recolle | OPEN POST ♞ THE BIRD IN THE BASKET

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marvel 616: bucky barnes

OPEN POST ♞ THE BIRD IN THE BASKET

WHO: Makoto Naegi and anyone else!
WHERE: Literally everywhere in Recolle
WHEN: 03/06
WHAT: There's a crane. There's a crane in the mailbox. There's a crane on university grounds. Help. This is the accompanying network post.
WARNINGS:

ONE

After getting that murder weapon from Retrospec, Naegi thought he wouldn't get anything as bad as that. He means, that's the worst of the worst, right? Nothing can really top that. But this? This... this is definitely bad. Not murder weapon bad but still pretty awful.

It's a giant red-crown crane. It's a giant red-crown crane and it's stuck in the mailbox. It's stuck in the mailbox and Naegi, being the good kid that he is, is left with the terrible duty of getting a wild animal out of it. He honestly doesn't even know where to start and when he tries to move closer to try and help, he just gets pecked twice on the forehead instead.

Pecked really hard.

He stumbles back and just holds his forehead in his hands while the bird still trashes in the mailbox.

He's... he's already done.

TWO

Well, after a minute of dealing with the searing pain of an angry bird pecking you despite you wanting to help, Naegi still tries to figure out a way to get this poor crane out of the mailbox. He takes a deep breath and gets right in there, willing to withstand the Pecks of the North Star to try and shimmy the bird out. However, it would be a lot easier if the bird didn't act like he was trying to take it out so he could eat it or something and trash around like a headless chicken.

"H-Hey, i-it's all right! I'm just trying to help you!"

He says as if the crane can understand and can suddenly realize that this human is, in fact, helping and not trying to kill it. It's going to be a long and difficult fight, resulting in someone losing an eye if this keeps up.

Please help.

THREE

Probably an hour after Naegi gets the bird free, he now doesn't really know what to do with it. There's no way he can take it home because he's pretty sure you can't keep cranes as pets (and he doesn't really want to) but the thing is...

It won't stop following him now.

For a bird that put up such a fight when it was in the mailbox, it now seems to have no problems with Naegi. The thought process is probably like this: "yes, this is a good human. This human saved its life. Gotta follow this human to be safe. Maybe it will be fed. Good human." Something like that. Anyway, Naegi is exasperated by this turn of events and he keeps looking back at it as he walks.

"I'm telling you... You really can't follow me home..."

He sounds so defeated though and that's probably because he knows that he's not going to win this fight. The crane is determined and that's that.

FOUR

Wanna know how determined this crane is to following him, though?

Well, Naegi is at Recolle University, trying to attend class, pick up some supplies from the mentoring office, actually be in the mentoring office to help his mentees, and do some studying at school and this goddamn crane is following him. Throughout the entire school... Naegi is just pretty much trying to ignore it and going through his day like it's completely normal.

Feel free to meet him anywhere on campus grounds because this crane isn't going to leave him alone...

WILDCARD

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[ JESUS, James can't help but take a step back when the bird starts thrashing. ]

Yeah, no wonder, it's trapped in a mailbox! The quicker you get it out of there, the more it's gonna chill out.

[ Probably. He doesn't know anything about swans. Swans? Birds. ]

Do you have food? Lure it out with some stale bread or something.

[ naegi has to kind of jump back when the bird trashes around again. it's got a killer reach with that long neck and would probably try to peck out james' eye to eat it. naegi goes through his bag and pulls out a little baggie that has a very boring and plain bagel in it. literally no spread or anything that would make it taste better than just boring bread but he holds it out to james ]

I have a bagel but can a crane even eat it? It's not like a duck.

[ spoilers: red-crowned cranes are more carnivorous than other cranes ]

Sure it is! Just rip it up into bits to make sure it can swallow them.

[ James is an expert on cranes. (No he is not.) He raises an eyebrow at Naegi at the sight of him holding the bag. ]

What, you want me to do it?

Ah, no, I can do it...

[ naegi shouldn't ask some random stranger to do it when this is pretty much his own problem. he'll bring the bag back towards him and opens it so he can pull out the plain bagel inside. with how stale it is, it's... hard to rip it into tiny bits without making a bunch of crumbs so that's what he gets: a hand full of crumbs and some crudely ripped pieces of bagel bread and a bunch of crumbs. ]

[ naegi outstretches his hand towards the bird, seeing if the crane will take the offering. the bird starts trashing for a moment to look at the hand. there's a second or two as it seems like it might actually work but then the crane denies the offering and goes right back to having a seizure in the mailbox, pecking at naegi's hand. ]

Ouch!

[ he jumps back, dropping the crumbs and little bread pieces on the floor. ]

[ ...Well. The kid doesn't look like he's bleeding or anything, so maybe the bird isn't pecking that hard. Which means he might be able to do it without ruining his hand. James sighs. ]

Alright, alright, let me give it a shot.

[ It takes him a few moments to get his left arm positioned such that it's outstretched, but once it is, he leans down to get a handful of bagel scraps and crumbs, positions them on his prosthetic hand, and then approaches the bird--at first boldly, but then tentatively, step by step.

You can try pecking away at him all you want, you beaky fuck, but it's not like it's gonna hurt a bit. ]

[ neagi will just watch as james tries to feed the hellish bird. said bird can apparently read meta brackets because once james' prosthetic hand is close enough, it starts going nuts on it, pecking and just honking at it. ]

... I don't think it likes bread.

[ Wow okay it may not hurt, per se, but he sure is feeling the pecking impact vibrating up his arm all the way to his shoulder, and it doesn't feel great. After a few seconds of aggressive pecking, though, the shoulder joint fails and the arm swings loose back to his side, scattering bread crumbs all over the ground.

First, James checks to make sure his arm's okay--any gouges from the pecking, is his shoulder joint damaged--but once everything checks out to be fine (probably), he kicks some of the breadcrumbs in its direction. ]

Stupid bird.

Okay, new plan. Get one of those long claw grabber things, and use that to push it back into the mailbox.

[ SEND IT BACK FROM WHENCE IT CAME. ]

T-That's just promoting animal cruelty!

[ well, more than retrospec has already done right now... but he'll step forward just in case that james gets the crazy idea to punch a bird in the face or shove it into mailbox... not that he could probably stop him but you know ]

I-It's all right, I'll try to figure out a way to pull it out on my own... thanks for trying, though. Is your arm okay?

[ He waves off the concern about his arm ] My arm's fine, it still works okay.

And it's not animal cruelty, it's not like we're trapping it inside of the mailbox! It's just going right back to Retrospec. Like putting it in a dog carrier for transit.

[ Of course, who knows how the Retrospec mail room treats its animals. James does not know and, after dealing with this terrorbird, does not particularly care. ]

What are you even gonna do with it once you have it? It's just gonna go around attacking everything in sight. At least if we push it back in, it's contained.

I was thinking maybe I could call the zoo and see if they could take it in... or maybe set it free in the woods or something. Anything seems better than the mailbox.

[ he sounds kind of unsure as he says this because he really doesn't have a set plan. he just knows that it might be best not to keep the crane there and get sent back to retrospec. there was that one time his roommate put his talking pet rabbit back into the mailbox and he was told that it was just "dark". it didn't exactly go anywhere so he's afraid that'll be the same problem with the crane... ]

Yeah, that sounds nice and all, but that all depends on you getting it out of there first.

You think if we called animal control, they'd actually get it out?

It's their job to handle something like this, right? I can give them a call?

[ spoilers: he'll call but they won't believe him because this type of crane out in north america? haha nice prank call, kid ]

If it's anyone's job to handle this, it's theirs. Hell, it's probably not even gonna be their first time pulling a bird out of a mailbox.

I guess you're right. I'll call them right now.

[ taking a step back, he pulls out his cellphone and after googling the number for animal control, he dials their number. insert a one-sided convo here that i am too lazy to type out but imagine that it's naegi giving the basic info like hey there's a crane here, he thinks it's a red-crowned crane (he knows only based on his memories), blah blah blah before he hangs up with a defeated look ]

... they said they're not coming.

Wait. Did you say that thing's a crane? I thought it was just a crappy swan!

What kind of swan looks like this?!

I don't know, I don't identify swans for a living! What's even the difference between a crane and a swan, anyway?

I think almost everything. I don't know the exact details but I definitely know that swans look completely different.

You've never read The Ugly Duckling as a kid?

Of course I've read it. What's that got to do with anything? The ugly duckling was a swan.

Well, it described what a swan looked like and if you got the picture book then it would have shown what it looks like as well so...

[ the crane does not fit the description/looks of a swan???? ]

Oh right, like I remember all the details of what a swan looks like! All I know is they're mostly white and have some black on them too.

[ he gestures to the crane. ]

What part of that doesn't fit that bill?

Okay, okay, I get it...

[ they should probably move on from this... ]

Well, what are we going to do now? Animal control won't come help us.

[ He glares at the crane. ]

Just leave it here. Come back later, once it's gotten so desperate it'll let you take it out without being such a dick about it.

I guess...

[ it seems cruel but maybe that's the best course of action right now. it's definitely not coming out when it's like this. but ah, he just realized... ]

Oh, sorry, did you need to get something out of the mailbox as well?

Yeah, but it's not like I'm getting it any time soon now.

[ He doesn't say it with any real malice or annoyance--more like it's a fact of life that he's acknowledging. It's fine, he was kind of nervous about checking out this package anyway. At least now he gets to delay it a bit more. ]

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