✪ ) video

[kneecaptain]

[ So here's Bucky, with his pale face and dark hair, treating this thing like it's a walkie-talkie and not a laptop. ]

Awhile back— it must've been months ago— someone told me the UE was mixing up people's minds. Erasing them. Filling them up with lies and propaganda.

The person who told me that is gone, now. A lot of people are gone now. So I wanna know if anyone else had intel on this.

[ He pauses, and presses his lips together. He looks like he's gonna say something for a while, before he says it. ]

Yeah, if you need to know, I want to stop 'em. [ He smiles when he says that last bit, white as something out of the reels. ]

Comments

[kneecaptain]

Not really. Unless you've got a crappy phone.

[ Hmmm. ]

You're from the 90s?

[whatsupcroc]

You mean those phones people kept trying to tell me are so cool? Gabriel gave me his, when he was here.

( She shrugs. )

Yeah, I'm pulled from 1997.

[kneecaptain]

[ He's not going to defend the phones, okay. ]

Huh.

[ He's never been from the future before!! ]

[whatsupcroc]

Didn't you talk with Al when he was here?

[kneecaptain]

Maybe?

[whatsupcroc]

Huh. I thought you did... he's from the 80's! Likes to run around and start fights in and out of cape?

[kneecaptain]

Oh. You mean Robin.

[whatsupcroc]

One of the three, yeah. First one who showed up here!

[kneecaptain]

Yeah, I figured it was a legacy thing.

[ But hold on— ]

His name was Al?

[whatsupcroc]

Alfred. It's what he went by.

( Not his real name, she suspects; it would be a few weeks before she'd learn his real name at all. After waiting months, and then watching him leave, she frankly suspected she'd never have known. )

[kneecaptain]

I never pressed.

Kid's a smartass.

[whatsupcroc]

( She finds herself laughing outright at that excellent summation. )

Yeah, he is. Was. Whichever applies.

( She liked it. )

[kneecaptain]

Well, maybe by now he's grown out of it.

[whatsupcroc]

( Her hesitation lasts half a second. )

Somehow, I kinda doubt he ever will.

( He doesn't have the chance. )

[kneecaptain]

[ He catches some sense of that pause. ]

What do you mean?

[whatsupcroc]

( She smiles as she looks away. )

Just a feeling. I dunno.

[kneecaptain]

Right.

[whatsupcroc]

Mmm. But I should go for now! I've been distracting long enough.

( Al and everything she suspects about him isn't hers to share, let alone now, or here, or with this guy. )

See you around!