March Catch-All [OTA]

[worthallthis]

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."

Comments

[worthallthis]

"I don't. Think I have any interests," Winter admits, looking down at his hands. Does teaching people self-defense count as an interest? Do guns count? Obsessively writing down memories as they hit him? He's going to guess probably not. But there's nothing else he does.

He's going to be worse at this being-a-person thing than he thought, he can already tell.

[lowficharm]

Martin's face softens a little, and at first he thinks he should put a hand on Winter's shoulder, and then decides that might kill him so he doesn't. Instead, he just looks sympathetic in Winter's direction. "Hey, it's-- it's okay. People don't just happen overnight, it's..."

He stops a moment, thinks, and then starts again. "There... there was a point in the past where I didn't want to have a... a me. And, and when I was coming back from that, I had to sort of... try and remember things that made me happy? Or stuff that I'd enjoy, and. I-It was really hard, because I didn't know. I didn't remember me well enough to say."

He bites at his lip, feeling the well of the Lonely still deep in him, and sighs a breath he feels might be too cold, but continues. "It takes time. To, to figure out you, and who you are, but... there's no wrong answers. You just get to try stuff, and... feel happy, about some of it, and then you know. There's no right or wrong way to be you, it's just... you."

He realizes he's got his own hands gripped together, and forces himself to stop doing that. "Does that make... sense, at all?"

[worthallthis]

Winter looks sidelong at Martin, focuses mostly on his clasped hands. "Why didn't you remember. Who took away your. Your you." Nobody was putting Martin in a Chair, were they? Surely not.

He's frankly not sure anyone but himself could even survive the Chair, actually.

But this is all very... pertinent. Winter has been told that there was a him before HYDRA, that he only remembers in tiny pieces. He's not sure if he wants that him back, because he's-- not that person. He's not a person. He's still trying to work on that. But if someone else went through something similar, he ought to ask about it. Learn what happened and what he did.

[lowficharm]

Something in Martin really wants to just tell him. Just tell him it was the Lonely, that this isn't his first time around with these things, why he's so serious about the Entities- but he doesn't. He can't expose Jon like that, nor can he really do it to himself. Besides... this isn't about him. It's about helping Winter, and he's got enough to do that.

He wants to chuckle, but instead he just gives Winter a little weary smile. "It wasn't-- nobody took it. I gave it away. I didn't-- I didn't like myself. I let it all go so I wouldn't have to be me."

"But... you know. There are people who want you back. Who remind you of who you are, and who... who care about you. No matter what." His smile is turning a little fond, looking out into the middle distance and obviously in thought. "And even people who didn't know you before. People who just... just like you! Despite everything, and eventually you figure it out."

[worthallthis]

When Martin looks away, Winter watches is profile, frowning a little. There are people who care about him. He does know that. But he's not sure what that has to do with being a person, really... maybe it would if he did have something he wanted to go back do. Maybe it's just having those people makes you want to be more like a person, yourself. That's half of why he's even bothering with this, himself, after all.

"I don't have a self," he says after a moment. "Or. I didn't." Maybe he's supposed to have one, now, but he's not really even sure what it would feel like to have one.

He shakes his head once, sharply. "If I used to, I don't remember, and anyway I don't think I'm. Like that. Anymore. I have to start over. Is that possible?"

[lowficharm]

It's a lot to think about. Where a self is, what one should be, what this all means-- but it's subjective no matter what. Winter asked for his opinion, so, he's getting it.

He's the most resolute he can be at the last question though, and Martin makes sure he's looking at Winter before giving him a sharp nod. "Yes. It's-- it's okay if you're not who you were. You're going to build a self, a, a new self, with people who care about you. And I know there are-- people, I mean." Martin gives him a little smile, something he puts his heart into. "It doesn't matter who you were. You're going to find out who you are now and people are going to care about you then, too."

[worthallthis]

Though he nods slowly, it's with a thinking frown again. It's good to know Martin thinks he can be a person. But there are still a lot of questions in there, and he's not sure which to ask first.

"You were afraid of me," he says finally. It's related to the conversation, promise. "When we first met. The first couple times. Now you're not. What changed?"

[lowficharm]

He's sort of caught off guard on how this is part of the topic, but this is really about Winter, so he's just going to figure it out. Martin stops to think a moment about it, but the answer comes pretty easily regardless.

"Well, you were... pretty intimidating? I mean, you still are, but." He clears his throat before he starts going into some kind of ramble on that front. "What I mean is, we've... talked, really. You trusted me to help you with your arm, and you've never tried to hurt me, so... I-I don't really have a reason to be afraid of you now. I know who you are."

[worthallthis]

"So to you. I have a self," Winter suggests. "And you know it. So it doesn't scare you." He frowns out across the winter park. His first thought isn't along the lines of "the known is less scary than the unknown", it's that there's some essential him-ness that is properly not frightening.

Thus: "Something about me isn't frightening now that you know me. If I can figure out what that is. I can do it more. Or. Be it more." How do you be something more? He doesn't know. But he's grasping at straws, here, for lack of anything more solid to go off of.

[lowficharm]

Ohh, alright, now this is coming together. Martin takes a moment to nod along, bobbing his head as he finally puts together what it is Winter is getting at.

"Oh-- oooh, I got it, I see where you're at, well--" Martin gives it some real thought, trying to pull something that is unique to the other man, drumming his fingers on his knee. "Well, it's just-- you have stuff that you do, you know? Like... you talk a certain way, and, I know some things you're good at and enjoy, or at least, I think so. Oh, I, I know you're a good listener." He seems a little proud to have picked that one out, like he's getting through a puzzle. "I know you're smart and like figuring things out. You, uh, you seem to be motivated by having a goal, too. Those are all personality things."

[worthallthis]

Those sure are some things. Winter considers them one by one. Talking... he's better at that than he used to be, he thinks, but he still doesn't really sound like a person, but he supposes that it is distinctive enough and inept enough that it's unique. The things he's good at are mostly Asset things, not person things, so he's not sure how that makes him not frightening. Being motivated by a goal is an Asset thing, too. Even being smart, which he's not entirely sure is true given how damn long it took him to figure out the Stranger, was necessary for a good Asset.

"Those are all person things?" he asks, skeptical and a little wary.

[lowficharm]

"They're all you things. So they're person things." He's trying to sound confident enough in that moment to project the certainty on to Winter, but who knows how well that travels. He has ways to follow it up, though.

"Even if you were being used as a tool, you're always a person. You still... you felt things, right? You could be... satisfied, or thrilled. Any feelings you have, they make you more. More human. Nobody can take that away, especially now."

[worthallthis]

Winter chews hard on the inside of his cheek, and under his sleeve, a few plates in his arm buzz. He doesn't like that. He doesn't like that at all, and he doesn't know why. When he tries to examine it, it's like everything in him wants to shy away.

"Mostly afraid," he says, distracted. "Relieved, sometimes. Not. Not sure that counts."

Now he feels other things. He's pretty sure. Even if he doesn't always know what they are. But now he's... not like he was then. Isn't he? He's trying to be better.

[lowficharm]

"I think it does." It's probably not the answer that Winter wanted, but it's one Martin feels is important, even as he watches with sympathy. "The thing about monsters is that they're all people, deep down. It's just... people who've lost themselves. People who are being forced or convinced into doing bad things."

He's realizing he's talking in circles, and tries to pull it back. "What I'm saying is... everything is, you know, people things. You're just trying to be a good person. A, a better person. And that means being, you know... curious, and loving, and understanding. All of that stuff we've talked about."

[worthallthis]

He doesn't like that. It can't be right because he doesn't like it. He holds very still, because that's always safest, hands gripping his knees. "I'm not. I wasn't. I don't know what I'm doing," he says, voice tight.

[lowficharm]

"Hey-- hey, it's, it's alright--" His instinct is always to touch, but he stops himself at the last moment, and instead just... leaves his hands open, if Winter would want to take them. "I'm-- I'm going too fast. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

He takes a breath, tries again. "What I mean is... you know how to be a person more than you think. What you're doing so far is, uh, r-really good, so... just keep at that, and be curious about new things, and. And you'll be great."

[worthallthis]

Sorry, Martin. You're going up against seventy-odd years of conditioning and trauma. But you've planted a seed. It's going to start growing.

He's silent for a beat, but finally unclenches his hands a little. The metal one buzzes with it. "Okay," he says. "I'll try. I. Need to be better." If learning new things is how to be better, he'll try it. Maybe it won't be fun, but what part of his life has ever been fun? "Thank you."

[lowficharm]

Martin tries to smile, something reassuring, something nice. He's nervous about what he's said, about putting Winter into distress, but the smile is genuine. The physical relaxation out of Winter is nice too... even if it's probably forced.

"You're going to do great. I, I know you will, okay? And I'll, I'm happy to help, you know, just-- just ask me anytime. You know where I, uh, where I live and everything." That would probably be creepy if it wasn't very, very true. "And you can text, o-or call anytime."