(Open Log) You gotta know when to hold 'em

[bindlestifflost]

Who: George Milton, Nick Valentine, and anybody who shows up
When: April 22, starting around 6 PM until
Where: Apartment A-3
Summary: A night for playing cards, drinking beer or b.y.o.b. if harder, snacks and unwinding. Feel free to thread jack and jump all around, at least in my threads. This is just for some relaxed down time and catching up or introductions in a smaller, casual space.
Warnings: None expected. If your characters get to discussing anything triggery or get up to anything spicy, please CW in your individual threads.



Over the past week or so, hand printed signs drawn in sharpie on plain paper have shown up taped to walls around the apartment complex and on any easily accessible bulletin boards at ADI. A couple of them were also delivered to the flophouse with the request they be displayed somewhere the residents might see them.

They read:
Cards and Beer
Friday April 22 6 PM
Apartment A 3
George and Nick's place
You want more than beer
or chips and popcorn
bring your own.
Extra decks appreciated.

The night of, the door to A 3 is propped open. In addition to the dining table, a couple of card tables and cheap folding chairs are set up for games. Two bowls on the coffee table contain chips and popcorn respectively. There's a cooler on the floor in the kitchen filled with ice and cheap beer.

George or Nick will greet people as they come in and tell them to make themselves at home.

((OOC: Feel free to top level with your own character and make whatever prompts you like. George is generally easy-going, but if he catches anyone stealing, getting too hot and heavy in a bedroom, or otherwise being a general jerk about the apartment or the other guests, he will try to throw the offender out. If you want that kind of thread or want to succeed at something nefarious, let me know so we can work it out.))

Comments

[abrightboy]

"Do... you mind if I have some?" Malcolm asks him. Maybe he hadn't brought it for that.

[worthallthis]

Winter looks over at him with a baffled frown, not quite making eye contact but coming close. "I brought it to share."

[abrightboy]

“Thank you so much,” Malcolm exclaims. “I can only do so much beer.”

Half of one, as a matter of fact, that he nursed for three hours before abandoning the rest on a surface somewhere. He pours himself a hot chocolate and rejoins Winter by the wall.

“Have you tried any of the games?”

[worthallthis]

"I played poker for a while," Winter says. "I'm not bad at it. I knew the rules already, apparently." He'd played on the beach the first month they got here, when they all got together. Strange had been very keen on knowing why, which had, at the time, been kind of annoying.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s eyebrows go up.

“Did playing it bring up any memory fragments?” he asks curiously.

[worthallthis]

"No, it was just like. Body memory." He frowns down at his cup, only half-full of cocoa now. "Like shooting a gun. I remembered how, but not how I knew. Stephen Strange kept nagging me to remember more. As if I can control it." He remembers Strange with mixed annoyance and regret, for his loss.

[abrightboy]

“I don’t think it’s like finding a file in a computer system,” Malcolm tells him. “But certain things might trigger you to remember something and, if you want to remember more, you could use that stimulus to do it. But, Winter… if you don’t want to remember that life? There’s nothing that says you have to,” he points out.

[worthallthis]

He has certainly experienced memories triggered by outside stimulus, though half the time he can't actually figure out what exactly it was that triggered it. Even so, he's been trying to work out what's real and what's not, but it's a difficult, tangled process, often involving a lot of angry scribbling out of things he's written.

He looks vaguely put-upon by the last. "You don't think I should go back? To how I used to be, if I was. Like a person before?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shrugs. “Not necessarily. If you want to be what you’re calling ‘a person’, which I assume means you function a little more like other people do emotionally and regain the autonomy your conditioning suppresses, you don’t have to be the person you were at some point. You can choose who you want to be now.”

[worthallthis]

"I want to not frighten people and feed the Stranger," Winter corrects. "Being more like a person will accomplish that. I'm pretty sure." Then he tilts his head a little and adds, "It will also make my roommates happier, I think. And Steve."

Yes, because Steve Rogers is here now, and somehow that idiot's happiness does in fact matter to him, as much as he hates to admit it.

[abrightboy]

I'm sure we can figure it out," Malcolm assures him. "Who's Steve? Is he new?"

[worthallthis]

"Steve Rogers. He's from. He was. He thinks." Winter pauses, plans out his words, and starts again: "He was my last target. With HYDRA. I almost killed him. But I knew him before. I'm supposed to. I'm supposed to keep him safe. And now he's here."

Here, where nothing is safe, and Steve continues to be stupid and reckless.

[abrightboy]

“Well, I guess that’s easier to do when he’s where you are,” Malcolm comments. “So you knew him before before, and your programming told you to kill him and you changed it?” he clarifies.

[worthallthis]

"He changed it," Winter corrects. "He let me almost kill him. Stopped fighting. Then he said something. And it." He pauses, trying to come up with the words. "It changed the mission. I didn't want to kill him anymore."

He feels kind of sick thinking too hard about how close he came, now, honestly.

[abrightboy]

“What did he say?” Malcolm asks gently.

[worthallthis]

It's not like he's ever going to forget it. "Then finish it. Because I'm with you till the end of the line." He shivers just a little, remembering the moment, the sudden internal realignment. "I'd heard those words before. I don't know where or how. But they. Reminded me? That he wasn't a target to kill. He was. He was. To protect."

[abrightboy]

"Your feelings can change your programming," Malcolm realizes. "That's why they tried to turn them off and taught you they were wrong."

[worthallthis]

Well, that's an uncomfortable thing to say. Winter shrugs awkwardly. "Or it might just have been Steve. None of my other missions ended like that." That he can remember, anyway.

Or. That's not true, either, is it. He realizes: "Except the one with the bomb and the building with the kids in it. That. That one ended kind of like that."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods. “Sympathy, empathy… compassion… your feelings are the key to… being more of a ‘person’, as you put it. I’ve had trouble processing my feelings before, because of things that happened to me. And I’ve had them get so big that they scared me. I can help you when you’re having trouble with them, if you want. It’s tricky dealing with them when your instinct is to shut them down for one reason or another,” he explains.

[worthallthis]

Well, that all sounds... overwhelming, actually. Winter isn't great with feelings. "I still don't. Know what some feelings even feel like," he protests, but it's a weak protest and he knows it. Especially since he's kind of been working it out, now that he's actually paying attention to them.

[abrightboy]

"I understand," Malcolm tells him. "If you need help with any of them, I'd be happy to listen."

[worthallthis]

Winter looks hang-dog at the prospect. Talking about feelings. Something in him wants to rebel against it. Some sliver of a 1940s WW2 sergeant, for whom talking about feelings was utter anathema.

But he also knows he has to work this shit out if he's going to stop being a murder machine and start being a person. "Sympathy and compassion," he starts with, wearily, since Tony already got the big one, love, sorted out for him. "What do they feel like?"

[abrightboy]

"Like..." Malcolm thinks about it. "....Like something pinching your heart in a good way," he explains.

[worthallthis]

Winter puts the flesh hand over his heart and frowns. "In a good way." Has he ever felt that? He doesn't think so. Not a pinch. Maybe he's still missing that one. "How do you make it not pinch?"

[abrightboy]

"You want it to pinch," Malcolm says. "It helps you connect with other people."