Gift Horses and Mouths [OTA]

[worthallthis]

Who: Winter (Bucky Barnes) and OPEN
When: First half of December
Where: See prompts for locations
Summary: Catch-all for December, for exploring, working, and TDM prompts
Warnings: Claustrophobia, hallucinations in the exploration prompt


I. Opening Up Dogtown - closed to Steve and Yelena, exploring

They didn't expect Dogtown to be fun. They expected it to be creepy, dangerous, and possibly gross. Audible hallucinations, caves that try to eat them, lots and lots of mud... great times. Winter keeps close to his people during the whole day's trip, but he'll feel positively disgusting by the end of it.


II. Furthering in Dogtown - closed to 1 person, for this week's explore

With Yelena continuing along the north of Dogtown, Winter heads south into H16 with this week's partner. Will claim the square once somebody hits him up or pokes me about it on plurk!


III. Teaching Time - ADI's training day

Most of Winter's students have either vanished on him, or are of a level now that they don't really need him. He'll spar with them, offer advice when asked, or work side by side just for the comfort of having someone in the same room, but it's not the intensive teaching he started out with.

So when ADI hosts another training day, he settles in next to the weapons, folds his arms-- wearing his tac vest that shows off his metal arm-- and waits patiently. Anyone want a teacher in how to fight? Because he kind of misses showing people the basics. Teaching is something, he's found, that he enjoys. Seeing people survive where they otherwise might not is even better.


IV. Escher on the Loose - ADI building

On a regular day, Winter is just patrolling the ADI buildings, like usual. When he turns down the hall he expect to lead to the library, he finds himself in the IT offices. When he opens the stairwell door into what should be a sub-basement level, he finds himself in the cafeteria. It's disorienting. He kind of hates it.

The elevator problem he gets to miss, of course, because Winter never takes elevators, especially not crowded ones. But he does spend nearly an hour prowling the building trying to get to the front lobby by the stairs. Care to prowl with him?


V. Holidays Are Coming - About town

Christmas last year was awful, and also Winter didn't really know what the whole festivities were even about, so this year Winter is bound and determined that at least his apartment and his friends get to have an okay time for some of the season. Help him pick out a tree and haul it back to the ADI apartments. Sit with him in the living room of said apartment and string popcorn or cut paper into old-fashioned ornaments or place little candles on the safest branches. Keep him company while he stares into shop windows and frets about gifts.

Winter is not very good at gifts. He has no idea what people want. And he is going to agonize over it.


VI. Winter vs The Kids - Library

There is apparently a reading thing at the library. Where one reads aloud to children. Winter somehow finds himself signed up for this, and stares at the children gathering with something akin to panic, holding his chosen books to his chest almost like a shield.

It takes him three times, when it's his turn, to start speaking, but when he does it picks up and it's okay. He reads one short story (for kids, of course) and one picture book, though the picture book he just memorized so he doesn't have to read and show off artwork at the same time, and it's... okay.

Comments

[musicdied]

Yelena just blinks at him for a moment as she processes the question, clearly startled. "Of course," she says. "Why would I be not okay with inviting Steve?"

She had, in truth, assumed his inclusion, like some unofficial fourth member of their little pod.

[worthallthis]

That would be a relief to hear. As it is, Winter shrugs a little awkwardly, but not as warily now that she's answered positively. "I don't know if he's family. For you. Enough for Christmas dinner."

[musicdied]

She rolls one shoulder in a shrug of her own, not quite awkward enough to be a mirror of his gesture, and resumes stringing popcorn. "He is for you."

She hesitates a moment, and then - because that doesn't feel like quite enough explanation - adds, "And he is...one of us, even if he doesn't live in the apartment. Since Wolf Pen. If I'm being honest, I didn't even think about him not being here."

[worthallthis]

That's all apparently the right thing to say, because the last of the uncertainty slides out of his posture, and he glances over his shoulder at her with a little smile. "Okay. Good. He's important to me, too. Doesn't freak me out anymore, except when he does something really stupid."

[musicdied]

"Do you think we can train him out of doing that?" Yelena wonders, flashing him a quick smile in return. "Or are the very impulsive things too ingrained by now?"

[worthallthis]

"He's always been like that," Winter says wearily. "No way to stop it. But he's." He hesitates, trying to prod at his own brain without courting a headache or the wrong kind of flashback. "He's less than he was," he settles for. "Less impulsive. Rash. Which is probably saying something."

[musicdied]

"Oh, no," Yelena says, nose crinkling slightly. "That is a terrifying thought. But also not surprising. I don't know all the things the Avengers have done, but the ones that make the international news would be...tempering. A little."

[worthallthis]

Winter's not sure he actually likes that thought. The idea that Steve went through enough shit that it made him... less. Even if less rash and less fighty is, objectively, a good thing.

Feelings are complicated. He hates them, sometimes. "You should tell me more about what they do," he says. "Sometime. Besides the aliens thing." He remembers that one.

[musicdied]

"I can tell you the things I know about," she says. She pauses to tie off her string of popcorn, and pushes back from the table to come up alongside him by the tree, not crowding, but still close.

"You should ask Steve about what they do, too. He will have stories that aren't just secondhand. He might like telling them to you."

[worthallthis]

"Steve does't usually like talking about himself," Winter says dubiously, not moving away. Yelena has long since become safe enough to be close to. He may actually shift a little closer, only half intentionally. "But I can ask."

He gives her arm a little nudge with his elbow. "You tell me something, first. Something with Natasha in it, too."

[musicdied]

"Tell him that if he doesn't tell you, you will only get my versions, and the ones that do not come from the news come from Wanda and from my sister," she says, grinning up at him.

She leans over enough to tip her head to rest lightly against his shoulder, and holds up the popcorn string. "Help me put this up, and then we will have more cocoa, and I will tell you about the time they fought evil robots in a flying city."