worthallthis: (thinking)
worthallthis ([personal profile] worthallthis) wrote in [community profile] 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."
failedpromise: (Look)

[personal profile] failedpromise 2022-04-28 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
"Mostly it's a bunch of nerds sitting at their desks and drinking coffee while they wait for code to run, or helping people with easily solveable problems." IT really isn't the most interesting career field unless you're really into computers. Or you yourself are made of code. Or both.

She's really not surprised that he works security: even if it weren't for the gear, he seems like the type. She's not bothered by the weapons or the awkwardness, she's spent much of her life taking care of a person who spent his childhood being turned into a killing machine.
failedpromise: (Look)

[personal profile] failedpromise 2022-04-28 11:12 am (UTC)(link)
They do not. In fact, one could argue that the worst aspect of IT is that you're not allowed to murder.

"That was actually why I was wandering around here in the first place." If a task isn't enough to occupy Cortana's attention, she'll just find something else to do. Fortunately, this time it was something helpful. "Sitting and waiting for code to run isn't my idea of a good time."

Winter already seems familiar enough that she'd be angry but not particularly surprised to learn of his circumstances.
failedpromise: (Face)

[personal profile] failedpromise 2022-05-04 01:53 pm (UTC)(link)
"As long as my workstation is locked down so no one else can access my work and the job gets done, my boss is unlikely to care." She'll be back soon enough.

There's not much she can do right now anyway.
failedpromise: (Backside)

[personal profile] failedpromise 2022-05-06 12:11 am (UTC)(link)
"Got it." And she'll follow him to that door.
failedpromise: (BigSmile)

[personal profile] failedpromise 2022-05-07 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Cortana takes the hoodie and spends a moment just exploring the texture with her fingers, alight with curiosity. She's a tactile creature at heart despite spending much of her life as an incorporeal being of thought, and prior to her arrival in this universe had experienced little in the way of feeling outside of pain from being hurt or tortured: something like this is a true novelty.

She shrugs it on, looking absolutely ridiculous but not seeming to really care, grinning up at Winter and crossing her arms in a sort of self hug.