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apocalypsehowcomm2022-03-13 01:23 pm
worthallthis) wrote in apocalypsehowcomm2022-03-13 01:23 pm
March Catch-All [OTA]
Who: Winter (Bucky Barnes) and OPEN
When: March catch-all
Where: ADI headquarters, ADI apartments, around town
Summary: Just working, training, and being a different kind of quietly creepy
Warnings: Struggles with personalization
I. Confessions - Closed to Close CR
There are some people who need to know that they might be at risk to continue associating with him: specifically, Kate, Meredith, Jaeger, and Malcolm Bright. Winter will seek them out one by one and... confess. Or, well, say, "I need to tell you something," and then shuffle around like he's embarrassed, angry that he's embarrassed, and afraid of what their response will be.
II. Study - OTA
So Winter needs to learn how to be a person. This requires... study.
Unfortunately, study seems to take the form of creepily watching people all over town. He no longer wears his mask and goggles unless he's actively on ADI patrol or a mission, but his face is not particularly expressive, and having a large guy in a dark coat and combat boots standing on street-corners or in shop windows or sitting on perch benches staring at people (and still not making eye contact when caught at it) is not particularly reassuring.
He also takes the dive (possibly suggested by one of his people) to try reading as another form a study. Fiction. He starts, perhaps stupidly, with romance novels, as this seems like a good way to learn human interactions. He sits in the cafeteria, his apartment, or in the cold in the park with a book with a pretty lady being leaned back by a shirtless man in floral pastel colors in his hand. Mostly when he's doing this, he's frowning.
Please be the one to almost get beaned by the book when he finally gets fed up and disgusted with what he's reading and throws it across whatever room, hall, or outdoor space he's in with an annoyed growl.
III. Prisoners of Consciousness - OTA
It happens when Winter is on patrol. The ADI hallway is broad, if a little dark, and the ventilation shafts are heavy in the ceiling. He's walked this hall for months, now. He knows it well.
So why does the end of the hall seem so far away? Why are all the doors along it-- why are they shrinking to a size he could barely fit his hand through? Where is that window he knows is on this stretch of hall?
It feels like... it feels like another hall, deep inside a concrete bunker in Siberia. That's what this is. He's owned again. He's a thing again. And he sure as hell does deserve it, for all the people he killed, for the Widows he helped corrupt, for the entity that he let attach itself to him somehow and the people he scared to unwittingly feed it.
Anyone else traveling this hall in the mid to late afternoon can find him huddled against the wall, hugging his rifle like a teddy bear, breathing too hard behind his mask. No goggles today, so it's just Winter's wide, damp eyes fixed on the floor.
IV. Trick of the Dark - OTA
Winter is often out and about after dark, whether staring at the shelves at the grocery store trying to make himself pick something out of the myriad of brands available for peanut butter alone, closing up shop at ADI after a long evening of practice or tutelage, or his nightly patrols of the ADI apartments. He does glimpse the strange woman once or twice, but he sees nothing amiss about another person out after dark. That sort of thing, this time? Does not scare him.
Once he does lever his gun at her when she appears too close, but she vanishes quickly after that.
No, mostly what he sees is people of the city, even friends, attacking streetlamps, rushing into stores to turn off lights, climbing up to try and smash overhead lights in the ADI halls. He follows in their wake, puzzled, repairing what damage he can and turning lights back on. If it gets too bad, he approaches the person in question. "Calm down. What are you trying to do."
When: March catch-all
Where: ADI headquarters, ADI apartments, around town
Summary: Just working, training, and being a different kind of quietly creepy
Warnings: Struggles with personalization
I. Confessions - Closed to Close CR
There are some people who need to know that they might be at risk to continue associating with him: specifically, Kate, Meredith, Jaeger, and Malcolm Bright. Winter will seek them out one by one and... confess. Or, well, say, "I need to tell you something," and then shuffle around like he's embarrassed, angry that he's embarrassed, and afraid of what their response will be.
II. Study - OTA
So Winter needs to learn how to be a person. This requires... study.
Unfortunately, study seems to take the form of creepily watching people all over town. He no longer wears his mask and goggles unless he's actively on ADI patrol or a mission, but his face is not particularly expressive, and having a large guy in a dark coat and combat boots standing on street-corners or in shop windows or sitting on perch benches staring at people (and still not making eye contact when caught at it) is not particularly reassuring.
He also takes the dive (possibly suggested by one of his people) to try reading as another form a study. Fiction. He starts, perhaps stupidly, with romance novels, as this seems like a good way to learn human interactions. He sits in the cafeteria, his apartment, or in the cold in the park with a book with a pretty lady being leaned back by a shirtless man in floral pastel colors in his hand. Mostly when he's doing this, he's frowning.
Please be the one to almost get beaned by the book when he finally gets fed up and disgusted with what he's reading and throws it across whatever room, hall, or outdoor space he's in with an annoyed growl.
III. Prisoners of Consciousness - OTA
It happens when Winter is on patrol. The ADI hallway is broad, if a little dark, and the ventilation shafts are heavy in the ceiling. He's walked this hall for months, now. He knows it well.
So why does the end of the hall seem so far away? Why are all the doors along it-- why are they shrinking to a size he could barely fit his hand through? Where is that window he knows is on this stretch of hall?
It feels like... it feels like another hall, deep inside a concrete bunker in Siberia. That's what this is. He's owned again. He's a thing again. And he sure as hell does deserve it, for all the people he killed, for the Widows he helped corrupt, for the entity that he let attach itself to him somehow and the people he scared to unwittingly feed it.
Anyone else traveling this hall in the mid to late afternoon can find him huddled against the wall, hugging his rifle like a teddy bear, breathing too hard behind his mask. No goggles today, so it's just Winter's wide, damp eyes fixed on the floor.
IV. Trick of the Dark - OTA
Winter is often out and about after dark, whether staring at the shelves at the grocery store trying to make himself pick something out of the myriad of brands available for peanut butter alone, closing up shop at ADI after a long evening of practice or tutelage, or his nightly patrols of the ADI apartments. He does glimpse the strange woman once or twice, but he sees nothing amiss about another person out after dark. That sort of thing, this time? Does not scare him.
Once he does lever his gun at her when she appears too close, but she vanishes quickly after that.
No, mostly what he sees is people of the city, even friends, attacking streetlamps, rushing into stores to turn off lights, climbing up to try and smash overhead lights in the ADI halls. He follows in their wake, puzzled, repairing what damage he can and turning lights back on. If it gets too bad, he approaches the person in question. "Calm down. What are you trying to do."
no subject
Anyway... ]
Hm...depends, I guess. I think people are sorta conditioned to rush things, particularly in the ol' U.S. of A. There's always that worry that some guy's gonna figure something out before you do, or have the same idea that you got and beat you to the punch. That's my guess, at least.
[ To be honest he's never really thought about it before. Thanks for the food for thought, Barnes. He's mentally thanking you a lot today. Will the weirdness never cease? ]
no subject
He does, however, know a lot about avoiding thinking about things. He is a pro at that. And that's part of the problem.
So he tries again. Sadly, he's probably about to obliviously ruin Tony's day a little by bringing up Pepper thoughts again.]
What does love feel like? Or. Or happiness?
no subject
But man, these questions. It’s like trying to explain things to an overgrown child with a murder-prosthetic. One that Tony would very much like to scope out at some point, by the way. Er, later. Much later.
What was the question about again? Oh yeah, the one subject he really wants to avoid. Of course. ]
Now come on, enough with the superficial questions, ask the real stuff won’t you? [ Tony knows this dude can pick up on sarcasm so let him have that one he needs it before getting into this kind of serious shit. ]
It’s, uh... Well technically they’re chemical reactions. [ Nailed it. ] Our brains produce norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine as ‘rewards’ for doing things so we don’t perish as a species. Same with oxytocin; that’s the one that gets us out there playing nice with others so we can, y’know. Propagate.
[ Wow. Lightbulb moment: he really, really sucks at this.
Tony sighs, leaning back and folding his arms across his chest. Let’s try again. ]
I mean... I guess love happens when this, this idea that you’ve always kinda had that it doesn’t matter what happens to you and you don’t care—like anything could take you out and you’d be fine with it probably— You meet somebody who just, like, kills it. Squashes that idea like a bug. You have this realization that you don’t wanna be so devil-may-care with your life after all because if you are, and something does take you out, that person will be sad, and that’s...well, that’s the worst damn thing you can think of.
As for actually holding to that... [ He shifts a bit uncomfortably. ] Well, it’s like I said. Ideas.
no subject
More, though, was a certain disregard trained painstakingly into him about his own survival, his own pain, his own feelings. They didn't matter. Only the mission mattered. But that's changing, and he knows it. And it's changing because of people like Yelena. Like Kate and Meredith and Malcolm.
So he nods at last.]
Thank you. That helps.
[A pause.]
No desire to propogate though. So the brain chemicals are failing there.
[Yes, he caught your original sarcasm, Tony. Here he is countering with his own dry comment.]
no subject
Well, you're in luck. Sex and relationships aren't always about the reproduction stuff. That's the neat thing about humans, see; we've evolved past our base instincts. We have wants and desires beyond just what we need for survival.
That's why you might be having trouble figuring how to, uh, human properly. Because there isn't just one way to human. Does that make sense? [ A small laugh, because again, what is this. ] Because all this sure as shit isn't making sense to me.
no subject
How the fuck am I supposed to learn, then. I can't. I can't go on not being a person. That will upset Belova and Kate. And feed the Stranger, which is bad.