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missmara13 ([personal profile] missmara13) wrote2017-12-15 07:38 pm

24 Gifts Of 2017 - Gift #15 - Connections (Ryan & Bucky Verse)

Anther day, another gift! This one is more of my 'verse were Bucky Barnes, on the run after the events of 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier', happened to meet Ryan Atwood, on the run from Hydra, and they teamed up to kick hydra ass.



Bucky watched Ryan work, his holographic interface filling the air in front of him with what Bucky knew was a computer screen, but he still found it confusing. He found most modern tech confusing, and Ryan teased him for it sometimes, but he also tried his best to explain it without talking to Bucky like he was a child, which Bucky appreciated.

Ryan was smart, smarter than anyone Bucky had ever met, and clever too, quick on his feet and always ready to improvise a device to buy them some time. He had also proven to be exactly the same kind of stupid brave that Steve had always been, and as frustrating as that was, it had been a big part of why Bucky had come back to himself, why he identified himself as Bucky again. The familiar feeling of protecting the stupidly brave had fixed him.

"It's creepy when you stare," Ryan said suddenly, not looking up.

"You're getting better at that," Bucky said with a smirk.

"I have a good teacher," Ryan replied. "Something's going down in New York," he said. "The top couple floors of the Stark Tower just blew up."

Bucky moved closer, leaning over Ryan's shoulder to look at the news reports he'd pulled up. "Anything about..." he began.

"The entire Avengers team is mobilized in Manhattan, all acounted for," Ryan said. "Captain America's currently kicking some ass in Times Square."

"Attaboy," Bucky said, watching the live feed Ryan had pulled up. "It's Hydra," Bucky said as the camera zoomed in on Captain America, on Steve, and the man shooting at him. "Mikhailovich."

Ryan's hands stilled for a moment. "What do you wanna do?"

"What can we do?" Bucky replied.

Ryan nodded and started typing again, fingers flying over both the keyboard on the desk and the air in front of him, sliding things around on the holographic screen. "I'm going to distract Mikhailovich," Ryan said, and on the newsfeed the reporter suddenly started babbling in confusion as most of the billboard's starting streaming every bit of information Ryan had on Mikhailovich. Name, known aliases, age, family ties, how long he's worked for Hydra. How many people he'd killed for them. Ryan even tossed in a picture of himself and Trey when they were kids, a bright red 'kill confirmed' over Trey's side of the picture and a red 'targetted' over Ryan's side.

Bucky inhaled sharply at that, his human hand going to lightly clutch Ryan's shoulder as he tore his eyes from the screen to scan the room and the windows for any threats.

"Easy does it, Bucky, it's just to make sure anyone who bitches about the damage will get called out for bitching about the Captain taking out a guy who kills kids. The court of public opinion is one of the greatest weapon superheroes have," Ryan said.

"It worked," Bucky said, seeing Mikhailovich falter for a moment and Steve take him out with a solid punch to the head.

"Hydra's in retreat," Ryan reported.

"Can you put up another message?"

"Anything you want."

"With you to the end of the line."

Ryan's fingers stilled for a moment, having heard the story from Bucky a few weeks before. He glanced over his shoulder. "You sure about that?"

"Yeah," Bucky confirmed, watching as Ryan put up the message and Steve saw it, a brilliant smile coming across his face as he saluted the sign, just like he used to when Bucky took a particularly good sniper shot in the war. "Pack up, we're going to New York."

~~~

They chose an old factory in Brooklyn as their base of operations, with Ryan setting up his computer system within five minutes of arriving, up in the old offices that overlook the factory floor, where Bucky was moving equipment around to give them space to train. Now that they were in the city, they weren't likely to stay at the factory for long, but Bucky wanted room to continue training Ryan at hand to hand and evasion. So far the teenager had managed to get the simpler evasion techniques down easily, disappearing into a crowd smoothly enough that even Bucky had difficulty tracking him again, though he always managed in the end.

The hand to hand was harder, Ryan had a reluctance to kill anyone, and while it put him at risk, Bucky would prefer the teenager not have to become a killer, even in self defense. Besides if anyone tracked them down, the maze of equipment would make it harder for them to be tracked inside.

"Bucky, there's a message up in Times Square, I think it's for you," Ryan called from the office.

Bucky took the stairs three at a time, and when he got to the office he grinned at the message.

Could use a roommate this time around.

"In joke?" Ryan guessed.

"After his mom died, I tried to convince him to share an apartment with me, he refused, too much pride."

"What now?"

"Can you get me his number?"

"Can I... are you okay? Memory going again? This is me you're talking to," Ryan mocked, already pulling up the information.

Once Bucky had the number, he made the call, hesitating when Steve answered. "What, being America's hero is too lonely for you?" Bucky finally said.

There was silence for a moment, then Steve laughed, big and loud and a little bit on the hysterical side. "It's lonely at the top," he finally said, still laughing slightly.

"Remember the industrial laundry your mom worked at?" Bucky said. "You weren't allowed to go in 'cause of the chemicals, so I'd take lunch in for your mom."

"I remember."

"I'm there. Come alone."

"The rest of the team is here," Steve said. "They won't let me. What about me and one other? Just one, so they'll know I have backup, in case it's a trap."

Bucky considered, glancing at Ryan who was pretending he couldn't hear every word being said. "One other. The redhead from the bridge."

"Why her?"

"Because if I do have enough programming to be a threat to you, she's the best bet to kill me."

"Do you think..."

"No, I don't. But it'll reassure them."

"I'll be there within the hour."

"Bring food," Bucky said before hanging up.

The End

The 'bring food' is because between Bucky's own super soldier metabolism, and Ryan's teenage appetite, they are both pretty much always hungry. Yes, Ryan is about to meet the rest of the Avengers. They're gonna love him... lol... there's lots of snark between Ryan and Tony Stark coming... as an aside, my Tony does NOT hold Bucky's actions as the Winter Soldier, including killing Howard and Maria Stark, against him. He uses simple logic and reason to understand that if Bucky had any control of himself, he wouldn't have killed someone who had once been a friend... because my headcanon, even though we didn't see it in the movies, is that Bucky ended up spending a lot of time testing some of Howard's inventions, including some upgrades to his sniper scope, so he considered Howard a friend. And Howard and Peggy used to tell Tony stories about Steve, Bucky, and the Howling Commandoes during the war as bedtime stories... so Tony knows Bucky was not in control of his actions.

Can you tell I dislike how they wrote Tony in regards to Bucky during Civil War? lol...