The Collection- Bucky Barnes

Collision Course- iii

The room is ice. It isn't cold, but there's no longer a welcoming feeling. It long disappeared with the arrival of the man seated across from her.

Her mind is tricked. The man who sits before her is the shadow self of her betrayer. The Brutus to her Caesar. She knows he isn't the man who broke her trust and snitched on her, but the uncanny resemblance and the thinly differing attitude are enough to pull the wool over her eyes.

She knows it isn't the Stephen Strange that inhabits her world, but it's his face. And she's always been one to nurse a grudge past the point of no return.

"I figured you out." He says casually, hands locked around his crossed knees.

They've an audience. The others watching, huddled around the conference table like spectators at the Colosseum. Bucky watches the most intently, body leaned forward in keen interest, eyes squinted in determination to not miss a thing.

Aurora crosses her arms over her chest. "Took long enough." She mutters. "Got my hopes up, thought maybe you were dead here." She'd never been so lucky anyway.

It isn't as if Stephen did anything wrong. In fact, he apparently saved the universe from ending or whatever. All by tattle-telling on her to Steve and Tony and refusing to help her bring back the dead. He may have done the world a favor, but he wronged her and that's enough to strike him down on her bad list any day of the week.

Her Stephen or not, this one's gonna pay.

"Here...?" Bucky, if at all possible, leans forward more towards them.

Stephen doesn't give him a passing glance. "She isn't from this world."

Bucky blinks. He looks at Stephen, and then to Aurora. His eyes canvas her in a way that feels slightly violating. "You look so human though..."

Mirroring Aurora's own bewildered expression is Stephen and...well, everyone. They all turn to Bucky, who's too busy staring at Aurora with wide, inspecting eyes.

Aurora and Stephen share a look of exasperation before she turns back to Bucky. "Thank you...?"

Stephen's cape swats Bucky's bicep. "She is human, you idiot." Stephen sighs.

"But you said-I-what world-?"

She leans back in her chair, staring Stephen down. Her legs cross at the knees and her arms still fold over her chest. She levels her chin and raises an eyebrow. With a challenging glare, she sweeps a hand towards the sorcerer.

Stephen shifts in his chair. "When I say she's from another world, I mean another Earth. Another-."

Boring. "Universe." Aurora supplies dryly. "Reality. Whatever you want to call it. You're just as annoyingly verbose here as you are back home." It's almost refreshing. If it weren't him. Anyone else. Anyone else could've been the same, but no. It had to be Stephen Strange.

He doesn't show any offense to her callous remarks before continuing on his journey. "How did you end up here, then? Did you come on your own volition?"

He had to be kidding. As if she'd purposefully send herself to another dimension where she never existed and everyone she loved was different.

"She was sent here." Bucky answers for her. It's almost defensive, the way he says it, how quickly he answers. "I told you that when we talked."

Carefully, not too quietly, Steve mentions that people do have the ability to lie. And she could be holding back some of the truth. Or flat out lying. People did after all, he says, lie all the time.