strongerthanyouknow | Unnamed Legends/Avengers Verse

This is where he wanted to be. Steve had to tell himself that this was a good idea, over and over again, even if he thought deep in his gut that it wasn't. T'Challa had suggested the Waverider. A group, hidden, a group nobody knew about that would be a good fit for Bucky if he didn't want to sit still in Wakanda.

Bucky wanted this. Bucky wanted to take time for himself, find himself, and Steve knew that he had to give this to his friend if he ever wanted his friend back. He didn't have to like it.

At least Tony wouldn't find Bucky here. He wasn't sure if this was the right fit for Bucky, but he would respect his best friend either way.

Captain Rogers has returned to the bridge, Captain Lance.

"Well aware, Gideon." Sara calls at the vacant voice that comes from the ceiling and the walls and everywhere really. She would say she was going to see to that, but if she had ever really intended to, it's been years since she took over now. Not that she really ever did need the telling. She heard him coming long before he hit the bridge room. A good distance down the hallways outside of it. Habits never lost. Clipped cadence steps of a soldier, but all that pauseful civility even with the weight.

"Everything all squared away?" Sara let her hands rest on the center console, looking up from plotting the next course and place in time the Legends should go. "I'm sure Zari or Ray would be glad to round up anything Bucky thinks he might need in the new room."

Steve leans against the entrance to the bridge, hanging back in the doorway, watching her. It's like the quin jet, but only much more elaborate. He knows he would never be able the fly the thing without proper lessons. The captain and the crew impress him, even if he hates leaving Bucky with them. He can respect who they are and what they do.

In his head, he knows this is a good place for Bucky. He just doesn't want to let go.

"I, uh... I think he has everything he needs. He's good at traveling light," he murmurs softly. "You should ask him, though. I... I don't want to speak for him." Steve stared at Sara, so many things he wants to ask and say, but he hesitates.

"I gave Bucky a phone number. It's a satellite phone. Untraceable. If... If he needs me for anything. Name the place and I'd make my way there in a heartbeat. If... If you need help or backup..." Steve stops, knowing he's rambling a little.

"Just... Just take good care of him."

Sara has to hand it to him. If she hadn't seen him in the field, seen exactly what kind of threat Steve Rogers brings to a battle field, it'd be hard to consider the rambling man in front of her all that worrisome. Concerning. He'd still be far and above better looking than Gary, but he's mashing his words up all the say. Tiptoeing around what he really wants to say. Or maybe isn't entirely certain under it.

She's taking someone from his team. Someone important to him. That much is evident.
But it's not on him whether Bucky stays or goes, it's on Bucky, and she already agreed to let him.

"It'll take more than a sat-phone to be able to reach us across timelines," Sara says with a tilted amusement, as she pushes off from the center console and walks towards him. "But we've got ways he can reach you, and no one else will be able to follow him that he doesn't want there, where we're going."

As she gets closer, Steve crosses his arms over his chest. He frowns at her, biting his bottom lip because he has things he wants to say that he really knows that he shouldn't. He knows that Bucky needs this. His reservations aren't about Bucky.

It's about the team that he's going off with. A former assassin. People he doesn't trust. How can Bucky really feel this is his place? Why can't he just come home and be with Steve and the Avengers? They would always have a place for him.

"I get it, okay. I do. He'll be able to sort himself out and he'll be... Nobody will be looking for him with you." Steve sighed. "Just watch his six, okay?" Because he can't tell Bucky what to do. He can't order Bucky around. And he really shouldn't be the mother hen that he knows he is appearing to be. "Make sure he comes back."

It's an odd dichotomy, and one she thinks comments on Oliver Queen and her crew more than anything else, that it's offsetting. Watching someone with that much power, have the mannerism of someone she would expect to be much smaller, softer, quieter. But he isn't. He's a brick. It's the ruin of emotion that degrades the image.

Or maybe, rather like Sara herself, the image that is Captain America, and the person at the core are very different things. Necessary and undividable now, and yet still very different. She watches him. The crossed arms, the bitten lip, the way his eyes move, the way he sighs. The weight of what she's taking from him is so apparent. Even though, again, it's not her.

But if she had to leave Mick, Leonard, any of her people with him, would she be very different.
Maybe her version would involve a knife, but she thinks she'd be in his shoes, still.

"I'll do my best," Sara says, as a hand rests on her hip. "But I'm not making any promises for him. I barely know your friend. Enough to trust him out of my sight on the ship. Enough to know I could probably take him down if I had to. But not nearly enough to make that kind of promise for him. Not even for my people. I'll give him what he needs, but he'll have to figure out the rest himself."

Whether that was coming back or not. Sara couldn't be helpful in that way.
Sara hadn't stayed in Star twice now. Not even though it would always, always he her home.

Maybe if she knew Steve before he became what he is now, she would understand. Or maybe Bucky can show her a picture of him when he's small and skinny, practically a runt. There are images of him in the Smithsonian in the exhibit. The truth of the matter is that Steve is only a brick on the outside. Inside, he's still that tiny hint of skinny Steve, at least when it comes to Bucky Barnes. He tries not to let it show, he tries to be strong and brave Captain America for others, but Bucky really is his weakness.

He doesn't get mad at her. He doesn't show any sign of tension or emotion and he doesn't fault her for her response. She doesn't know him, doesn't know Bucky either. She has no reason to care and Steve can get it. In a way, it almost makes things worse, but he won't comment on it.

"I understand," he said softly. "You... You need to... He... Bucky's not just my best friend. He's my everything." Steve remains strong. He doesn't cry. His lip doesn't tremble. He doesn't move from where he's standing, but he hopes his words convey everything. If he loses Bucky twice, after losing Peggy, it would kill him. "He's chasing something he has to chase. And I... I have to let him chase it." Even if he hated it.

Edited 2018-11-12 05:43 (UTC)

Sara can sympathize, and even if her expression softens, it doesn't give the things it really makes her think. Just for a second. Just the flicker of a candle flame. Martin, and Rip, and Jax. Laurel. Her dad. Things you think you can't survive until you have to. Until you wonder if there is a too much, or there is only that. Survival. There and gone in the blink, even if it leaves a greater weight in her heart as she nods.

"He has to find out who he is, that isn't what--" very much not who; that's on purpose -- "Hydra made him," Sara says with the economy of bluntness that avoids being rude or judgemental, without giving up honesty. Even alludes to understand.

"There are a few of us here who knows what that's like."
Even if she means Mick, more than herself. They didn't choose it.

(She did.)

In all honesty, Steve could survive without him if he had to. He'd done it once before. Watching Bucky fall from the train had been the hardest, most gut wrenching thing in his life. His best friend, watching him disappear from sight and not being able to do anything about it. He'd lived without him once. If he had to, he could do it again.

Damn if he didn't want to have to.

Slowly, Steve nodded his head in understanding. He really did get it. HYDRA. If anyone knew about HYDRA, it was him. Zola. All of it. HYDRA would be the dirty curse word he'd never be able to forget. Still, he doesn't have to like it. And he gets it. Bucky feels like this is where he needs to be. He feels like the others are like him, even if Steve doesn't see it that way. He knows that he has to let Bucky go, but he hates goodbye.

"Sometimes things happen to you. Things you don't get to choose. Things you have to deal with," he says softly. "I get it. It's not easy to move on from, well, things."

Steve shivered, finally lowering his arms to his sides. "Whoever he finds himself to be, at the end of it? I'll be here waiting."

Somethings happen to you.
Things you don't get to choose.
Things to you have to deal with.

He's talking about Bucky, and even though Sara's expression remains a sympathetic neutral, she knows she doesn't fit his example and she knows it would do him no kindness to remind him of that. It doesn't change that she's probably the best person on this ship, in all Bucky's option, for someone with options for him to explore. A team that can stop him, or at least slow him down seriously, if he makes the wrong ones.

"If you promise him that, make sure you can back it up."

This is careful. Maybe even too careful, too close.
A kind of tether that shouldn't be left dangling in the black unless meant.
Unless you know what that promise can mean, can bring back from the black, too.

Steve's shoulders seem to square and his face takes on a harder look. He glances up at Sara, his jaw set and his brow furrowing a little. He's not sure what she's implying with the words that she is saying. "I'll back it up," he states, his voice firm. "No matter what, end of the line, that's how I feel about him. He'd have to kill me to get rid of me."

He doesn't say that they've already tried and been there.

"He'll always have me. If he wants me."

Steve hates the idea.
Of course he does.

But T'Challa had a point. If he's going to get the time and the space he needs to sort his head out, where better than on the Waverider? He's seen them in action already and they're pretty damn good as a unit. Not quite as solid as the Howling Commandos were but it's still a good shot.

He doesn't want to go, not really. But he has to take the time and learn who Bucky Barnes is now that HYDRA is finally out of his mess of a head.

Bucky is leaning in the doorway of his new quarters as Steve paces. "You're gonna wear a hole in the plating."

"I am not."

He frowned, suddenly glancing down at the floor. Would he? His brow furrowed and he narrowed his eyes, almost as if inspecting the floor before glancing back up at Bucky. Rolling his eyes, he moved over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. "Not bad. Too firm," he grumbled.

Steve looked up at Bucky. "Don't forget. I... I have that phone. Maria got it for me, for Nat and Sam. It's a sat phone, untraceable. If you need anything, you just call me..." His voice trailed off, staring up at Bucky.

He just got him back. He didn't want to let him go.

"Just be safe."

"Sure you are."

It makes him ache, the thought that after so many years apart he'd go and course separation again, even if the separation of the only thing that would allow him to come back to Steve as something even close to whole.

"I'm not gonna forget. This is just.. for now. It ain't forever Stevie. I promise."

"I know... You need this. I know, it Buck, I just..."

He looks up at Bucky, his eyes full of ache. "It's hard to let go," he murmured softly. "It's not forever, it's for now. I understand that in my head, but..." But tell it to his heart, because the heart wants what it wants.

Steve pointed to the framed picture of them he'd printed off with Shuri's help, the picture of them from the museum. "I... I brought you a gift. It's not much..."

Steve wouldn't tell him that same picture would also be in his wallet.

Steve smiled a tight smile up at Bucky. "Anytime you need anything, you call. I don't care what time it is. And you be safe. You watch your six, no matter where you go with these... These people." These assassins, he thinks to himself.

"I know Stevie," and he knows probably better than anyone why this is so hard on him. Thinking he'd lost him only to find him a weapon of the enemy, nearly dying trying to get him back. Risking everything to save him, no matter what the cost. He reaches up, cupping the back of his neck and tugging him in to press their foreheads together. "It'll be okay."

He needs this. He needs space and he thinks on the Waverider he can get what he needs in order to come back to Steve a whole person again. Something a little less jagged, a little less broken.

The picture is accepted with a quiet smile. "Jesus. Were we ever that goddamn young?"

Steve can't help himself. Not when it comes to Bucky. The minute the man is within reach, Steve moves his hands up and grabs Bucky in return. Gentle hands cup Bucky's face as he presses their foreheads together. "I know," he whispers, their faces so close he could feel Bucky's breath. "I know, I just... I'll be fine."

Bucky needs this, so Steve relents. He doesn't like it. He doesn't approve of it, but he accepts it. There's a shiver inside of him and a tremble in his hands as he holds Bucky close.

He hates goodbyes.

"It's from the museum, from before the war. Right after I brought you, all of you, back to the base." He sighed. "When I saved you..." From the time when he could save Bucky. He just wished he could save Bucky now. "I look at it when I think of you. I miss that smile."

"I'm going with them to go find it," he answers softly. "So I can come back to you a whole person. So maybe we can.." Bucky trails off as he offers Steve a small smile. "Maybe."

"But it'll always be you and me, Steve. End of the line and beyond," he promises. For now he needs a place to get his head together, to not have to look over his shoulder constantly. SHIELD, what's left of it, won't find him and neither will Stark and he needs that right now more than anything. To keep his focus on rebuilding who Bucky Barnes is now. Or who he will be.

"Maybe." Steve smiles. He'll take a maybe. He glances up into Bucky's eyes, seeing that small smile there and it gives him hope. And hope is what he needs right now. He'll take some hope. His lips ache to brush against Bucky's, but he doesn't.

Slowly, he pulls away, nodding his head to Bucky. "You know where I'll be. How to reach me, I mean, if you need anything. Always end of the line." Steve rises to his feet, wrapping his arms around Bucky and giving him a hug. It's not goodbye. Not really. It's just for now. Strong hands pat Bucky before pulling away from him reluctantly.

"Stay out of trouble, okay? Don't like... Try to stop Pompeii from burning or something. Don't go changing time too much."

Bucky knows what Steve wants because he wants it too.
He can't. Not until he's had some time to figure out who Bucky Barnes is now that he's free from HYDRA. The programming is cleared out of his head but he's got lifetimes of scars to work through before he can give Steve what he deserves in a partner.

He smiles fondly, giving him a chuck on the shoulder. "Pretty sure that's not what they do out here, punk. But I'll remember."

"I'll check in when I can. At least once a week."

"Good. Don't be a jerk in time."

He laughed, shaking his head at Bucky. "Just check in whenever. You don't have to report in like a curfew or something." He gave Bucky a look. "I'm not your probation officer."

Just a guy who cared.

And he takes a step back. Then another. He knows if he doesn't, he never will. "I'm always with you, Buck." Steve sighs, turning and walking out of the room. He needs to move before he loses it. He can't let Bucky see it. Once he's off the ship, with Nat and Sam, then he can have a breakdown. Not here. Not now.

When he wants to, Mick Rory can move like a shadow.
He's walking the ship one last time before going to Sara or Snart for the night, making sure that things are locked down and they're ready for the next job. Watching things because Sara's eyes can't be everywhere.

So he pulls to a halt as he watches Stars and Stripes leave the room they'd assigned to Barnes.

Barnes. Another guy who'd had his head put through the wringer. Brainwashed. Unmade. Turned into a weapon again and again. If one person on the ship understood what that was like, it was him.
Not that he was gonna admit it to this guy.

He regards the guy for a long moment.

"We'll watch his back."

Steve blinked, freezing where he stood. He should have known, should have heard the other man but his mind had been too distracted. Forcing a smile, Steve slowly turned around and gave the other man a nod.

In truth, Steve knew very little about the crew he was dropping Bucky off with. A few things, rumours really, things he wasn't about to just go asking them if they did. He wasn't that rude. Still, they were there, in the back of his mind.

"Good," he said softly. "Just... Just saying goodbye," he murmured softly. "You know. Wishing him good luck..." Steve blushes. He can't help it. He can only imagine what they all think of him and his feelings about Bucky. It didn't matter if it was true, it still made him blush.

"Watch his six... He's good, uh... He's a good guy."

He'll bet money that they're either banging or they will be eventually.

Mick shrugs and yanks a device from his pocket, pushing it at Steve. "Here. Modified phone so New Guy can call you, keep you from worrying."

Steve takes the phone from Mick, staring at it a little before glancing up at the man handing it to him. He's quiet for a moment, surprised by the action.

"Thank you," he murmured. "That means a lot. I'll never stop worrying, but... This will help," he said with a small smile. "Thanks."

Leonard is cagey on his best days and today? Really not one of those. Picking up strays, it's...a little bit of what they do. As a whole, as a team. By now, the people who started on this ship from day one are quickly becoming outnumbered by new faces. It's something that grates under his skin in ways he doesn't necessarily like to consider.

But. While he doesn't know a lot about the nature or length of Bucky and Steve's...friendship. There is a vibe of a deep sort of familiarity that is almost reminiscent of what he thinks people must feel when he and Mick are in a room together. That, if nothing else, give the strangers a vote in their favor with him. If only maybe half a point's worth of it.

Leonard is leaned against the wall, himself, far side of the room from where Steve is hanging in the entrance to the bridge. "You could try looking a little less skeptical." come some very clearly put-on drawl-soaked words being lobbed in Steve's direction.

Steve turned to Leonard, raising an eyebrow at him. He honestly didn't expect the man to address him. He's new. He's a stranger. And he gets the feeling that Leonard doesn't like strangers. Steve shrugs his shoulders, giving Leonard a look.

"Do you honestly blame me?" A new situation. New people he doesn't know, doesn't trust. He's expected to just leave Bucky with them without question or reservation. Of course he's skeptical. "Sorry, I'm a bad liar. I don't even try anymore."

Steve sighed. "Tell me I have no reason to be?"

Steve's eyebrow gets a leveled look in return. Yes, Cap, he does speak, even to strangers. He's a rebel like that.

"No," he answers the first with a roll of a shoulder in a maybe too-casual shrug. But he doesn't move from his spot. "I think it's smart." Leonard doesn't trust freely and easily, either, by any stretch of the word. He'd learned that lesson long ago, from a person who never actually cared as much as he should have.

"The immediate three of us that I am almost certain your friend will gravitate toward the most, the quickest, are a killer, a klepto, and a pyro." There's a beat and he cants his head. "If you weren't suspicious, you'd just be dumb. But...you also have puppies and living embodiments of sunshine people on this ship." Like Raymond. Annoying little labradoodle of hope that he always is.

Not that Leonard is exactly trying to sell Steve on leaving his buddy here. Personally, he isn't all that thrilled about it in the first place, but he isn't Captain, and for good reason.

Steve sighed, his shoulders relaxing a little. The man had no bedside manner, that was for sure. There was no way he was convincing Steve. Quite the opposite, in fact. The more he spoke, the more Steve did not want to leave Bucky on this ship.

But, sadly, he had no choice in the matter. It wasn't his life to live.

"Well, at least you have a good contrast," he murmured. His head tilted to the side and he frowned, glancing back at the ship and the room around him. Bucky said he needed this. Who was Steve to tell him what was right and wrong? "I know he can take care of himself. Doesn't mean I won't worry."

Steve turned to Leonard, forcing a smile for the man. "He'll grow on you. He does that."

The way Leonard sees it, whether it's Steve's choice or not, he should at least know in the most complete way possible, exactly what and who he is leaving his best friend to. In no uncertain terms, with no question left to it. Even if that means forgoing all pretenses of bedside manner of any kind. Not that Leonard doubts Sara explained everything he needs to know in full detail before he even said a word.

"We do have that going for us." If not much else, at times. Screwing things up for the better of time, it was practically their motto these days. The personalities on this ship, while sometimes a strain, mostly tended to balance each other out most days.

"Hm...maybe, but I won't hold my breath." He smirks back at the other Captain.

"Good?" Steve shrugged his shoulders. "He trusts you. I trust him. That's all I need." And he meant it too. If Bucky had any sort of doubt at all, he'd put up way more of a fuss. As it stood, Bucky felt comfortable with his decision. Steve respected that.

Even if he hated it.

Slowly, Steve smirked in response to Leonard. "You might not want to do that. He's crap at mouth to mouth." Or, at least Steve wanted him to think Bucky was. There was no doubt in his words. The only one kissing Bucky would be him. "I... I should go."

Both brows arch up toaward his hairline at that-- He trusts you. Maybe it's the royal you. The team-you. Because Leonard is sure that would be news to him, if he meant personally, specifically, him. But he keeps it all under his tongue and leave it there.

"I'll make sure not to drown around him, then." He throws a quip right back at him. "See ya around, Cap."

Mick makes his way in after a quick round of the ship, making sure things were quiet and in order. Beer in hand he walks into her room without knocking, pausing only to strip off his customary black jacket and gloves.

"So what's the deal with New Guy? He stickin around?"

Even though she knows he's coming, and she knows just what he's doing, Sara's glance still flicks in Mick's direction, before it's back to the tablet in her lap. She put the finishing touches on the thing she was working on, before leaning back in her chair, hands shifting to her thighs, where they are circle, popping the bones there quietly.

"Seems he'd like that." Sara let her shoulders lean back, looking at the ceiling and then to Mick. "Thinks it might do him some good. Help him find out if there's another way for him."

If she doesn't say, another way that's not the Avengers, maybe Sara doesn't need to. It's not like they don't have enough examples just between her and Mick about how that works out. Not fitting where you should. Especially not when you haven't figured out who you are, and who you might be, yet.

A quiet grunt in response.
Contrary to what others might have thought at the time, Mick paid attention through the briefing, through the information provided about Bucky and what Gideon had put together from the timeline. Brainwashing. Being used as nothing more than a weapon.

Winter Soldier. Chronos.
Too many parallels.

So maybe this one time he doesn't bitch about change, maybe this one time. "Could use another decent hand in a fight."

Sara's smirk is still the first answer -- the truest one; the one that says really the delight of that shouldn't be what it is, where they go first, that they both think of that, fighting, odds -- even if her words are,

"You know we could actually pretend to hope for a quiet ride."

That smirk is met and matched with one, maybe even with a peek of dimple. An expression reserved for two people alone.

Mick shakes his head. "Now where's the fun in quiet? Quiet is boring."

Leonard picked up on it far sooner than he'd liked to admit. Bucky's latching onto... Sara... the team... this ship.... as some sort of space he could earn his right to be himself on. And he saw it the second Sara already knew, before he even fully found the words to ask her, that she would say yes. If it's what he wanted, what he needed, she-- they-- could-- would-- be there to fill it, for however long it may take, but knowing it would only always be temporary. Because he had people to return to.

But.
It doesn't mean Leonard has to like it.
He doesn't ever go out of his way to buck her Captain Decisions in front of people, not these kind, at least. Not unless he can't find a way to hold his tongue and discuss it later, or he sees something so glaring that it can't be ignored. But later. When she's alone? It's all absolutely fair game.

"You know," he spins in her chair at the desk in her office as she walks in. "we keep picking up strays like this, we're gonna run out of room." That was how conversations start, right?

"It's nicer when you all ask before you take my chair."

It's not, and it's not really even a concern, but it's Sara pointedly taking a moment to give him a long look, with faintly raised eyebrows at the theatrics of his newest little show. It made a statement, and it demanded attention, but really Sara's chair had nothing on what made Sara the force to be listened to in this room. She knew that.

"Unless this is your opening bid for getting yourself another new bedroom--" Oh, yes. Another. Because of its already a given that they have three fo them, and really, three is probably far more than they even need at this point really. "--I don't think we're going to have a problem that involves needing to kick someone out for foot space yet."

"But I like your chair." A beat, and his voice is as much a tease and joke as it is anything else. "It's comfy."

There's a skip somewhere in his thoughts at the start of that remark, though it's all under-surface and doesn't show on the outside at all around the schooled, squinted-eyed suspicion in his eyes. He pushes it aside, though, and tilts his head the barest hint downward to level her with a look, all the more pointed for it. "Are you sure? It's getting crowded, if you ask me."

Liar, her eyebrows say at those words, and Leonard all sprawled in her chair.
It is a comfy chair, but even more, it's about being able to steal her chair, her, now.

(The biggest problem is that really she's going to be thinking about him, like this, all afternoon now.)

"Yeah." Sara says it definitively, dropping a hand on her hip, and staring down at Leonard in her seat. The one most people actually didn't take. Though they did sometimes take every other available space in this room. The chairs. The wall. The floor. The table. The stairs. Not even Mick, who basically lived in here when she was and wasn't here. Only Leonard. And how true has that been for years. "I'm sure."

"None of us have really turned out all wrong in this, entirely, yet, have we?"

"Not entirely, maybe." Anything less than entirely.... Well. Could any of them ever dare to call themselves Legends if they were anything else than whatever their own, personal brand of wrong may be, have been at any point, in all their time here? Probably not.

There's a moment--where his eyes slide down to the desktop, fingers drum an idle, single beat across the arm of the chair he stole--that all pretense or facade disappears entirely from his face. He isn't looking at her as he tries to decide which words, and in what order, should come out of his mouth next.

"....Why?" There's a second, maybe two, before he continues. "There's always a reason, right? When you--" A pause, and a hard blink, jaw tensing, as he hates every ounce of his personal thought pattern actually making it into his speech. "we pick up someone new. Something...specific, less generic than 'we can help'."

Finally, his eyes slide back up to her face as he echoes: "Why?"

Being alone. It cuts both ways. So it means, when Leonard decides to spring himself on her, they're alone and there aren't any distractions. It, also, means, when he freezes up, slips up, they're still all alone and there aren't any other noises, other voices, in the space to drown it out.

The way Sara's eyes narrow at the you. The screech of pause after it is alarmingly loud, echoding, and Sara's weight holds mostly on nee foot while she stares at him, trying to figure out what it is he isn't saying. About her. Even as he shifts to a them, that implies the team, she already isn't listening to that. He's asking her. Her, only. Why she made the decision. Why she said yes when he asked. Why she's moving him in.

There's something a little abrasive about it, that Sara can't lay her finger on. Or she can. Or it's all about the thing that has always most separated her from everyone on the Waverider. Even Leonard and Mick. Maybe the part where Leonard rolled straight through that stammer cover without a point at it, or maybe the part where he doesn't even look up until the end, until the very last second, like it's something he can't escape at the end.

Sara's mouth is definitely closer to a line, and there's a growing setness to her shoulders, and maybe there's a little-edged bluntness to the answer that comes out. "Because Bucky can't get the help he needs from a couple boy scouts and a day drinking playboy, no matter how much his team might want to help him, and he knows it, and they know it."

There's a distinct tension that he can't ignore, however subtle, in the narrow of her eyes, the line of her mouth, and he knows, without ever seeing her come to that particular look and when, that it was him. That slip of his inner thought processes slipping out into the verbal noise. He didn't exactly mean it. Not really. Not like that. Not in the way that might be easiest to read or assume. But...

"He needs--" You. though there's no pause to indicate anything else was ever a thought at all. "a bunch of rejects from the mountain of misfit toys." In the same way that they had all come to need each other, after agreeing to board this ship in the first place. "That's all it is?" Not spoken like he necessarily has ideas on what else it could be, just that it could be anything else at all, and the conflict that draws up under his skin.

"Worked for you," Sara pops off all airiness, and even a little dismissively calling him on the irony of his words, as she turns toward one of the consoles. Nothing like actually dismissing him, given there's no finiteness to it, in that question at the end that couldn't really have any other answer could it?

Sara's not looking for puppies and kittens to adopt,
but the Waverider attracts certain types like it's a magnet for it.

She can't really complain. She found her place, when she'd never known she could have one.
Had both died and been reborn certain that was off the table for her entirely after her choices.

She's kind of annoying when she's right. He wonders if she knows. "Yeah, I guess so." The same way it worked for everyone on this ship. But there's an edge every time a new face appears and makes itself a body taking up space on the Waverider, and Leonard has never been anything less than resistant to change.

Leonard isn't sure he can even completely put a word or name to the specific unease that has lead him here, to be having this conversation with her. Something just rubbed him all wrong about this new guy.

But if he trusts anything in the world, Sara's judgment is generally one of the sorts of things he could place money on. So for now, maybe, he'll just let it drop and see where these cards fall after Bucky has time to settle. Not that there is ever much time for calm on this ship for long, anyway.

Unnamed Legends/Avengers Verse

ota

Sara & Steve { This is no mistake, no accident

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Steve/Bucky

Re: Steve/Bucky

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Re: Steve/Bucky

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{This is what helping looks like, right? | Leonard/Steve

love it

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{I don't blame you for being you, but you can't blame me for hating it | Sara/Leonard

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