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storyunrelated · 6 years ago

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Run For It! - Head Hunt

Today I was feeling particularly misanthropic, and as often happens at such times my thoughts turned to Run For It!, given that the whole thing is basically a longform expression of my extreme distaste for humanity.

And so I added to it. In particular, I added the following two pieces, which are under the cut because they might be a little on the longer side for some people (ahem) and also because some people might find them violent.

I have no frame of reference for either of these things, and you won’t read it anyway.

The Head-Hunt was one of the grislier and lesser-featured events of the Run, and so therefore a popular one that people wanted to see all the time because people have no concept of self-moderation or too much of a good thing.

It involved far, far fewer Entrants than many of the other events, which was the primary reason it was so rarely brought up. Those events that whittled down the roster of Entrants more efficiently were far preferred.Those in charge of such things preferred bodycounts in the hundreds. From a purely professional point of view.

But the Head-Hunt had fans in high places, too, and so it was that every so often it popped up, to the delight of all.

The rules were something like this:

Twenty Entrants were picked in a fashion that appeared random but was actually algorithmically tuned to cause maximum distress for those Entrants involved and maximum enjoyment for those at home.

These twenty Entrants were deployed into an appropriately disused area of the city (there was no shortage of these to choose from).

Each Entrant - in order to be allowed to leave alive - had to produce and deposit into a special basket the severed head of one of the other Entrants.

Tools were provided, though hidden and occasionally booby-trapped. For maximum enjoyment.

Time limit was two hours.

A simple enough concept, but it was as ever the intriguing interpersonal dynamics and dramatics it brought out of the Entrants that really got people’s attention.

Some of those involved might immediately lash out, but fail to achieve results on account of trying to decapitate someone with their bare hands.

Others might simply refuse to participate and curl up weeping in a corner.

Some might band together and rove in packs, figuring that co-operation of a sort would lead to a swifter resolution and mutual benefit, only to turn on one another later when the time limit started to bite.

All of these were, of course, a delight to watch.

On top of the basic and undiluted thrill of watching someone bawl their eyes out while sawing off their best-friend’s head with a boxcutter as a stern voice on a loudspeaker informed them how many seconds they had left to do it in.

You couldn’t put a price on that.

“Five minutes remaining, Entrants.”

Ezzy Bluff and Elrule Fluke had only been going out a week or so prior to becoming Entrants in the Run together, but had been friends longer than that. This mattered to some of those watching, but not all, and meant that when they were both picked out for the Head Hunt they stuck together.

Naturally, they were reluctant to kill one another, and figured that they could simply find two other Entrants and take their heads. They’d feel bad about it, but not as bad as they would if they turned on each other.

They had met with limited success. During the two-hour duration of the Head Hunt - nearly expired - they had barely seen another Entrant, let alone come near enough to try and decapitate one, and while Elrule had managed to find a very fearsome looking machete they had not yet had anything to use it on.

And time was, as mentioned, now running out.

“What’ll we do? What’ll we do?” Ezzy asked, eyes wide, hands wringing.

“We’ll find someone, don’t worry. There has to be someone else,” Elrule said, though he had no way of knowing this, obviously.

He was also wrong. There was no-one else. They were the last.

Everyone was watching them.

Digby Widget, a viewer, was watching them as they wasted precious time. He was not alone in this, but he serves as a fine example of what many at the time were thinking:

“Come on, you idiots. Do you really think anyone else is left? Hurry up and kill one another already, I need to take a piss,” he grunted to himself, scratching his balls and wiggling in his uncomfortably damp seat.

Ezzy and Elrule, obviously, could not hear Digby or indeed anyone else, and continued to act as though they had a chance to finish the event together.

“What’ll we do?” Ezzy asked again, not seeming to notice she was speaking at all, fingernails digging into her palm.

“Two minutes remaining, Entrants.”

It was then that it properly sunk in For Ezzy and Elrule, though it sunk in for Elrule before it did for Ezzy. He stopped suddenly and Ezzy bumped into him.

“El? What are you doing?” She asked. He was getting down onto his knees next to an abandoned and mould-blackened desk, resting his head on top of it as he flipped the machete around in his hand to thrust the grip towards Ezzy.

Then she got it.

“What- no, no El!”

“Do it Ezzy, you can do it. Do it and win the whole thing, I know you can,” he said, screwing his eyes shut and stretching out his neck.

“I can’t!”

“You have to! We’ll both die otherwise! You can do it.”

“I can’t!” She repeated, tears welling in her eyes.

“You have to. It’ll be okay. I know it’s not your fault. But you have to do it now.”

Ezzy, holding the machete in both hands as though it might turn around and bite her, knew that Elrule was right. If the time ran out they’d both be dead anyway. Still her stomach churned at the thought.

“I can’t,” she said again, quieter now though, resigned, throat tight.

“You have to,” Elrule said softly, reaching back for her.

She swallowed, resolve stiffened, thinking of her family.

“I’m sorry,” she said, raising the machete above her.

“I know.”

Her first swing had too much hesitation, and did not bite anywhere near deep enough.

Blood spurted, Elrule jerked, his legs kicked. Reflexively he tried to rise only - through sheer force of bastard will - to force himself back down again and to stay as still as possible, breath coming in clipped gasps.

Panicking, Ezzy swung again, harder this time, and the blade cut almost halfway through Elrule’s neck. His body went limp and his breaths became gurgles.

“I’m sorry!” She sobbed. “I’m so sorry! Oh God! Oh God!”

She then threw up down herself, not that it stopped her from continuing to hack away as though her life depended on it. Which it did.

Unfortunately for Ezzy Bluff, she was not as quick at cutting off Elrule’s head as she could have been, which meant that by the time she’d finally severed his spine and whatever other gristly bits might have got in the way, the time for the event had elapsed without her hearing the announcement.

As she sprinted - wild with grief to the point of incoherence, weeping and bawling and with snot streaming down her front, mingling with the bile, head held in front of her - towards the basket to deposit the head she was shot in the face by a robot with a very large gun. The majority of her face did not survive this.

Miraculously, a combination of her forward momentum and sheer good fortune caused Elrule’s head to go flying from Ezzy’s grip as her body jerked back, sail through the air and land perfectly in the basket.

Meaningless as far as the rules went, but as a spectacle you simply couldn’t have asked for better. Many of those at home couldn’t help but applaud.

Watching all of this with an expression of absolute delight plastered across his face, Digby Widget failed to notice that he’d moved in close enough for his nose to touch the screen or that his tongue had snaked to delicate tease at it, as though hoping to coax some of the misery through the pixels themselves.

He also failed to notice that he had lost control of his bladder.

“Wow…” he breathed, leaning back in his now much damper chair and shaking his head. “I have to tell everyone on the internet my opinion about this.”

And so it was, and so he did.

Digby Widget’s opinions were poorly formed and were received warmly.

Later, he changed his underpants, though he neglected to shower.

#Run for it!#Amwriting #Writblr #Writeblr #Writing

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italicwatches · 7 years ago

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Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online - Episode 08

So, uh, Tumblr’s gonna become a tire fire and then a ghost town, I’m guessing. …Where’re the fandom folks going? I’d kind of like to get in on the ground floor for once. Anyways, it’s Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, episode 08! Here we GO!

-We begin with that final countdown, the girls rally themselves, ready to war…And then the game BEGINS! They spawn in the Northwestern suburbs, right up on the edge of the battlefield…So now they’ve got to figure out their plan. The initial spawns show a pretty broad spread…

-The hills are too dangerous. That’s total sniper territory, long nightlines and all the cover’s low. There’s a stadium arena, and some large buildings…They could go into the mountains…All rough options. But LLENN starts to put together a plan, and gives Fukaziroh the orders. She is clearly not used to LLENN being so…take-charge.

-Right now they’re in a clean spot. They’ve got lots of cover and options, and they’re nearly halfway to the first scan, which will include team names. Best choice is to bunker down, see if anyone’s coming for them, and see where the fuck Pito is. They don’t need to win this, they just need to beat Pito. Everything else comes after.

-Opening!

-Looks like the town is pretty empty, when the scan comes up. Both of our girls hide down, and at a look…Things are shifting, lot of early movement Northwards, but nobody’s too close to them. People are trying to lock in their defensive positions before stretching out to fight. Now, which of these is Pito…in…

-Fuck me she’s in the Southeastern mountains. Pito and team SHINC both see LLENN’s location, as everyone starts putting together their plans.

-In the snowy mountains, team Memento Mori sees how the seed was played…The favorites are all scattered wide, in the four corners of the map. The company’s aiming to try and force them to have as many conflicts as possible before they reach each other. Understandable, but it’s gonna make things tricky…

-Fukaziroh gets very dramatic about it. But okay, there’s only one thing to do. Chart a course Southeast, hunt PM4 down, and crush anyone in their way.

-Episode 08! “Booby Trap”

-What’s the over-under on the word “booby” getting this flagged by the Algorithm, do you think? So, first step is to move down through the suburbs…When LLENN spots their first opponent. Five men in a pentagon formation. Plan’s simple. Just like they practiced. Fukaziroh will bombard, and then LLENN will sweep in during the confusion…Aaand then Fukaziroh runs into a mine!

-HER LEGS ARE FUCKING GONE

-THEY JUST AREN’T THERE ANYMORE

-HOW DOES THAT ONLY COST TWENTY FIVE PERCENT HP

-LLENN has to drag her ass out there by the luggage handles on her fuckin’ backpack, and LLENN starts trying to think. She knows that limbs should regrow after two minutes, but do they have that kind of time? And of course, the men who put down the mine heard it go off, and are investigating…So, uh, this is not ideal.

-Fukaziroh tries to tell her to abandon her and run. Never! Well, maybe if you die. But not before that! Stay low, stay quiet, and if all else fails, magdump.

-And LLENN bursts out of the front window with a cloak, flinging it aside to start spewing rounds into her enemies! The first one drops before she hits the ground! Number two eats a point blank headshot, and becomes an invulnerable human shield to block number three and give her room to pop him down the center! Gunfire coming, knife out, dash in, FOUR loses his man parts and then his neck! Two left! Five’s around the corner of a building and gets parkour’d and blasted! Where’s their last man?

-Hanging back with a pump-action loaded with slugs! LLENN barely dodges, needs a way to get in close, but a grenade to the head from Fuka takes that fucker down! That’s for taking her legs, asshole!

-Every man watching despairs at those that groin attack, by the way.

-Meanwhile,, the other teams are working their way through…The machine gun lovers are doing their thing. Memento Mori is moving slow and steady through the snow. Down in the train yards, SHINC is bunkering down, fighting their way out of suppressive fire bit by bit.

-In the farmlands, another team drops, from a skilled sharpshooter…And then all the way in the mountains, M is holding and watching the chaos. Because, bluntly, they have the best spot they’re going to get. Let the initial waves burn themselves out, and then they can force a conflict on their terms. M’s holding his ground as team leader, refusing to let Pito convince them to go out into the thick.

-Back to the suburbs, Fukaziroh has legs again! Legs are great! Legs are the best! What would she do without legs? That’s why you’ve got to watch for those wires, and watch at all levels. Players get real clever in PvP. Ankle height, knee, waist, neck high, putting an obvious trap down to make you go towards a well hidden one…LLENN even watches for wires in real life now from playing too much.

-Time for the next scan. The map’s a lot thinner, and a lot of teams are shooting for PM4…So what’s the plan? Keep moving. There’s a team towards the train yard. That’s going to be a real defensible position. Claiming it will be tough, but it’ll give them a lot of options. There might even be functional train vehicles.

-And Fukaziroh is starting to cook up a plan…They might be able to drop that team without a single shot!

-By this scan point, SHINC has managed to get to the farmlands, fighting their way out of the train yards. And Eva is pissed at the lack of good opponents. Her friends point out that she should be careful not to get too used to playing Eva, or she might become more rude and crude in real life. What would your mother think if you started cursing in public or on the subway?

-…Point. So she tries calling them out with a bit more elegance.

-Memento Mori sees the initial burnout, and decide to shoot for LF first. Time to start moving West.

-Pito is bored.

-LLENN and Fukaziroh are getting real close to the train yards…And it’s time for the assault.

-Exactly what they meant to do, before that trap got them. Another six-man team of generics, and with LLENN spotting, Fukaziroh’s able to arc her Bullet Line, starting to put corrections in and shell the whole group! A hit! Fukaziroh practiced for hours, learning how to correct for different distances…All she needs is to know how much to correct for.

-So LLENN calls out coordinates, and a second hit! The team’s scattered, but two more down! Just one left, he’s running East! Fukaziroh runs out of one launcher, but switches, magdumping! When the smoke clears, that’s a confirmed kill. All six are down, and Fukaziroh’s feeling damn good. Time to lock in, meet up, and work their way to the dome!

-All it took was twelve grenades. Just two drums to do the entire team in. They’re good.

-Next scan. Looking good.

-Well except for the part where seven teams are trying to band together to take down PM4.

-That’s a problem.

-A big problem.

-Up in the mountains, M spots it…Yep, all seven teams are agreeing to cooperate, to force PM4 out of the game before scattering and resuming their war. It’s a solid strategy, but a real problem…

-Team SHINC spot it too, and there’s a lot of uncertainty if it’ll work…It just might. But they’re too far away to influence it…And Eva’s not happy.

-Memento Mori are just upset they lost the chance to cut through the enemy with a last-second betrayal…

-And with no other choice on the board, LLENN leaves Fukaziroh behind, sprinting out there in full power to try and change the script…Until she trips on a tree root and Fukaziroh has to slow her down. Even at full power, you won’t make it. And alone, you won’t be able to change things. They’ve got to trust, and keep moving forward. Yeah? Yeah.

-Back up in the mountains, Pito just fucking laughs. The team leaders have all fallen back, putting their squads in independent mode so no maps can help PM4. This is great! This is fantastic! This is gonna be a bloodbath. The wind whips up, and Pito prepares to go to war, as her laughter echoes through the world…

-Credits! What a fuckin’ mood whiplash.

Well god DAMN, this is bad. This is very bad. We’ll see if things get better for our heroes next time, in episode NINE of SAO Alt: GGO! Wait for it!

#where I watch #recap #anime #sword art online #gun gale online #sao alternative

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jccamus · 6 years ago

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Uncovered: reality of how smartphones turned election news into chaos

Uncovered: reality of how smartphones turned election news into chaos https://ift.tt/2YjYGvD

Ask the average 2019 voter where the problems with political news lie, and you might hear a few familiar claims: fake news. Russian interference. The biased BBC.

But take a look at their smartphones, and you might discover a different, more chaotic world – in which news is being shaped less by publishers or foreign agents but by social media algorithms and friendship groups.

Now, in a first-of-its-kind election monitoring project conducted by the Guardian and research agency Revealing Reality, a group of voters have allowed their phone use to be recorded for three days – and the results from each individual’s phone show how the traditional media ecosystem is changing and disintegrating.

Secrets of their smartphones: see how voters follow the news in memes

Charlie in Sunderland consumed much of his election news through memes on lad humour Facebook pages, spending more time looking at posts of Boris Johnson using the word “boobies” than reading traditional news stories. Fiona in Bolton checked out claims about Jeremy Corbyn’s wealth by going to a website called Jihadi Watch before sharing the far-right material in a deliberate bid to anger her leftwing friends. And Shazi in Sheffield followed the BBC leaders’ interviews purely by watching videos of party supporters chanting the Labour leader’s name outside the venue.

The six volunteers who took part in the project should be seen as a snapshot rather than a statistically representative sample of the population. But the behaviour chimes with previous research to illustrate a pattern of behaviour across the political spectrum – a result with huge implications for the role of responsible journalism and reliable sources.

“News is becoming intermingled with entertainment,” said Damon De Ionno of agency Revealing Reality, who ran the project after pioneering the screen-recording approach to market research in the UK. “You’re no longer asking: what’s going on in the world today? It’s very different – you want to be entertained.”

The analysts who studied the volunteers – recruited under pseudonyms to reflect a spread of demographics, politics, and geography – saw broad patterns in the way they used their phones. Some were expected, with people increasingly consuming news passively by scrolling through headlines rather than actively seeking out information; one woman in London read 29 headlines but clicked on just six and only read three articles to the end.

Several participants were observed sharing articles on Facebook without clicking the links, and excitedly diving into comment sections for an argument before looking at the articles. Most showed a tendency to read news that confirmed their existing views.

Some behaviours were more surprising, hinting we may be becoming a nation of trolls. One 22-year-old Conservative-voting woman was observed going out of her way to read reputable mainstream news sources so she had a balanced understanding of Labour policies. But she would then seek out provocative far-right blog posts to share on Facebook because their headlines would anger her leftwing friends and create online drama.

In this snapshot of online voter behaviour, news is often consumed through user-generated memes, posts by celebrity influencers, and politicians’ own social media accounts. Despite the large focus on paid-for Facebook adverts during this election, such material appeared rarely in users’ newsfeeds during the time that data was being collected.

And while mainstream websites such as the BBC, Sky News, MailOnline and the Guardian still play a key role in news consumption – collectively reaching tens of millions of readers every day and helping to set the tone of coverage – professional journalism outlets are only one small part of where the public are getting their online information about this election.

“It’s total anarchy,” said De Ionno. “The idea of fake news and fake ads, with Russians manipulating people, is a really easy bogeyman. The reality is there’s many more shades of grey and it’s hard to unpick.”

And it’s political parties who understand how to cut through this cacophony of information who stand a better chance of success of winning next week’s general election.

At Revealing Reality’s headquarters in a converted ballroom in south London, a group of analysts working for De Ionno are attempting to piece together how Britons are consuming news in this general election campaign with the aid of a wall of photos of each volunteer in their home, pages of data, and transcripts of interviews.

Although there were some changes in behaviour during the study – one person complained they had had to restrict their viewing of online porn while the study was taking place – the researchers believe most people largely forgot their phones were being recorded.

Analysts then studied the recordings of each volunteer’s screen activity using an coding system adapted from software originally built for the study of animal behaviour, before comparing notes following a three-hour interview with each participant.

“A lot of the content has been taken out of context,” says one analyst, looking at Charlie’s online reading habits.

“They’re disengaging with mainstream sources,” says another.

A third analyst said Shazi didn’t really understand that social media algorithms shaped what news she was seeing on Twitter: “She wasn’t aware that other people would be seeing different things.”

The researchers came across very little completely false material. According to Ruby Wootton, one of the researchers on the project, rather than outright fake news there was instead a glut of heavily-slanted news with a kernel of fact. Instead she saw “a lot of content that is quite exaggerated or deliberately presented to influence you in a way that’s not connected to the full picture.”

Regardless of their place on the political spectrum, the analysts found people are drifting into the same habits, sometimes knowingly embracing the “indulgence” of a reassuring social media bubble of news that reinforced their existing viewpoints in a troubled world.

Participants also appeared to have little idea why they were seeing certain news stories, being guided by news aggregation services already built into their phones or the whims of social media algorithms serving up material from friends. They also often failed to distinguish between material posted by established news outlets and obscure Facebook groups.

“If social media content is playing such a central role in shaping people’s views on the election what are the implications for high quality journalism, reputable sources and well constructed and evidenced articles?” asked Revealing Reality’s researchers.

The individuals who took part in the study – all aged under 60 – very rarely watched television news, reflecting the shift away from the medium for that age group. But many were aware of claims of BBC bias during the election and had seen viral video clips of political interviews culled from mainstream programmes.

Even though they were rarely watching it, some cared very deeply about what the BBC was broadcasting on the basis that it was influencing other voters, perhaps explaining why viral video clips of the BBC’s mistakes are sometimes reaching more viewers than the original television audiences.

But the screen recording data suggests that the traditional media are now just a sliver of how the British public are learning about politics, with a growing role for political activists with large followings – with posts by the likes of comedian Jason Manford as likely to decide what people see online about the election as stories from traditional news outlets.

While political journalism during this election has often focused on official online campaign material put out by political parties themselves – or the spectre of under-the-radar paid-for Facebook ad campaigns – the case studies suggest that real story of the 2019 online general election campaign could be in the general chaos of users’ smartphones and social media, where memes compete with rolling arguments in local Facebook groups and content from traditional outlets.

This constant passive consumption of the news – as opposed to relying on a single news bulletin or reading a particular print newspaper once a day – meant bombshell articles fail to get heard over the general online cacophony.

De Ionno said he had noticed people struggled to remember individual stories, adding: “News doesn’t stick as well. There’s a new drama every day and cliffhangers on a daily basis. A lot of the respondents didn’t have a good memory of what happened a week ago.”

While previously the public’s news consumption was shaped by powerful gatekeepers such as newspaper editors or the bosses of heavily regulated broadcast news channels, on their phones it is shaped more by the hands-off approach of companies such as Facebook. The social network has decided against taking a patrician approach of pushing straightforward reporting into newsfeeds alongside user-generated memes asking Was Enoch Powell Right?, or hyperpartisan posts spreading distorted information about Jeremy Corbyn.

With limited human involvement in choosing the news stories people are seeing, the researchers said the general public were being asked to take responsibility for their own news diet with the hope that they seek out accurate information without any intervention.

Revealing Reality’s analysis of the volunteers’ election news consumption concluded: “If everything that people are seeing is via social media – who is accountable? There is very little human intelligence or decision-making behind it, no attempt to give a balanced view. That seems to leave all responsibility on the reader.”

Read how each volunteer consumed their election news.

https://ift.tt/2Yk7sK5 via the Guardian December 6, 2019 at 04:23PM

#IFTTT #Feedly

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thepunisher · 8 years ago

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A Bottle Marked ‘Poison’

Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes | E | 14765 words | 2/? |

ao3 link

Summary: The headstones are clean and well preserved and surrounded by fresh, colorful flowers when he reaches them. Not lilies, never lilies. But roses and sunflowers and violets. Someone has been taking care of them for years. (Not him. He can’t even take care of himself.) There’s names and dates and pictures. There’s quotes. Beloved mother. He has a split lip, his eye is a nasty shade of purple and he’s still nursing three bruised ribs. Somehow this hurts more. OR On the anniversary of their deaths, Tony visits his parents’ graves. He has an unexpected encounter. Things go downhill from there.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Haunting TW: Panic Attack

8. I came home on Tuesday and found all of the chairs that I own stacked in a tower in the center of my kitchen. I don’t know how long they had been like that but it can only be me that did it. It’s the kind of thing a ghost might do to prove to the living that he is still there. I am haunting my own apartment.

Doc Luben, 14 lines from love letters or suicide notes

He jolts awake, a scream on his lips, gasping for breath, heart pounding inside his chest.

He's disoriented at first, frantic, not making any sense of the bed, the room, the ceiling. It takes a few seconds to place where he is, but the realization does nothing to quiet the roar in his ears.

(He's still falling. Falling, falling, falling. There's no stopping, there's no ground beneath him, there's no air. He's surrounded by darkness.)

He struggles to free himself from the covers, their weight, their texture impossibly unbearable for his too sensitive skin. He only manages to tumble off the bed, sheets still tangled around his legs and his movements are too frenzied and uncoordinated, it takes him a minute to get them off. And then he's crawling a few paces away, throwing them off of himself as if they were on fire.

(He is on fire.)

He folds himself in half on the floor, head between his legs, arms hugging his knees, wheezing.

The taste of ozone lingers on his mouth each time he sucks in a breath.

He can hear Friday's soothing voice over the loud buzzing of his brain, but he can't make out the words she's saying. He squeezes his eyes shut.

(He's in a cave. He's in space. He's in a bunker.)

It'll pass.

(He's dead. They're all dead. He killed them. They killed him.)

Panic attacks can only last for so long. The body cannot withstand that kind of pressure for over a certain amount of time.

It's not helpful knowledge when a minute lasts a lifetime. When his hands shake so hard he has to force them into tight fists. When even breathing is a task he fails at.

He rocks himself back and forth, eyes wet.

(It'll pass.)

When it's gone, when his muscles stop spasming and he lets himself fall backwards, head dropping to the floor with a thud, each nerve ending almost fried - when it's done, and Tony is a person again and not a bundle of white noise, he lets out a long exhale and closes his eyes.

Centuries later, he becomes aware of the cold sweat drying on his skin, his threadbare tank top clinging to him like a second skin, wet and uncomfortable; the glass of water he knocked off the bedside table, shards everywhere; the digital clock blinking 2:34am in angry red. The exhaustion a dead weight on his soul.

He stands up on wobbly legs, and waits a few seconds to make sure he won't topple over before putting one foot in front of the other with uttermost care. He dumps his shirt on the floor along with his boxers as he walks to the bathroom unsteadily, the marble cold under his bare feet.

He doesn't bother with the lights, doesn't pause at the mirror. He hops in the shower and he doesn't wait for the water to reach a comfortable temperature before throwing himself under its spray. It's freezing at first, but he doesn't really register it. Soon it's so hot it's scalding, but Tony doesn't move. He stands there, water pouring over his head, pasting his hair to his forehead, and down his body, painting his skin red. He braces one hand on the wall, the contact the only thing keeping him upright and for the longest time he just watches the water drains, not really seeing it.

He's used to nightmares and he's used to panic attacks. He's good at neither.

(He's not good at much these days.)

There's no light at the end of some tunnels. No getting out of some locked rooms. Some tunnels you start to decorate. Some rooms you settle in.

Some darkness, you feel at home in.

There's no way in hell he's going to go back to sleep, nor face the mess he left in the room. The mess inside his head. So Tony gets out of the shower and grabs a fluffy white towel, doing a poor job of patting himself dry, its soft fibres still too harsh on his skin.

He bypasses the bed and goes straight for the closet, grabbing a graphic shirt at random and putting on a pair of well worn jeans over clean underwear.

Lights still off, he heads down to the workshop.

Time to tinker.

Dum-E stirs from his charging station when he enters, and greets him with a whirring sound. Tony pats him on the head, ignoring the countless cardboard boxes scattered all over, covering most worktables and moves towards one of the few free spots, sitting on a bench.

“Give me some music, Fri,” he says, and as Friday complies, the room is filled with too loud hard rock. Loud enough that he can't hear himself think.

With a flick of his wrist a project appears in a flash of blue light. He takes apart something irrelevant, something of no consequence. He just needs to keep his hands busy, his brain on stand by.

It's not long before one of the monitors that takes up an entire wall bleeps an alert. The algorithms are always running in the background and, every once in awhile, a false positive throws him off, but more often than not, though not as often as he would like, something very real pops up.

He spends some time sorting through the incoming data, analysing blueprints, confronting stats to form a half coherent plan of action, and even longer debating whether he should wait for a day in which he's not in such turmoil - why bother? - or for a moment in which his hands won't tremble anymore - a waste of time.

Fourteen missions, four months, hundreds of files, dozens of junk and memorabilia.

He put together crumbs bit by bit, and yet something is always missing. He doesn't know what will take to complete his puzzle, or if there's no closure to be had and he's just deluding himself and what he's searching for are not facts and pieces, but just a reason wake up in the morning.

But there's no choice to make, not really. He only spares a second to strip and put on the underarmor, the black fabric fitting him like a glove.

It's gonna take him a little less than two hours to reach Oregon, if he pushes it. Plenty of time to catch his breath.

----------------------

The building is massive and block-like, a monstrous thing that seems to sprout from the ground, and it's the only form of civilization hidden between miles and miles of vegetation. An iron fence circles its perimeter, with old cameras mounted every hundred yard or so, most of them busted.

Nothing looks particularly recent in terms of tech, but Tony takes no chances, Friday running every scan, keeping an eye out for silent alarms and explosives. Three of the five Hydra bases he raided between December and January had been burned down to a crisp quite recently. One was still smoking when he got there.

Tony doesn't know if Hydra is just covering its tracks, aware that someone is targeting their old hideouts, or if he needs to look out for a new player, but there's no harm in being overly cautious.

It's a child's game getting past the fence and the main gate. Getting inside the grid and looping the security cameras feed, just in case, is a couple of minutes’ job and after that he easily makes his way to the subterranean floors, quiet as a mouse, his black and golden armor almost invisible in the dark.

Nothing jumps out of the shadows and no guards appear out of thin air to attack him. The place reeks of abandonment.

Level -1 is a labyrinth he can navigate only thanks to the blueprints he acquired, each hallway the same as the one before, a long stretch of dust and concrete, the air stale.

His reactors light the way as Friday doesn't detect any heat signature in proximity, close or otherwise. The place has been deserted for at least a decade. Everything is silent except for the mute mechanical whirring of the armor joints as he moves.

The doors are big and heavy, and it'd be satisfying to blow them up with a small well placed missile, but he's not 100% sure of what's on the other side.

Tony discovered the wrong way Hydra's predilection for booby traps.

The security system is old but solid, and it takes him a good five minutes to hack into the panel controlling the lock and work his way around it. The doors slide open with a loud screeching sound of metal striding, and he holds his breath, but no alarm breeches the night.

He detects a strong smell of mold even through the faceplate filters as soon as he steps over the threshold. The room spacious, its surface almost entirely occupied by cabinets.

“Jackpot,” Tony says, using a gauntlet to lighten the place enough to see.

Some cabinets are sideways, a few on the floor, gutted, drawers spilling their contents like entrails. Most have faded labels, and he can't find any logical sorting system as he looks around.

“Friday?” he calls.

“All clear, boss.”

He lets the suit disassemble behind him. He's gonna need patience and his dexterity to find anything remotely useful in this mess.

“Sentry mode,” he says, and the armor takes its place behind him, ever vigilant.

He takes a small torchlight from one of the suit’s compartments and puts it in his mouth, teeth clicking, opening a drawer at random from the cabinet nearest to him.

All the folders are pretty much irrelevant. Contracts, properties, business transactions, some over fifty years old, paper turned yellow with age. Some corporate names look familiar, and he takes pictures, making a mental note to check on their current status. It's tedious but necessary work, and with a sigh, he moves on to another drawer, another cabinet.

He's not even sure what he's looking for, not really, but he knows he's gonna find something. Hacking his way online has been pretty much useless so far. Hydra is good at what it does, always has been. But this is one of the bases where they kept him , and if experience taught him anything, it’s that they always left something behind.

Forty minutes later, neck sore and eyes dry, he stiffens, shoulders going tight, stomach dropping under his feet, as he recognises the first name in hundreds he must have read so far.

Stane.

A large sum of money addressed to one Obadiah Stane, May 12th, 1987.

When his heart starts beating again, Tony hurries through the pages, paper whistling between his fingers. Schematics for weapons, guns, bombs. Stark Industries prototypes. More checks. 1985, 1989. 1990.

It's ridiculous how a strip of black ink has the power to turn his insides into molten lava. How a string of words and numbers can turn him into stone.

He has come to terms with Stane’s corruption a long time ago, or at least he thought he had.

But then he sees it, December 16th, 1991.

He sees it and he stops breathing, pain gripping his chest in a vice. He stumbles back, torchlight falling to the floor.

His back hits a cabinet, and the metal rattles loudly in the silence, almost as loud as his heart.

He made a working version of the serum. Barnes’ words echo in his mind. Hydra wanted it and they wanted him dead. That's why.

It has drilled a hole inside his brain for over two months cause how, how had Hydra known about the serum, when Howard was so secretive about his projects? And how could they have known when and where to attack and to take it? Howard was a lot of things, but he was not careless.

Deep down he had known. Deep down Tony had always known, the thought like a virus nagging at the back of his mind, corrupting his memories.

Was he thinking about the money when he hugged Tony in the middle of the night, whispering soothing words to a son who had just lost his parents? Did he go home twirling his moustache in glee because he had taken a threat out of the equation? A rival? A pawn.

One he had used as long as it suited him, just like he had Tony.

It’s just another betrayal he expected and yet is not prepared for. All these months hunting Hydra down, carrying his one man crusade, trying to understand, trying to erase. Trying to move forward.

(There's no moving forward. There's only the past coming full circle, eating its own tail.)

He pushes himself upright, hoping to find more files in some other folders, but the cabinet he was leaning on falls backward and finds the floor with a loud bang.

Nothing happens for the longest second, and his shoulders drop in relief, when all the lights turn on suddenly, bathing the room in white-blue neon.

Tony barely even flinches, retinas burning, before something flies over his head and starts shooting. The drawer where his hand just was, covered in holes, shredded papers exploding in the air like confetti.

The suit engages immediately as Tony runs to take cover, repulsors blasting several times, their target moving swiftly in a zigzag motion before getting hit and falling to the floor heavily.

“Fuck,” Tony mutters, as two more flying robots enter the room, spraying bullets.

“Friday!” he yells, and the armor tries to dodge and attack, several cabinets bursting in flames when it misses its mark.

Tony holds his breath and crawls his way out of the line of fire, clutching the Stane folder in one hand, so tightly he's creasing the sheets.

Two gun shots resonate loudly in the room, and a moment later he hears something hit the ground. He turns to see both robots on the floor, unmoving.

When he looks towards the doorway it's to see the snout of a rifle, gunmetal still smoking.

“What the fuck,” Tony finds himself saying in disbelief, as his gaze runs past the weapon and finds metal fingers on the trigger and one intense blue eyed stare.

Barnes advances with sure strides, swinging his rifle left and right, checking the perimeter. He's wearing his tactical gear, black from head to toe, combat boots silent as he shortens the distance between them.

For a second, Tony is half afraid he's facing Hydra’s executioner again, but Barnes doesn't shoot again.

“Take what you came here for, and hurry. We gotta go,” he says instead, voice quiet and commanding when he's a few steps away.

“What the fuck,” Tony repeats a little less breathy but no less stunned.

“They know someone's here. You tripped an alarm,” Barnes says. “There's more incoming.”

What the fuck, he refrains to say for a third time, knowing it would not be enough to convey his stupor.

“So, you are following me,” Tony manages when he finds his voice again, pointing an accusing finger.

“So not the time, Stark,” Barnes replies, eyes darting across the room with focused precision, searching for threats.

“Oh, I think it's the perfect time. What the hell is going on? Why are you here? How did you know I was here?

Barnes sighs, takes advantage of the moment of relative peace, no psychotic drones attacking. “Rhodes was worried about you.”

Tony sputters. “Rhodey asked you to follow me?”

The cabinet on his left rattles, bullets piercing it in rapid succession and turning it into a colander, the sound so loud Tony’s ears ring. He doesn't have time to react before Barnes is on him, pushing Tony behind him with enough force Tony's sure Barnes must have left a handprint on his chest. With Tony behind him, Barnes raises his left arm like a shield, bullets bouncing off of it.

Tony sees Barnes grunt and stagger back a couple of steps before pointing his rifle so fast it's a blur and shooting the bot off with perfect accuracy.

He doesn't have time to protest nor to process the fact that Bucky fucking Barnes apparently just saved his life, before five more bots appear.

Tony wastes no time and hops into the suit, taking care of one with a couple of well placed hits.

When he finishes disposing the second one, he turns just in time to see Barnes shooting one off, arm steady, aim never wavering before leaping high enough to grab another one off the air and pulling it apart with his bare hands. He throws a knife across the room at the third and last bot. It hits it dead centre, and the bot falls noisily, while Tony is hovering uselessly.

He’s grateful for his faceplate cause he's quite sure his mouth has been hanging open for the past minute at least.

There's no point in denying even to himself that it's almost fascinating watching Barnes fight, the calibrated precision with which he moves, each blow hitting its target perfectly, no wastes. Something about it reminds him of Natasha.

He heard from Rhodey that the two spar quite often together.

(He hears from Rhodey more than he would care to know.)

He's still staring when an increasingly faster beeping noise fills the room. He looks around frantic and his eyes fall on the angry red lights flashing in all the bots.

“Fuck,” he mutters, throwing himself on Barnes, with no hesitation, lifting him off his feet and flying as fast as he can, hoping to get away in time.

He's not fast enough. The explosion finds them when they’re almost out of the building, propelling them both forward and throwing them violently against a wall.

Tony barely has time to flip their positions to catch the worst of the impact, thinking his armor surely is better protection than combat gears.

His head hurts and the hud flickers, making him dizzier. He groans, managing to sit on all fours.

Plaster falls all around them, but the fire doesn't consume the upper levels.

Barnes grunts, gets up on unsure legs. He pauses for a handful of heartbeats, hand on the wall to steady himself, eyes closed.

When he opens them again he stands straighter. “We need to leave,” he says, already walking towards the gates. “The bots activated when you tripped the alarm. Hydra would have been alerted. They're probably on their way already.”

“See, you keep saying that,” Tony says, prissy. “But how do I know it wasn't you who tripped the alarm, Mr. Brooding Stalker.”

Barnes levels him with a stare. “I'm the Winter Soldier, Stark. I don't trip alarms. Beside, I know this base. I was kept here for a while.”

Tony doesn't say, I know. He doesn't say, that's one of the reasons I'm here. He doesn't mention the stasis room he found when he explored the building earlier. Doesn't say he got claustrophobic just by looking at the cryo chamber.

He clears his throat instead. “You still haven't said why you're here,” he says, and his left boot keeps sputtering, hud marking it in angry red.

“Flying system compromised,” Friday informs him, and he could compensate with his other boot and his repulsors. It would be an uncomfortable flight, but he could make it. He drops to the ground instead and starts walking, falling two steps behind Barnes.

“Rhodes was concerned about you. But he doesn't know I'm here. I’d like to keep it that way.” He's pensive for a moment. “He doesn't know you're here either.”

“So why are you here?” Tony asks.

“This may come as a huge surprise to you, but believe it or not, you're not the only one with a grudge against Hydra.”

Too many thoughts go through his mind too fast to grasp, too inconsistent to follow through. There's a lot he feels he should say and even more he knows he shouldn't.

In the end, Tony says nothing, and they keep on walking away from the building at a brisk pace, vegetation getting tighter around them.

“It still doesn't explain why you're following me,” he says, some time later.

“I'm not.”

Tony snorts.

“We got more in common than you think,” Barnes says cryptically, before abruptly turning left.

(He knows.)

“That's my ride,” Barnes says, and he doesn't wait for a reply.

Tony follows.

Amidst a clearing in the mass of trees, he can see some flickering, the tell tale sign of retro reflective panels.

They both board the Quinjet in silence, automatic door closing behind them.

“I'm probably gonna pass out soon,” Barnes says, as soon as they do, tone almost conversational.

Tony whips around in time to see him stumble and lean heavily against the wall.

“What?” Tony asks. “What do you mean ‘pass out’? Why would you pass out?”

Barnes is breathing heavily, both arms clutching his middle. It's eerily terrifying how wholly different he seems from the focused machine he was while fighting, he was until now. Like a puppet whose strings have been cut off. When he takes one hand away, the flesh one, it comes away crimson.

For a moment, Tony can't make sense of it. “Why the hell are you bleeding?” he almost yells, getting out of the suit and coming to Barnes fast, slapping his hands away to take a look himself.

There's several holes in the fabric of his vest.

Bullet holes.

He never noticed the blood in the dark, the black of Barnes’ uniform masking it. Barnes had never wavered inside the archive. Never stumbled once.

Tony’s mind reviews the entire fight in a matter of seconds. Barnes shooting bots, Barnes taking them apart with brute force. Barnes shielding him.

He falters, heart fluttering inside his chest like a hummingbird’s wings.

He must have been hit protecting him.

“Why the fuck is this not bulletproof?” Tony asks, distress making his voice higher than he would like.

“It is,” Barnes says, through gritted teeth.

“Does this look bulletproof to you?”

“I'll be fine. It's just superficial. The kevlar must have absorbed most of the impact.”

“Oh, sure. You look totally fine.”

“Stark,” Barnes tries, but Tony is not really listening.

“Oh my god, Steve is gonna kill me.” He runs his hands through his hair, pacing the length of the plane.

How could he explain that he never even knew Barnes was with him? That it wasn't him who shot him? How can he take him back to the compound when, according to Barnes, no one even knew he left? Would anyone listen?

He knows how it would look, no matter the truth. Steve's concerned stare back at the Christmas party is still too fresh in his mind.

“Stark,” repeats Barnes, a little more forcefully.

Tony doesn't hear him. “Scratch that! Rhodey is gonna kill me first.”

He's been working so hard trying to build a bridge between all of them, trying to build a team again. How to tell him that he's been working on his own behind his back for months and he got Barnes hurt in the process?

He's not ready to give up his hunt.

“I'm gonna kill you, if you don't pull yourself together,” Barnes mutters.

It gets Tony’s attention, grounding him. He turns to Barnes.

“Yeah, you already tried that. Didn't really work out for you, did it,” he says, and it comes out harsher than he intended. None of this would be happening if Barnes had just minded his own business.

Barnes is quiet for a while. “I never tried to kill you,” he says, dead serious.

“Right,” Tony says drily.

“I never tried to kill you,” Barnes repeats. “If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead.”

Something in the flatness of his tone bothers Tony.

His breathing is labored, his left hand leaning on the wall denting the metal.

“We need to take off,” Tony says, letting go. They wasted too much time already. Barnes needs medical attention and he doesn't want to be here when Hydra shows up.

“Can you fly this thing?” Barnes ask. “I'd rather not, but I will if you can't.”

Tony scoffs. “I designed this thing.”

He reaches for Barnes again, putting one arm under his, supporting him as they advance towards the seats of the cockpit, Barnes’ long hair tickling his cheek.

It's the closest they've ever been, no murderous rage between them, no armor.

For a fleeting second he thinks he can smell a whiff of coconut. He shakes his head.

“Yeah, good for you. But can you fly it?” Barnes asks, through gritted teeth. Tony has no idea how he's still standing, let alone talking.

“Put pressure on the wounds,” he says as Barnes sits heavily in the chair next to the pilot’s. Tony helps him strap himself in before heading over to the pilot seat and starting a fast flight check.

“I can fly anything,” he says distractedly, when he's satisfied.

Barnes makes a sound that resembles a snort. He coughs after. “I had no idea we had the best pilot in the Resistance on board.”

Tony stops mid motion, he’s so stunned he turns around, mouth hanging open. “Did you just-- was that a Star Wars reference?”

“Stark. For fuck's sake,” Barnes says, but there's something that looks like a small smile on his lips. It soften his features.

“Right. Priorities. Friday?”

“All set up, boss,” comes from the speakers.

“Then takes us home, Fri. To the Mansion. Maximum stealth,” he orders, and they take off smoothly, the engines a soft humming under their feet.

Five minutes in, the Big Empty already a dot behind them, he engages the autopilot and walks to Barnes.

He's sitting with his eyes closed, brows furrowed, hands tightly gripping the armrests.

“Alright. Take your top off,” Tony says, gesturing to the uniform. He needs to assess the gravity of the situation.

Barnes opens one eye, looks at Tony up and down. “I usually require a little more romancing than this, before putting out.”

Tony blinks stupidly a couple of times, caught off guard, brain stuttering. He swallows. It's probably the blood loss, he figures. He clears his throat. “Yeah, well,” he says, lamely, but Barnes is already freeing himself from the safety belts and he's unfastening his tac vest.

He barely flinches when he lifts his arms over his head to take the black thermal off, but he doesn't make a sound even though he must be in incredible pain.

“I'll be fine,” he repeats as Tony takes in the state of his abdomen, where four tiny holes mar his skin, rivulets of blood flowing slowly, soaking the top of his pants, though not as copiously as he would have imagined. “I've had worse. I'll take care of it myself once we land.”

“How would you like ‘moron died of shock’ on your gravestone?” Tony asks. “You started healing around the bullets already,” he adds, inspecting the wounds, trying really hard not to pay attention to anything else, definitely not eyeing the angry looking scarring on his left shoulder, where the vibranium arm meets his flesh. “We need to take them out.”

His fingers hover lightly over Barnes stomach without him even noticing. Barnes’ muscles contract when he goes to touch it and Tony halts himself mid motion, hurriedly withdrawing his hand. When he looks up, Barnes has an expression he can't read on his face.

Tony clears his throat again.

“I'm gonna get the first aid kit,” he says, and gets away as fast as he can, his heart skipping a beat inside his chest.

He doesn't know what's wrong with him.

(Too many things to choose from.)

It's been a long day, he tells himself.

(The sun is just rising.)

He comes back with the medical box and sets himself comfortably, pushing his seat next to Barnes’. He cleans his hands as best as he can with the hand sanitizer before putting on sterile gloves. He disinfects a pair of surgical tweezers before pouring antiseptic over Barnes’ middle. Barnes goes rigid under him, abs tensing, but once again, he makes no sound.

Tony doesn't like it. He wants to shake him, he wants to tell him to scream, to show some emotion, to react. That he's allowed to.

It's not his place though, so he says nothing.

“My hands are not very steady,” is the only warning he gives before he starts working.

One bullet is easy enough to extract, and within a few minutes, he places it into a container near the kit, where it hits the bottom with a clicking sound.

“I wasn't trying to kill you,” Barnes says, some time later, when Tony is struggling to grab the second bullet.

Tony stops what he's doing and looks at Barnes, confused. Was he so concentrated on his task that he missed the conversation?

“In Siberia,” Barnes clarifies. “I was just trying to stop you from doing something you would regret.”

He makes a sound, shakes his head. He doesn't look at Tony. “No, that's not entirely true. I was also trying not to die. I guess my sense of self preservation is something I can't turn off.”

Tony says nothing.

After a long moment he goes back to the bullet.

“Not so sure I would have regretted it,” he hears himself say, not taking his eyes off that strip of skin.

There's a fragile thing between them, a truce that feels like a glass bubble, and he knows that it would break if he were to look him in the eyes.

“I'm the killer, not you.”

Tony snorts. “Hate to break this to you, but I'm pretty sure my body count is a tad bigger than even yours.”

He drops the second bullet with the first. Dive in for the third one.

“I was a sniper. Before Hydra. I was a sniper in the army,” Barnes says adamantly. Like it's important for him to prove that he has always been a monster.

Take a number, Tony thinks.

“And I was a weapon manufacturer,” he says, a bit more forcefully than he intends, voice dripping venom.

“And how many of those weapons did you fire?” comes softly, almost gently.

Tony doesn't reply, because that never mattered. Anything he ever created is his responsibility. Has always been. He wasted decades drinking and partying, trying to fill a black hole that just kept on sucking the life out of him, uncaring of the world, of his work, of his legacy. And that legacy had only brought death, with his name stamped on, while he was too busy trying to have a good time to notice.

Tony clears his throat a third time.

“I think this is beyond my medical knowledge.”

The two remaining bullets are lodged too deep inside and he doesn't want to risk doing more damage by probing blindly. The wounds are clear, no ragged edges, no broken parts. He doesn't like leaving him with a job half done, but he'd rather not turn something seemingly easily fixed into a mess.

At least they don't seem to have hit any major organ. Even the bleeding has stopped.

He cleans the wounds as best as he can and covers them with gauze.

“You're gonna need someone more qualified to take a look,” he says.

Barnes shrugs, turns away.

The moment is over.

“Friday, call Dr Cho.”

“Calling,” Friday says, and the dial tone fills the cabin.

“Hello?” comes sleepily from the other end.

“Helen, hey,” Tony says, getting up, putting some distance between him and Barnes, tone jovial. “I'm gonna need a favor.”

#winteriron #buckytony #tonybucky #starkbucks #bucky x tony #mcu #winteriron fic #fic**#my fic**

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