[Log] November Catch-all

[worthallthis]

Who: Bucky Barnes AKA Winter and OPEN
When: All of November
Where: Various, see prompts
Summary: Working, training, and having a breakdown in Dogtown
Warnings: Nothing so far, just the usual internalized depersonalization



I. Suspicion in Early Days - ADI Headquarters

After sleeping surprisingly well for most of a day on the first of the month, Winter spends the next several days of his patrols in the ADI buildings and apartments walking more carefully than usual, with his hand closer to his gun, half-expecting a new nightmare around the next corner. Did they really wake? How would he know?

Even afterwards, he ducks his head at the sight of many of the ADI employees-- more than usual, even. He shot some of them, in the dream. Without hesitation. Did they remember? Did they care? Did they fear him now? (They should. He is dangerous, clearly.)

Catch him sitting as far from everyone else as possible at lunch with his tray, or walking steadily through the halls looking for potential trouble, or having an extra cup of coffee after a bad night.


II. Teacher - ADI training room

Every day after his shift patrolling the ADI buildings or part of the city, Winter is in the training room in the basement levels of ADI, either working through a routine himself, or available to anyone who comes in and wants instruction. He has some regular students, at this point; he also has some people he's invited to come and learn. He hopes they come.

When they've finished a session and are just hitting the point of being too tired to continue without making more mistakes, Winter says, "Walk around the room. Cool off. Then I will walk you home."


III. Cloudy Day Blues - Dogtown

After the whole thing with the pigs, Winter has kept an eye on Dogtown. On days he isn't working, and sometimes in the mornings on days he does when he can't sleep and needs to walk, he circles the district. Dips into the streets to prowl and look for signs of trouble. When he's told of the monitoring at the park, he visits there, too.

Clouds don't make him run, though they do make him start to back away slowly. He feels the building pressure, the building dread, and remains steady. He lives with fear every day, he's learned how not to run away from it. It's when the certainty hits him that he's just going to kill everyone he ever cared about-- it only took the slightest provocation to make him shoot his fellow employees in that nightmare, didn't it? he shot Steve and punched him six times in the face, didn't he? he's killed more people than he will ever remember, hasn't he?-- that he finally buckles and bolts.

He ducks into an alleyway as soon as the oppressive sky lifts again, backs himself into the corner of the wall and a dumpster, and shudders, trying to catch his breath against the fear. The despair. Who's next? Who will he kill next time? Meredith? Strange? Yelena? He stays in that alleyway for a long time, crouched down, head in his hands, until the sun goes down or someone else finds him.


IV. Wildcard

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Comments

II-ish

[musicdied]

Yelena is not, strictly speaking, a student. It's been a long time since she's required basic combat instruction, a long time since she's even required advanced study. But not requiring formal instruction doesn't mean she has nothing at all left to learn, and Winter is one of the few people who can reliably beat her in a fight.

And that's what she'd needed today, when she came looking for a sparring partner. A hard fight, not a win, something to remind her that even when she's outclassed, she isn't helpless.

Not like she had been in the nightmares. Not like she had been when half the world was erased. Not like she feels if she thinks too long and too hard about fears made manifest as alien gods.

The restless energy, the jittery, trapped feeling is still there in spite of the ragged edge of her breathing, and she's about to protest the call to halt when her side twinges, ribs throbbing in a way that warns that she'd taken the last fall badly, and will be a spectacular rainbow of bruises come tomorrow morning.

She may be stubborn, but she's not stupid. She wrinkles her nose in irritation, but scoops up her towel to scrub over her sweat-damp face, then sets off to lope around the perimeter of the training room.

"If you're going home, I'll walk with you," she says. "But I do not need an escort."

[worthallthis]

He at least follows his own advice and walks with her. Maybe he's not in the habit of really taking care of his own body, but one, it will encourage her to do it, and two, he does kind of want to stay in proper fighting form to keep his team safe. And his strength and ability to shake off strained muscles just isn't reliable anymore.

"Well. We are going to the same place," he points out. They might as well go together.

And he wants to walk with her. Keep her safe, yes, but mostly just prolong the time spent. He won't say that, because it's a want and he's still not very comfortable expressing those, but it's really not hard to infer.

I

[henchgal]

When Meredith sees Winter isolating himself at lunch, she approaches and sits down across from him.

And she doesn't say anything right away, just opens her bottle of soda and starts eating, clearly deliberate in her choice of seat. But just as clearly not trying to get pushy about things until he's ready to talk.

[worthallthis]

He looks at her cautiously, from behind a fringe of hair.

She isn't someone he shot or wrestled or broke the neck of. She's someone who beat a transformed dream-employee to death with her cane.

He has a hard time, admittedly, picturing her afraid of him.

So he doesn't get up and move further away. He does, however, look away from her and around at the rest of the room. Will her choice of association with him hurt her, among her coworkers? He knows he shot someone who sits two desks down from her.

[henchgal]

She notices him looking around and shrugs one shoulder, not giving a flying fuck who sees her with Winter and judges her. They're the ones who were monsters, they ought to check themselves before getting weird about Winter.

"They've got brownies for dessert today. I even got an edge piece, if you want to split it with me."

[worthallthis]

He doesn't look back at her yet. But the offering is noted. Appreciated, even. "I will not say no to chocolate." It's not quite an admission of liking, but he is pretty fond of the stuff. It is objectively excellent food, even if not particularly nutritious. "Are edge pieces better?"

[henchgal]

"They tend to have a different texture, more chew." She cuts the brownie and passes him half. "Half the point of brownies is that they're not just fluffy and soft like chocolate cake, and the edge is the best example of it."

She's quietly making a note of him 'not saying no' to chocolate. That's actually the closest she's heard to him stating a preference, which is a pretty big step.

[worthallthis]

He sets aside the sandwich he'd been working on to try the brownie. After a thoughtful moment of chewing, he nods. "Different. Though not as. As." He struggles for a moment with a word. He doesn't have a lot of vocabulary to describe food, honestly. "Fudge? Like fudge?"

Winter maybe likes his brownies moist and thick, like fudge. More chocolate crammed in there.

[henchgal]

"Oooh, if you want a fudgy texture, then you might prefer the center pieces of a brownie. Which means if I bake a pan, I can have all the edges and save you the middle. Perfect."

See, everything works out neatly.

II

[bossyboiler]

They have been working on breaking free of holds. When they had first started, Kate had been attentive and focused on what Winter had been showing her. However, as the minutes progressed, Kate kept having flashbacks to her dreams. It pulls her focus away.

"I don't want to cool off. I want to get it right." Kate protests. However, Winter is correct. She is making mistakes due to being tired. Her muscles are sore. She could do with a breather except she doesn't want one. Stubbornness is one of her key traits and she so desperately wants to get these moves right. She doesn't want to be trapped again. If it means doing this all night than so be it.

ii

[sorser]

Sweat beads across his brow, and Stephen wipes at it with the back of his hand, exhaling long.

“Guess I can’t convince you of the benefits of tai chi the next time we do this?” he manages. It’d be a less rigorous regimen, and he’d be far less sore the next morning.

Yet as veiled of a complaint as it is, it isn’t serious — Kamar-Taj might not have had soldiers in its ranks, but the sorcerers weren’t always keen about pulling their punches, either. Stephen is appreciative of the instruction, even if his muscles already ache, and the bones in his fingers feel dull and clumsy.

[musicdied]

Yelena considers tossing her towel at him, then dismisses it, not certain she'd get it back if she did. She settles for sticking her tongue out at him instead.

"That's why I said I would walk with you if you're ready to go back," she says. "I didn't know if you had other things scheduled."

They both often do. She certainly butts up against ADI's maximum hours more often than she comes in below them, and that's with only one department to report to. For now.

[worthallthis]

"I might have spent time on the shooting range," Winter admits. "But I can do that another day." He's tired, anyway. He's often tired, given his poor quality of sleep most of the time, but it's as good of an excuse as any to accompany her home.

The tongue thing is adorable. He wants to smile but he isn't entirely sure how, still. There's something almost smile-like to his face, though.

[worthallthis]

"Very convenient," Winter comments, voice so carefully bland that perhaps he's making a joke. His sense of humor is there it just expresses itself oddly, in a barely-there kind of way, just in case there's a chance he'll get punished for it.

He polishes off his half of the brownie neatly, either way, before going back to the sandwich. "Do you bake brownies?"

[worthallthis]

He considers her a moment, weighing if she'll actually retain anything if she keeps going. Then he shakes his head. "You be injured if we continue. And your body won't remember, because it is too tired to learn properly."

He points firmly away from him. "Walk. And stretch your arms while you walk or they will hurt more tomorrow."

[worthallthis]

He pauses, considers, then shakes his head. "If I know Tai Chi, I do not know what's it's called. This is what I know." He might know it-- he might know a lot of specific fighting styles-- but he doesn't know the names of any of them. HYDRA had been thorough in his training, not specific.

He motions for Stephen to start walking, but he will deign to walk beside him, to keep him company. "You need to build up strength. On days when we are not working. You should try the weights-- arms, legs. Small ones, for now."

[sorser]

He huffs, a little quietly amused. He wants to say none of that was tai chi—a little too intense to qualify—but he chooses not to. It looks like Barnes is going to accompany him back to the flophouse as he mentioned, and Stephen won’t deny the company.

He shakes his head, then lifts his hands to accentuate their appearance: lined with scars that are too purposeful to have originated from injury alone. They have the precise measure and appearance of too-many surgeries.

“As long as I don’t have to grip them. Heavier dumbbells are probably a no-go.”

But there are alternatives.

“You don’t remember the names of your fighting techniques, or you were never taught them?”

[musicdied]

She notes the subtle shift in his expression, and despite her lingering edginess, it warms her. Getting a hint of amusement or pleasure out of him still feels like a victory, and doubly so after the events of the previous month.

"How many people have signed on to learn how to shoot?" she asks, and then clarifies, "I know you meant for your own practice, today. You wouldn't be leaving if you had a student. But I'm curious."

Both about how many students he has, and about how it can be extrapolated to how many of their fellow otherworlders are taking all of this truly seriously.

[worthallthis]

"None for guns specifically. Though I give Jaeger tips when we're in the range together. When he needs them." He likes Jaeger, the guy is calm and quiet and doesn't ask much from him. "Most everyone comes to me for self-defense. I have. Six for that."

Yelena doesn't count among them; he taught her everything he knows a long time ago, and their sparring now is for conditioning and edge. And fun, a little.

[worthallthis]

Winter remembers the nerve damage. That's one reason he thinks weight training might help him, getting more bulk to stabilize them a little. That's also why he's still not planning on teaching Stephen anything to do with knives. "There are machines you don't need hand grip for. I can show you how to use them tomorrow, if you aren't too sore."

He follows along beside him, hands loose at his sides. He doesn't walk too fast, giving Stephen space and letting him recover. "I don't know. Maybe I was told when I learned, but I don't remember when I learned."

[henchgal]

"Sometimes. I'm the only person who cooks dinner in our apartment most of the time. Why, do you want to come over next time I make dessert as well?"

She wouldn't mind having him over for dinner as well, but she's not sure how the boys would react to that.

[worthallthis]

He considers this a moment, chewing and swallowing a big bite of ham and cheese before answering. He might be a murder machine, but he's a polite murder machine. "Kate usually makes dinner," he says, tentative. "Not sure if she would be upset if I eat somewhere else."

Which is to say, he's not necessarily averse, but he also has his daily routine and he doesn't know what the consequences would be to breaking it. Even if the routine is mostly imposed by himself, in the end.

[sorser]

"Tomorrow's fine," he says, and it's an automatic response, uncaring whether or not he's sore or otherwise. (He will be; he can tell just from walking now which muscles will scream the loudest.) Stephen is stubborn, especially when faced with the potential for improvement. From student to master, that has never changed.

Instead, the chooses once again to gently pry. There's so much about Barnes he does not know, so much about his current state of mind that he hasn't familiarized himself with.

"So what do you remember?"

[musicdied]

"I like him," Yelena says, expression shading thoughtful. "He would be a good ally. Clever, and good under pressure, but not as much ego as some of the people here."

She lets her pace slow a little as her breathing and heart rate begin to descend towards normal.

"Do any of your defense students seem promising?"

[worthallthis]

Oh good, maybe his judgment of whether Jaeger is worth liking is sound. "He did well when we fought the pigs with extra arms," he allows.

As for the rest... his expressions still aren't really obvious, but there might be a skeptical, uncertain cast to it now. "They have. Determination. But many of them have. Have. Disabilities? Meredith can beat someone to death with her cane. But she needs her cane. Stephen has nerve damage and his hands shake. Monika is very small. Kate is-- well, Kate."

So they do well with what they have, he trusts them to stay alive long enough to bolt or get to help, but he would not call any of them promising fighters.