(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

[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."

[worthallthis]

"I don't think I've felt that," he decides after a pause, sounding vaguely worried by this. "Is that bad?"

[abrightboy]

"No," Malcolm assures him. "You've suffered horrific abuse and you have to process your own trauma before you can start to connect to other people's."

[worthallthis]

Winter rears back a little from that with a scowl. He doesn't like that word. Abuse. He wasn't. It wasn't. It was just maintenance. (Only people get abused. Not weapons. And even if he's trying to be a person now, that doesn't mean he was one.)

(Even if maybe he was.)

(He can't think about that, still.)

"That doesn't have anything to do with it," he says flatly.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him studiously.

“What do you think it has something to do with?” he asks curiously.

[worthallthis]

Winter falters, unable to come up with an answer. What does he think has to do with what? Now he's confused himself. What were they even talking about?

Compassion. Right. "I don't know. Maybe I just still need to learn that one." He pauses and frowns. "Unless I just don't have that one at all. Is that possible?"

[abrightboy]

"There are people who don't have it, but I don't think you're one of them," Malcolm tells him. "Didn't you say there were targets you broke your conditioning not to kill?"

cw past attemped suicide

[worthallthis]

"Steve," Winter says. That's the only one he didn't actually complete. That he remembers. "The other was-- after." He isn't one for fidgeting, but the plates in his arm shift a little, and he looks further away than usual. "I completed the mission. Then realized what it actually. Was. And tried to kill my handlers."

Tried to make them kill him when they came to collect him, in a fit of rage and horror, because he didn't actually think he could take out his field team. It's the one time he can ever remember actively trying not to survive.

Not that it had worked. They just brought him back again, and made sure he didn't remember any of it.

[abrightboy]

"People who don't have it, don't have it for anyone," Malcolm tells him. "There aren't exceptions."

[worthallthis]

Winter isn't sure he believes that. Field teams with HYDRA varied wildly on how they thought about other people, and each other, but he distinctly remembers a couple who would (and sometimes did) die for each other but would shoot targets without pause. Even really bad agents were still people, and sometimes people just cared about certain people and not others. Even Pierce cared about his daughter.

Ugh. Pierce had a daughter. He'd forgotten about that. But now he remembers his former handler waxing poetic about her one day while his asset sat in the goddamn chair and didn't care at all.

So his skepticism is clear, here. "Okay."