temper burning under her fever. This isn't what she wants, this is the farthest thing from it, but she's exhausted and anxious and close to tears out of frustration and this isn't her, but she's close to snapping.]

Leave me alone.

[And fingers fumbling to shut this off before she starts coughing again. Or crying. Merlin forbid.]

[ His sigh is heavy, bursts from him like a crackle of energy. ] Call the goddamn nurse, Weasley. You can be as pissed at me as you want but just make sure someone comes to see you.

[Her fingers still on her device and her jaw tightens against... well, she isn't sure—yelling again? Or is it because she's actually a little scared because she's never been this ill and there are no answers and what if people die from this thing? What if she does?]

They can't do anything. [God, she feels nauseous. Her breath catches, eyes squeezing shut.] No point. I can't— [She coughs again, pushes past it,] You're not sick so maybe... it's different, but I won't know if you—

[But what right does she have to demand this of him? Is she crazy? She's hid shit from him all year, practically.]

Stop trying to protect me.

Can't.

[ It reminds him of the Depression, of people falling ill and never getting back up again. He's not going to add shit on top of this. ] When I say it's nothing to worry about Ginny, I mean it's nothing to worry about.

[There's a long pause, one where she pulls her hands away from the device to press the heels of her palms to her burning eyes because she will not cry, not over something like this, not over anything, but— ]

Fine. [A breath, a bit ragged.] Fine, I'll just... If something happens to you, I swear.

[ I swear to Merlin I'll get out of this bloody hospital and find you myself.]

You'll have to get in line.

[ Steve would probably punch him. But Steve's been busy. ] Get some rest.

Don't tell me what to do.

[Soft but sharp, the faintest hitch of a sob on her words because she's exhausted and sick and scared. Then the feed finally ends just as she starts to cough again.]

Like... things falling through your hands unexplainable, or a different kind?

Yeah.

[ Immediately his voice takes on a sort of concerned interest. ] Broke a mug earlier. Now I can't take my prints. If I was coughin' I guess I could understand, but I'm not like anyone else on the network today.

I don't know if it makes you feel any better, but that kind of thing's happening to me, too. Like, I'll be holding something, and then I'll just kind of slip through whatever I'm holding.

I don't know what to think about it.

You're not sick?

[ As much as it's a relief to not be the only one, he's still majorly concerned about what it all means. ] I know it's not beyond the City to pull two curses at once but it's still weird.

No, not really. Not the coughing-sneezing-fever kind of sick.

So it should be temporary, since it's a curse. I mean, it's not like we're going to disappear all the way.

[ Penny, no. Don't jinx it. :C]

Yeah. Doubt the City'd want a punch of invisible and angry people on its hands. Though I guess with the new bosses I'm gonna have to rethink this whole deity curse thing. I thought it would be over.

[But!]

Me too. Was it dumb to trust them?

[ He didn't trust them, but he can see why people did. ]

Better the devil you know, right?

I'm not sure. Sometimes taking a chance on something new is for the best.

...And sometimes it turns people into ghosts, I guess.

[ Ghosts, great. ]

Not sure I wanna haunt the precinct.

I'm sure everything'll be fine. [She's not.] It's probably just some kind of... curse thing.

At least we won't be overloading the hospital.

Positive thinking! Yes! Doing our civic duty by not being sick.

[ He laughs. ]

There's the spirit.

[Jem's voice is tired. He's doing his best to reach out to other people who are sick. At least he is prepared for this.]

I am not sure, but nothing about it feels natural.

[The cough catches him and it will be a minute before he is able to hear anything Bucky says.]

[ He waits until the kid - he's assuming from his voice - gets his breath back. ]

I ain't feeling any of the effects like the rest of yous. But I'm guessing the two are related.

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( v i d e o 48 )

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