apocalypsehowcomm | Picking Up the Pieces [OTA log]

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Picking Up the Pieces [OTA log]

Who: Winter and open
When: After getting free of Dogtown
Where: Locations in the prompts
Summary: Trying to feel out the new world
Warnings: Grief

I. Changes

All Winter wants after they stumble out of the woods is a long bath and to curl up in bed and not come out for at least a day. But the town looks... strange. Some of the buildings are different. He doesn't recognize most of the people. There are definitely different names on some of his familiar haunts. Some of those signs move.

At first Winter chalks it up to exhaustion and grief making him see things. It wouldn't be the first time. He just hauls Kate and Rogers and whoever else stays with him back to the house, aching for that bath.

Except the house is in shambles. It looks almost like it did when they first bought it, right down to graffiti sprayed on one wall and a couple broken windows. Winter stares at it in dismay.

II. First Night - Closed to Kate and/or Rogers

They wind up getting a room at the local motel at least for the night, so Winter can get his goddamn bath. And clean up Rogers' hands. And eat a two boxes of pizza between them.

And then curl up in bed and stare at the his phone until the battery dies, staring at the tiny dot on the tracking app that has Yelena's name on it. Right next to the dots that say Rogers, Kate, and Winter, because he has Yelena's tracker still in his pocket.

III. The House

Winter is determined to get the house back to some kind of shape again. It's their house. The house he and Yelena and Rogers all pitched in to buy outright, which is probably the only reason it's even still standing after fifteen fucking years (fifteen years, Jesus Christ), rather than knocked down and remodeled to something new.

The roof is okay, since it had been new. The basement is still clean, newly sealed and locked up tight before they'd left. The rest of the house is a disaster. There's cleaning to do first, then replacing windows all over again. Winter is relieved as hell they had installed tile in the downstairs room rather than carpet or wood, because they don't need to replace that.

Just all the carpet upstairs. And almost all of the furniture. And all their clothes. And half his notebooks containing his precious memories. Ugh.

IV. The Town

Winter spends the rest of his free time wandering around town. He can do so with his metal arm in plain sight, amazingly, because there are like four other people in town with replacement limbs almost as high tech. He sits in the one diner and one cafe that haven't changed too much in the past fifteen years and stares at his phone or writes obsessively in new notebooks, takes up reading to the kids at the completely remodeled library, and stares at the grounds that used to house ADI for a long time every day.

And of course he makes plans. The entities are still here. There are still people who want to serve them. He and the rest are pretty uniquely suited to dealing with that. Maybe not even violently, if he can come up with ways to help stop the spread of fear without it. Though violence is certainly still on the table.

There may be a road trip in the future to the other former ADI employees, but that's for the future. The house comes first.

... and maybe a job. Somehow.

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She's exhausted but at this point, she's too tired to sleep. At present she is sitting on the fold-out bed in their cramped motel room. She has her phone out. It used to be top of the line but now it's so very outdated. She wonders if she'll be able to charge it later. She also wonders if she'll be able to transfer all of her photos over to a new device. She hopes so. Memories and photographs are all that she has left of Yelena.

She looks over at Winter's bed and sees that he has his phone out too. He must be awake too. "Winter, are you still awake?" She keeps her voice soft and low. She doesn't want to wake up Rogers in the case that he is asleep.

"Yes," Winter says, equally softly, though his voice is more hoarse than Kate's. He doesn't move, though. His phone battery will be dead soon, and maybe then he can sleep. He'll have to find a charger somewhere. If they even still make chargers for this sort of phone. Maybe there's one still buried at the house...

His train of thought has drifted away from Kate again. She might need to say something else to keep his attention.

"I can't sleep either." She admits. Her body feels tired. She feels exhausted but it's her mind that is keeping her awake. She either thinks of Yelena or the uncertainty they face. They are fifteen years into the future. It feels like everything has changed.

She wants to ask him what to do but doesn't. She knows that she has to remain strong for the two boys. It would be so easy to break down and just cry, cry and cry until the tears would no longer come. Maybe she'll do that tomorrow, when she can be alone. They don't need to see that.

"We should have a plan for tomorrow."

"Assess the damage to the house," Winter says dully, as if he's already plotted this out. He has, kind of. Plans keep him sane when nothing else does. "Utilities are probably off, we didn't pay them in fifteen years. Should leave them off for now until we know it's safe. Plan repairs. Check on our bank accounts. Buy groceries." He heaves a little sigh, the most emotion he's shown yet. "We will probably need to get jobs."

He has no idea how to do that. But that's a problem for next week. The house comes first.

"Those are all good ideas." Kate has her own ideas. The first thing she is going to do is check on her bank account. She has her wallet and her identification in it. (Look, lots of things had been shoved into her backpack and she didn't go anywhere without her wallet.) "The bank accounts might be tricky. We'll have to see."

She sighs too. "We will definitely need jobs. Maybe we can find places that pay under the table. I don't know yet what the situation with our I.Ds. are yet. That bitch Bonnie isn't here to send us out on odd jobs anymore." Another breath, "We should still check in on the flophouse." Maybe there's someone there that will know them or at least know about ADI.

"It's there," Winter says dully. "Bonnie isn't. Cortana had to check for her charging cords and things." Cortana is probably in a better situation than she used to be, given the technological advances. Hell, Winter probably is, too, with his arm.

They could even stay there, though, maybe. At what the flophouse became. Winter doesn't want to. He wants his goddamn house.

"Oh it is? Do you know who's running it now?" Had he gone that far and checked? She's still going to check it out tomorrow. Whoever is there could still have a job board or something. "Did she find her charging things?"

There are so many issues to worry about. Things like Cortana needing to charge up her body and how to hide Rue and Hobb if their glamours have failed. She knows it's all going to come down to money (which they probably have very little of). What are they going to do? She thinks that question one more time before pushing it away. Winter can probably hear her sigh. She wants the house too.

"At least we have something of a gameplan."

"Yeah. They had her old stuff. I didn't ask who was running it, but we can check. Tomorrow." He's less worried about the glamors, since he saw the annoying name-stealing fae left the house with Rue. The low battery light is flashing on his phone, and he reluctantly turns it off at last. He needs to find a way to charge it. Tomorrow.

Everything is going to be tomorrow.

Cortana isn't faring much better. She's low on power, damaged, dazed, confused, and uncertain whether she made the worst decision of her life or one of the few good ones.

That the town doesn't look the same doesn't bode well, she thinks.

"Shit." She swears to herself, trying to figure out what to do. She should find out what still remains of ADI and the rest of what she knew. She should also check up on her friends.

It takes less than a moment to decide which she wants to check on first. She's lost the Chief forever-she almost breaks into a sob-but she's got people here.

It doesn't take her long to find Winter. The house is a natural place to check, as she cares about everyone living in it.

"Dammit." Finding him staring blankly at a ruined home makes her swear again. Apparently, it's just a swearing kind of day.

"Hey Winter." At least he's alive. She hasn't lost everyone yet.

Edited 2024-02-07 18:05 (UTC)

He twitches a little at the curse, the voice close by, but only looks over and seems to register who she is at the sound of his name. "Cortana," he says, voice hoarse. Then, realizing he hasn't seen her since the rush out of that stupid house, he asks haltingly, "Are you. Okay."

"I'm ...fine." Mostly. She's not sure what she's going to do now, how long she can survive in this world now that it seems like they might have nothing.

That's just her physical state, of course. She's trying not to think about the rest right now.

She needs a recharge, but she's not sure where she'll be able to get that. Is Bonnie's still around?

"Are you?"

He doesn't even try to lie. "No," he says, voice flat with exhaustion and despair. He wanted to be done. He wanted this day to be over. But now they have to find somewhere else to stay, because his house, his home, is ruined and unsafe.

"But we aren't done yet," he sighs, trying to straighten himself up. "There should be. A hotel. Or something. If our bank accounts still exist." He doesn't know if Bonnie's still exists, either. They'd have to... look. Ask around. Check the old haunts.

He has no idea how much might just be gone, turned into something new. The thought is almost sickening.

"I think we should check if Bonnie's is still here before anything else." She frowns, thinking. She's not sure if their accounts will still exist, but they'll need to find out: even if Bonnie's is still around, they're not going to be able to house everyone, even for a short time. "If nothing else, Cole and the Visionary might be able to help figure things out." Cole is a friend, and the Visionary seems alright enough. Cortana trusts them to at least have some advice and maybe a place where she can plug in... if they're still around.

She sure hopes they're still around.

That means moving. Winter is not sure he wants to move from this spot ever again, but he has to. He has to take care of his people. "Bonnie's will have first aid kits. If it's still there." And Rogers needs that. His hands are a mess again, because he's an idiot who decided to use a cursed magic hammer again. "Let's go look."

"Got a tally of who's injured?" Cortana says as she starts walking in the direction of where she remembers the Flophouse was located. A lot of what happened was a blur to her, so she doesn't really know.

She won't be surprised to find out Steve is one of the people hurt, though.

"Kate's got a few scrapes. Rogers' hands are burned. He used his stupid hammer inside the house." That's all he knows about. He doesn't know if Cortana knows about Yelena, but he also doesn't know if he can say it again to tell her and still be functional. He's only barely functional, as it is.

It's so late it's nearly morning, though the sky hasn't quite started to grow light yet.

Rogers wasn't exactly asleep, where he'd taken a pillow and blanket and camped out on the floor, while Kate and Winter talked, but he wanted to give them space as best he could in the single little room. He's got a lot of practice, living in close quarters, pretending to sleep or be otherwise occupied so that others can have the semblance of privacy.

But he wasn't asleep, only trying so hard to look like he was that he'd maybe started drifting, but even though he was never fully, deeply asleep, he still manages to jerk up out of a half-dream filled with ice and lightning and the sun moving too fast, too many times through the sky.

He sits up abruptly; the room is quiet now. Kate's breathing seems even, as best he can tell over the ringing in his left ear that never went away. He's closer to Winter but he can't hear any sounds from the mattress above him, so he shifts to try to get a better look without waking him if he has managed to fall asleep.

Winter did mange a fitful sort of doze, once his phone ran out of battery and he couldn't stare at Yelena's tracking dot anymore, but the sudden motion wakes him immediately. Silently, because that's always been safest.

But he realizes what the sound was quickly and lifts his head a little to meet Rogers' gaze briefly in the dark.

And suddenly being up on the bed while Stevie is on the floor is too far away. He doesn't want that. It's wrong. He never wants to be too far away from someone again. So he swings his feet off the bed and slides down onto his knees on the floor next to Rogers.

Normally, this would be Rogers' cue to reach out and hug Winter, or at the very least touch his arm, his leg.

Now, he's not sure that's a good idea, though he can't keep the spasm of emotion off his face as both thoughts - the desire and the subsequent reeling in - cross his mind.

"Hey," he says, as quietly as he can... which at least is quietly, because he can't even hear himself out of the one ear. That's good, he'd rather not accidentally shout and wake Kate, if she's sleeping. His eyes move over Winter's face. "Sorry. Did I wake you up?"

Edited 2024-03-06 20:23 (UTC)

"Yes," Winter says simply, looking right back. Not quite eye contact, but close. "But it's okay. If you're awake I want to be, too."

He wants to be closer. There's the familiar itch of want warring with the even more familiar crawling feeling of tooclosetooclose. But the crawling feeling is weaker now, smothered by loss maybe, and he scoots over a little more and leans in to bump his forehead down onto Rogers' shoulder. It's not quite close enough for hugging, but Rogers can touch him, at least.

The little added reassurance is good, because Rogers was already on his way to feeling awful. All of them need sleep, regardless of whether they want it. Or how much their bodies will let them get.

What really reassures him though, more than anything else ever could, is Winter scooting closer and putting his forehead on Rogers' shoulder. There's a tiny, unconscious shift in his arms, as he almost starts to lift them by reflex, but it's only a heartbeat at most before he manages to regain conscious control and let them go slack again, bandaged hands sort of half-curled uselessly at his sides.

But he does, slowly, sort of fold forward a little, not exactly curling around Winter, but trying to give off the impression that he would, if it were a good idea.

He's quiet for a long moment, before he mumbles, trying for wry but probably kind of missing, "Never thought we'd have to wake up in the future again, huh?"

It'd be very easy to drop his head onto Winter's shoulder, in return, if he wanted to. Winter even shifts a little to make it easier. It's not a hug. But it's not bad, either. It soothes something in the back of his brain that says he doesn't want to be alone.

"Don't remind me," Winter mutters. "This time I haven't had training in the new technology every few years." That hadn't been something he'd consciously remembered, but now that he's said it, he knows it happened. It explains how he knows how to hotwire modern cars and use magnetic grenade launchers, anyway.

Rogers slowly, so slowly, does exactly that, moving in the tiniest increments until he's sure Winter doesn't mind the weight of his forehead on his shoulder.

When it connects, he lets out a slow, shuddering breath that's maybe supposed to be a laugh, when he says, "Yeah. Not getting any training really sucks."

He's not making fun of Winter. He's not. But he's been here. Sort of. Fifteen years feels like nothing, compared to seventy, even though it's not nothing, and their circumstances make that pretty clear.

"We'll figure it out," he says, resting a little more weight on their single point of contact, his head on Winter's shoulder. "We've got each other."

What's left of the group that that refers to, at least.

He feels guiltily, selfishly, fiercely glad Winter is part of it. Even at the same time he can't ignore the hole Yelena left.

God. He's failed Nat. Again.

The not-tease nets him a (gentle) punch on the shoulder, then a shuddering little sigh of his own, but otherwise Winter doesn't move. "I didn't want to be here without Yelena," he says after a moment, in a very small voice. It's a confession. The truth of why he'd been tempted, at the portal. He feels terrible about it, now. That he'd ever consider leaving his Stevie and Kate and Rue and the rest. But in that moment, the only thing he'd wanted was to be in a world that still had that one person in it.

The thing is, though - "I understand."

Rogers remembers, so clearly, thinking so many times: I don't want to be in a world without Bucky.

Before crashing the plane. Before throwing his shield into the Potomac. Watching his best friend turn to dust.

He'd always gathered it wasn't the same for Bucky. For Winter, even. Rogers has always, always needed this man more than he's needed Rogers. It's his deepest, darkest, most shameful secret.

That's why, he thinks, he had at least been willing to leave, the last time. That's why he understands now. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry she's gone."

Words mean nothing, he knows. But they're all he has. He can't not offer them, all the same.

Words are better than nothing, sometimes. And presence is worth even more than that. Winter fumbles a hand up, trying to find one of Rogers'. It's not a hug, but he thinks he can do that much.

Don't start thinking this man doesn't need you, now, Rogers. If something happened to him, Winter is pretty sure he would lose is completely. "You need to stay," he says, squeezing the hand once he's found it, "I can't lose you both."

As soon as it's clear Winter is reaching for something, Rogers' posture goes a little looser and more open, clearly offering whatever he wants. And when Winter squeezes his hand, Rogers squeezes right back.

"I'm here," he says, because he is, and, "I'm not going anywhere." Even if he could, he wouldn't. This is where he'd chosen to stay, long before today. This is where he belongs, now. "I'm staying."

Sometimes it just needs to be said out loud.

He's quiet a moment, just letting that sink in for Winter, before he adds, "There's gonna be a lot to do. Even without training, you and I are the only ones with any experience here." Skipping several (or more) years ahead, he means.

Winter heaves a shuddering little sigh, half relief and half worry that there might not be anything Rogers can do about it. People die, sometimes. He grinds his face down further into Rogers' shoulder.

"We've got to fix up the house," is what he says to the last, letting the ideas of staying or going lie for now. He can't think about it more than this. He has to believe his Stevie will still be here going forward. "Again. Maybe let people stay there. If Bonnie's isn't going to work for them."

Rogers could, maybe, stop being so bad about concepts such as self-preservation... but the reality is he probably won't get better about it.

Still. There is something about having someone to come home to that changes that sort of thing about a person, even subconsciously.

For now, things like fixing up the house and helping other people are concrete goals, he does does well with those. He can recognize that Winter does, too. "Then we'll do that. I - " He pauses, lets out a quiet little laugh. "Okay, well, I can't go out and get jobs painting signs or doing advertisements, but I'll bet there are still people who pay under the table for manual labor." He can do that, still.

Once his hands heal.

"We'll find a way to pay for it and we'll get the house in order. And we'll keep in touch with as many people as we can, and make sure they have a place to stay." And they'll find their way in the world again, because he has no doubt they can.

"I think you should try to keep tabs on what's happened since ADI disappeared." It's a job he would have given to Yelena - well. It's a job he's pretty sure Yelena would have just stepped up and taken. But he thinks it's something Winter will be good at. And surely much better than Rogers.

Winter will just need to get better at protecting him. And maybe hide that damn hammer. Things always seem to get worse when Rogers brings the hammer. "If our bank accounts are still there. We'll probably be okay to pay for some of it. Still will need to get jobs." Which is a little terrifying. He's hoping their bank accounts are still there. Winter doesn't necessarily understand interest, but he does understand saving, and he knows he'd been doing that. So did Yelena.

But still, this is a serious conversation, now, and he lifts his head head at last, looking across the room rather than at Rogers. "We have a lot to catch up on, with the. ADI thing. The offices are gone. I checked, before we got to the hotel. Nothing there anymore. Don't know what happened."

Maybe it's just that the hammer only comes out in the most dire situations, when the consequences are worth it, Winter.

Steve knows some about saving, but admittedly not as much as he should. Either he had no money or he had more than he knew what to do with, and tried not to think about it either way, other than how he could donate it to someone who did need it. But he does at least know that if their money is still there, it might be at least a little more than they started with.

But that won't last forever, and they will need jobs. And ADI -

He lets out a breath. He doesn't know what exactly could have happened, either, and yet, "I don't think I'm surprised," he admits. "But it does make it harder to know where to start, figuring out where things stand now." What they have to do, to keep on keeping the world safe. Because he assumes they still do, even given what they did in that house. "We'll have to start asking around."

It's something Yelena would have been perfect for. But they don't have her anymore. They'll have to muddle through. "I can do that a little?" Because he already knows Winter won't let him help physically with much until his hands heal.

"Ugh. You'd better," Winter says reluctantly. He is still not great at talking to people, and he expects for a while he will be even worse than usual. Between losing Yelena, being so unexpectedly out of place in time, and the uncertainty of what they're going to do next, he glumly anticipates losing at least some of his previously accumulated social skills. "I'll be more likely to scare people than you will."

He sighs. "We'll have to come up with a story. Can't just say we were stuck in the woods for however long it's been."

"I dunno about that, with these mitts," Steve points out, lifting one hand and not exactly wiggling his fingers - they're swollen and stiff, he can't quite do that - but at least giving the impression that he might, if he could.

But then he lets out a breath and agrees, "Yeah. I will." Because it's not about that, anyway, and he knows that regardless of how he might be perceived, Winter doesn't really want to talk to lots of people. Steve doesn't relish it either, but he can do it.

As for a story, though...

"I don't think we can exactly say we were away for work," he sighs. "I wonder if a few tours in the military would be believable." He doesn't know much about the current geopolitical situation, but it's still America, and people still do tours in the military, he's pretty sure. Just like the work story, it wouldn't even really be a lie. On some level.

Edited 2024-06-23 18:02 (UTC)

Winter huffs, not quite a laugh, but kind of in the vicinity. "We were away for work. Technically. Even though we both quit." Winter's sense of humor is a little weird, okay. "Maybe military, though."

He knows almost nothing about the military. But surely that would be someplace he could get advanced prosthetic arms, right? And it might explain them being a little weird. Coming out of war situations messed people up, didn't it? Something in him says it does.

Not any weirder than Rogers', given the way he snorts out a - quiet - little laugh.

"We sure did." And he's not sorry about in the least, though maybe there's some part of him that wishes they'd gotten away from here before everything had gone down.

It's funny, how it's hard to believe that was all still today. Today, and more than a decade ago. He really should be used to that feeling, he thinks, and yet it still knocks him for a loop, all over again.

"Military is maybe our best bet," he finally says, decisive. "The best lies are rooted in the truth anyway, right?" He blows out a quiet breath. "I'll go to the bank tomorrow. That's probably the first thing we should square away. You can get a list going of what we'll need for the house. Kate can maybe take care of the rest - everything else we need. Food, toiletries, that kind of thing?"

It gives each of them something to do. They need something to do, to keep them going.

Winter nods, quiet for a moment, accepting the plan. It's not a bad plan. Simplistic, but until they get more intel, they can't really plan for much more.

Then his forehead goes back down on Rogers' shoulder, and he asks, much more quietly, "Do you think. Think the Entities are still here." It might be too much to hope that they followed the people who left. And not really fair, besides, to want someone else's world to get worse just to save the one you lived in.

But for a tiny moment, he wonders what it would be like if they were gone.

Again, Rogers' arms twitch like he'd like to put them around Winter, but instead he just gives his hand another squeeze, fingers clumsy and stiff but doing their best.

"I don't know," is the reply, just as quiet as the question, as he thinks back to - god, had it only been hours ago? I feels like days. Weeks. A lifetime.

Well. Years, at least, as far as Gloucester is concerned, but he knows that has nothing to do with the way he feels.

"I - don't know if it's safe to think they aren't - or if that's just residual paranoia." Of course, they could all be excused a little paranoia, he thinks. "I'd like to think it's possible, but... I guess I know better than to assume it is."

He lets out a breath, suddenly feeling tired. Exhausted. Drained. Winter must be, too. And Kate. Everyone who's left. "We should probably go back to Dogtown, too. Check it out."

"Have one of us ask around," Winter adds wearily. "If they avoid Dogtown now. If. They even remember the shit that happened, when we were here before." God, if they don't, he doesn't know what he'll do. If their pasts, even just part of their pasts, have been erased. Again. He might just lose it and hit something.

Winter is tired of being a ghost. He wants to exist.

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Picking Up the Pieces [OTA log]

II

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Changes

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II too XD

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whoops didn't realize I left this one for so long

welp I left it for longer, I'm so sorry ;;

you've had good reason!

<33

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