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driftfleet2016-02-15 11:30 am
birdsbirdsbirds) wrote in driftfleet2016-02-15 11:30 am
Entry tags:
"You Tried": The Ship
Who: Bloodsport crew and any visitors aboard their fine vessel.
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Ship shenanigans!
When: While they're still on the Starlight.
---
[time to check in on the Bloodsport... what antics has this well-behaved and perfectly well-adjusted crew been up to?]
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Ship shenanigans!
When: While they're still on the Starlight.
---
[time to check in on the Bloodsport... what antics has this well-behaved and perfectly well-adjusted crew been up to?]
2
Instead, he heats up some leftover soup he'd made the day before - chicken noodle, or the closest approximation he could manage with their supplies - and heads for the engine room. He makes no secret of his approach, not bothering to silence his steps against the floor paneling. And he stops, at the threshold of the room.]
Robin.
[His tone isn't exactly gentle, but it is-- understanding, in its own way. He holds out one of the chipped mugs filled up with soup and waits.]
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his other hand is open, limp, like he's forgotten about it. his palm is a cracked and bleeding mess, already blistering, and a certain smell in the room suggests he probably reached into that super-heated section of machinery he hasn't even bothered to close.
there's a dent in another wall, and some little parts and pieces scattered around where a box of them must have gotten knocked over. other than that, the only damage he seems to have done is to himself.
his reaction is delayed, but it happens eventually. he lifts his head up, his eyes slowly training on the man's shoes, and then up to see what he's got in his hand... but not at his face. he looks away before he can find it, already feeling sick with guilt.
but he nods while his attention hovers on some indistinct spot on the floor in front of him, so. Steve can probably come in.]
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There isn't room between them to set the soup, so he sets both cups off to his left. They're warm, and they'll keep.]
Hey, pal. C'mere, all right?
[Given the chance, he'll wrap an arm around Robin's shoulders and pull him in against his shoulder.]
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it squeezes a small whine of a sound out of him. confusion is all that keeps him tense; having a warm body next to him drains all the fight he had left. he sinks against the other, and soon his hand slips safely away from his neck.
the skin there is healing abnormally fast. it may have been an open wound five minutes ago, but the bruises are being eaten away by new skin. his burn is doing something similar, the blood moving slowly back into his skin in a way that it definitely shouldn't--but that one's a much trickier injury to heal.
his skin feels weird to touch, kind of like static on the surface of a balloon. it's enough to send a shudder down the spine, but only for a second. it's just extra energy, pent up in a form that doesn't hold it very well. maybe that's why he's always wearing gloves and long sleeves when he's out, rather than the thin t-shirt he tried to wear to sleep.
he lets his head rest wherever it falls. he feels stupid and bothersome, but the awful things he'd been hiding from can't get him here. his embarrassment swims in his stomach and his voice is uncharacteristically small, but he's not shying away.]
Sorry. [...] I'm here. I just...
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Hey. You don't gotta explain.
[His old Brooklyn accent is out in force, honest compassion freeing it from the confines of his rigid self-control. Meanwhile, the smell of blood flickers and fades, and Steve's breathing stays calm. He can hear the offset beats of their hearts.]
Brought soup. If you're hungry. One of my Ma's recipes.
[His voice is always so soft when he speaks of her. It's the hush and quiet of a Church confession, memory conveyed with so much aching care. She's always been the bright point he reaches for in his heart when the world's raining Hell down around him. Everything I am was hers first.]
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not a whole lot, still quiet, but it's important. he's used to having to explain everything. most people who see him like this think he's dangerous or broken, and can't really comprehend that this is his "normal".
but Steve just brought him soup and a hug. that's it. it's kind of hilarious and relieving and frustrating all at the same time. so it gets him to laugh and he twists a little to try and get a look at the world around him, and says gratefully:] Your Ma sounds real' nice.
[Steve hasn't really said anything about his mother aside from her relation to the various things he cooks--but mothers in general have always been kind of astounding to him just by their very concept. he never really had one, so. it sounds nice.]
I can eat. M'kinda hungry.
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Once Robin takes the mug, he picks up the second for himself. He's not really hungry, but he can just about always eat, and it's best these things aren't done alone.]
She was. My father died in a war before I was born, and it was... [his mouth twists.] frowned on, for a woman to raise a child alone in my day, much less one that was Irish and Catholic. She had it real hard, with me, and she never once complained. Worked herself near to death just to give me a shot at somethin' better than what she'd had.
[Robin knows he was sick, but not the extent. But he's smart, and can probably make the necessary inferences.
The thing is, talking about his Ma is important for a lot of reasons. See, in the million and one monument plaques, the million and one articles on Steven Grant Rogers almost none mention his Ma. The very precious few that did often got details wrong. About when she was born, or where. What she dedicated her life to. So-called Captain America experts have confused her with a half-dozen other Sarah Rogers' in Brooklyn. She, like Erskine, like Bucky and the other Commandos, have been casualties of history. A footnote to the hype surrounding him. It galls him, when they should have stood shoulder-to-shoulder as equals in every scrap of literature ever written.
But Sarah Rogers exists now only in his memory, and perhaps in the vault of the Winter Soldier's mind. The only way to keep her alive is to talk about her, what she meant, who she was. It's just that there are precious few people he trusts with the weight of her ghost.]
She's the one who taught me-- you can't ever run from somebody tryin' to tear you down. You run, they'll never let you stop.
[And she died in a Sanatorium. He'd argued and fought and begged his way inside, he still half-thinks the Docs did it because they were hoping he'd catch it and die too, one less strain on the overtaxed health system in Brooklyn. He'd sat swaddled in too-big medical gear and a nurse's mask at her bedside and told her it was okay to stop fighting. She'd been sick for so long, she'd wasted away and though she was only thirty-six when she died her hair was bone-white and her skin paper-thin. She was colourless and drab. He remembers looking at her and realizing she was dying. He knew what death looked like, he'd been close to it so many damn times, he'd seen other folks get wheeled out of whatever ward he was in on gurneys. He looked at her and he knew. He thinks she would've hung on until she was nothing but air, for him. But he'd told her it was okay, and she died that very afternoon. Even Buck doesn't know that story.]
She was an incredible woman. [His mouth flickers upwards at one corner, half a smile.] All I can hope is to do right by her.
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it's another warm thing, and he huddles around it, unwinding while he listens. he can almost pretend that he hadn't just been trying to claw his augment out in a panic, or that he wasn't huddling alone and miserable and angry in a dark room maybe a minute ago. the soup smells pretty good, not at all like burned skin. they didn't have much to eat in the days that followed him out of his dreams, so just having it in front of him is kind of a comfort in itself.
a little bit of him thinks to ask her how she died. he's pretty sure she must have, between the past tense and how these things always seem to turn out for people like them. and another little part of him thinks "in my day" is kind of a funny thing for him to have said--but the most of him, the important part, is thinking about those words. "You run, they'll never let you stop."
he considers all of this in silence, for a little bit, giving it the commitment to memory he thinks it deserves. stories like hers are the ones that give him reason to love humanity, even if they've given him a thousand other reasons not to.
and, well. if there's one thing Robin is good at, it's carrying the weight of ghosts.]
...My sister used to say something like that, too. They're good words.
[that's when he finally starts eating, a couple of sips to put something in his stomach other than leftover tension. he puts the mug back down in the palm of his nearly-healed hand.]
Sisters, I guess. They were conjoined twins. And not really related to me, but.
[he doesn't bother saying the rest. it's not a huge jump of logic to assume they were close enough that they may as well have been siblings anyway.]
No one really knew that could happen, when I was growing up, so most people just thought they were some kind of a... bad omen, or a monster. But they were the kindest people I've ever met, I think. And they took better care of me than anyone.
[he moves his hand again, but it's specifically so that he can show Steve. he gently flexes the newly-healed fingers of his hands. he's got his own half-smile on, now.]
Still is, really.
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So instead, he ruffles Robin's hair.]
Blood doesn't make a family. [He knows that better than anyone.] I'm glad you had them. And that they had you, too. You're a good man, Robin.
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[Finch told him the same thing. Vincent would tell him that too. Robin's correction is just as plain as if he was telling Steve it's raining outside--and soon he's running a hand up to fix whatever's been done to his hair.]
I'm trying to be, but I'm not there yet.
[he looks dully out over the floor, at the bolts and pieces that got knocked all over the floor. they kind of sparkle in the light of the exposed engine, he thinks. he tightens his hands around the mug again, tipping his head to rest against his friend again.]
Can I tell you my dream anyway? [he realizes, half-a-second later, that he never actually said that part out loud, so--] That's why I woke up.
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[It's not argumentative, just equally stated as fact. It may be raining outside, sure, but it won't stay that way forever. Steve's not an optimist. Horrible things are done, the world goes on. Folks change. Not always for the better.]
And yeah, of course. I'm all ears.
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Robin doesn't think he's got "good and bad" figured out. he doesn't even think he knows himself all that well, after his time here... and he's just as receptive to learning about these things as he is with everything else.]
There's... This time I don't talk about, between the dragon king and the last place I was before this. [that's how he starts, tapping idly against the side of the mug with his nail. a soft ting-ting-ting behind the other quiet noises in the room.] It was bad, though. Worse than home. And while I was there, there was this... Voice that I'd hear from somewhere under the ground. Sort of. Maybe it was more like a feeling, but it had this cadence to it, this kind of... [he lifts one hand to trace a weighted circle over and over in the air.] Over and over, maybe kind of like a heartbeat, I guess.
I didn't tell anyone. [he drops his hand.] I was looking after two people who would have thought I was crazy. I kind of thought I was crazy. But it was always there, this constant deep thing in the earth. And I think it might have been that dragon king, except he had to have been dead by then, so maybe it was just the awful ghost that he'd stained into the world by then. I never went to go find out, because if I was wrong, and he was alive, I would have just... Run. I'd have left those two to die just so that I wouldn't have to stop running.
[Robin has been scared of exactly two people in his entire life. the first is his brother, and the second is the "King of Sorrow", the only one who's ever beat him out for worst mandatory destiny. Robin continues to explain all of this as well as he can, admitting his cowardice in a quiet and steady tone--even though finding the words is confusing, and the memories still make his skin crawl.]
So I had a dream that I was there again, sort of, and the voice was there too. But when I woke up, I saw the... The little bolts in the seams, up there, in the ceiling. [he points, looking up at them again himself.] And for just a second, I thought I was back there again, back in the Dragon's Underground, 'cause that's what my ceiling kind of used to look like. I was scared I'd been sent back like none of this had happened.
And then there was the sound. [he makes the circular gesture again.] From the engine. Some tumbler got knocked loose and was rotating heavier on one side, but by the time I was really awake I was just thinking that I couldn't let it follow me here. He already ruined me once, I wasn't gonna let him ruin this, too.
[...he holds his palm up again, looking at it. finally dropping to a flatter voice.] And that's why I thought it was a good idea to stick my hand into a hot engine.
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When he's done speaking, Steve gives it the span of several heartbeats and then he stands up, shifts his mug of soup to his off-hand and offers his left to Robin.]
I punch things until I break my knuckles. [He says that in an utterly bland, matter-of-fact voice. It a part of him that Robin's earned. Lighter:] Not the healthiest way to cope, but sometimes it's what you've got.
[Sam's been talking him out of that one, but violence is the one thing, the one thing his body has always understood.]
Now c'mon, I've got an idea about your room.
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but oh, it is so disarming to be treated like a human, and not in a way that makes him feel vulnerable--the weapons are being taken from him, because he doesn't have to fight right now. they're on equal terms, and as far as Robin can see, Steve thinks he's normal enough. no promises to heal him, no pity for his awful little life, no shame in the ways he's found to deal with his ghosts. just someone else who gets it. it happens, and that's okay.
for a second, is almost breaks him. tears get too close to the surface, and he rubs at one of his eyes with the heel of his palm--but he's smiling in a way that goes all the way up into his eyes, and the next thing he knows, he's reaching out to take that hand and pull himself up off the floor.]
Yeah, okay. [with half a laugh,] What were you thinking...?
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I'd say it's a secret, but--
[Steve's quarters aren't too far from the engine room, he turns to lead them there without further preamble. Once there, he smacks a hand to the wall panel to get the door to open and gestures for Robin to precede him. Once they're inside, he drains the last of his soup and sets the empty mug down on his small nightstand. From there, he gets down on his knees to pull a box of paints out from under his bed. He's been collecting colours from every planet they've been to that sells that sort of luxury, not to mention the few sponsor drops he's gotten that tend to favour his artistic talents. He's amassed quite the collection.]
We're going to paint your walls. And the ceiling. Whatever you want, okay? Something good.