apocalypsehowcomm | A Return and Regret [LOG/OTA]

Entry tags:

A Return and Regret [LOG/OTA]

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Steve shrugs one shoulder. "He knew, I think, yeah. We never really talked about it." He'd always figured it was Bucky's choice, whether he wanted to reach out to them or not. He doesn't think he had; he doesn't really blame him, either.

His lips finally twitch up, and Steve says, "That's cheating, I think. Trying to figure out what another you did, so you don't have to."

He means it gently.

Winter fixes him with a flat, unimpressed look. "So what. If I go back and remember any of this. I'll do it better. But I don't think it will matter." Because they're not going back. Even if they could, it would be because an entity let them, and it would be for the entity's own purposes-- like gaining a foothold in a new universe.

"Which means," he says slowly, "I'm never gonna meet these grandkids." Which makes that ache worse. He's got family here, his team-- he has people he loves. But he could have had more.

Do it better. If that isn't exactly the reason he can't tell Tony what happened.

But that's different. Much different.

"Would you want to?" he asks, softly, unable to keep himself from putting the question out there.

There's a long moment before Winter answers, and when he does it's quiet and a little hoarse. "Maybe. Once I'm. A little better at being a person. And wouldn't scare them off. But maybe."

Which is a hopeless wish. Imagining what can't be. It just makes it harder, when he knows he can't do it.

"They aren't here, though," he says, a little more firmly. "Nobody from our universe is. I. I checked. Pretty thoroughly. For HYDRA, mostly, but." He did, in fact, google Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes one pointless morning.

Steve just nods, taking that in. He doesn't argue about going home, not now, but he does think, to himself, that he's going to write down what he knows about where his family is. Give Winter that information. In case they do go home. (He still believes they will. Somehow. Someday.) It seems like information he should have, if that's what he wants. And sure, he could look it up himself when he does get back, so maybe it's silly, but it feels like something, at least, Steve can do for him.

He isn't surprised, though, at the rest. "That's probably good," he finally says, with a sort of a laugh under it. "I mean, two Steve Rogerses in the same place? That could go really badly."

Hah. As if he doesn't actually know exactly how it would go.

Winter snorts at that, rousing a little, himself. "Especially if the other one was still small. The fuck would I do with a tiny Steve Rogers. Who still wanted to fight everyone all the time."

The thought of it is awful. It's hard enough keeping one Steve safe. Throw in a tiny one and he might lose it just trying to keep an eye on both of them.

"Though if there was," he realizes, "he probably wouldn't know me. I definitely don't exist here." Some other version of him, he means. He even googles that stupid name.

Okay, that makes Steve laugh, too. "Grab him by the collar with that metal hand and have a coffee while he exhausted himself, maybe," he points out, unable to keep from smiling. At least a tiny one would probably be easier for the ex-Winter Soldier to keep safe.

Or maybe not. Steve was - is - an asshole about that kind of thing, sometimes.

All the time.

"No? Well, I guess that means only one of you for me to deal with, too," Steve murmurs, and you know, that's fine. That's fitting. A Steve Rogers without his best friend would not have been a Steve Rogers that even this Steve Rogers would really like to meet. He'd be unrecognizable.

"So maybe... no one who's brought here, however we get here, has an alternate self, you think?"

"Maybe. Or your alternate self died of old age long before anyone got here," Winter guesses. Seeing as Steve was, in fact, born in the 1910s. He's put together that much. "In order to have a serum. There'd have to be entities involved. And that wouldn't last long here."

Or if it did, it'd bring about the end of the world, which means they wouldn't be here to enjoy it. Or rather, "enjoy it".

"But that might be a thing," he muses. "A reason we get brought and not someone else. That there can't be an us here."

That makes Steve huff a laugh. "Was never gonna die of old age," he murmurs, because he'd long known his body wouldn't give him the chance. And after the serum... well. He'd never really thought it, either. He'd go down fighting.

Maybe that's still what's going to happen, in the end.

Either way, he figures that's not the point of the conversation. What is, is, "It could be," he agrees. "Maybe we could try to look up other people. See if it's just us, or if it's them, too, that don't exist here." It might tell them something, at least, even if it can't help them predict who or what might show up next. It still seems useful to know. If only because, "If we aren't from here... then there's at least a chance there's something about us the entities won't understand. Won't bet on." Maybe that's why all this is happening in the first place.

"Probably a good idea," B admits. He'd stopped after looking for HYDRA. Steve had been... a side-search to HYDRA, kind of in the hopes of getting some context for all the shit he'd said on the helicarrier. At the time, he hadn't been thinking far enough to look for duplicates of anyone else. But now, he can only admit it's smart.

God, he really has changed, hasn't he. Christ.

He doesn't like that thought, actually. It's uncomfortable. It edges into thinking about actually being a person, or at least getting closer to it.

So he changes the subject. "Kate got me a kite."

It's sort of an abrupt change, but Steve figures it must be for a reason, even if he isn't sure what it is. So he takes it and runs with it (hah). "Did she? Don't suppose you brought it?" Kites seem like something you could do at the beach, where there aren't many trees for them to get tangled.

"She bought it today, it's sitting over by the tables. Hers, too. They don't look right," he adds, "but they still work."

Come on, Steve, you want to fly a kite, right?

That's an odd statement. "They don't look right?"

But Steve is already glancing toward the tables for said kites; he's interested. Even he can hold a roll of twine in his bandaged hands, and it involves not being near the water. Sounds great.

"They're the wrong shape. I'll show you." He turns and trudges across the sand to go collect the two kites, shaking them out and bringing them back to show Steve. One is a yellow robot, Bumblebee from the Transformers movie, and the other is a purple unicorn, Twilight Sparkle from the new My Little Pony. "They're supposed to be a diamond," he explains. "Or a triangle. They work okay, though."

Steve waits curiously, blinking at the colored monstrosities that Winter brings back. "Okay, yeah. You're right. They don't look right."

He reaches out, carefully taking the unicorn to inspect closer, wondering if that's Kate's or Winter's. "These really fly? I guess..." It is big, and lightweight, with plenty of surface area to catch the wind. "Well, we might as well try 'em."

"They do. Weird, right?" He readily hands over the unicorn. Kate won't mind if he lets Steve fly it, he thinks. The robot is clearly his own. (Steve hasn't heard about the Iron Giant incident, or he wouldn't even have had to guess.) "Come on. Away from the birds, and the water," he says, starting for a strip of dry beach beyond the bulk of the party.

Steve takes it carefully and follows Winter, not at all unhappy to get a little farther from the water or the trees, eyeing the birds that seem to be watching them as they walk. He's pretty sure he doesn't remember the birds in New York, at least, being quite so interested in people. Bold, sure. Hungry, definitely. Interested? Usually not.

Well. That's Gloucester for you.

When they get there, he pauses, considering. "I think it's best if we..." He carefully sets the unicorn down, putting the spool on top of it to weigh it down a little. Then he reaches for the robot. "Let me hold it, you let out some string, then I'll get it in the air while you run a bit." Once Winter's kite is in the air, Steve's pretty sure he can return the favor, even holding his own kite string in one hand. But Steve doesn't have the dexterity to do things that way around.

Winter's response to a couple of those birds watching them is to fish a pebble out of his pocket and hurl it at them with unerring aim. The flock scatters, and Winter looks maybe a little smug.

At Steve's suggestion, he looks from the kite to Steve and back again, then realizes: "We've doe that before. You and me. So. You wouldn't have to run too much?"

Steve grins in a way that's sheepish despite his trying to make it anything but sheepish. "Yeah," he admits, shrugging a little. "It was more efficient, you know?" That's his story and he's sticking to it.

They can both run now (well, a little ways, he suspects, Winter had said it wasn't great on the arm), but still, why not be efficient, right? "Think you remember how? If not, you'll pick it up real quick."

"I already flew these kites once, Rogers," Winter reminds him with a flat enough tone that says he's joking with him. "I think I can manage."

And he starts unspooling string, backing up away from him.

"Okay, okay," Steve says, getting a better grip on the edges of the robot, definitely curious as to how it might fly, and holds it up, tilting it this way and that until he feels it catch the breeze. "I'm set. Get moving. Show me what you've got."

Winter actually quirks a smile at that, a smirk even, and he takes off jogging with his end of the kite string, keeping his shoulder angled back so he can see Steve and the kite itself.

Steve lets the string spool out and then lifts the kite a little higher as the slack starts to disappear, letting it catch more of the wind until he flings it upward at the last moment, and -

Well. Look at that. It does fly.

He turns back to Winter, grinning, making little shooing motions to get him to keep running. "Really get it up there, then you can start coming back toward me."

Of course it flies, Rogers. Winter's not going to entertain you with a dud. He picks up speed so the kite can get more wind, and more height, but angles away from the ocean so he can start in a wide circle back towards Steve.

Steve's eyes slide from the soaring kite to Winter farther down the beach, loping away and then around, and he probably doesn't realize he's got a dumb smile on his face, but it's there. He's just feeling weirdly nostalgic for a moment, even in a place that is very, very much not like home. But it's good, really good, to see Winter doing something so mundane.

He finally shakes himself out of it as Winter starts getting a little closer, reaching down to pick up the other kite. "All right, it looks like you do know what you're doing. Think we can go two for two?"

It'll be a little trickier, getting them both up without tangling the strings, but he has faith they'll manage.

(no subject)

worthallthis - 2022-09-02 07:17 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only