#but i am not and i now have nightmarishly lasting regrets

[itsanidiom]

( T n T )

[twitchesandstitches]

Mission Complete, Wolf Down

Bucky Barnes, formerly of the pan-species utopia of Wakanda before running afoul of the conspiracies and being brainwashed into a weapon that necessitated his need to free himself of sins, lay down on a cooling sofa in the headquarters outside of the known multiverse.

Against all the odds, his hair hurt. His face throbbed and every single nerve ending ached like he had been twisted several degrees around. Even his cybernetic arm hurt. He regretted the ‘as good as flesh’ sensory array in it now.

Bucky usually came and went at his own discretion and Waller’s direction, frequently acting without a team as back up; when he did go with a team, it was a sign that something extremely important or nightmarishly hard was going to go down. Not since their involvement in the dream realm of Yharnam had he been necessary, and he suspected his presence was like a bad luck charm.

This last mission hurt more than that. A brain was a terrible thing to feel hurting.

Reality felt... unreal. Bits of his mind kept raveling and unraveling, twisting around and splitting away, peeling back together in a complicated pattern that still felt wrong. Barely holding at the edges, and ready to burst.

A knock came at the door of the squat room he was in, and he saw the blue waves radiate out, and they submerged upon him. At once, things... asserted themselves. His brain stopped hurting, and the world swamp into focus.

The voices of others stopped their screaming inside his head, and he was the White Wolf again. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Come in,” he said, knowing who it was.

Blue Diamond was far too large to ever be near him in person. She was larger than a planet, her proportions super-geographic; breasts larger than terrestrial worlds, her hips spanning the orbit of space stations, her hair capable of housing entire species. Yet, with sufficient power to create a smaller avatar to interact with others, here she was, bending in through a door.

She walked slowly, in a complicated dress that was mostly lacework, corsets, and fishnet-trimmed skirts slit up the side to show as much of her massive thighs as possible. Her feet, shaped into natural high heels, gave her a distinct swaying stride as she walked in. Bucky looked up at her; she was at least twenty feet tall, a multiversal standard, and that was big to him, but it must have been painful for he to compress herself down this much.

Her presence made him feel better. “Hello, ma’am.”

She sat down beside him, her massive backside pressing against him. He fought the urge to snuggle into her motherly frame. “I am sorry I couldn’t come with you.”

“Bit of a hurry, ma’am. Would have liked to bring you, if I could. But would you really want to have dealt with... her?” Bucky shuddered at the thought of that vast, gleaming shape, and the horrible emptiness that had come over his mind.

Blue Diamond shivered. “No, dear. I don’t know.”

Even eldritch matriarchs had something to be afraid of.

“Mission successful,” he said. “I found her, spoke with her.” he shook his head. Only one sentence, just one. The location to some kind of... library. And the presence of, what was it... Magnus the Red?

Some kind of human entity she was apparently interested in. He hadn’t asked.

The look of pleased fascination upon that strange, empty face would give him nightmares for a long, long time.

White Diamond.

Bucky shivered again.

“You mind staying here? Just for a bit...?”

She wiggled closer, and placed a cool hand upon his head. Calmness swept over him, and soon, so did sleep.

She did not offer an opinion to why it was important for White Diamond to be led to this library. or the entities within it, but all the same... she wouldn’t have wished that duty on herself.