tushanshu | 10° VIDEO

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[There's a pause before Johnny's face appears on the screen, bent over to press the buttons. Once he confirms that the screen is on, he straightens and makes sure he's in frame, wearing very basic clothes.]

Aw, Reed. You shouldn't have! It's a little small, but I admit, I like what you've done with the place.

[He waits a beat, as if Reed might actually respond.]

There are two obvious possibilities for why I'm here. One, the Emperor is a crazed fan who abducted me to find out if The Torch is really as hot as they say he is – I am, by the way – or, two, I'm actually dead, they're lying to me, and I have a motorcycle and a pile of women waiting for me somewhere.

[A split-second pause.] I'll tell you what. If it's the first option? You can come find me. If it's the second, let me know and I'll come find you. Until then? This Fire Sector is like home, sweet home.

Johnny out.

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A bit rash in jumping to conclusions, aintcha.

My name's Bucky. Sergeant Bucky Barnes.

Steve Rogers is the one whose face you have.

[Johnny kicks up the encryption.]

Most people don't give someone else's name before their own.

Now.. what are you talking about with faces? Are you from another universe too?

[Not that he had to, Bucky's only screening from... the other Bucky, since he's taken up not really making his younger self deal with this, too, yet. And the younger Bucky is probably still not up to hacking the standard encryption, yet. Maybe. So it was just the introduction.]

Yeah, well.

[He fumbles with the console and manages to link one of Steve's recent posts.]

Take a look for yourself. And, yeah, Steve 'n I grew up together.

..Well that's creepy.

[Steve's voice plays faintly in the background as Johnny watches the video, still leaving the channel open with Bucky.]

What kind of a name is Captain America? Is this the parallel universe version of me that didn't have any fun as a child?

That's... not it, no. Then again, who'd want to be called Human Torch? Do they stick you in walls to light up the way?

[... you insulted Steve as a kid, pal. Bucky's not gonna skim on the mocking.]

At least Steve didn't pick that name, he just ended up stuck with it.

Maybe because I'm human. [He lifts both hands to gesture in one direction.]

And a torch. [He gestures to the other direction and both hands light on fire. They extinguish as he drops his hands a moment later.]

I didn't have a lot of time to come up with something.

Oh.

[Give him a moment. It shouldn't surprise him that much, by now.]

That would stand to reason, I guess.

'm guessing that's not some sort of magic but... an ability? Sorry, not saying anything about either option, just trying to sort it all in my head.

An ability, yeah. My team and I were hit with an extremely rare radiation storm when Reed miscalculated the impact. [Not that he's pointing fingers or naming names.]

It was on a space station, so no one else was affected.

... you were on a space station.

How... how's that?

[Come on, he's from before manned flight. And, for all the talk of aliens and traveling in time and between universes, man traveling - stationed - in space is still frigging amazing, to him.]

[He'll just assume that's a comment on him, personally, and not on space.]

Hey! I was a pilot for NASA. I was the best choice for the job.

[Whoa whoa whoa whoa, calm doooown.]

People didn't go there, back when I'm from, that's all.

They didn't go into space? It's not like everyone in our time does either. I'm special.

You are, huh? And, yeah, nobody from my time did.

Oh. Well, we have space travel. Astronauts and everything. I was selected as part of an elite crew to be the first to study a particular storm on Von Doom's station.

And the storm - changed you. And the rest of the crew?

Yeah. Ben got the worst of it, so now he's a brick house. Sue can turn invisible and Reed can stretch. I got the whole fire thing.

I know it's a lot to believe. It's not normal where we come from either. We were the first.

Brick house? Kinda like the Santo guy here? He's made of stone, least looks like he is.

[Beat.]

First? There's more now?

Yeah, like that. Except orange and with edges like kids' safety scissors.

Not exactly. There's this silver surfer. He has powers, but he came from space, so I don't really know if that counts.

[Bucky makes a face that's got his mouth screwed sideways, but it's not one of disbelief, just. Trying to sort things out in his mind.]

Right. So. You and Sue and Ben and Reed all went together in space? You guys knew each other from before?

It's complicated. Sue's my sister, see, and she was dating Victor Von Doom - he went up with us too and got his own kind of powers. Reed's the leader in his field and he and Sue used to date, so she wanted to do a nice thing for him and he brought Ben. Ben and I go way back too, but that's a different story.

Anyway, the five of us were all affected. The four of us got closer and became superheroes. Victor went off the deep end and tried to be a villain. When we put an end to that, he fell off the grid for awhile, then resurfaced thanks to a dumb general in the US Government who decided he'd be a good help with an alien.

[Processing.]

[Processing.]

... the Silver Surfer you mentioned?

You wouldn't believe me if I told you.

Right. If ya say so.

[Come on, this place has done nothing but stretch his capacity to believe in crap, but if that's how Johnny wants it, he's not gonna push. Much.]

Maybe some other time.

That works.

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