driftfleet | (no subject)

Everything.

[ He sighs. ]

Normally, I would be more selective but I wanted to bring you back. I didn't want to leave you.

I'm sorry you saw that.

[ He saw all of that and then got the shit kicked out of him. Way to kick someone while they're down. ]

No place I hadn't been before.

That doesn't mean you should have been left there, Winter.

There's no use dwelling on it. It's done, and I'm fine.

[ 'Fine'. ]

Uh, no. It may be over but you're not fine and we both know it.

Wouldn't know what fine looked like, anyway.

[ Fine was maybe Bucky Barnes at age twenty two. Before the war, when things were as simple as working hard and having a good time. ]

Fine can be what you want it to be.

There has to be some sort of standard.

Why? If we all start applying standards, especially considering how different all our lives are, we'll get nowhere fast.

What standard you choose is the one that matters.

If there's no standard, how am I supposed to-- [ he shakes his head. ] nevermind.

[ How the fuck am I supposed to feel normal again? If there's no standard to base his emotions on, then it's just coasting and waiting for the shoe to drop again. ]

[ He's quiet for a bit. ]

Normal for me is very different from everyone else's. Normal once was . . . being ready to die. Watching people die. Feeling people die. Normal was knowing that people were ready to gut my team on a regular basis.

Normal, to this day, is remembering that as a person, I don't qualify.

I'm sorry. [ He doesn't mean to assume, and he can sympathize with being ready to die. Willing to die to complete a mission.

The echoes in his head tell tales of lives he's taken, but they're all still swirling behind the tightly-closed door and waiting to come out. He doesn't know a thing about feeling people die. Winter can assume it's agonizing to know the moment someone is gone.

It's not any sort of normal that should be happening, but not everyone's life has a white picket fence. His doesn't, either. ]

[ Charles shakes his head quietly. ]

You didn't know. There's no point apologizing for that. But as people, we can't go back to what we were before. All we can do is move forward.

I only know some of what happens when I go back. I'm not sure what the future is going to be. This is just a holding pattern..

As someone who has seen the future and changed it . . . it can be whatever you want it to be. Even a man named Winter can have that. And it's no different from mine or anyone else's.

Your losses may define you, but it doesn't need to hold you back.

Can't really have a future of my own until everyone involved with HYDRA is dead.

[ Even if he's the one that has to make it happen. ]

Even then, there's still an after HYDRA. That's worth remembering.

We'll see how things go until then.

[ Tentatively, because he knows it'll sound weird to Winter, but Charles feels it needs to be said. ]

I believe in you.

[ It's not really something he's used to hearing. Steve's said it once, and even then, Steve is biased. He's not deserving of anyone's belief. Belief is for good men worth following. ]

You really shouldn't.

[ His brow furrows, mouth drawn into a line. ]

I know.

[ He believes in Erik. In mankind. In all the people who have abandoned him and left him. The people who were supposed to love him, who were supposed to care. He believed in all of them. ]

But that's not how it works.

I'll try not to disappoint, then.

[ A losing battle, really. ]

Try to do the best by yourself. The rest will follow.

We'll see.

[ A little wry, but not judging. ]

Speaking positively might help too.

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