Plot Interlude #4

"Hey Barnes, where ya goin'?" Dum Dum glances up as Sarge passes him. The kid's walking a little funny, kind of rigid; and he's not up for a watch until close to dawn, so he should really be bedded down for the night by now.
Bucky freezes for half a second before he answers.

"Gotta piss." he mutters, stumbling out of the fire-light and into the trees.

Dugan watches the darkness that has swallowed Barnes up, musing for a few seconds, then turns back to the quiet camp. There was definitely something off about Bucky just now. It could've just been a trick of the flickering light… the odd fall of shadows in the semi-darkness, but he'd have sworn-

He shakes Dernier awake and makes a show of grimacing and holding his middle.
"Beans are comin' back to haunt me. Take over for a bit?"

The frenchman grumbles sleepily, sitting up in his bedroll and rubbing at his eyes. "Oui, hurry up." he agrees after a few moments, scruffing a hand down his face and looking disgruntled.

There's no sign of Barnes at first. The mottled, cloud-covered moonlight is of little help beneath the trees, and the firelight doesn't begin to reach here. He feels his way forward, squinting for footprints in the damp, dark earth as his eyes adjust. He thinks he can just about make out a faint trail when he all but trips over something human-sized in his path.

Barnes is huddled in a tight, shivering ball at the foot of a huge silvery oak, jaw set in a rigid line, and biting down on a fold of his sleeve so hard that it hurts Dugan's teeth just to watch. The kid's sweating bullets and even in the dim light, Dum Dum can see that he's white as paper and shaking like a leaf. Sarge's eyes are screwed shut and he keeps making this faint keening noise, low in his throat, that doesn't seem to be voluntary; twitching every now and then. Barnes looks like he's dying right there on the ground.

"Christ, Barnes." He drops to his knees as Bucky's eyes shoot open, startled and panicked. "Fuckin' Christ…"

Barnes looks awful. He's breathing hard through his nose like he doesn't trust himself not to scream if he lets the air anywhere near his mouth. Dugan hesitates, hand ghosting over Barnes' shoulder uncertainly. Bucky lets a tiny groan of misery slip out, before clamping his lips tightly shut around it. Dum Dum pulls back, not sure he should touch the kid. Looks like Buck'd just collapse into dust if he did. Dugan climbs jerkily back to his feet, at a loss. This is way over his head.
Barnes hisses abruptly and twists on the ground, grinding his teeth. That does it.
"Oh Jeesus Christ. I'm gettin' Cap-"

A hand shoots out and grabs his boot before he can turn to leave. He looks down. Barnes is looking desperately up at him, pale eyes wide and glassy. A sharp shake of the head. No. Bucky's face contorts at the effort and an awful, painful noise squeaks out of his throat.
"Nnnngah… f-fuck… no." Barnes wheezes out, gritting his teeth hard and curling impossibly tighter around himself. The hand still heavily draped over Dugan's foot is trembling. "N-no. Can't- ggggghh… Jus' be...be q-quiet..."

Fear flares brighter in Dugan's gut. Bucky looks like he's in agony, but there's not a mark on him. What the hell could do that to a man…?
Poison volunteers itself unhelpfully in his brain.

"Kid, what's wrong?" Bucky shakes his head sharply again, and Dum Dum is amazed he hasn't bitten clean through that sleeve the way his jaw is locked. "Don't fuckin' do this to me, Barnes! We talked about this once. 'No dyin' ', remember?!"

Barnes's eyes are tightly closed again -and he looks like he's in the middle of swallowing his own tongue- before he blinks them open again with what looks like tremendous effort. "Nnnggggg-give… give me a m-minute…" Bucky gasps out, knuckles going white where he's blindly pawing and clutching against the cold, damp ground. His fingers twitch reflexively, hard, against Dugan's boot.

After what feels like hours, but can only be a few minutes, the grasp on Dum Dum's foot slowly loosens. Barnes limply dissolves outward into a loose pile of limbs; panting and pathetic on the ground. He spits out the mangled cuff of his coat and groans softly, rolling over to splay himself out on his back.

"What the fuck was that?!" Dugan hisses frantically, dropping into a crouch to get a better look at the kid, not entirely satisfied that Sarge really isn't going to die right here in front of him. "What the fuck just happened?!"

Barnes pushes himself up onto his elbows slowly, still panting, and scruffs a dirty hand over his face. It leaves behind a muddy trail. He grimaces and swipes the mess off again with the back of his wrist.
"Nothin'." he wheezes, letting his hand drop, sounding thoroughly exhausted and out of breath. "Just… Side effect."

"Side effect?" Dugan blinks a moment before recognition sets in. He lets out a long low breath. "This's from that Nazi fuckhead's lab, ain't it?" Barnes's face clouds. He looks away and says nothing. "You said you were fine, kid. You said 'just got th'shit kicked outta me, nothin I can't handle'. That's what you told us, Barnes!"

"I can handle it."
And just like that, he can see how young Sarge really is. Stubborn, stupid kid that just keeps getting the shit kicked out of him - and it's wearing him down, but he'd sooner die than admit it. He's gonna deal with this whole crazy thing alone if that keeps it all quiet…
A loud, angry roar echoes through Dugan's head as white-hot rage dims the edges of his vision. He has to resist the urge to try putting his fist through the tree. Cap might be able to get away with that shit, but he'd probably break something if he tried.
To say that Dum Dum's pissed off would be a massive understatement.
Somebody did this to Barnes, and he's gonna personally find and splatter that bastard one of these days. If he hadn't already wanted to blow the hell out of HYDRA, well he sure as fuck does now.

"This happen before?" he demands quietly. Bucky looks down at his hands in silence, and that's his answer. Dugan can feel his face twisting into an ugly grimace.
"How many times? It always this bad?"

Bucky still won't look at him. "S'pretty normal."

"How many times, Jimmy?"

"Told you not to call me that, Dum Dum." Barnes slowly climbs to his feet, wavering for a second as his hand shoots up to his forehead like he's about to faint. The kid steadies out again a moment later, leaning up against the trunk of the tree, and some color slowly ebbs back into his face.

"You seen a medic for that?"

Bucky shakes his head carefully, leaning down a little to brace his hands against his thighs. "No point. Just got checked out. Healthy as a fuckin' horse."

"You sure don't look healthy, kid." Dugan frowns, considering. "Tell Gabe. At least have him check ya out."

"Dugan, I'm tellin' ya-"

"Either you tell Jones, or I tell Rogers." That shuts Barnes up. He glares a moment, then finally nods.

"Fine. But he's gonna hafta keep his mouth shut too."

Dum Dum nods and sighs, looking up into the tree-tops as if the answers he needs are there to be seen. He feels like a heel for caving in.
He should tell the Captain. Of course he should. He's not stupid. This is big and dangerous, and Sarge has had his ass handed to him more than enough times as it is… The kid needs his brothers in arms backing him up, and they can't do that if they don't know what's hurting him.

It's just… Bucky never really asks for anything. Never has. This's gotta be important, even if he's got no damned idea why. So Dugan'll compromise, at least for now.
He'll do what Sarge wants. He's just getting real damned tired of seeing this kid looking like his legs are about to give out underneath him.
"C'n you walk?" he asks, to change the subject.

Barnes nods, and he looks almost normal except for the bits of dirt on his uniform. He's not pale or shaking anymore, and the sweat had dried and vanished. Kid does actually look pretty healthy now.
"I'm good." Bucky mutters, pointedly looking anywhere but at Dum Dum as he slowly straightens up and dusts himself off. "Only ever lasts a few minutes, then s'gone."

"It ever stay gone?"

Barnes quietly brushes past him, without meeting his eyes. "For a while."

Dernier gives him a dirty look when Dugan comes back and drops himself numbly down beside the fire again. The frenchman quickly burrows back into his warm bedroll and rolls over, very irritably informing Dugan that since he took his own sweet time, he's welcome to take Dernier's watch as well.

And that's fine, really. It's ok.
Dum Dum wasn't going to sleep much more tonight anyway.