Tag: CONFIRM

triflesandparsnips:

So one day, there’s an accident. It’s Reed Richards’s fault.
Insurance!Bucky doesn’t really know the guy, except that the inter-dimensional
shit his team messes around with tends to cause a lot of trouble. Also, Bucky
isn’t sure what Dr. Doom’s insurance is like, but he knows that masks you
have to wear all the time are no fun, so maybe Bucky should send some pamphlets
or something over there.

Stark tells Bucky that Dr. Doom is a villain when Bucky
mentions it. Bucky has opinions about that kind of shit. He sharpens his knives
meaningfully in the common room until Stark goes away.

Bucky’s been sharpening his knives a lot recently.

Here’s the skinny: Richards decided to have a real good
idea. This led to a lot of things, but the important part for this story is
that suddenly, there were three Buckys in the tower. There had been for over a
week now, and nobody was really close to sending everybody back home again. It had only been in the last couple of days that anyone (Steve) has persuaded any of
the Buckys to stop hiding in various locations and attempting to kill one
another for the good of team.

Bucky thinks his response to this situation is perfectly normal. He was the goddamn
Winter Soldier. He’s only barely not
the Winter Soldier most of the time. There’s no version of him that isn’t
dangerous, unless a young Bucky Barnes from 1938 suddenly appears and tries to
fucking dance his way into everyone’s good graces. In which case probably Bucky will try to kill
him just so the kid doesn’t have such a shit future in store.

Anyway. It takes a few days, the intervention of Thor twice,
Barton being an annoying bastard once, and Steve spending all his time looking a
combination of depressed and overwhelmed any time he saw any of the Buckys, but
they finally figure out that maybe all of them are in the later part of their
murderous timelines. Then it’s just a matter of staying out of each other’s ways.

Bucky­—the real Bucky—is obviously the best of the lot. He
contributes. He doesn’t mope around like the Bucky with the missing arm and the
notebook where he writes, like, poetry or whatever. He also doesn’t spend
all his time in the kitchen like the Bucky who talks to himself and doesn’t
clean his weapons enough.

Bucky, because he is awesome, drops a square of folded paper
onto mopey!Bucky from the airduct. It’s a pamphlet. It has Stark’s new
prosthesis program highlighted on it. Mopey!Bucky looks at it, but he stays
mopey, because apparently being in Bucky’s excellent universe full of medical
benefits for veterans is just too depressing for words. Mopey!Bucky goes back
to writing, his notebook propped on his knee while he makes loops of letters
that, admittedly, look closer to how Bucky’s handwriting used to be than it
does now.

Baking!Bucky is a weirdo. He cooks. He spends a lot of time
staring at Steve. The real Bucky is completely aware that Steve is a mook with
an uncomfortable wombat obsession, but maybe baking!Bucky is earlier in his
timeline than him. Maybe he’s not used to seeing Steve around. Bucky spends
some quality time taking pictures of Steve asleep and snoring in his room, and
then has JARVIS send them to baking!Bucky’s phone. Then Bucky makes an
appointment for Steve to see an otolaryngologist, because he fucking can these
days.

It so happens that one day Bucky is in the corner of the
common room reading up on Britain’s National Health Service and how it compares to the system Latveria has in place, and baking!Bucky
steps through the door. They both freeze. Then baking!Bucky, with apparently
some effort, says, “Steve?”

Bucky makes a face. “Mission,” he says back.

Baking!Bucky mutters darkly to himself, stomps
around the counter that separates the common room from the group kitchen, and
starts pulling shit off the shelves. Oh good. Not weird at all.

Bucky goes back to reading about insurance.

Shortly afterward, however, mopey!Bucky comes into the room.
He always wears a lot of white, and he’s carrying his damned notebook and also,
notably, he still has no arm. Bucky wonders if in mopey!Bucky’s universe, Steve
gave up all his self-sacrificing martyrdom and heaped it onto mopey!Bucky. It
would make sense. Except for the part where it’s impossible to imagine Steve
not being self-sacrificing in any universe, so maybe mopey!Bucky’s universe is
just shitty.

Mopey!Bucky stops in the doorway, and frowns at the two
other Buckys already occupying the space. Then he visibly loosens his stance
and goes to sit on the couch. In sightline with the other Buckys.

Actually, they’ve all got a good eye on each other. And – hey,
it looks like they all have stilettos
in their hair.

This time it’s mopey!Bucky who says, “Steve?”

Bucky and baking!Bucky say, “Mission” at the same time, in
identical tones of disgruntlement, and mopey!Bucky frowns.

“And he didn’t take any of us?”

Bucky points at mopey!Bucky. “No arm.” He points at
baking!Bucky. “No appreciable skills outside of baking.” He hesitates and then
jerks his chin up. “No security clearance.”

Baking!Bucky frowns heavily. “What.”

Mopey!Bucky also frowns, though it looks a bit more tired.
“I only need one arm.”

“Are you saying we can’t protect Steve,” baking!Bucky says.
He has flour on his hands, for christ’s sake. Then he follows that up by
saying, “It’s not like you’re some great mission-assist, buddy. ‘Security
clearance,’ my ass.”

Bucky narrows his eyes. Baking!Bucky narrows his eyes.
Mopey!Bucky, apparently wanting to be a goddamn individual, rolls his eyes.

Then he throws his notebook.

It spins as tight as a knife at baking!Bucky, who instantly
plucks up the bag of flour on the counter and deflects it. The bag bursts, and
a white cloud springs out, momentarily blinding that entire area of the kitchen.
Mopey!Bucky doesn’t press the advantage, though­­­ – he vaults over the back
of the couch out of Bucky’s sight, which is just great, because it means that
Bucky’s not exactly sure where mopey!Bucky is until a stiletto comes flying out
from the left, aimed at Bucky’s damn head.

Bucky lifts his reading material and the knife pierces it
instead of Bucky’s face. He yanks it and the stiletto in his own hair out just
in time to turn to baking!Bucky, who’s apparently taking this opportunity to charge in his
direction. Bucky expects yet another knife, but baking!Bucky just kicks him
center-mass, the way Steve would if he was playing around instead of going for
the kill.

(This is probably because Steve is a pushover, and also,
Bucky should be concentrating on this mess instead of thinking about Steve’s
sloppy training regimen.)

Bucky crashes against the wall and bounces off it, avoiding
the knife that baking!Bucky has finally brought to the party, and uses his
momentum to run over and knock the couch backward. Disappointingly, mopey!Bucky
is no longer behind it. Where he is
becomes immediately apparent when a bare foot sweeps Bucky’s legs out from
under him. Mopey!Bucky is looking grimly determined as he flips Bucky over and
gets his arm around Bucky’s neck, pulling it back into a sleeper hold.

Bucky’s in the middle of planning his defense—basically
involving having two arms, because seriously, this is just a minor setback—when
he feels mopey!Bucky tense and then loosen a little bit. Behind them,
baking!Bucky’s voice says, “It is mission-noncompliant to upset Rogers. But I
swear to god, you’re both annoying enough to risk it.”

Bucky risks turning his head slightly in the looser grip,
and sees baking!Bucky holding his knife against mopey!Bucky’s throat, his other arm
gripping him by the midsection.

Which, hey, is an excellent opportunity for Bucky to buck
them both off, twist in place and land with his knees in both their guts. Awesome.He
still has his two knives, so–

Oh.

During the flip, mopey!Bucky apparently used his stealthy
meat hand to relieve Bucky of one of the stilettos. Baking!Bucky still has his
own. There are now three Buckys in various positions of deadly tetchiness, each with
a knife and each ready to make their skill sets very apparent.

This is the scene Sam walks into.

“Flying Sam,” says baking!Bucky. He hasn’t blinked since
they formed the murder pretzel. “Tell them that I’m more than capable of protecting
Rogers.”

Bucky just says, “Sam,” and assumes that the point will be
made.

Mopey!Bucky exhales noisily and doesn’t say anything at all.

Sam looks at them. Then he looks at the kitchen, the couch,
the dents in the wall, the flour generously coating everything and the various destroyed paper ephemera. 

“I do not
deserve this,” Sam says.

This may or may not be accurate, depending on your universe.

The Buckys end up holding position until Steve gets back and spends
about an hour being thoroughly disappointed in all of them.