A Return and Regret [LOG/OTA]

[worthallthis]

Who: Winter (Bucky Barnes) and OPEN
When: Late June/early July
Where: On the road, buzzing around ADI, moping around town, and the beach
Summary: July catch-all
Warnings: Paranoia, grief, grumpiness


I. Road Trip!

Somebody (Yelena) has the bright idea to not subject Winter to a fucking train again, and they get a car. Probably rented. Possibly stolen. ... probably rented. Winter hardly uses the money he gets from ADI, he's got plenty to spare for the means to avoid going catatonic on a fucking train for two days.

So he, Yelena, Kate, and Steve all bundle into an economical sedan and take the long way back to Gloucester. They trade off driving (except for Steve, whose hands are damaged) and stay in cheap motels and eat roadside junk food and play a variety of music and stupid travel games.

It is possibly the best four days of Winter's remembered life. He's actually kind of smiling by the end of it.


II. Missing Friends

People Winter knows have gone missing before. It's impossible not to have lost people when you work for ADI and your friends consist pretty much entirely of people who get into dangerous situations weekly. Winter has not actually lost a good friend before.

He shows up at Meredith's old desk with an extra coffee and an extra donut and finds it empty. He searches the building, and can't find her. He goes back to the ADI housing and checks her apartment. He makes the rounds, looking in every place Meredith usually goes. He asks people, "How long has she been gone?" and "Where was the last place you saw her?"

And he looks morose when he doesn't get any helpful answers. Meredith is just gone.


III. Winter the Grouch (Birdwatching + Routine)

Though Winter gets back into his usual routine, he's kind of a grump about it. Meredith is gone. Things are about as awful at ADI as they always are. He aches all the time, which is normal, but lately it feels like it's getting worse. (Really, it is getting worse, because while he exercises kind of obsessively and is a fan of long baths to soak in, he doesn't really take care of himself in any other ways.)

He settles back into his usual routine: patrols with ADI during the day, teaching self-defense after work in the ADI gym or practicing alone if no student shows up, twice weekly forays into town for 1) lunch in a cafe, most likely with a friend, and 2) a prowl around Dogtown, though this time it's only around the outskirts, given the fencing.

He stares hard at the silent birds as he circles. Winter is naturally hypervigilant as it is, veering into paranoia at the worst of times, but it's not helping to have the feeling that all the birds are watching you even walking back to the apartments. It's bad enough that a flock of pigeons taking flight startles him into pulling his ever-present handgun and glowering at them over the sights as they fly away. "Fuck," he mutters, and hopes nobody saw that.

But of course somebody saw that.


IV. Not a Beach Bum

Though Winter goes to the beach thing, he resolutely does not have fun. He stays wrapped up in two layers of shirt (though the jacket gets ditched halfway through the afternoon), heavy jeans, and his combat boots. Someone who would recognize such things might note the shape of a gun holstered in the small of his back and there's certainly knives under his clothes, though those are harder to find.

He prowls around, keeping an eye on people and chasing off birds, and only takes a break from his impromptu patrolling twice: once for a plate full of food (fully one third of it is Kate's brownies), and once to prod at the sandcastle making equipment. Somebody show him how to actually make a sandcastle? Maybe he'll have some fun on accident.

Comments

II

[abrightboy]

Malcolm startles at the knock on the door of B1, getting up to look through the peephole, then opening the door for Winter.

“Oh… hi. Come in,” he says, though with a hint of confusion. “What. Um. What can I do for you?”

[worthallthis]

"Malcolm." He nods in greeting, then hesitates, peering past him to the apartment. The otherwise empty apartment. "Meredith? Was she here when we. When you got back?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's expression creases faintly.

"Meredith wasn't here before we even left. She's been gone for a little while now."

He glances over his shoulder, then steps back to let Winter walk in if he wants to.

"It's Tim that disappeared before we got back."

[worthallthis]

Winter hardly knows Tim. He doesn't actually care about Tim. People have been disappearing since he got here, and if he cared about them all he'd never get anything done. But they were never his people.

He looks stunned. "I didn't know. How didn't I know. I thought she just didn't come with us."

I. Road Trip! (Livin' easy! Lovin' free! Season ticket on a one way ride.)

[bossyboiler]

Is the car rented? Possibly. With enough cash and money, anything is possible. Is the car stolen? Could be! First, Kate knows for a fact that ADI only issues state identification. If one of them has a driver's license, it's not real. Secondly, she doubts that Yelena has a major credit card in her name. Thirdly, Yelena is a spy. It's what she does.

Is she going to comment on any of the above? No! When your best-friend forever shows up with car and the attitude of just go with it, who is going to say anything? Not Kate. Besides, it'll be better for Winter. She remembers what he had been like on the train. She'd rather avoid that for him and so she packs her luggage and herself into the car.

Currently, they are driving up to a massive rest stop, one of the fancy ones with a food court and a Starbucks inside. Kate is driving. She finds them a parking spot that's not too close (in case there are cameras around). She shuts off the engine and undoes her seatbelt before turning to look in the backseat.

She thought she knew all of Winter's friends. Meeting Steve is a bit of a surprise. Even though he's very cute she is somewhat suspicious. How had they met? When had they met? Considering that he is Winter's friend, she'd like to get to know him. At the moment, she can't press Yelena for details.

Kate has noticed the bandages on his hands. "Do you need any help changing those?" She asks Steve in a completely nonchalant tone.

[punched_hitler]

Steve had opted not to ask questions about where the car may or may not have come from. When presented with the idea of driving back, rather than subjecting Winter to that train again, he'd been all for it. Actually, the only part he's not all for is the fact that he can't pitch in with the driving, but his hands are still too heavily bandaged to grip anything easily, and even he knows that turning the wheel would pull on oh-so-slowly healing burns up and down his arms.

He certainly doesn't regret what happened, but he can be just the smallest bit unhappy that handling Mjolnir had been significantly less easy - and less pleasant - than he'd expected. (Or maybe he's just unhappy that he'd been surprised at all.)

He's been mostly quiet for this first leg of the trip, watching the world go by from where he's wedged into the backseat, but he glances over at the sound of Kate's voice. It's the fact that she isn't doting or pitying that means she gets a careful, helpless smile that's also half a grimace when he says, "Oh, that's - they're not pretty." Which isn't a yes, but isn't strictly a no. It seems kind of awful to shove your burned hands into the face of someone you just met, is all.

"But could you... uh. Get the door, maybe?" He doesn't think he can get his fingers to close around the handle, for starters.

[bossyboiler]

She smiles back. "I'll let you think about it then." It couldn't be easy to change them on his own but maybe it is a pride thing. Or maybe he thought she'd be completely grossed out by them. Or maybe it was none of those things. Maybe it's her? Nah.

"I can do that," she replies and with keys in hand, gets out of the car. She opens the door for Steve.

"They have a Starbucks inside," she remarks. If no one else is going to get one, she will anyway.

[punched_hitler]

It's more of a pride thing than anything, admittedly. He might change his tune soon enough.

But he does appreciate the help with the door. "Thanks," he says, as he climbs out, looking around. It looks normal enough. Not that he'd expected anything but; this world is strange, but it's also very mundane in a lot of ways. That's probably a good sign.

He glances over at the remark. "Is there? I could use some coffee."

Of course, his idea of coffee is plain and black. Even at Starbucks. Maybe especially at Starbucks. And then, thoughtfully, "They have brownies sometimes, don't they?"

Winter had said he liked brownies. They should get him one.

III

[failedpromise]

It'll be a little bit before Cortana starts showing up to training again. After her fight with Jimmy she really isn't keen to aggravate her injuries ...or experience additional pain. Still, the entire point of learning to fight is to help with this sort of thing...

Also she misses Winter.

"Hey." She grins somewhat awkwardly at him. "Long time no see." Or not actually that long.

[worthallthis]

Not super long. Winter definitely will get tagged into watching at her bedside once mun knows for sure if he gets injured fighting Katie Dunn. But long enough to notice, since he didn't take the train back, either, on top of her several days absence once he got back to work.

"You were recovering," he says with a nod. "I didn't expect you. And if you are here to work now. I'll only do things that won't hurt your wounds."

[failedpromise]

In that case, he gets a really big, warm smile.

"Thanks, though I seem to be healing up pretty well." So there shouldn't be too much risk. That said, it's probably still best to be cautious, but Cortana tries to act tougher than she actually is.

IV

[punched_hitler]

Steve isn't sure exactly why he goes to the beach thing; the fact that it's supposedly mandatory doesn't really hold much sway over him, but he ends up there nonetheless, also not exactly dressed for the occasion. Then again, his hands and arms are still healing - you know, since he's a normal person now without super-fast healing - so maybe no one will blame him for the hoodie he's got on (unzipped, though) over his t-shirt. It's kind of hot, but even he knows getting sand anywhere near his raw skin is not a situation he wants. He is at least wearing shorts with his sneakers.

He is eyeing the sand-working tools with mild curiosity - and okay, he can't help it when he spots Winter stop what is very obviously a patrol to go look at them, too. He meanders over, sure to make shuffling noises as he does. "You thinking of trying it out?"

[worthallthis]

"I'm not interested in getting sand in the metal arm," Winter says by way of answer. Though he does give the buckets another long look. He has to ask. "Did you. Did we? Ever?"

Go to the beach? Play with plastic buckets in the sand? Both, probably.

[punched_hitler]

That's valid; Steve's ready to drop the subject entirely in that case, but then Winter asks him a question.

"Did we... play in the sand? I mean - we'd go to Coney Island sometimes. In the summer. It'd get real crowded. Not a lot of room to work, but we built things sometimes."

Not with plastic, though he doesn't point that out.

Road Trip (Open!)

[musicdied]

While cheap motels are good for going unremarked, code of silence all but written into their organizational DNA, they are not, unlike other, more trackable accomodations, good sources of food. And so it is that each morning on the trip back, Yelena turns up early with coffee and muffins or fruit or breakfast sandwiches obtained from some cafe or another she'd spotted on the way in or wrung a recommendation out of the person manning the front desk for.

She's taken pains to learn her travelling companions' preferences. There is almost certainly a mental dossier.

"Did you sleep all right?" she might ask. Or, "Is there anything you want to stop to see?" Or, on the third morning, "Do you think the people upstairs were having a lot of sex, or being murdered by someone very incompetent?"

[worthallthis]

Winter's coffee back at ADI is usually pretty black, half to keep him awake and half out of a weird sense of nostalgia for terrible WW2 coffee that he only partially acknowledges. On this trip? He's indulging in the fancy sweet coffees Yelena introduced him to at the cafes in Glochester, with much enjoyment.

Also, he's sleeping better out here, go figure. Even with the noisy neighbors.

So he accepts his fancy coffee with a little smile, then rolls his eyes. "I know what a murder sounds like. Even an incompetent one."

[musicdied]

"They could have been devoured by trained dogs," Yelena suggests, an impish smile blooming across her face. She holds out two bags to him, a breakfast sandwich in one, and a brownie in the other.

It's a road trip. They can have dessert with breakfast if they want to.

"Yorkies. Especially high pitched ones."

[punched_hitler]

Steve also tends to drink his coffee plain and black, because he has terrible taste and not only misses the WWII-era excuse for coffee, he actually liked it in the first place.

He will also eat anything handed to him for breakfast; if he's got a preference, it's mostly for "whatever."

This morning, though, at the question, he has to admit, "There are apparently times when not having superhuman hearing is a benefit."

In fact, his left ear still rings occasionally, following the fight with Katie. He'd almost been thankful for it. "Did they keep you up?"

[musicdied]

Yelena shrugs slightly, smile skewing a little crooked. "Mostly I was waiting to see if someone yelled 'cut'," she replies. "I'm used to close quarters. And to late nights."

The noise to which she's accustomed was rarely as benign as a couple (she thinks; it could have been a threesome given some of the variance in pitch) not realizing just how thin a motel's walls are. Best not to dwell on that.

II-ish

[musicdied]

It's late afternoon when Yelena lopes into the training gym, towel slung over one shoulder and water bottle dangling from two fingers. She pauses when she spies Winter, head canting slightly to one side. This is outside of his normal routine - and while that isn't unheard of, the ferocity with which he's attacking a punching bag makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up with the certainty that something is amiss.

"Winter?" she says, rocking back into motion, and circling around to the side so she doesn't come up in a blind spot. "Did something happen?"

[worthallthis]

Winter pauses, breathing a little harder than normal, and steadies the bag with one hand. His voice is particularly flat when he asks, "Did you know. About Meredith."

[musicdied]

"Not until we got back," Yelena says quietly. She glances away, her expression a curious blend of guilt and muted melancholy. "I suspected when she didn't meet me on the train like we had been planning, and didn't answer any of my texts after. But I wasn't sure until we after we got back that she was gone, and not just sick or caught up in something. Or in trouble somewhere I could not help her."

iii

[twicelost]

Katrina saw that.

She can't help but walk quietly, but she at least has the decency to call out to him before going on.

"You think like hunter. This is why you kill Katie Dunn." She nods, an acknowledgement of his strength. "It is good you kill her. I thank you for this."

[worthallthis]

Winter pauses, and blinks at her a few times. Then he lowers his gun and shoves it back into its holster at the small of his back. "It was my pleasure." A pause. "Except for all the gore in my hair. That was a pain in the ass."

He's seen her on the network, and at the gym, but they haven't really interacted much. She hasn't needed training or a sparring partner, and he's often full up with people, anyway. "You're Katrina. Right?"

[twicelost]

Gore is just part of the hunter life, however inconvenient it may be. She understands. (If he meant it as a joke, well. That's another story.)

"Yes. You are Winter."

A familiar face from the gym. She knows he's skilled. He possesses the kind of bearing her people do, or at least he reminds her of it.

"I could not go to fight avatars in Wolf Pen. I had injury. You did what I wanted to do. We win because she is dead."

The briefest flicker of a smile crosses her face. So she likes a little hunting powerful enemies. So what? It's part of who she is.

"It is... easy," is that even the word, "to be in Gloucester again. Familiar. What startle you?"

She's not great at subject shifts, sorry.