apocalypsehowcomm | March Catch-All [OTA]

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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."

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"Ah. Yes." He frowns, lips pursed. "That seemed to be an ordeal for a lot of us. The isolation, the boredom, the frustration." The Hunger. But Jaeger doesn't give voice to that part, not yet. He's still struggling himself with admitting just how much a part of him it's become.

"I still don't know exactly how this all works, but it sounds like you may be right." He's sorry that Winter might be right, but he's not going to lie about it, either.

"And with it comes the urges." He sighs quietly, flexing his hands. "For me, it's the Hunt. To scare people, to make them know they're being pursued. To follow them and know that they can't get away." he raises his gaze, briefly. "In case it sounds familiar, at all."

Winter's sure he's right, so it's no disappointment to get the confirmation from Jaeger. He shakes his head. "I've already ruled out the violent ones. Hunt, Slaughter, Extinction. Also Eye and Web. It has nothing to do with physically hurting people or with knowing things. It's. It's strongest when I'm wearing my mask and goggles, my combat gear. Or after the nightmare where we had to kill each other, last year, a lot of the people I shot afterwards. They made it stronger when they saw me."

"Interesting." Well, now Winter knows what Jaeger's personal evil kink is. That's fine. That's okay.

But this is about Winter, anyway, and all he's said up to this point has been to make the other man feel better. Or at least, to help get to the bottom of the questions he has.

"The Stranger is fear of masks and deception," he muses thoughtfully. He's done study on this, as much as he can. "Possibly the Dark. Hidden things, unknown things." He pauses. "The mind-affecting Powers are more subtle, more difficult to nail down. We can probably discount the Corruption, too, in that case."

He huffs lightly, curling his hands into light fists. The scars still ache, the damaged skin still pulls tight, though he's healing. There will still be scars, in the end, but perhaps not quite as many as some of them fade.

"Stranger is. Possible," Winter mutters, as that's one of the ones that's made his own personal short-list. "So is the Lonely, the Vast, and the End. Maybe the Flesh. Probably not the Dark. It doesn't fit the thing were people were afraid after I shot them in the nightmare."

The Lonely, that's one he could see, too. It's a horrible little list to have to make, but Jaeger has always been a strong believer in gathering what facts he can, having all the information available in front of him.

"It might take some time to figure it out for sure." He's going to try and be at least a little optimistic here, in figuring that they have some time to work it out. Nothing's come completely crashing down on their heads yet, so he can hope, however cautiously.

And prepare for the worst anyway.

"But I'm willing to help as best I can. And I appreciate you trusting me with this."

Winter shrugs and looks further away, a little awkward with the appearance of thanks. "We work together. You deserved to know. Just in case." He doesn't intend to do anything to feed whatever entity this is, but he didn't intend to do it before, either, and he didn't realize what he was doing. It's entirely possible that will happen again.

It's a situation that Jaeger is all too familiar with, walking the edge of his own dark side. It had been bad enough back home, when it was entirely too easy to lose himself in the hunt for Easterbrook's lackeys, the simple purpose of "get them before they get you". He was a man who did bad things very well, and it made him suited to dark necessities.

The fact that it followed him here, become his very real nemesis, shouldn't surprise him in the least. And it really doesn't.

"Just in case." He pauses, letting the words hang for a second before he continues. "And I know you would do the same for me."

If he ever went over. Ever became one of the horrors they're trying to fight against. It makes him feel better to know that there's someone who would put him down quickly and cleanly, if it ever came to it.

There's a nod, then a pointed look that very nearly manages eye contact; he's looking very hard at the space between Jaeger's eyes. "I will. But I would rather not have to. Be careful." It's as much a request as a warning. And because now he has to, he adds, "And so will I."

It's not a comfortable look, but they have an understanding and Jaeger isn't one to flinch away from a hard subject.

"Always," he promises solemnly. "I would rather not, myself. So...we do the best we can."

For all his pain and trials, Jaeger likes being alive. It's not always easy, but it's what he has, and he's stared death down a few too many times already in his life. If he goes down? He goes down fighting.

Even through most of his long captivity, Winter kept fighting to live. That's not going away any time soon. So he nods, and sits back in his seat again, the intense stare gone. "We do. If there is a way I can help you. That I am not terrible at doing. I will try."

"I appreciate it." A small, weary smile quirks the corner of his mouth. "Right now, I think just knowing that others are watching helps. It's a strange feeling, but also very reassuring. That I'm accountable, and that I'm not the only one going through this."

He wouldn't wish this bitter influence on anyone, but he's going to take at least a little comfort in not being alone if he can't change the situation.

After a beat, he admits, "Before I came here, I'd been working mostly alone for a long while. And sometimes that's when things can get murky. It's harder having to worry about other people, but also feels safer, at the same time."

Winter knows what it's like to work alone, but things were never murky. Not... in that way. He'd never had the space in his brain to really question the morality of his actions. "I usually had a team. But they didn't. They didn't do the actual job." He frowns at the table-top, now. "They were there to make sure I did mine. Not the same as my team, now."

There's no contest, though: "Now is better. Protecting is better than killing."

Jaeger nods slowly, getting the gist of what Winter is saying. There's still so little he knows about the man, but truth comes with time. And some things, are just...never spoken of.

There's more than a few things Jaeger is willing to bet he'll never admit to his friends and coworkers here.

"That sounds very difficult. Not the same at all, as having people that you...interact with. Support." Indigo and Reed hadn't really been his handlers, but they were remote support. They gave him the file, and he chose how to deal with the situation, with a few suggestions just to keep him on the straight and narrow.

It didn't always work out that way, but, well. He'd done the job well enough, and saved a lot of people. That's what mattered, really. Right?

Until that last bit, and Jaeger pauses, then gives a quiet nod of agreement.

"Sometimes, one requires the other, but it's not always an easy decision to make. And ADI does seem to have...a somewhat clear definition of protocol. In a lot of ways, that does make it easier. Not that I always agree with their decisions, but, erring on the side of mercy, I suppose, is the better choice when it's there."

He laces his fingers together finally, in his lap, looking out one of the windows to one side of Jaeger. "ADI is better than HYDRA. Who I used to work for. HYDRA wanted to kill millions to intimidate the rest into compliance. Into order. ADI tries to keep even its enemies alive. And don't threaten us or hurt us to make us work for them. We can just leave if we want to." Which is so weird. Winter isn't going to leave, because he can do good work here, and it gives him structure and support when he knows he couldn't be a proper person out in the rest of the world, anyway. But it's still a little shocking, when he thinks about it, to have the option.

"I won't hesitate to take out an Avatar who is trying to hurt innocents, though. No matter what ADI wants. Some people don't want to be saved, and trying will just give them more opportunities to cause harm." Winter hitches a shoulder, the flesh one. "But I don't have to enjoy it."

Jaeger nods somberly. "HYDRA sounds extremely ominous." A little unreal, even, but then again he'd been a member of a blood cult for thirty years so who is he to throw stones?

And, elucidating on that: "I worked for a corporation for a long time. That was built on corruption, greed, and power. It seems we have that in common..." He huffs a small breath, hand curling into a light fist on the table surface. "It took me a long time to see them for what they were. And when I tried to leave, some...very bad things happened."

By now, Winter has certainly caught glimpses of the scar that Jaeger's collar hides. It's not hard to figure out that it might be related to his former employers in some way.

Then, he shrugs wearily. "I don't know if leaving ADI is quite as easy as that, with how dangerous the world outside this town seems to be. But they at least seem to have some concern for our well-being. It's a situation I can work with, even if I'm not always happy with their decisions and occasional lack of transparency."

He has to think on how to respond to the latter for a moment. Not because he doesn't agree with Winter, but because it's a delicate decision, how much to reveal.

"In my world, I hunted people that were very much like Avatars. People who had been corrupted by power, and used it to exploit, manipulate, and murder. It's the darkest kind of magic, and I made it my job to deal with them however necessary." He suspects Winter already had an inkling of just what kind of man Jaeger is, but on top of the revelation of the Hunt, it seems the right time to come out with it.

Jaeger has accepted long ago that he'll never be a good man. But he can do good things, if he's going to bear the weight of his taint anyway.

"So this is familiar ground for me. Sometimes, people pass beyond a point where they can be recovered or redeemed. And at that point, it's the only thing you can do. To stop them from hurting anyone else."

Then he falls silent, because that's a lot of talking for the normally quiet man. It feels like confession, like spilling far more than he ever intended, but it's out and there it is for Winter to accept or reject, as he will.

That is a lot of talking, and Winter takes it in silently, trying to paint the picture of it. It's not really too hard; he might have limits to his experience, but his imagination is still surprisingly good.

It sounds like a marginally better cause than HYDRA's, anyway. So he nods understanding, without judgment. How can he judge, when he took out actual innocents, himself?

"So you have seen what it looks like when someone is. Too far gone. Were they always too far gone? Your targets?" Or did someone decide to off someone where there was still hope? Winter's going to guess Jaeger knows the difference, and either did it anyway... or didn't.

It's been a long time since Jaeger has told anyone the full story, and it sort of bleeds out of him, given its relevance to the situation.

"The lines can be difficult," he admits quietly. "A lot of the time, you can't be certain until people are already dead. Most of the people I hunted, though...they had a long history, a lot of evidence. Many of them started out arrogant and entitled and that led them down dark paths very quickly...the conviction that they could do what they wanted because they were rich and powerful, because they had access to abilities that the normal human doesn't even know about. That mindset leads some dark places very, very quickly."

It doesn't have to be magic, either. Wealth, politics, any sort of strength leads far too often to corruption. That terrible, single-minded ability to rationalize almost any atrocity because of it.

Jaeger tents his fingers in front of him, then shrugs. More matter of factly, he adds, "And when someone's trying to kill you, you don't think about what they're thinking, the morality behind what they do. You're thinking about surviving the fight long enough to figure it out later."

Some people think about it. The stupid former target thought about it. But would he have thought about it so hard if Winter weren't wearing the face of someone he thought was his friend? He doesn't know. (And won't that train of thought be even more pertinent in a couple days when Steve Rogers actually shows up?)

"I don't know anything about the people I killed," Winter admits, putting the thoughts of stupid former targets aside in favor of less stupid former targets. "If they were evil or innocent or. Something else. My handlers just gave me the briefing and set me on them and they died. How did you tell?" He's been going off of whether the people on the other end of his rifle barrel are trying to hurt people, but what if that's wrong? Jaeger might know, if he was in the business of seeking those kinds of people out before.

"At first, when I was working for Brighter Dawn, I didn't always get a choice, either. It was 'get information from this man'. 'Make this person leave'. 'Take this item, it doesn't matter how, just do it'."

He wasn't generally a killer for the Company, and that's a little bit of reassurance, but not much. He still did some pretty awful things to innocent people, and he's not going to let that go anytime soon. So he can understand, at least a little.

He lets his breath out, searching for the right response to the rest of it.

"I had information fed to me, often by their victims and survivors. And certain kinds of magic in my world...they leave a stain on the soul. A kind of darkness, a corruption that eats away at sanity and reason. I could often tell just by walking into a room...it's almost a stench." His scarred hands clench into loose fists, a twist of sickness shooting through him.

"And usually, I tried to get a confession before...going further. A lot of them like to talk. To bluster. To threaten. They don't hide what they've done because it's right to them, it's their entitlement. It's their version of the world, where everyone else is there for their satisfaction."

The anger is there, as choking tight as the scar around his neck, and he breathes in again, letting it go.

"Also, most of them tried to kill me outright as soon as they realized they were caught."

Okay. Okay, those are things he can look for. That helps some. "The people at HYDRA liked to talk, too, because they thought they were right," he allows. He's pretty sure, now, that they weren't actually the good guys. No matter what they told him. Good guys probably didn't torture and murder and give orders for people to do the same. They probably didn't give long-winded speeches about "the freedom they deserve" and how they needed him to dispense it at the end of a rifle.

"You can't smell it here, though," he guesses. "The magic stain thing." A pause. "Is it just magic? That stains?"

"That's exactly it. This is how they think it should be, what they think they deserve, and if you disagree, you're the enemy." It's remarkably helpful when the individuals in question go off on long-winded diatribes about what they deserve, about how the world should be (under their thumb) and what they're willing to do, to accomplish that. It certainly makes the job easier, judging the corrupt and vicious for what they are.

It's never entirely ideal, but it's something Jaeger can live with. That he has to live with, really, but he sleeps better at night than he has any right to.

He doesn't shy away from meeting Winter's gaze, but his tone softens just a bit.

"I can hold an object and pick up visions of its past, including if it's been part of any violence or death. When I Looked at the train car at the circus, I got a very strong impression of the people that burned to death in it." He gives a small shiver, because that had been highly unpleasant. Living through those few brief seconds of impact, the fire and the panic afterward.

Still, that's not quite answering Winter's question. "I know there are people who can read human auras, and see signs of violence and trauma. It's not a common ability, but it stands to reason that other things besides magic can leave stains, too, yes."

The eyes meet only for a second before Winter blinks away, himself, focusing down on the tabletop again.

He's not even entirely sure why he asked, at first. He doesn't know if he even has a soul. If he used to, and it's just gone now, torn to shreds by the ones who took his humanity. He doesn't know what a soul would feel like. But apparently even things without souls can be stained. If something can be stained by something other than magic, he bets he is.

"How do you get rid of it? If something's. Stained," he asks. Maybe that would help with being a person. It's worth a shot.

Souls are a funny thing. How much can one live through and still have one? Jaeger has asked himself that a million times, but he has to believe that there's still something there. No matter how worn and ragged, the spirit tries to hang on, and if Winter feels any sort of remorse or regret for his past, then...Jaeger can be quietly hopeful on his behalf.

"I think..." he has to pause to think about that, find the right words because it's important to both of them. "If you still feel, there's something there. And the best way to repair it is to try and make amends where you can. To do some good in the world, to make things a little better. It's not perfect, it doesn't erase it all, but it's something, at least. To prove to yourself that you can still care, that you want to make things right."

His smile is thin, strained, and very tired.

"Sometimes, the world needs bad people to do things that need doing. Because things aren't always fair or nice, and it costs us less to do those things. We can spare someone else crossing that line."

Winter frowns down at his hands, but he nods. It makes sense. He doesn't want Kate or Meredith to have to kill if they don't have to. Better that he does it, when he's already done so much of it. Is so good at it.

No more kids killing people. He can at least make that promise, that he won't be party to that.

"Protecting people," he says. His own self-appointed mission. "I can do that. I think."

It's a small and somewhat bitter comfort, but it's something that they can do, a way to ease the burden on others. That's worth something, in Jaeger's eyes, and he does his best to do it for all the right reasons.

He doesn't always manage, but he tries.

"It's the best we can do. It's not always an easy decision, not always black and white. But some things...some things are simpler. It helps when the bad is bad enough to leave no doubt." He rubs his hand absently, feeling the slick shiny skin of healing scars under his touch. "Or when you have better people to show you how to do it right, what to do and when."

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March Catch-All [OTA]

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cw: Implied euthanasia

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