2926/Recruitment Part Deux

Recruitment Part Deux
Date of Scene:	21 October 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Winter Soldier, Ares

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Winter Soldier has posed:
Part of James Barnes' personal rehabilitation, after his escape from the pall of the Winter Soldier, has involved walking around the city and taking in his once-home as it now is.

There are places in the city that, for the man once known as the Winter Soldier, have changed very little at all. There are other places that have changed completely. Bucky remembers Washington Square Park as a rather rundown place, neglected badly by the city, with traffic running through it, its fate perpetually under review by the city as various renovation plans were brought up and scrapped.

Eighty years on, it seems, the renovators got their say.

He's still edgy around crowds, so he comes to the park deep in the night, and stays near its fringes. It's late enough not even the students from nearby NYU are around, whether because they're still at parties or because they're passed out. He is a nondescript figure to most, a man dressed in unremarkable civvies seated on a bench towards the northwestern corner of the park, but perhaps not nondescript to all.

Ares has posed:
    This time of night hangs heavy upon the conscience of a man. It is the time when the hours seem to creep slowly by, where the world is mostly silence, and where the thoughts turn inwards. It is a time of night when the old whispers of past regrets can slip all the louder with bare awareness granted them. But tonight it is also a night that lies heavy with portent.
    It's something in the air, a chill of autumn's greeting perhaps. The first part of the year when breath is visible in the air steadily, and the cold hurries steps and urges people to spend as little time exposed to it as possible. Most of the time a man such as the Winter Soldier would be left to his thoughts, for something in his manner would send the predators of man to seek easier prey. It is rare he would be addressed now, with the moon hanging so high.
    And yet he is.
    The voice reaches him, strong and calm, almost jovial if one were to remove the touch of humor and replace it with a facade. "I come seeking a soldier and I find a man out of his time."
    John Aaron advances, at first but a tall silhouette, but that gait and that voice are unmistakable. He steps into the halo of light that he stands only upon the edge of. A turn of his head leveling a gaze askance upon the man. "What has passed for you, James? That has brought you so."

Winter Soldier has posed:
Over the years, James has learned to trust instinct. There are few things that guide a man innately meant to be a warrior more keenly than gut feel. Said instinct tells him there's something in the air tonight, something that makes him linger past the point where he would long since have grown restless and moved on.

It makes him wait long enough that soon, a familiar voice carries to him through the chill air.

Months ago, it was a man named Yasha with whom John Aaron. Today, a different man looks up to meet the God of War's eyes. There is a ghost of Yasha still in James' demeanor though-- in his regard. The Russians built the man off the template of James Buchanan Barnes. In one thing Yasha and James are critically different, however. Yasha was a confident creature, guiltless and elemental in the way predatory animals are. James? 'Trouble' is a light way to put the look in his eyes.

"To be a soldier, you need a war to fight," he remarks wryly. "I find myself dry, for the first time in eighty-four years. Dry of the kind of war I'm used to, anyway," he allows, thinking of the kinds of wars SHIELD fights.

What has passed for him? "Last time we talked," he says, "You told me you would show me the truth, if I asked. I didn't." His gaze unfocuses off into the distance, across years. "I was made to see it by others." Half a smile crosses and leaves his features. "A lot of bother would've been saved if I told you 'yes.'"

Ares has posed:
    The tall man takes up a place at Bucky's side, as has been true so often in the past even if not physically so. The God of War folds his arms over his chest and for a time he looks at the Soldier, gaze narrowed, contemplative. Then he gives a small grunt before he adds, "A lot of bother, perhaps a shorter journey, but perhaps less learned." He waves a hand slightly to the side, as if to dismiss such talk.
    "The words I had shared with those who sought this end for you, they spoke of such aspects as being not you. And yet..." He shakes his head.
    "I spoke truth when I told you that I seek a soldier." His arms fold over his chest as they stand there, observing the few civilians that wander through that part of the park, apart. "The invasion." He says that with some solemnity. He knows of which he speaks.
    "I will not accept what has passed, and I intend to take measures." He turns to face Bucky and says simply, "I am gathering warriors and we shall train together. Form together as a unit, and then insure that such cannot happen again."
    A small chuff of an exhaled breath is given then he adds, "Though in return I can offer nothing save blood, pain, and likely death. That... and glory in the eyes of one's peers."

Winter Soldier has posed:
Ares comes to stand at the erstwhile Soldier's side. The god's presence there evokes an odd sense of familiarity, a phantom sensation that ghosts along Bucky's nerves. A sensation that was with him many of the times he entered onto a battlefield. First blooded as young as sixteen, in the fields of the Second World War, James Barnes has walked through every war of the twentieth century since -- whether as himself, or as a Soviet ghost. Like his brother in all but blood, it is hard to say if he could exist outside of war any longer.

A shorter journey, but less learned from it, Aaron eventually determines, so far as the idea that the entire ordeal could have been foreshortened. There is little disagreement Bucky can offer, and even less at the god's subsequent observation. They were convinced the Soldier was not him, and he was not the Soldier. And yet --

"And yet," he repeats, the two words encapsulating very well the very blurry line between himself and the Winter Soldier.

He falls silent as John Aaron moves on to business. The invasion, he says, and Bucky's blue eyes darken. He knows. Of course.

Ares's proposal, afterwards, provokes a pensive silence on Bucky's part. A gathering of warriors, to insure against such a thing ever happening again. He can offer in recompense nothing but blood, pain, death -- and glory.

The erstwhile Soldier's silence breaks with a wry laugh. "That's all the currency I ever was paid in, John Aaron, and it was always enough for me."

Ares has posed:
    "Then I will call on you again," The tall man in the half-light tilts his head slightly to the side. There's a pause and he then adds a little more quietly, as if offering the man some chance at the very last. "I do not take this matter lightly, James." Another pause, then he adds. "If you rethink yourself then contact me. But if not then put your affairs in order and we shall move forward."
    But as that brief connection ends he looks away. Then another nod is given. He furrows his brow and rumbles simply, "Until then." With that said he turns and begins to move away, footsteps quiet as he slips into the shadows behind the man, leaving him either looking forwards to the future or back to the past.