Street Outside Wonka's, Sunday Afternoon

[shapethecentury]

Bucky had spent at least a chunk of every day this week handwavily because lolsob what is brain taking a patrol or two around the island, just to see what exactly was going on and if there was anything, particularly any seeming escalation of events, that Jesse and the rest of the mayor's office needed to be informed of.

And that was what he was doing out on the streets on Sunday, too. Down Apocalypse, up Minotaur, onto Unicorn, checking store windows for anything that seemed like more than the obvious and already accounted for. Which was the Halloween lanterns and the rabbits made him feel kinda queasy to look at, if he was honest.

(He also had a Coke shoved awkwardly into a pocket that the can didn't really fit into. He hadn't wanted one, but refusing a gift from a big white bear didn't seem like the best idea.)

So down along Unicorn he went. Groovy Tunes, Ching Tai, Wonka's.

... Wonka's.

Movement inside the candy store caught his eye. He crept closer to the window, feeling almost unwilling to do so - because he already knew what he would find.

Him. Before the war, before everything. Before too much experience with the then-modern day, too, by the look of that banana tasting.

He'd actually looked that young at one point?

Geez.

(He stayed to watch the moment play out, transfixed.)

[ooc: Open, with Sunday slowness.]

Comments

[mindofageneration]

Riri wasn't in danger of being covered in glitter anymore and the whiteboard in the dorms was now just completely covered in all the weird shi--stuff happening around this place.

And things weren't weird enough with multiple Avengers (a good number of which should be dead or something) but also one (ish) who was running for Congress right in front of her. "Why can't anything be normal here?"

[shapethecentury]

Bucky glanced over at her, but just barely. He'd be able to stop staring into the candy shop again in a moment.

"Because this is Fandom, kid."

[mindofageneration]

"This junk--" Yes, she was frowning so hard at having to say that and not the word she wanted to say. "--is still ridiculous."

And yes, that included you, Barnes.

Also that polar bear that was offering her a soda.

[shapethecentury]

Another glance. The bears, they were kind of... not something Bucky was comfortable ignoring.

"Should take that," he said, in a similar sentiment. "They haven't been aggressive so far, but I don't know what refusing them does."

[mindofageneration]

Riri eyed the bear like she might fight it just out of spite, but took the soda. And the bear just slowly ambled on, looking for more people to share the wonders of Coca-Cola and holiday cheer with.

"I knew I shoulda gotten away from the east coast," she grumbled, looking at the bottle. "Nothing good happens here."

No, no. That was just New York and New Jersey lately.

[shapethecentury]

Bucky's gaze returned to the window in front of him.

He reached in his pocket for his phone, and said, half absently, "It's not always like this, you know. Here."

[mindofageneration]

"Sure, I run into Avengers turned political candidates all the time," Riri said, looking in the window for what was so interesting to him.

No, she just ran into political drama of an underwater variety.

[shapethecentury]

Bucky had no idea what she was talking about. (Some of it, anyway.) "Well, there's a lot of Avengers here," he said, as he lifted his phone up to see if he could take a picture through the window. Something to show Jesse later.

Inside the store, a much younger Bucky - two flesh-and-bone hands and all - was trying to figure out how to make a crate of bananas look like it belonged in a candy shop.

[mindofageneration]

The future was weird! So weird!

"...the frick?" Look, what did you expect her to say about that?

[shapethecentury]

"The mayor called these temporal events," Bucky said, a little absently, as he snapped his photo. "Starting to look like they're actually memories."

[mindofageneration]

"Of this place or just in general?" Because she was bouncing if it was the latter, thank you.

[shapethecentury]

"This place," Bucky said. "Last I saw was probably some previous manager of the movie theater. And this..."

Well, this one was pretty easy to suss out. He gave it a lopsided little shrug.

[mindofageneration]

Ignore how relieved she looked at that. Ignore it, Barnes.

"Is you," she filled in, glancing at the lack of an arm there. "This place doesn't make any sense."

[shapethecentury]

Bucky was a champion ignorer of things, so at least she had that going for her!

"You can say that again," he said, a little on the dry side. Inside the store, the younger, chipper-er Bucky was thankfully beginning to fade from view again. "But still, this is my memory, or the island's memory of me, and they haven't gotten dangerous over the week, so..."

Great pep talk as always, Barnes.

[mindofageneration]

"You're really bad at this," Riri said because she wasn't the best at letting that sort of thing slide. "I really prefer when this stuff was just on social media and not being in the middle of it."

Again, she was once kidnapped by a fish guy because of her homework. But she knew that was pretty fucked up! But still felt trying to throw hands at Okoye was a valid response. Because of course she did.

[shapethecentury]

"Picked kind of an awkward place to move to, then."

Hey, he was just owning that 'bad at this'. And also making an educated guess based on the reaction that she was new.

[mindofageneration]

"I didn't pick this place, I just happened to have been somehow enrolled after--" You know what, not going to tell Bucky Barnes that she'd been kicked out of MIT, thanks. "--after leaving a different school. And everyone just keeps mentioning a moose."

You know that moose was ten times weirder than even Groot, right?

[shapethecentury]

"A moose?"

He was so lucky he didn't know about that.

[mindofageneration]

"Apparently." Oh, the tone she was using with that word. The tone. "There's a moose at the school. And it just does stuff."

And no one would explain beyond it! Like, why is there megafauna employed by the school? How do they pay it? Is it in the teachers union? So many unanswered questions!

[shapethecentury]

Bucky considered that.

And then decided, like a true seasoned Fandomite, "You know, that sounds about right for what I've heard about the school." Helpful and not at all concerning. "I try to stay out of it."

[mindofageneration]

"You are real bad at this," Riri let him know dryly.

[shapethecentury]

Bucky nodded, very deadpan. "Yeah, that's what they tell me."

Who was 'they'? Irrelevant.

"You want someone helpful, I would suggest trying Steve Rogers."

She'd... already mentioned the Avengers. So she probably already knew who that was, huh?

[mindofageneration]

The expression on Riri's face at the idea of just walking on up to Captain America. And not the one that, you know, looked like her. Oh, it was mild panic.

"I'm good."

[shapethecentury]

Bucky took that expression in. Yeah, that about seemed to track.

Casually, he added, "They tell you yet the one here is married to Stark?"

[mindofageneration]

Okay, Captain America was one thing. Because he was just missing as far as anyone knew. But Stark... very much dead. Very publicly dead.

And that was all just a lot to figure out how to address. But on one hand, it a very good distraction from her own shit. On the other: weird.

"Is this hazing or something?"

[shapethecentury]

"No," Bucky said - although he could see why she would think that. "Just... alternate universes."

Nice and succinct.

"Something tells me you're gonna be running into a lot of that."

[mindofageneration]

Riri stared at him a little while longer. "You are just really bad at this."

You better be glad you weren't running in Chicago because you'd for sure lost her vote!

[shapethecentury]

Bucky had actually been half-attempting to be helpful with that one. Oh well.

He shrugged faintly on the side with the arm. "I'm just telling you, lotta Avengers on this island and they're probably not all gonna be like what you think they should be."

He did not even remotely consider himself part of that, of course.