Vibranium and Chrome 3 (MCU/Cyberpunk 2077)

The pants were a tight fit, Bucky noted as he clasped the button above the zipper. It was a dark black material of some kind of synthetic fabric with more silver buckles than it reasonably needed. He had ripped them out, and they lay discarded to the side.

He turned away from Victor's body and to the brute. Unlike Victor who was just shy of five feet eleven, the brute was a much bigger specimen of augment and muscle. Even lacking his head, he still seemed to be more than six feet. With the head he was probably somewhere within the range of six feet to six and a half.

His pants would have been a perfect fit if the brute had the decency to die cleanly. Instead, he had soiled the pants, however his boots were fair game.

He tugged on the pair of brown boots and was happy they were his size. Then he slipped them on, even without a pair of socks to stop chafing; the pair fit well enough.

Bucky turned to the last figure, the woman. Her eyes still shot out sparks every few seconds, and her body twitched. If he were not certain of the stillness of her heart, he would have assumed she was still alive, but the woman was as dead as every other person he had put in the effort to kill.

He turned her over, then slipped the drab brown jacket a few sizes too big for her frame off. He wore it and noted it fit him better, which meant the woman had most likely looted it from someone else.

He was as dressed as he was ever going to be from scavenging among the dead trio. Now came the more difficult part. Leaving.

He stood still for a moment, contemplating the plan. Over the past few minutes while his body had focused on looting the dead, his brain had been hard at work, pulling connections, drawing lines. Every line, every piece of information that Victor had managed to give him before he died, drew him to a single person.

Wakako Okada.

The woman who had sent the mercs here. Some kind of fixer. The name was Japanese, and one that was just as unfamiliar. However, he had an idea of her location. Victor had called her the Lady of Westbrook, and when he asked for a location, the dying man had mentioned they were in Westbrook as well. Which meant the woman was close and popular enough that getting a hold of her was not impossible.

Blue eyes went to the gun on the floor, then the cybernetics on the dead trio. It seemed like open carry was now very legal, considering the SMG the runaway man had left behind and the cybernetic augments.

He moved to the dead brute and crouched to observe the man's arms. Now that he was not naked and swinging his junk in a fight, he took the time to inspect the heavy fist.

It was good work. Not anywhere near his vibranium left arm, but he felt that was owing more to the material the arm was made of, as well as Shuri's insight and knowledge that further enhanced it.

Still, it was a far cry better than any other he had seen prior to the snap and his sudden reawakening in cryo. He pushed down on the skin and noted the feeling. Synthetic skin overlaid over a titanium frame that edged outside the skin past the knuckles.

He moved to the man's frame to see the hastily and haphazardly welded reinforced plate over his midsection to better protect his body. The brute was the most heavily augmented, but all four figures had possessed some level of cybernetic ware, which meant that when he left this bunker, the odds that most people were just as enhanced were high.

Fifty-eight years gone. He pocketed the thought.

He stood up from his crouch and picked up the pistol the woman had been using. He took the holster from the woman's hips, alongside two extra magazines.

He tried to draw the slide to ensure there was no bullet stuck in the chamber, but it resisted him. A little fiddling with the gun showed that it did not have a slide like he was familiar with, but a special compartment at the back of the gun that served the same purpose. Then he discarded the empty mag and slipped in the new one. The movement was smooth and quick. The gun was familiar.

There was enough resemblance between it and the Glock that it was easy to use. It seemed that while a lot of things had changed, the 9mm was still a common round. He flicked the safety on, then slipped the pistol into the holster.

He walked up to the SMG and picked it up. It was a bit stranger. It had a familiar compact and bullpup-loaded shape as a few he had used, however that was where the similarities ended. He sought the safety, and when he did not find any, he simply pressed the strange butt of the gun to his shoulders, braced, then aimed down the gun sights at the wall.

He pressed down on the trigger, but it barely shifted. A light that went down the side of the gun showed red for a second, then fixed back to yellow. He tried it another two times before solidifying his theory. Either the gun was fingerprint-locked, or he lacked something that required it to work. Still, he slipped it into his jacket and zipped it up. He was certain to find some use for it. Done with his preparations, Bucky took a deep breath then stepped out of the bunker.

The abandoned facility was a tomb, and Bucky moved through it quietly like the ghost that Hydra had thought him to be. The hallways were dark except for the occasional emergency light that cast everything in shades of red and amber. He did not run. His hearing was good enough that he could block out the sound of the siren and focus on any nearby heartbeats, or the lack thereof. He was alone. There was no need to rush so he simply moved with purpose, cataloging each corridor, each exit, in case he ever needed to come back here.

The air grew colder as he descended deeper into the facility, then warmer as he climbed. His enhanced senses picked up the sound of running water, the faint echo of movement outside the bunker's walls. He followed it.

The sewers of Night City were not what he expected. The tunnels were massive, industrial, reinforced with concrete and steel that spoke of pre-planning and massive infrastructure investment, more than even the greatest city of his time had to offer. However, one unchanging familiarity between the sewer and the dozens of others he had been to was that the water that ran through them was dark and foul, but still navigable. He moved along the upper ledges, keeping his feet dry, his mind already three steps ahead.

It took him twenty minutes to find a way out.

The grate he pried open with his vibranium arm led to an alley that reeked only slightly. Bucky pulled himself up and through, emerging into the dim light of early evening. The sky above was a sickly orange, filtered through layers of pollution and neon that painted the clouds in shades of pink and purple.

He stopped for a moment, taking it in. Westbrook. Night City. It was a city like no other, even if there were once again similarities.

The city rose around him in vertical sprawls of steel and glass, interconnected by bridges and causeways that were just as technologically advanced as any he had seen in Wakanda. But where the isolated Africans enjoyed art and beauty, Night City was a different breed. Closer to Madripoor.

Every surface was covered in neon signs, holographic advertisements, and text that he barely read. The air hummed with electromagnetic energy, and the ground beneath his feet thrummed with the bass of a thousand different music sources all playing at once.

But what struck him the most was the people.

They flowed through the streets in a river of chrome and skin, their bodies augmented to degrees he had not even considered possible. People with limbs that were more machine than flesh. A man walked past the alleyway, he stood in with four eyes that glowed bright red. A woman came down from a taxi, naked, her skin and her privates only partially covered by shimmering bioluminescent tattoos that shifted and changed as she walked. Another woman, this one older, walked with six arms and passed him without a second glance.

Another man, this one obviously Japanese and with a head that seemed to be half-replaced by some kind of neural interface, paid attention to him the longest. If his ability to read what was left of the skin as reaction from the man was correct, the man was confused and surprised at him. Bucky slipped his two hands into his pockets instinctively, hiding the dull shine of his augmented arm and took a step backward into the dark. The man, realizing how he seemed, finally gave him a simple nod before he walked past.

This was not the world he had left behind.

Bucky stayed in the shadows as the evening deepened into night. He watched. He observed. He learned. He channeled memories of a darker time, of infiltrating places he had no right to be in.

Most people in the city moved with purpose, but there was a rhythm to the city that he needed to understand. Some wore corporate clothing; these were clean, usually single colors: blacks, greys, whites, and sometimes marked with logos he did not recognize. Others wore street clothes, brightly colored and obviously extravagant, like they were trying to draw attention away from their tired features and worn and patched bodies to their clothes. He noted another group walked with clothes a dark shade of red, marked with gang symbols that he filed away for later analysis. A few moved alone, but most moved in groups or with obvious augmentations that marked them as enforcers of some kind.

Currency was digital, which explained why he had found nothing on the mercs he had searched. At least the two he did. Not even his training as the Winter Soldier was going to make him shove his hands into shit-stained pants. He watched as people tapped their wrists or blink suddenly glowing eyes to counters, and small holographic displays flickered into existence. Money transferred. Goods exchanged. It was efficient and trackless, but unfortunately, it meant he had no way to participate.

But not everyone used digital currency.

A few times, in the darker corners of the streets, he saw the exchange of physical money. Paper notes, and once he had seen an older-looking woman with few obvious cybernetics buying something with a plastic card. Those scenes were rare, but it happened. He took note of them. Made note of the people who participated in these exchanges.

He also noticed the Arasaka logo everywhere. On buildings. On the chests of corporate employees. On holographic displays that cycled through propaganda about order, security, and progress. The corporation was ubiquitous and interwoven into the fabric of the city itself, reminding him of the tone Victor had used when speaking about the company.

By the end of the first day, Bucky had established a perimeter and a pattern. Westbrook was a district within Night City, and it had a particular character. More Asian influences than the rest of the city he had glimpsed. Japanese language on signs mixed with English and what he assumed was Chinese. The people here seemed different too, more traditional in some ways, more conservative in their augmentations.

He found a digital map at a bus stop. With the knowledge he had gathered, he managed to place his location in Westbrook. He was in a sub-section of the district, a place the map referred to as Japan Town. A neighborhood within a neighborhood within the city. Other locations were Charter Hill and North Oak, but he had no reason to go there yet. The woman he wanted to meet most likely resided in this part of the district.

He continued his pattern for two more days. Sleep in alleys, move through shadows, observe. Watch how people carried themselves. Note the numerous security cameras and the blind spots. Learn which streets were patrolled by corporate security and which belonged to the prominent Japanese gang that prowled the street.

Tyger Claws. He heard more than one person whisper it, and he noted it. Each day, he found new information. Each day, he became more invisible.

By the third day, he understood the basics of the city, how it worked, how it breathed. By nightfall, he had learned enough that he did not seem like somebody who had just woken up over fifty years into the future.

On the afternoon of day four, he found the gun vendor.

The shop was small, squeezed between a ramen restaurant and what appeared to be a club. The window displays showed everything from pistols to assault rifles, all arranged with the casual ease of a man selling vegetables. Cameras were everywhere, and the weapons were locked behind reinforced glass. However, the security was less than he expected. He could destroy the glass with a single blow of even his regular arm. He had almost walked past it, convinced it had to be a trap at first.

"Help you?" the vendor asked in accented English as he finally caught sight of Bucky, where he stood in the camera's blind spot. The man was old, his cybernetic eye replacing one that had been lost, skin weathered by decades of life. He seemed surprised by Bucky's presence but not by his appearance, which suggested that the standards for customer appearance were low.

Bucky pulled down the zipper of the jacket he wore then set the SMG on the counter. He almost asked about the gun, but knew that would mark him as someone who was easy to scam, so he kept quiet, and furrowed his brows. It was not quite a glare, but with his face hidden partially by his long brown hair, he cut enough of an intimidating figure that the man looked away and back to the gun.

The vendor picked it up, hefted it, and his weathered face split into a grin. "Arasaka TKI-20 Shingen. Smart gun. Military grade from about three years back. Someone modded this one though. See the port? A smart link mod. Gun won't fire unless it is... connected to user neural implant." He handed it back. "Here for bullets?"

"No."

The man focused on the gun.

"Sell then. Yes?"

Bucky nodded in response as the man took the gun back. He broke the gun down, hummed and hawed, then put it back together before looking back at Bucky.

"Where did you get this?"

"Found it," Bucky said simply.

The vendor's eye cycled through a few colors, and Bucky realized the man was accessing some kind of internal system, checking something. After a moment, the eye settled back to its natural brown. "Expensive paperweight if you don't have the neural implant for it. I will give you two hundred eddies for it. Parts alone are worth that."

Eddies. That is the local currency, but he could tell he was being fleeced.

"Five thousand," Bucky countered, and the man stared at him with surprise written on his features. Bucky knew it was a ridiculous price, so when the vendor grinned and leaned in and replied with "Three fifty," he knew that the gun was valuable enough. If it were not, the man would have simply pursued him out of the shop due to the price he called.

"Four thousand five hundred," Bucky replied with a flat tone. They went back and forth for a few minutes, and the old man seemed to enjoy the byplay between them more than he cared for the money. At the end of the day, they settled on nine hundred eddies, paid in cash. The man was surprised by the ask but shrugged and gave him the paper money.

Nine hundred eddies.

"Need anything else?" the vendor asked in still accented and broken English. "Pistol? You look like man who knows how to use firearm."

Bucky brought out the holster and dropped it on the counter. Just like before, the man took up the gun. "Militech standard M-10AF Lexington. Nothing special, fully automatic, durable and reliable. Selling?"

Bucky shook his head. "A silencer and an extra mag as well as a solid knife."

The man nodded without even a blink, then gave him what he asked for. He gestured at the knife. "Stinger. Solid for throwing and stabbing, chemically treated so poisonous as well. Total is three fifty eddies, but I like you so three hundred eddies."

Bucky accepted without any bargaining. He tested the weight of the knife first and noted how solid it was. Then he slipped it into the holster that came with it and it found a place just beside the pistol on his hips, partially covered by the jacket he wore.

With a final nod at the man, he turned around and left the shop.

The money from the gun sale got him a room in the only beat down motel he found, right at the edge of Japantown. It cost him at least the remaining half of the money he had on hand, and the room was small, cramped, with walls that seemed barely thicker than paper and plumbing that groaned at all hours. But it had a lock and a shower, and that was enough.

Bucky stood under the spray of hot water for twenty minutes, watching the grime and filth of three days in the alleys wash away. He had slept in abandoned storefronts, in doorways, among the very few homeless population of Westbrook. It seemed that the district was highbrow, but not even they could escape the presence of the homeless. The smell had seeped into his clothes, his skin, his hair. Now it washed away, revealing the person underneath.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror as steam rose around him. The face that looked back was no older than he remembered. Fifty-eight years in cryo had preserved him, but the weight of those years of his experience showed in his eyes and the bags beneath them.

He had been running on empty since he woke up, but as a super soldier, it had been more than doable, even if he did not particularly enjoy it. Now that he had the money, tomorrow he would eat something. Then he would find information about Wakako Okada, the woman who had orchestrated the raid on the facility. The woman who had, in her own way, freed him.

However, tonight, he would sleep in a bed that was not soaked with sewage, and that would be enough.