tushanshu_logs | Stand By Your Man...or Your Best Friend When He Starts a Fight

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Stand By Your Man...or Your Best Friend When He Starts a Fight

Characters: Toro Raymond, Bucky Barnes (

beganwithamask), AND YOU
Date: 5/11 afternoon
Location: Marketplace
Situation: Toro gets scammed, Bucky doesn't like it, and somehow a fight breaks out. Someone might want to step in--to stop it or help it along.
Warnings/Rating: Language, violence, maybe a little bit of blood

[He had only intended on picking up some food. Ever since the last landfall, Toro has been cautious about how he spends money, mainly by leaving it up to Bucky. He's always been terrible at knowing what things are worth and how much he should be paying for them, so it just seemed easier that way.

Still...he sure was getting tired of fish. It was the cheaper "meat" so that's what they got, but for once he'd like to have some beef or even a some chicken. So he'd taken some of his earnings from the past couple of weeks and headed to the marketplace with Bucky. Not that he told him he was going to buy a chicken and maybe pick up some sweets while he was at it. He wanted it to be a surprise. It wasn't like anything could go wrong...right?

He should have known better than to think something like that.

After the fight, he's keeping his eyes out, but hopefully they're far enough away now that they won't be into trouble. He wonders just how many people saw that and if the police will be after them for it.]

{OOC: Feel free to run into them before the fight, shopping in the marketplace, or after when they're trying to make a quick getaway. Threads will include both Toro and Bucky unless you state you want one or the other!}

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[Toro is wandering the food market at first, trying to get an idea of what was available and what he might like to buy. Not much is catching his interest just yet, but he is really hoping to find something nice. Enough that he might get pulled into an overpriced sale if he's really set on buying something. He's not pay too much attention, so apologies if he accidentally bumps into a person or two.

That was how he found himself being told a five-pound chicken was worth 8 juulan. It seems a little steep to him, but maybe they just cost a bit more now that the rationing is back...]

I guess if that's what you say it is... [He really wants the chicken so he's digging into his pocket for the money to pay.]

[Bucky's browsing another stall, coincidentally also for a nice chicken (he's grabbed a few vegetables and some potatoes from that wolf's field, and has it in his head that he's going to make a nice big pot of mess-hall chicken stew with potato dumplings since they really knew how to stretch a chicken in Lehigh), when he hears snippets of the conversation a couple stalls over.

How much juulan? For how many pounds of chicken? There's a contained sort of fury in his face as he heads over, hands clenched into fists at his sides. He's been raring for a fight since he got here, otherwise maybe he'd be more reasonable about things.] Hey pal, you chose the wrong guy to try to rip off today. You wanna try that with me? Huh?

[Toro stops and turns to see Bucky's face and knows that look. Oh criminy.]

Hey Bucky it's fine. Times are tough. They wouldn't try to squeeze that kind of dough out of us unless it was worth it, right? [He turns back to the kedan, although the look he gets in response really does not boost his confidence.]

[Oh, he knows Toro knows that look, but he's not going to back down. They're just as poor and starving as all the rest, and they never asked to be here.] Toro, don't be stupid. He's tryin' to wring us dry because he thinks he can. Well guess what, ain't gonna happen, pal. Find another couple'a suckers to gouge.

[The response he gets... isn't nearly as peaceable or as 'yes let me lower that price' as Bucky would hope, and it's not more than a couple more minutes before they're getting up in each other's faces.]

[Bucky is too heated and Tom would know, but he's the one stuck unsure what to do. Bucky's arguing loudly with the merchant and they're drawing the attention of other people in the marketplace--particularly other kedan. He's upset about being cheated like that, but he isn't sure they want to start something here of all places.]

Bucky, we're getting a lot of eyes on us. We can just go somewhere else. He's lost business for the day.

[The phrase 'eyes on us' only makes him pause for a moment, and he shoots Toro a look.] No, this guy's askin' for it, he can't just get away with gougin' people during rationing! We ain't second-class citizens just cause they don't want us here!

[To his credit... Bucky doesn't throw the first punch. But he will throw the second with very little provocation needed besides the sting in his jaw.]

Sure Bucky, but--[And now that Bucky's thrown a punch back, this isn't just a simple fight between them and one kedan. A Foreigner fighting a kedan is big news in the middle of the market. Big enough that they're getting a crowd and people who want to step in.]--this is going to get messy real fast.

Let it get messy then, I didn't start it! [As he throws another punch. He's been itching for an excuse to fight since he got here, feeling angry and cornered and caged almost, and this is as good a reason as any, he figures. The merchant started this by treating them the way he did, trying to rip off Toro when it isn't like they have much money anyway (because work is way more scarce for foreigners now, also the kedans' fault).]

Buck--[Toro starts trying to calm Bucky down again, only just as Bucky and the merchant are trading blows Toro notices another kedan coming toward them with a large staff, calling them thieves.]

Hey, watch it! [He blocks the wooden stick and is trying to keep his temper.] Ain'tcha ever heard, "you break it, you bought it"? 'Cause I'm about to buy you a whole mess of trouble if you don't back off.

[He's too embroiled in it already. No matter how much the Army might have cleaned him up, this is how he's been since he was just a child - all raw talent and anger and an unmasked, unbridled glee at getting to just let loose and punch someone. His father would be ashamed of him, no doubt. He rolls with a punch, though he'll probably have a nice black eye later, and finally notices the kedan with the stick approach. Bucky just backs up a little toward Toro, in case they start to be surrounded.] Thieves? Us? Ain't the ones charging that much for a damn chicken, are we? I told you they started it, pal.

Highway robbery is being nice about it. [Toro tries not to start at the strange and yet oh so familiar feeling of Bucky at his back. Fred Davis was a good Bucky--a good partner to Captain America--but it would never be the same way it was with the real thing. Their friendship couldn't even compare. Young Allies, Kid Commandoes, Junior Invaders--partners.

More kedan are noticing and moving towards them and Toro doesn't even mind so much because he's about to really see Bucky in action. He punches the kedan with the stick just as he raises it to swing at him again.]

You always did know how to draw eyes, Mister B!

[He and Toro have had their spats, but they've always had each other's backs, too. Bucky doesn't trust a whole lot of things, especially not here, but he will always trust that Toro will have his back no matter what they get themselves into. He's slid easily into a ready stance, fists balled, not too tightly, at his sides and muscles tensed and ready to spring. It seems like just a few months ago they were fighting together, for Bucky, but it's still a nice, familiar feeling.

As another one closes in, Bucky catches him with a right hook and sends him sprawling to the ground, grinning.] Nah, Mister T, you're the dazzling one here, shame no one sees that. ['Give them a razzle dazzle if things get too hot to handle, but not yet.' They always understood each other in a way no one else really could.]

[Toro's never been as skilled at hand-to-hand as Bucky--probably never will be--but he knows how to throw a punch and how to dodge. He also knows how to add a little extra heat into his throws so that maybe it stings just that much more. And he gets what Bucky is saying pretty easily. He'll probably never tell him that he taught the other Bucky a lot of the coded language they used when on mission, but at least here he knows it's just between the two of them.]

If I'm dazzling then you must be shining like that silver dollar in your pocket you've been hoarding. ['I know you have a knife in your boot Bucky. Do you need to use it?']

[He'd be a little surprised at that; not a lot of people really ever understood their code, which was essentially made up on the fly out of a lot of teamwork and mutual understanding. They probably seemed crazy to that new Bucky.

Bucky flattens another kedan that rushes him with a few well placed moves, a fist here and there, a sweep of his foot, an elbow in the face. Nonlethal but painful.] They show me theirs, I'll show 'em mine. ["We don't want to kill anyone, no knives unless it's necessary for self-defense." Which, for Bucky, isn't likely - the kedan might be a bit stronger than average, but they're not well trained.]

[Toro laughs a bit, hearing Bucky loud and clear.] You just don't like showing off unless the audience is full of pretty dames. Want me to go find a couple for you? ["Then maybe we should get out of here soon before more show up." The kedan numbers are growing and Toro would really rather get out of there before the police showed up.]

[He doesn't want to. He's having one hell of a time swinging at a bunch of snot-nosed kedan and finally getting to release some of this horrible nervous energy that's been building up since they arrived, and so he hesitates to answer - at least until he spots law enforcement uniforms to their south. Bucky curses aloud as another one gets him in the gut, and retaliates by slamming his fist into the offender's face.] Ah hell, party's over! Let's crack this nut and exfil north. [Meaning bust a way out through the crowd in the opposite direction of the police. He knows the city pretty well, knows how to keep from being seen; hopefully that'll help them here.]

[Invincible notices the angry Kedan before the two boys trying to make a hasty exit. He flies a few feet above them and calls down.] You know they don't like us right now, right?

[Toro is just about to throw caution to the wind and flame on to get them out of there--and have to buy himself more clothes--when he sees the guy overhead. Where did he come from?]

No kiddin'! Maybe you should tell them to cool their jets since they started it.

[Bucky's not used to being interrupted while they make a break for it. He knows these alleys and streets pretty well by now, doing what he does, but he doesn't hear Invincible come up until he speaks; in a second, he's whirling around, knife in hand, and where the hell did that come from?] Naw, I didn't get that, tell me again. You wanting to give us away?

[Really dude, a knife? He's Invincible (Kind of. Sort of. Mostly. Enough that that knife won't do much, anyway.)

As for where he came from, who knows? All that matters is he's here, bothering the two of you.] And start a riot? Sometimes you have to know when to get out of dodge.

[Puts a finger on Bucky's knife to show its futility against him.] You know, I was going to help you get out of here, but now I don't know if I feel like it...

Bucky, come on, it's not the time. [They've got another problem already.]

Help us? [Okay, Toro feels a teensy bit insulted at the suggestion that they need help. Really this fight could have been over with if they weren't trying to avoid going to jail.] Unless you've got a superpower that puts people sleep or turns them into fluffy bunnies, we've got the rest covered.

[He doesn't seem much less wired, but he does slip the knife back into his belt, looking rather irritable.] It wasn't for you. Don't sneak up on a guy like that. [Bucky does... not do so well being snuck up on. He's got that whole jumpy war vet thing going for him.]

We have it covered. [He repeats, glancing over his shoulder at the slightest sound.] You're a little too yellow to be getting us out of this quietly.

[Why did he bother to be nice to you two again?] No, but I can bring you to the other side of the city in about a second. [And he means the clear other side of the city.]

Or I can take my bright yellow--which by the way is just the "i" and the gloves, my costume is mainly black--and watch you "fellas" get caught.

[This kid is kind of pushy, ain't he? Toro wonders if he and Bucky were like that at his age.] Thanks for the offer, but really it's okay. If we need to jet, I can handle it. We don't need a hero jumping in to save the day for us, but we appreciate the offer.

[Then he turns to Bucky.] Do you think they're that close?

[Because 20-ish year old superheroes have to stick together in this sea of teenagers?] It would help if we could get outta here without being seen period, both of you fliers are pretty conspicuous. Black suit or not. [It's still too much yellow for his tastes. At least his costume is government issued so he's got an excuse, not that he's worn it since he got here.]

They're pretty close. I dunno, maybe we can duck into that alley two blocks from here and go over a roof.

[Just rolls his eyes at it all.] I didn't do this to feed my ego, if that's what you're getting at.

Heh, when I fly as fast as I'm offering, you don't see me.

[But fine, since you aren't going to take him up on that...] What did you do to get them so pissed off, anyway?

[Toro doesn't know whether to defend Bucky immediately like he has the urge to do or to sigh and run a hand through his hair because this escalated so quickly.]

Lets just say the kedan don't like people pointing out when they're trying to gyp ya. Really don't like it.

[And then he looks at Bucky from the corner of his eyes.] And some other fellas don't know how to avoid throw punches back.

That guy was ripping you off and you were just gonna let him! He got what was comin' to him, he threw the first punch. I was defendin' myself. [He's half indignant, half sulking at this point. Maybe it was stupid to start a fight, but it's a little late to do anything about it right now.]

So, let me see if I got this right. You picked a fight with the people that hate us and seem surprised they're chasing you? That about sum it up?

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're all totally in the wrong here. The Kedan seem to be looking for reasons to be assholes these days.

Hey, he did start it, not us. If the guy wanted someone he could punch around and get away with it, he was striking the wrong match.

[Not that Toro doesn't think Bucky should have punched back instead of walking away, but no one blames them for something they didn't even start. He looks back behind him, trying to see if their pursuers are catching up.]

Buck are you sure I can't just fly us outta here?

He picked the fight, and the rest of 'em escalated it. I ain't sorry. [He doesn't really enjoy being treated like a second class citizen just for existing.] Not all of us have somewhere to go so they best get used to us foreigners bein' around. [Meaning, he's dead back home so he doesn't really have a lot of options.]

I'm still not convinced that's a good idea. If the police are still lookin' for us, they'll notice.

[Deep breaths, Invincible, they aren't to blame.]

[To Toro.] You can fly, right? How about I fly towards the Kedan and distract them, and you two get out of here? That work for everyone? Because that's why I came down here, by the way. To help you. Not to mock you.

Buck--come on, now. [Don't go talking like that because Toro would rather not think about how you're still dead back home. But he frowns even more at this fella's suggestion.] It's nice of ya to want to help and all, but why would you want to get yourself into trouble with them when that's what you're wanting us to avoid doing? You could get yourself arrest just as easily as we could. The kedan aren't as weak as they look.

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Stand By Your Man...or Your Best Friend When He Starts a Fight

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after; let me know if this is okay!

after; totally okay!

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