Kevin can be a tiny bit unhinged online. As a treat. Part 40
Long time no see! Done with my exams and currently getting settled for the new term, so still in a bit of stress but I wanted to get this out so here ya go
Also I am pat in this one. For some reason younger gays come to me for advice online all the time and idk why. I have been out (as bisexual) since I was 14 in theory but I’ve only started seriously dating women for a bit over a year (when I came out as a lesbian) so like idk how to help either I’m sorry I’m a poser 😭
My Christmas Present to the wonderful @d00dle-arts who is ever so patient greatful for my eyes being bigger than my stomach. It's not so much a group pic as it is a family portrait now, but she seduced my bbeg vessel of Tiamat and helped her patch things up with her daughters, effectively turning Nyx... neutral??
Someone asked if “old Bucky” is still in there, or if he’s too broken & damaged.
I think old Bucky is in there inasmuch as any of us remain our 20 year old selves after a while. I’m not 20 year old me anymore. There’s remnants though: little mannerisms, ways of being, interests, devotions that have remained. But life and experience and growth and trauma have shaped me into someone else, just as they do for us all. I have to think that for Bucky, decades of torture and brainwashing would mean that he is changed significantly from the young man he used to be—but also that being wiped over and over again means that he hasn’t been able to grow or change much. His experiences, minus the most traumatic parts, are literally wiped away before he can grow from them. So I’d think that whatever he’s building from now is some sort of amalgamation of his 20 year old self + deep, deep trauma. I suspect that he feels both very very young, and very, very old all at once, without the benefit of a life to connect it all.
Based off this story I wrote (X) and these prompts (X)
The engine purring outside the window shouldn’t exist. The realization comes to Gerard slowly, entering his mind through a thick fog. He’d been up half the night going over the incident reports Kari turned in and then, seemingly, up the other half drinking about it. He’s never been able to figure out how simple, Delta class assignments turn into Apocalyptic class ones in Kari’s hands. If he doesn’t come up with an answer soon, it could be both their jobs on the line.
There’s a fusion engine, Gerard reminds himself, in 2019 Earth.
He’s not conscious of getting to his feet. Sometimes his cybernetic enhancements are funny like that and seem to anticipate his needs before even he does. He rushes to the window, throws the blackout curtains open, and then throws himself to the floor in the same breath. The sun is so much brighter in the past than in the future where the satellite belt at least mitigates it. He rubs at his eyes, swearing, and wills his contacts to darken. Only when he feels the tingle at the nape of his neck that indicates they’re working does he try, once again, to look outside.
“Hey,” Kari says, hanging outside his window. She’s not hanging from the ledge which would have been only mildly unacceptable. She’s hanging from a thin, black stick, almost six feet long, with a complex array of fibers attached to one end. It almost looks like a broom in this era if the people were seven feet tall and also in the habit of using twigs to sweep. “Can I talk to you?”
“I don’t know what to say,” Gerard says, staring. According to the display that appears when he blinks twice, it’s early enough in the morning that very few people will be up to see his trainee break sixteen time travel codes. She’s not wearing a wearing a harness and he feels the nanites in his bloodstream heat. “I don’t know what to say first.”
“You weren’t answering your phone,” Kari says. She blows a lock of wild, brown hair out of her face, showing off that she’s once again forgotten to put on her dermal covering. The circuits across her forehead blink merrily at him. “Or your door.”
Gerard blinks. He always answers his phone. He looks down at his right forearm and nearly smacks himself when he sees he’d left his dermal cover on, too tired to perform his normal nightly routine. He swipes his left thumb across the seam and nearly throws the cover across the room when it pops off. Underneath, there are four blinking lights, two red, two blue. He’s not only missed calls from Kari, but also from his supervisor. “Nitweeds.”
Kari nods and adjusts her grip on her board. The Stick wasn’t a popular model when it came out in 3201, but it was cheaper than any other hover-device on the market. “I know, I kind of thought you were dead, but then I realized no one could kill you in this era.”
“Anyone can kill us in this era,” Gerard corrects automatically. He narrows his eyes, activating the scope-feature so he can scan the buildings across the way for primitive snipers. “Anyone.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Kari says. She adjusts her grip again and grimaces. “Can I come in, boss? I’m not wearing my riding gloves.”
Gerard steps aside, still eyeing the street outside warily. His first trainer died because of a poisoned, Chinese arrow. He’s not going to make the same mistake of underestimating Earth ancestors. “So report, Kari. Why are you waking me up three hours before we’re supposed to meet?”
Kari snaps to attention, both hands sticking to her sides in a salute. “Sir! There’s a criminal in the hotel.”
Gerard stares at her. “Yes, that’s why we’re here. There’s a lot of criminals in this hotel and it’s our responsibility to make sure they all make it out alive.” 2019 is an extraordinarily tumultuous time in American politics and it’s their job to protect to keep it that way for just one more year.
“No, I know the mission, I mean that there’s a criminal” Kari stresses. She leans forward, modulating her voice to a whisper. “Like one of ours.”
Gerard’s heavy brows snap down. That’s outside of mission expectations. 2019 is a sealed year for a reason and even illegal Time watches are programmed to skip over it. They’d had to get special permission from six intergalactic federations to come here for just one week. “What? That’s impossible, there’s--Who?”
“Renea.”
Gerard shorts out. Or, maybe, he blacks out. Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between his biological failures and his technological ones. When he comes to, he’s ripping down the hall of the hotel in his underwear, cybernetics on full display and not caring a bit. He stumbles for a moment and then regains his footing, bursting into the hotel stairwell. “Where?”
Kari nearly crashes into him. “The--the first floor. Sir, is she hostile? I know she’s marked as Cataclysmic class--”
“It’d be easy if she was hostile,” Gerard snarls. They’re on the seventh floor. He charges downwards. “She’s not here for us.”
Renea No-Last-Name is one of the most prolific Time Criminals they have in their registry. No one’s sure how she as access to so many Time streams and there’s no clear motivation for what year she hits and what she takes. In any other case, they could mark her down as a petty crook or, at best, an art thief. Her ability to travel through Time makes her Gerard’s problem and her lack of hostility means that she can be anywhere doing anything.
“She nearly prevented Mount St. Helen’s from erupting,” Gerard tells Kari as they hit the third floor. “When I came across her in Rome, she’d nearly convinced Brutus to not stab Caesar.”
The implications of that aren’t lost on Kari. She pales significantly and leaps down the last two steps to the second floor. “Nitweeds.”
“Nitweeds,” Gerard agrees grimly. He slams his way out of the stairwell and into the lobby, nearly bowling over a display of doughnuts in his haste. The business people grazing around the table gasp and he hears a few of them demand the hotel staff call the police. “Where was she heading?!”
“To the pool,” Kari gasps. She staggers a bit more than he thinks necessary when a woman in a power suit dives out in front of her. He makes a mental note to have Kari do more sprints. She’s falling behind.
He bounds past six more mortified politicians before he gets to the pool. It’s far too early in the morning for it to be open, but he can see a woman standing beside the water, her back to them, talking on a very primitive phone.
Gerard lunges for the gate. He doesn’t expect it when it remains locked and bangs his head against the wrought iron bars hard enough that his reinforced skeleton sings. Kari, a beat behind him, fails to stop in time and slams him into the gate again.
The woman by the pull turns, still talking. “--going to have to call you back. Just remember that I’m very disappointed and I expect to be reimbursed. In full.” She presses a button (a button!) on the phone and slips it into her jean’s pockets. “Gerard, right?”
Gerard yanks on the bars, forgetting that he didn’t charge his strength-enhancing cybernetics the night before. He’d forgotten. Careless. “Kari, open this gate!”
Kari flutters beside him. “It needs a key, boss!”
“Relax, agents,” Renea says, rolling her eyes. “I’m not here to mess up your mission, or whatever.”
“I know,” Gerard says. He shoves Kari behind him. “Go get the key!”
“Oooh,” Kari says, hands flying around. “But--but if she’s dangerous--”
“I’m super dangerous,” Renea assures the younger woman with a wink. Kari whimpers.
“Go,” Gerard commands. He waits until Kari sprints away to finally address Renea. “You’re in a Dead Zone, Renea. That’s another life sentence to your time.” He bares his teeth. “You’ve got 46 lives, right?”
“It’s actually up to 52,” Renea says. She doesn’t sound concerned. “You missed a bunch of stuff when Elizabeth Bathory kidnapped a Time Agent.”
“What?” Gerard can’t imagine that. Elizabeth Bathory’s lifetime is closed. She wouldn’t have the resources to kidnap a Time Agent. And if she did--no. No, it didn’t happen. “You’re stalling for time.”
Renea looks impressed. “Yeah, I am. Chin misses having you as a partner Gerard. He always said you were very talented.”
Gerard feels his face drain of color. ‘What did you do to Chin?” His old partner had taken a desk job for a few turns after a particularly bad run in with a thief they never caught. He bangs on the gate. “If you hurt him, I swear I--”
“Hurt him?” Renea interrupts. She seems terribly amused. “Oh, I did worse than that.”
“What did you do?” Gerard demands. Maybe it’s not too late to save Chin. Maybe she hasn’t done anything to him yet.
Renea swaggers up to the bars, leaning in so that Gerard can see every freckle smattered across the bridge of her nose. “I married him.”
Gerard blinks. “What?”
But before Renea can answer, the Time watch around her wrist beeps and she’s torn away from 2019 leaving only the echo of her mocking laughter behind.
