TJ Wagner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ax_nocturne) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ax_main2019-02-26 05:34 pm
ax_nocturne) wrote in ax_main2019-02-26 05:34 pm
Entry tags:
Bucky and TJ - Backdated
A spar and a chat!
TJ was just done with her usual gym routine, and left the machines behind to go and pick up her water bottle. The doors to the gym opened and she smirked at the sight of one teenaged Bucky. So weird that he would already have lost the arm. She'd read up all about this world's Steve Rogers since his arrival, of course.
"Hey, Bucks," she greeted him hopefully, after taking a much needed drink of water. She was dressed in a sports bra and sports shorts, because why would she wear more clothing than that. "Ready to take me up on my offer?" Spar and chat, of course. He would be a fun opponent, and she was getting so restless these days.
“Hey TJ,” he greeted in return, curious how well she knew other versions of him given that familiarity. “I’m ready to see what you’ve got.”
"Awesome," TJ stated, flashing him a grin. She took another drink of water as she stepped towards the mats, tail swinging happily behind her. "How've you been liking the school?"
He snorted softly. “It’s bizarre. But good, I guess?”
"You guess?" TJ prodded, putting her bottle down and stepping onto the mats. Bizarre was par for the course, really.
Bucky tossed his stuff down and headed over to join her. “Too soon to form a solid opinion. Does the too good to be true feeling ever fade?”
"Couldn't tell you," TJ answered, turning back to face him, and tilting her head to one side, then the other. She'd been working out, sure, but she still didn't want to get into a spar with a stiff neck. "I was born to it."
He smiled, bouncing lightly on his feet to test the mat. “I want all the juicy universe traveling gossip, but feel free to share your story. Where did the mysterious lady before me come from?”
TJ snorted in amusement. "Nowhere they ever called her a lady, that's for sure." She settled into a fighting stance, tail swinging slowly from side to side. "It's just like I said. I come from a different world. Most of the teenage mutants I know here are adults there." When they were even mutants. But, well, one revelation at a time, and once his guard was up, TJ moved in quickly for a feint and a jab, testing the waters since she didn't actually know if his mutation made him winter soldier like.
He moved easily, avoiding the jab. When it came to defense, Bucky didn't curb his skill. When it came to returning the jab he did hold himself back, testing her response, but making sure he wasn't going to harm her. "So this place is pretty weird then?"
TJ had been training her entire life, as far as she could remember, and while she hadn't had many opportunities to put her training into practice here, she had been keeping it up, between spars with other students and sessions in the Danger Room. So she easily deflected the jab, redirecting it rather than blocking it, and used Bucky's momentum to try and catch him off guard with another punch, amping up the difficulty a notch. "I've seen weirder. At least Ch - Xavier's here." She didn't slip and call him Charles anymore, most of the time, but her focus was on the spar more than her words, right now. "At least the school exists."
When she caught him with the punch Bucky grinned. He was all for raising the difficulty if someone could handle it. It was a good challenge coupled with conversation. “It’s good you have something familiar to come home to.”
That was a big word, home. It wasn't completely wrong, as a concept, but it wasn't quite right either. But in the middle of a spar was the last moment to examine that, if TJ was ever going to. Not when he grinned like that when her punch caught him, which promised that things were about to get interesting. TJ didn't wait for him to make the next attack (when did she ever hold back), but went on the offensive again, moving faster, holding back less - but still holding off on the acrobatics, for now. Gotta keep an ace up her sleeve. "This place's been good," she confirmed as she moved.
“Seems like there are a few people around here out of sync with time.” Bucky speeded up and he moved to sweep her leg.
It sounded just enough like what the Timebroker had told them all (you've been unhinged from time) that TJ frowned, distracted, and didn't see the sweep coming. She ended up on her back, breath shocked out of her, but she immediately whirled into action, staying on the ground as she struck out with her legs to return the favor and sweep his.
She moved fast, and Bucky rolled with it, trying to get away from the tangle of her legs before she could catch him. He knew all about agile women and the advantage they had once they locked you close range.
TJ couldn't help but smile when he moved out of range before she could catch him. She rolled backwards, up into a hand stand and back on her feet in a second. Now they were talking, and her smile had become an enthusiastic grin as she leapt at him - no more holding back.
Conversation went on hiatus as they threw down. By the time they were finished Bucky accepted TJ's hand as she helped him up from the mat. "We're doing this again," he said with a satisfied sigh. "Thanks for that."
He went to sit on the bench, grabbing his water bottle and knocking it back.
"No, thank you," TJ assured him, a little out of breath and deeply satisfied. The end of her tail curled around her own bottle, picked it up and dropped it in her hand. "I totally needed that."
She flashed him a grin, then took a long, much-needed drink.
"Been a long time since anyone's kept up with me on a mat. Stark thinks I go hard on her with self-defense training, but I'm pretty gentle. All said."
They were alone in the gym, so TJ went ahead and asked, "You ever gone up against her in the suit?" She was totally assuming it was her in the suit, yeah. Everything else was such a good fit, gender notwithstanding.
Bucky's lips curved up. "I need to schedule time with her 'body guard' in the danger room. The suit can take a lot, but it's easy to get overconfident. So that's a thing where you're from too?"
"Not just where I'm from," TJ assured him, and took another drink. "It's a pretty standard thing across a bunch of worlds. Though it's the first time I've seen Stark be a woman." Best get that out of the way now, she figured.
His brows went up. "Oh shit. Really?"
"Yup," TJ confirmed. "Tony Stark's a household name."
"Tony." Oh, that was just weird. "Shit. I'd wonder how she'd like that as a nickname, but honestly... if she was actually a Tony I'm pretty sure she'd be a very different person. Rich guys get away with so much more shit then women."
"Apparently so," TJ confirmed. She'd done her fair bit of googling Natasha, of course. "You wanna hit the kitchen? You can grill me about alternate stuff, but I'm starving right now." And she hadn't even used her hex bolts. Definitely a good spar.
"Sounds good. Although, depending on what you know, there are some things I don't want to discuss in front of other students."
"Good point." TJ nodded, and came up with a new battle plan. "Grab food, relocate somewhere private?"
"That works." Bucky arched a brow. "Technically I have a room to myself right now, but do you want to go somewhere that sounds less like a proposition?"
TJ smirked. "Technically I have a room to myself, too. But we can find an empty room somewhere, if that sounds like too much of a proposition."
"That sounds like a waste of resources." He grabbed the door, letting her lead the way to the kitchen. "You good with dogs?"
"If the dogs are good with me," TJ answered, falling in stride with him as they headed for the stairs. "Stark's dog, right?" It was easier to call her by her last name than her first, all things considered. "What kind is it?"
"Mutt. Papillon and something else. And she'll be good with you. Buttercup is better behaved than Stark." Bucky smirked.
TJ chuckled. "Yeah, that's a high bar."
Bucky laughed. "Have you met her yet or are you going off of Starks past?"
"Starks past," TJ confirmed, smiling, "and some heavy duty googling. Playing spot the differences, you know?"
"That must keep you busy often."
"You know, it actually gets old pretty fast," TJ answered, smile fading for a moment. Then it sharpened again. "Until something throws you for a curve, anyway."
"I can only imagine," he said wryly. The world was different enough with years gone. Bucky didn't want to add alternate timelines to that headache.
***
TJ had dropped the snacks and energy drink on the nearest desk, upon entering the room, and crouched down to hold a three-fingered hand out to Buttercup invitingly, and she was chatting to her with an easy smile. "Come on, girl. I'm good people."
Bucky lifted Buttercup out of her crate and walked her closer to TJ. "It's okay," he assured, giving the pup permission to go to her. "You want to hold her?"
"Sure," TJ answered with a grin, holding her hands out and cradling Buttercup to her when she was deposited in them. "Hey there, honey. I'm TJ. How're you doing?" she cooed at the dog as she petted her, TJ's own tail swinging languidly, happily behind her.
Bucky grinned and he sat down on his bed, twisting the cap off an energy drink. “She’s a peach. It’s good having her here. I’m pretty sure she’s training me to be a better roommate when they eventually stick someone in here.”
TJ remained crouched on the floor, completely at ease in the position, as she cuddled the dog. "How long have you had her?"
“Few months.” Buttercup showed up after Bucky let Natasha remove his death-trap arm. Waking from the pod was bad, but removing the arm proved a larger trigger for Bucky’s night terrors. This tiny dog could at least warn Natasha before he started breaking shit in her spare room. And sometimes wake Bucky before he ever got to that point. “So your alternate worlds. Was I ever part of this school before?”
"Not that I know of," TJ answered, still petting and cuddling the dog as she talked. "A lot of people in this world are younger than they usually are, in my experience. I mean, I'm older than my dad here." Her tail curled in the air at that, then curled up around her feet. "You and Steve and Tony - I'm used to you all having twenty, thirty years over me. Biologically, I mean." Because obviously, in terms of birthdays, Steve and Bucky were way older still. "And you weren't an X-Man, so you were only tangentially linked to the school. People you knew."
That answered another question. “Ah. So Steve made it. At least somewhere out there he did.”
"Apparently there's a universe out there for every single option you can think of," TJ answered with a quick purse of her lips, tail twitching. That was both a comfort, and really not.
“So like. A universe where we’re all made of LEGOs.” On the list of pop culture to catch up on there may or may not have been a viewing of the LEGO movie.
"An infinity of universes where we're all made of LEGOs," TJ confirmed with a twist of her lips. It wasn't the way Reed Richards would have explained it, but he'd dumbed it down for her enough that she thought she got it. "Probably for the best we didn't stop by any of them."
“Sounds like a tough job, exploring alternate worlds. With that much possibility kind of hard to accept living in a shit timeline.”
"Whose timeline are you calling shit?" TJ retorted with a half smile, and pressed a kiss on the top of Buttercup's head before letting go of her to grab the snacks and join Bucky on his bed. She sat crosslegged, perfectly at ease, and opened a bag of chips. "It was okay, really. As much as getting torn out of your home could be. We were a tight group - and we were all in the same boat. Some missions were tougher than others."
He figured his own timeline was the shit one, but no need to drive that thought. “I hope it’s good here. It’s hard to lose people you trust.”
"It is," TJ confirmed, holding his gaze for a beat. He would get it, given his history. "But this is a good place. If I'm not going to get back home," and that thought still really hurt, but she was ignoring that, "well, it could be way worse."
“You’ve got plenty of time for it to work out.” Bucky leaned back against the wall. “You still trying to save the world in your spare time, or just hanging out at school right now?”
Time. He would know, wouldn't he? So TJ took his words to heart, more than she would have with most people. Before, of course, his next question made her grin, fangs flashing. "Being an X-Man is in my DNA, right up there with the X-gene," she answered decisively, and happily. "Not that this world needs us very much. Even the Skrull are happy to leave us be. But yeah, I still fight when I'm needed. I wouldn't know how to do anything else."
He hummed thoughtfully at that. "It's hard to remember the last time I fought for something good."
TJ made a thoughtful sound, then asked, "You wanna tell me about your life some? I've known other versions of you, but I don't know you. Educated guesses are still guesses, and I... I kinda hate getting tripped up in alt-world preconceptions." It happened all the time, and it really was horrible.
“Does the Winter Soldier exist in your worlds?” Bucky asked.
"Yeah," TJ confirmed with a nod. "In my world, in some other worlds. What does it mean to you?"
He took a breath and then laid his cards down. “I was born in 1930. When I was a kid I fought with some of the best people a guy could know. Back when you could say ‘I’m doing the right thing’ because the alternative was labor camps and mass graves. I saw a lot of shit. And then I should have died. Because my body didn’t know when to quit. And they found me, and they made me the Winter Soldier. And I put more good people into the ground than I’ve saved.”
TJ nodded silently, the look in her yellow eyes serious, but devoid of pity. It was pretty much what she would've guessed, what she'd gathered had happened to the Bucky in her world. Still, she wasn't going to assume. "Brainwashed?"
“Yeah. Reprogrammed,” he agreed hollowly.
"I'm sorry," TJ said simply, honestly. Her tail was still on the blanket behind her. "That sucks. But you're back to yourself." There was an inquisitive lilt to the end of that sentence, if he wanted to tell her about how that happened, too.
"Yeah, Stark found me. Spoils of war, my cryo got misplaced a while ago." He rubbed his wrist. "Now that she's replaced the arm it's less likely they'll track me."
"How'd your head get fixed?" The arm was the easy part, TJ figured.
"Time, I guess. I was in there a couple of decades and she didn't reprogram me when she popped me out so I was disoriented as fuck, but I didn't have a mission." Bucky was pretty sure his healing factor was part of what saved him. His brain was another part of him trying to repair damage. Cryo slowed him down, but he'd been out for months now. "Seeing Howard jarred some memories free. And it's been a clusterfuck of new memories waking up each week."
"The Professor could probably help smooth out the ride, if he isn't already?" TJ offered. Though she wouldn't be surprised if Bucky didn't trust him to. Kids who hadn't been raised with a telepath grandfather figure around tended not to trust them inside their heads - especially when they'd had serious shit happen to them. Never mind what Bucky had gone through. TJ had gone though a lot of messed up shit, but she'd never been reprogrammed. That had to be the ultimate suck.
"I don't want him in my head," Bucky said quickly. "As long as I don't hurt anyone, I'll work through this."
TJ nodded in easy acceptance. "Cool. And, you ever want to talk to me when the going gets bad, I'm around." And if it ever got so bad he did hurt people, she'd be there to take him down. Or try to, anyway, but given where they were, she doubted she'd be on her own, so it would all be fine.
“Thanks, TJ,” he said quietly. It was good having someone around that already knew what he was. Made talking about it a lot easier.
"Any time," she told him with a small smile, yellow eyes glinting warmly. She'd vaguely known the Bucky back home, and she hadn't expected to like this one so much, but here she went. "Whatever stuff is going on in your brain, I won't let it phase me. I'm there, whenever you need. Now, help me get through all this junk," she encouraged him, tail gesturing at the amount of junk food they'd brought over.
“You got it,” Bucky answered.
TJ was just done with her usual gym routine, and left the machines behind to go and pick up her water bottle. The doors to the gym opened and she smirked at the sight of one teenaged Bucky. So weird that he would already have lost the arm. She'd read up all about this world's Steve Rogers since his arrival, of course.
"Hey, Bucks," she greeted him hopefully, after taking a much needed drink of water. She was dressed in a sports bra and sports shorts, because why would she wear more clothing than that. "Ready to take me up on my offer?" Spar and chat, of course. He would be a fun opponent, and she was getting so restless these days.
“Hey TJ,” he greeted in return, curious how well she knew other versions of him given that familiarity. “I’m ready to see what you’ve got.”
"Awesome," TJ stated, flashing him a grin. She took another drink of water as she stepped towards the mats, tail swinging happily behind her. "How've you been liking the school?"
He snorted softly. “It’s bizarre. But good, I guess?”
"You guess?" TJ prodded, putting her bottle down and stepping onto the mats. Bizarre was par for the course, really.
Bucky tossed his stuff down and headed over to join her. “Too soon to form a solid opinion. Does the too good to be true feeling ever fade?”
"Couldn't tell you," TJ answered, turning back to face him, and tilting her head to one side, then the other. She'd been working out, sure, but she still didn't want to get into a spar with a stiff neck. "I was born to it."
He smiled, bouncing lightly on his feet to test the mat. “I want all the juicy universe traveling gossip, but feel free to share your story. Where did the mysterious lady before me come from?”
TJ snorted in amusement. "Nowhere they ever called her a lady, that's for sure." She settled into a fighting stance, tail swinging slowly from side to side. "It's just like I said. I come from a different world. Most of the teenage mutants I know here are adults there." When they were even mutants. But, well, one revelation at a time, and once his guard was up, TJ moved in quickly for a feint and a jab, testing the waters since she didn't actually know if his mutation made him winter soldier like.
He moved easily, avoiding the jab. When it came to defense, Bucky didn't curb his skill. When it came to returning the jab he did hold himself back, testing her response, but making sure he wasn't going to harm her. "So this place is pretty weird then?"
TJ had been training her entire life, as far as she could remember, and while she hadn't had many opportunities to put her training into practice here, she had been keeping it up, between spars with other students and sessions in the Danger Room. So she easily deflected the jab, redirecting it rather than blocking it, and used Bucky's momentum to try and catch him off guard with another punch, amping up the difficulty a notch. "I've seen weirder. At least Ch - Xavier's here." She didn't slip and call him Charles anymore, most of the time, but her focus was on the spar more than her words, right now. "At least the school exists."
When she caught him with the punch Bucky grinned. He was all for raising the difficulty if someone could handle it. It was a good challenge coupled with conversation. “It’s good you have something familiar to come home to.”
That was a big word, home. It wasn't completely wrong, as a concept, but it wasn't quite right either. But in the middle of a spar was the last moment to examine that, if TJ was ever going to. Not when he grinned like that when her punch caught him, which promised that things were about to get interesting. TJ didn't wait for him to make the next attack (when did she ever hold back), but went on the offensive again, moving faster, holding back less - but still holding off on the acrobatics, for now. Gotta keep an ace up her sleeve. "This place's been good," she confirmed as she moved.
“Seems like there are a few people around here out of sync with time.” Bucky speeded up and he moved to sweep her leg.
It sounded just enough like what the Timebroker had told them all (you've been unhinged from time) that TJ frowned, distracted, and didn't see the sweep coming. She ended up on her back, breath shocked out of her, but she immediately whirled into action, staying on the ground as she struck out with her legs to return the favor and sweep his.
She moved fast, and Bucky rolled with it, trying to get away from the tangle of her legs before she could catch him. He knew all about agile women and the advantage they had once they locked you close range.
TJ couldn't help but smile when he moved out of range before she could catch him. She rolled backwards, up into a hand stand and back on her feet in a second. Now they were talking, and her smile had become an enthusiastic grin as she leapt at him - no more holding back.
Conversation went on hiatus as they threw down. By the time they were finished Bucky accepted TJ's hand as she helped him up from the mat. "We're doing this again," he said with a satisfied sigh. "Thanks for that."
He went to sit on the bench, grabbing his water bottle and knocking it back.
"No, thank you," TJ assured him, a little out of breath and deeply satisfied. The end of her tail curled around her own bottle, picked it up and dropped it in her hand. "I totally needed that."
She flashed him a grin, then took a long, much-needed drink.
"Been a long time since anyone's kept up with me on a mat. Stark thinks I go hard on her with self-defense training, but I'm pretty gentle. All said."
They were alone in the gym, so TJ went ahead and asked, "You ever gone up against her in the suit?" She was totally assuming it was her in the suit, yeah. Everything else was such a good fit, gender notwithstanding.
Bucky's lips curved up. "I need to schedule time with her 'body guard' in the danger room. The suit can take a lot, but it's easy to get overconfident. So that's a thing where you're from too?"
"Not just where I'm from," TJ assured him, and took another drink. "It's a pretty standard thing across a bunch of worlds. Though it's the first time I've seen Stark be a woman." Best get that out of the way now, she figured.
His brows went up. "Oh shit. Really?"
"Yup," TJ confirmed. "Tony Stark's a household name."
"Tony." Oh, that was just weird. "Shit. I'd wonder how she'd like that as a nickname, but honestly... if she was actually a Tony I'm pretty sure she'd be a very different person. Rich guys get away with so much more shit then women."
"Apparently so," TJ confirmed. She'd done her fair bit of googling Natasha, of course. "You wanna hit the kitchen? You can grill me about alternate stuff, but I'm starving right now." And she hadn't even used her hex bolts. Definitely a good spar.
"Sounds good. Although, depending on what you know, there are some things I don't want to discuss in front of other students."
"Good point." TJ nodded, and came up with a new battle plan. "Grab food, relocate somewhere private?"
"That works." Bucky arched a brow. "Technically I have a room to myself right now, but do you want to go somewhere that sounds less like a proposition?"
TJ smirked. "Technically I have a room to myself, too. But we can find an empty room somewhere, if that sounds like too much of a proposition."
"That sounds like a waste of resources." He grabbed the door, letting her lead the way to the kitchen. "You good with dogs?"
"If the dogs are good with me," TJ answered, falling in stride with him as they headed for the stairs. "Stark's dog, right?" It was easier to call her by her last name than her first, all things considered. "What kind is it?"
"Mutt. Papillon and something else. And she'll be good with you. Buttercup is better behaved than Stark." Bucky smirked.
TJ chuckled. "Yeah, that's a high bar."
Bucky laughed. "Have you met her yet or are you going off of Starks past?"
"Starks past," TJ confirmed, smiling, "and some heavy duty googling. Playing spot the differences, you know?"
"That must keep you busy often."
"You know, it actually gets old pretty fast," TJ answered, smile fading for a moment. Then it sharpened again. "Until something throws you for a curve, anyway."
"I can only imagine," he said wryly. The world was different enough with years gone. Bucky didn't want to add alternate timelines to that headache.
TJ had dropped the snacks and energy drink on the nearest desk, upon entering the room, and crouched down to hold a three-fingered hand out to Buttercup invitingly, and she was chatting to her with an easy smile. "Come on, girl. I'm good people."
Bucky lifted Buttercup out of her crate and walked her closer to TJ. "It's okay," he assured, giving the pup permission to go to her. "You want to hold her?"
"Sure," TJ answered with a grin, holding her hands out and cradling Buttercup to her when she was deposited in them. "Hey there, honey. I'm TJ. How're you doing?" she cooed at the dog as she petted her, TJ's own tail swinging languidly, happily behind her.
Bucky grinned and he sat down on his bed, twisting the cap off an energy drink. “She’s a peach. It’s good having her here. I’m pretty sure she’s training me to be a better roommate when they eventually stick someone in here.”
TJ remained crouched on the floor, completely at ease in the position, as she cuddled the dog. "How long have you had her?"
“Few months.” Buttercup showed up after Bucky let Natasha remove his death-trap arm. Waking from the pod was bad, but removing the arm proved a larger trigger for Bucky’s night terrors. This tiny dog could at least warn Natasha before he started breaking shit in her spare room. And sometimes wake Bucky before he ever got to that point. “So your alternate worlds. Was I ever part of this school before?”
"Not that I know of," TJ answered, still petting and cuddling the dog as she talked. "A lot of people in this world are younger than they usually are, in my experience. I mean, I'm older than my dad here." Her tail curled in the air at that, then curled up around her feet. "You and Steve and Tony - I'm used to you all having twenty, thirty years over me. Biologically, I mean." Because obviously, in terms of birthdays, Steve and Bucky were way older still. "And you weren't an X-Man, so you were only tangentially linked to the school. People you knew."
That answered another question. “Ah. So Steve made it. At least somewhere out there he did.”
"Apparently there's a universe out there for every single option you can think of," TJ answered with a quick purse of her lips, tail twitching. That was both a comfort, and really not.
“So like. A universe where we’re all made of LEGOs.” On the list of pop culture to catch up on there may or may not have been a viewing of the LEGO movie.
"An infinity of universes where we're all made of LEGOs," TJ confirmed with a twist of her lips. It wasn't the way Reed Richards would have explained it, but he'd dumbed it down for her enough that she thought she got it. "Probably for the best we didn't stop by any of them."
“Sounds like a tough job, exploring alternate worlds. With that much possibility kind of hard to accept living in a shit timeline.”
"Whose timeline are you calling shit?" TJ retorted with a half smile, and pressed a kiss on the top of Buttercup's head before letting go of her to grab the snacks and join Bucky on his bed. She sat crosslegged, perfectly at ease, and opened a bag of chips. "It was okay, really. As much as getting torn out of your home could be. We were a tight group - and we were all in the same boat. Some missions were tougher than others."
He figured his own timeline was the shit one, but no need to drive that thought. “I hope it’s good here. It’s hard to lose people you trust.”
"It is," TJ confirmed, holding his gaze for a beat. He would get it, given his history. "But this is a good place. If I'm not going to get back home," and that thought still really hurt, but she was ignoring that, "well, it could be way worse."
“You’ve got plenty of time for it to work out.” Bucky leaned back against the wall. “You still trying to save the world in your spare time, or just hanging out at school right now?”
Time. He would know, wouldn't he? So TJ took his words to heart, more than she would have with most people. Before, of course, his next question made her grin, fangs flashing. "Being an X-Man is in my DNA, right up there with the X-gene," she answered decisively, and happily. "Not that this world needs us very much. Even the Skrull are happy to leave us be. But yeah, I still fight when I'm needed. I wouldn't know how to do anything else."
He hummed thoughtfully at that. "It's hard to remember the last time I fought for something good."
TJ made a thoughtful sound, then asked, "You wanna tell me about your life some? I've known other versions of you, but I don't know you. Educated guesses are still guesses, and I... I kinda hate getting tripped up in alt-world preconceptions." It happened all the time, and it really was horrible.
“Does the Winter Soldier exist in your worlds?” Bucky asked.
"Yeah," TJ confirmed with a nod. "In my world, in some other worlds. What does it mean to you?"
He took a breath and then laid his cards down. “I was born in 1930. When I was a kid I fought with some of the best people a guy could know. Back when you could say ‘I’m doing the right thing’ because the alternative was labor camps and mass graves. I saw a lot of shit. And then I should have died. Because my body didn’t know when to quit. And they found me, and they made me the Winter Soldier. And I put more good people into the ground than I’ve saved.”
TJ nodded silently, the look in her yellow eyes serious, but devoid of pity. It was pretty much what she would've guessed, what she'd gathered had happened to the Bucky in her world. Still, she wasn't going to assume. "Brainwashed?"
“Yeah. Reprogrammed,” he agreed hollowly.
"I'm sorry," TJ said simply, honestly. Her tail was still on the blanket behind her. "That sucks. But you're back to yourself." There was an inquisitive lilt to the end of that sentence, if he wanted to tell her about how that happened, too.
"Yeah, Stark found me. Spoils of war, my cryo got misplaced a while ago." He rubbed his wrist. "Now that she's replaced the arm it's less likely they'll track me."
"How'd your head get fixed?" The arm was the easy part, TJ figured.
"Time, I guess. I was in there a couple of decades and she didn't reprogram me when she popped me out so I was disoriented as fuck, but I didn't have a mission." Bucky was pretty sure his healing factor was part of what saved him. His brain was another part of him trying to repair damage. Cryo slowed him down, but he'd been out for months now. "Seeing Howard jarred some memories free. And it's been a clusterfuck of new memories waking up each week."
"The Professor could probably help smooth out the ride, if he isn't already?" TJ offered. Though she wouldn't be surprised if Bucky didn't trust him to. Kids who hadn't been raised with a telepath grandfather figure around tended not to trust them inside their heads - especially when they'd had serious shit happen to them. Never mind what Bucky had gone through. TJ had gone though a lot of messed up shit, but she'd never been reprogrammed. That had to be the ultimate suck.
"I don't want him in my head," Bucky said quickly. "As long as I don't hurt anyone, I'll work through this."
TJ nodded in easy acceptance. "Cool. And, you ever want to talk to me when the going gets bad, I'm around." And if it ever got so bad he did hurt people, she'd be there to take him down. Or try to, anyway, but given where they were, she doubted she'd be on her own, so it would all be fine.
“Thanks, TJ,” he said quietly. It was good having someone around that already knew what he was. Made talking about it a lot easier.
"Any time," she told him with a small smile, yellow eyes glinting warmly. She'd vaguely known the Bucky back home, and she hadn't expected to like this one so much, but here she went. "Whatever stuff is going on in your brain, I won't let it phase me. I'm there, whenever you need. Now, help me get through all this junk," she encouraged him, tail gesturing at the amount of junk food they'd brought over.
“You got it,” Bucky answered.