Calibrations Spill-Over Post

[thespaceopera]

[ Since Recaptcha is striking in the older posts, feel free to continue calibration-related threads here.

We suggest that you add a comment to your old thread with a link to your new one, and vice versa, so it's easy for your threading partners, and the AC mods, to switch between your original thread and its continuation. ]

→ Calibration post A-M
→ Calibration post N-Z

Comments

[reconstitution]

[ Stony silence follows, and Winter does nothing more than nod once. He doesn't really understand why Steve is thanking him for showing something unpleasant.. It's very backwards.

Although, he does think very briefly about soothing the sting with a fond memory, though he's not certain he's ready to share his memories of Jim with a complete stranger.

Of course, he's not actually a stranger, his mind supplies. He knows as much, but it's certainly what it feels like. He shifts, glancing around the chilled room once again. He knows no one else will show up. It's the contents of the room that are the most unsettling. Reaching up, he takes the mask off his face and tosses it to the ground. ]

I don't know what else you want to see.

[ Steve may not want to jump any further down that particular rabbit hole. Especially with all the things he's already uncovered. ]

[enshields]

[His attention follows the fall of that mask. It falls like a heavy weight, and doesn't bounce.

His fingers flex, it's the same gesture as when he grips the straps of his shield. Only there is no shield here, there's only the vault, this room, the creeping cold.]

Would it be all right if we just talked?

[He sounds younger. Uncertain, almost, and for all that he's thought that little Stevie Rogers never came out of the ice, it's not a surprise to him that it takes Jim Barnes to reach into it, across time and space, and pull the ghost of him up out of the ocean.]

[reconstitution]

..That's fine.

[ Talking is rather harmless considering his current company. Maybe if it were anyone else, he'd be more hesitant to accept. After all, what harm could be done that hasn't already been done? There's nothing to be worried about.

Only that's not quite true, is it? There's always going to be something nagging at the back of his mind. For now, though, he can push it away and focus on the man in front of him.

The static spikes in volume for a brief moment before lowering to a much more tolerable level. It can almost be ignored, now. ]

[enshields]

[He hadn't. Quite expected him to agree, so Steve sort of draws a heavy breath, holds it. Lets it out.]

You know, I ain't the biggest fan of apples. What about you?

[Oh, he still enjoys pie, but it's just more for the nostalgia, more because he misses his Ma than for the taste. Too many rotted in the streets of Brooklyn back when the Farmer's Association was trying to hock their wares during the Depression. Five cents per, you think anyone could afford that? So they'd drop their prices as they rotted, until the vendors were just desperate to make back a margin of the buck-twenty-five they'd spent on the whole bushel, and you could get 'em real cheap. Whole apartment smelled like applesauce for months, and as a result? He'll eat 'em, sure. Can't abide the waste. But God help him, he halfway hates the things.]

[reconstitution]

[ Honestly, what choice does he have trapped in a bank vault? He can either avoid it, wary of his surroundings while people prod at his memories, or he can concede and not have to think about where exactly that they're trapped.

Winter mulls the question over, before coming up with a blank. He can't remember apples. He knows what they look like as well as their smell, courtesy of Jim's memories, but anything regarding taste is completely lost. He shakes his head, eyes flicking up to Steve's. ]

I don't know.