sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

[MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: Town Hall & Inn
WHEN: 6 September 2018, Evening
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Warn on your threads, please. PTSD is probably a given.
NOTES: Support group mingle! If your character needs some support after the latest meta plot or just generally, send them on over to Town Hall. Also, feel free to do top levels having to do with signing up for a tube monitoring shift. Please let me know if you want a Mark thread, I have notifs off for the post.

So, I have been down to what we all seem to be collectively calling the Bunker. It is... something, to say the least.

For some people it feels like hope and for others despair, and I can honestly see both sides of it. Some people need to feel like they have some control, even if it's illusory — Having a puzzle to possibly solve makes them feel less adrift. For others, it's too much reality, or the perception of, anyway. I can't say I'm personally convinced by any of it.

See, I've been here since the start of whatever this is, with a group that's almost entirely gone now. It's been five months since we were birthed into this expanded world, and I don't know if it's any more real than the last. That isn't me putting on a tin foil hat, that's just respecting the environment. Mars was the same way: You do what you need to do to eke out a life, to survive or even thrive, but it's dangerous to think you have any real control. Everything can go to shit in the blink of eye, and then you're tumbling around in an airlock while your entire food supply is turned to dust.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people should stop hoping to get home, stop trying to figure it all out. I'm just saying we might all be a little easier mentally if we could express how scary it is to know, deep down, that the rug can be pulled out from under us at any moment... And then to accept that feeling that way is okay.

With that in mind, after a little meditating during my daily work in the fields, I put up two notices on the blackboard in the South Village inn:

Volunteers to monitor the bunker tubes for new arrivals, please sign up for a shift on the paper on the bar.

That's one thing we can do, at least. Just the illusion of control, but still important to some people, and definitely helpful for anybody new.

Below that:

Support Group Tonight
Town Hall - 7:00 PM
Everyone Welcome

I don't know how many people will actually show — We've got a surprisingly stubborn, resilient group, in my experience. But even if it helps just one person, it's worth doing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jesus Christ. He fell off a train into the god damn ether for Uncle Sam to churn out plushes wearing his coat? Talk about the futility of war. It almost makes his skin crawl to think about, and god, let him never see a single one of those in his lifetime please.

Eyebrows stay hitched plenty high at the follow-up request and damn if this isn't one of the most interesting, confusing conversations he's had since he's gotten here.

"I'll answer to your highness or lord commander, might even take a grand poobah on a good day," he says flatly, raising the glass to his lips, more than a little amused. Seriously, though: "Only got so many names, and you're not the only one with first name problems."

James is what his father called him. Sargeant Barnes was murmured to him in accented whispers in a floating nightmare. Nobody goes by Buchanan. He shrugs a shoulder. "It's just Bucky."

"Get me a twenty five year and I'll think about it." Grand poobah, seriously. Without any kind of other option except 'Bucky?' Time to consider the ridiculous. "But until then you're- wait I can't call you Grumpy-cat, that's your sexy bedroom name."

At least according to Liv and far be it from him to steal a sensual endearment from the lips of the woman that helped save his sorry ass. So. Not Grumpy-Cat. Two Buck Chuck is too many syllables. GummiBear belonged to Bruce, Red Hot to Nat, Angry Bird to Clint, SourPatch was Rhodey's always and forever, cross his mechanical heart, so. "Jimmie B? Nah."

Another slow sip, another fluid shrug as he rolls his head back to stare at the ceiling, considering his options.

"Buckaroo isn't ridiculous enough. From Russia with Murder? Hunt for Red October? De Frostie the snow soldier? Manchurian Candidate? Socket- That one kind of fits." He nods to himself, satisfied. "Till then, you're 'Socket.'"

"Thanks, I hate it," he announces cheerfully, raising his glass in a toast. He doesn't even for a second bother trying to talk Tony out of the name - knows better, first of all, because he's known Stark for longer than two and a half minutes (which is all it would take to hazard that guess). Second, because he doesn't yet feel like he's on stable enough ground to argue for himself just yet, and may not for a while.

Third and most importantly, though, he doesn't actually care all that much. He's easy-going. Sue him. As long as he can drink and coexist the rest is just details.

This next one is the one that's gonna get him, he can tell. A few slugs of vodka with Steve earlier, now his second glass of whiskey, the trappings of a pleasant buzz settle in and manifest in a barely visible flush. He's always been a little swarthy, a little tan, the shifts in color aren't nearly so visible on him as they are on Steve. Speaking of which, circling back to the question from earlier...

"Steve's from right after everything happened. Right after the fight. They threw me in a freezer in Wakanda, and five minutes later he wakes up here at the bottom of a well."

"You're welcome." It is what it is and it's ridiculous and will only last until he can banish the memory of that damn bear from the back of his mind- or come up with something better/worse. Most likely worse. That's usually how it goes with his offhand appointments- anything approaching real respect tends to mean a distinct lack of it.

Don't ask him to explain his brain, he couldn't.

Moonshine and Whiskey and not a kid that looks up to him in sight- or any sign of a nurse or doctor type. He really shouldn't be indulging but- fuck that? He's had enough time to sit, contemplate, resolve to repress his emotions and hold to that. Drowning what he feels and all the agonizing guilt is just step two in the healing process.

"Guess that explains why he approached. Maybe. I don't know." He can say, easily, he was in worse shape after Thanos than he'd been post Siberia. Immediate threat of death was a greater concern. Sure he had to have a whole new sternum implanted for the second time, but- it didn't kill him. Just pissed him off. "So giving him shit for everything going wrong. Not worth the effort. Right? Won't even be satisfying if he doesn't know how badly we fucked up."

Don't worry, Bucky isn't in the habit of trying to understand brain things on any level whatsoever. It's a can of worms and hypocritical besides, when he can't even parse through his own foggy memories on some bad days. Just specific memories, though, just an area he calls the Gray Period that begins about two months after his capture when they started trying to break him in earnest and ends about the time they started unthawing him for missions.

But he doesn't talk about that.

He huffs a little, shakes his head. Yeah, about that.

"No. Not a great idea. Steve's..." How to even explain Steve Rogers in real, human words? Especially with a head buzzing and things starting to look a little too bright and vivid. The struggle. It's real. "Unyielding head-on, brittle at the sides."

Edited 2018-09-16 23:53 (UTC)

"Incapable of compromise? Shortsighted? Hypocritical as fuck?" Maybe he's been lying to himself and he would rather have some shit out- but what good is a yelling match going to do anyone in the village? Dragging their drama here doesn't do any good but it's hard to ignore if he has to stare at Rogers' bullshit sanctimonious holier than thou scowl.

Alright maybe he's not over it at all. Fuck. So much for being past shit.

Tony grumbles under his breath in Italian, nonsense frustration as he knocks back the rest of his scotch. "Bought into his own press. As someone that's done that, let me tell you, it's a shit idea."

Except for the part where he scooped up more than half of their mutual...friends? Had they been friends? He hadn't sat down to think about it beyond 'they're gone, fuck them' in over a year.

Despite his buzz, despite his attempts at building a foundation of solidarity between them, Barnes still has his loyalties. His lips press into a line somewhere around shortsighted, and yes, although it's technically accurate, it's treading a little too much on Steve for him to feel entirely comfortable about it.

He speaks Italian. He picks up things. He licks his lips.

"One thing I can tell you for sure, " he says haltingly, raspily, but firmly. "He's not bought into anything."

Certainly not the picture image of Captain America the media wants to make him out to be. He's reasonably confident Steve doesn't give a singular fuck about the traits they assign him or the expectations they hold for him. He rounds the glass on the bartop in an absent gesture, body language calm - intentionally calm, to counterbalance what he says next.

"I know we're trying to get past some stuff right now, but if you keep badmouthing my best pal I'm obligated to sock you. I really don't want to, so we're clear, but I will."

Just as a fair warning. At least he's open about it. It's an honor thing, not a machismo thing. Not an alpha-male thing. Frankly, he sounds as apologetic as he does earnest.

"The best hands are still our own." He quotes by route, shaking his head, staying in Italian out of habit. "How well did that play out for him?"

Of course it clicks that Barnes also slipped into his mother's tongue and that-

Feels wrong for so many reasons.

His face and his human hand, sure, but not him. No choice in the matter, he'd been brainfucked, rationalizing shit that way, reading through what he knew of the book, that helped. Making sure it never found its way into Ross's hands- that helped. But much like coping with Rogers in the relative area, having Barnes slung out drunk and lazy right next to him shakes a few of his formerly assumed comfortable convictions to not hold this shit against him.

Out of some petty, perverse knee jerk contrarianism- Barnes doesn't get to keep speaking to him in Italian, let's poke some other triggers- Tony slips into Russian. It's probably some kind of cruel. It's definitely uncalled for. Sober him would never-

But sober him isn't here. Just as idle, just as flippant as anything, wrapped in a sickly sweet grin, he replies. "Hit me and you're not getting that weird sex glove or rosary, Socket."

Fortunately for them both, Barnes isn't offended by Russian. First and foremost his sensibilities aren't so delicate, though if Tony drops a few keywords like longing or furnace they might start to develop some problems. He swears in Russian sometimes. He talks shit about people to Natasha in Russian sometimes. He may slightly suspect Tony's only sliding into it to fuck with him, but he isn't shaken enough to rise to it.

"Думаю, я выживу," He answers flatly, a little slurred which - honestly, considering the language, only serves to make him sound all the more fluent. Are you really even speaking Russian if you're not a little drunk?

And- circling back to that first thought- "My best hand isn't mine."

Holds up the metal fingers. Gives them a wiggle. Emotionlessly tilts back an entire finger of whiskey in one go. Such is life.

"Mine's been fucked for two years." He holds up his left, and it's only being a few glasses of moonshine and whiskey in that he can address the fact that it tremors. His right holds steady but there's something in his shoulder, a nerve, some sort of glitch in his brain that's not keeping the current steady. After everything with Helen and Ultron he's been reluctant to ask for favors. It's only when stress kicks up that it gets bad- or when he's relaxed enough to not hold his arm rigid.

Not as much fine tuning that needs to be done here, not yet- but it's a frustrated shame. Signs of the machine that is his fleshy corpse breaking down. Shit he can't fix.

"Thanks for that." Unfair? Probably. It was mostly Wanda- maybe? He's not sure which hit in that clusterfuck was the one to fuck everything over. Doesn't keep him from topping off their glasses.

What can he say? Realistically, what can he say? Whiskey knocks at his doors, the tenseness of the air around them whips away the cordiality and the ease of their rapport and returns it to razorblades and sharp edges. He raises his hands a little, a soft gesture of defeat, a shrug, a what do you want me to tell you?

Sorry?

What a small and insignificant word. What a tiny, insulting fucking word. What a pebble in the face of a mountain. He doesn't say it because he knows saying sorry is like trying to carry water in a pasta strainer. It's full of holes and it's fucking useless, all you accomplish is a wet floor and a rise in anger.

When he drops them back down onto the bar top it's with a little too much enthusiasm, or maybe with just too little grace. They thump loudly on the wood, a jarring sort of noise that shakes the glass on the table.

Darkly, he mutters: "Add it to the list of shit I can't undo to you."

"Technically-" Back to English by way of France, his thoughts weaving and bobbing all over the place, dipping from language to language, memory to memory as he tries to cut away a little of that miasma. Self Loathing is something he knows pretty well. Barnes isn't guilty of much other than trying to survive and shitty taste in friends.

"This? Is on Maximoff and Rogers." Having a floor of cars dropped on him fucked up the shoulder. Being kicked back against a concrete structure and nearly getting his neck broken did the rest. "You didn't get a say in any of it."

Reasons he finds Rogers hypocritical, finds him frustrating. Making calls without informing anyone- that's his trick. No one else is allowed to pull it. Tony lets his hand fall back to his lap, nails of the right tapping against his glass. There are words, here, that are...probably neater. Kinder. And it's the kind of thing you should say while looking a man in the eye but he's drunk enough to not want to see Barnes' face. He can't unsee that cracked open expression when the video started to play.

"You were trying to keep your head down. Everything you did, you did to get away without causing trouble. It's not your fault Zemo had a justified grudge against us. It's not even your fault he was able to use you to break us." He had no say in any of it.

It skirts the line, but as quick as Bucky is to defend Steve he also knows better than to grant him absolution he doesn't deserve, or that isn't his to give. Facts are facts, as long as they don't come with a stream of insults to Steve's honor. It's a precarious line, he's doing his best to navigate it without tipping the scales too far in either direction.

He wants to make this work. He does. He wants some fucking peace, god damn it.

A metal fist curls around his empty glass a little too tightly.

Yes, he was trying to keep his head down. Yes, he was trying to slip through the cracks without causing a fight, he spent two years almost on the run trying to keep away from all of it even at the expense of staying away from Steve. Yes, Zemo had a grudge the size of Texas, but Bucky actively avoids the thought that he'd been played like a card, wielded like a tool to break something again even without his mind being scrambled in the process. Tony illustrates the point well, though, that he'd been leveraged like a hammer to shatter the Avengers into pieces, and if he thought his list couldn't get any longer...

"Stop it," He snaps, reaching out for the bottle again just to have something to keep himself occupied with. Closest thing to a nervous fidget he can manage. Evidently Russian doesn't bother him but excuses do. Roundabout forgiveness does. "Just shut your damn mouth."

"It's not your fault." Accountability. Personal, public, to society, to other people. This? Wasn't on Barnes. None of the accords bullshit was on Barnes anymore than it was entirely on Rogers. It was...a mess of opinions and international law and casualties, in judgement calls and trust given that might not have been earned, not enough trust given where it ought to have been, miscommunications and conflicted interests. No one walked away clean but Barnes? Got used all over again. In the worst sort of way.

"Not the airport, not Romania, not Sibera-" that had been him. Him losing his shit at what he'd found out in the worst way, at the worst time. Hearing the start up and watching instead of shutting off the damn television. He couldn't go back and change any of it. He couldn't say that he would've reacted differently if he knew ahead of time but he knew- with the conviction that came from retrospection, a lot of time, distance, and whiskey, that it "Not that dirt road in 1991."

Yeah, they're talking about it. Tony keeps his voice steady by sheer force of will, keeps himself loose and relaxed because he's only practiced how he'd say this for about a year. Maybe a year and a half. He brings his eyes up and over, dark and worn and aching with every night he'd spent going over that video. With going over Barnes' voice cracked raw- I remember-

The man without a past- and he remembered that. "You didn't have a say in any of it."

He starts shaking his head the second the world fault leaves Tony's lips, a steady back and forth, a constant stream of denial that doesn't waver for a second even as his fingers tighten precariously on an empty glass. Romania. Siberia. They're one thing, but the god damn dirt road hits so hard that a little chnk sounds from the glass, a hairline fracture where it's starting to give beneath his grip that spreads like spiderwebs around the crystal.

"Shut up," He mutters again, just before 1991 comes out. The crashing of a car full-speed into a tree, he can hear it - it's a perfect audio recreation in his mind, the screeching of brakes and the crumpling of metal, and his ears ring with tinnitus. Help my wife, please- Sargeant Barnes? Howard-

It's the whiskey.

"Shut up- !" He doesn't register throwing the glass, doesn't register standing or whirling or hurling it with any great force, but does plainly register the way that it slams into a shelf of other glasses, and the way they all shatter their way to the floor.

A silent beat.

And then he's back, back under rigid control, ducking his eyes and turning his head and taking a breath. Passing a hand over his mouth, because the onslaught of shame comes startlingly quick. Probably the second it left his hand. Shit. He's got a lot of messes to clean up, and he's not sure which one to address first. Executive dysfunction, a rigidness in his spine, a faltering gaze, until finally he can lift his eyes enough to level Tony with a head-on look and murmur a frigid, cracked, sincere, "I'm sorry."

Which- there's that word he swore five minutes ago he was never going to say. Broken glass, broken promises. Funny how he says it after he's already been given the pass.

It's an explosion of movement- sharp and sudden like a car crash. Metal flashing, glass shattering, all chaos and startling white noise that fades into static under the ragged command he's not about to listen to. Sober or drunk, supersoldiers don't get to tell him what to do off the clock. This is something he's needed to say for awhile, something Barnes needs to hear and this isn't the time or place. Glass all over the floor on the other side of the bar, tension snapped and crackling around them, raw edged and real. Layers of emotion and tons of baggage that's strained the scale to the point of snapping- there's never been a right time or place for absolution that isn't his to give, that Barnes shouldn't need.

And yet Tony's the only one that can give it, he couldn't hand it out sober, doesn't think he can articulate himself well enough to cover everything- but he can cover this. Will.

He didn't move an inch during Barnes' outburst, still leaning with his elbows on the bar, eyes on Bucky's. That same agony he remembers from the bunker. That same weight of emotion that'd been entirely fucking absent from Rogers. But that's not the issue here, that's never been the issue between him and Barnes. Completely different animal still wandering the wild. Cold and distant and irrelevant, nothing compared to this bloody, broken thing between them. Regret and frustration and-

"I forgive you." He shouldn't have to. He'd argue Barnes didn't need to hear it, didn't need to have it- but Tony knows better than most the drowning weight of guilt. The sharply sweet dagger of self loathing that's familiar, if you're going to get disemboweled there's no one that'll be able to do the job half as well as you. He reaches across the bar to grab a glass from a shelf that hadn't been shattered and pours Bucky another finger of whiskey. "For my parents. I forgive you."

For Howard who never should've been driving that damn stuff in the back of a civilian car, for Maria that only wanted to support her husband and spend more time with them. It falls to Barnes' handlers. To Hydra. To Obadiah who doubtlessly offered over the route Howard was planning on that night. Tony nudges the glass in Bucky's direction, waiting for him to settle.

"Now sit down and help me toast your friend Howard." Maria wasn't ever anyone, anything to Barnes, no one but a target. Collateral damage. She wasn't anyone, honestly, to anybody but Tony. And he's alright holding that shard of history to himself.

His lips curl tight into his cheeks in a pained grimace. I forgive you, and it twists him like a knife, but his outburst is over. His loss of control is passed, the storm is ebbing, and all that's left is the weight of the words with nothing to soften or cheapen them. They settle into his bones so sweetly that he wants to sink down into the floor. Wants to collapse in on himself like a burned out star and suck in all the matter around him until there's nothing left, and even all that won't fill the void.

But it's a start.

He ducks his head at the order (because it is, in fact, an order), and he hesitates there. Not because he's thinking of disobeying, готовы соблюдать, but because he's afraid if he takes a step his knees might buckle.

The moment passes. Slow like molasses he moves, sliding carefully back onto his stool with only the rustling of fabric and the sliding of metal on wood. He stops before he touches the glass, and switches hands. Don't repeat the same mistakes twice. Can't quite meet Tony's eye now, whether it's because of the air in the room or because of his little outburst? Hard to say.

Two debts are forgiven, 76 more to go.

He breathes out a slow, shuddering breath. Curls his flesh fingers around unbroken glass.

Tries to get his fucking shit together behind a curtain of hair. Will not cry in front of Tony Stark.

It's not a thing he does, outside of a very select group of people. It's not a thing he's ever wanted to do until the moment it suddenly becomes the thing to do and it occurs to him that, aside from Rogers, who would ever reach out to Barnes? Three months in the pit with torture and stubborn defiance and no one trying to fuck with his head had shaken him to the core. Something put in him he figured out a way to remove that he'll always loathe but has, eventually, learned to recover from-

versus a limb that'll never grow back, decades locked up and on ice, subject to Hydra's tender mercies, treated like a thing. Like a hammer, like a gun, and Tony doesn't know if it'll set him off or prompt a collapse or, something.

Anything.

Uncharted territory but he reaches out to rest his hand on Barnes' shoulder. To touch him kindly because in all his fucked up past, Tony can't imagine he got much of it during his stint as the longest living POW known to man. When he felt fit to shatter it's how Rhodey would reach out to him. Something grounding, something stabilizing. A reminder he wasn't alone. For decades he lay the blame on his father for ruining their lives- had issues upon issues. For six months that blame lay at Barnes' feet. Now? He can let it go. Voice thick but otherwise steady, Tony lifts his glass with his free hand. "To Howard. A workaholic that took too much pleasure in making things ridiculous as much as he made them useful."

To Maria, who loved him and tried to curb the insanity of his genius into something feasible.

It doesn't set him off, nor does it prompt a collapse. Tony isn't wrong about one thing though, the only touches Barnes ever got during his time as the Asset weren't positive. They were slaps across the face, they were the fists of his enemies, the claws of fingernails as people scrambled against him for breath or for purchase. When he was cleaned, hosed down, stripped, washed, repurposed, tuned up, the people in charge did it with rubber gloves or the tips of their fingers like he was a disgusting and diseased thing that they were afraid might contaminate them.

Or, more aptly, like he was a utensil left in a freezer, so cold it burned them and they had to drop it at once. Tony's hand is a spreading warmth that melts ice, or at least brings him back to room temperature. It pulls his eyes from the grainy pattern of the hardwood, and he can - for the moment - meet that gaze again.

There is no clouding or disguising his soft appreciation for the gesture. Even if he wanted to, he doesn't have the mental energy now to thrust the wall up again so quickly. Unguarded.

He raises his glass. Pauses before he clinks them to murmur a rusty, crisp sounding, "Made the worst god damn sniper rifle I ever used."

He knocks their edges together.
Brings the glass to his lips.

"I beg your fucking pardon?" Them? Them's fighting words. Tony is fairly certain that is some kind of insult to someone somewhere but he's drunk enough to not take it seriously- and finally with the weight of blame off Barnes, off his Father-

There's resentment, still, for comparing him to a man that never existed, for holding up an icon that Rogers never wanted to be instead of offering a hand up to the son he couldn't understand or hope to handle. But that's his own baggage, older, easier to hold onto. It's not as bloody, not as painful. An old ache.

So it makes...thinking about him, now, about his work, how hard he tried, how hard he failed? A little bit easier. "Explain this to me because he held the fact he made you a rifle over my head for years."

It could be sullen or petulant but- it's wrapped up in a chortle of laughter, the hesitance in him melting away, grip firming into a friendly squeeze. Because this could be...something. They'll never be strangers, they've busted each other up too much to walk away with antipathy in the air. But they could be something. And under the baggage, the ice, the wounded eyes? Tony finds...he kind of likes Barnes. A little.

For a second he's worried he's replaced the singular square inch of progress they've made with a foot in his mouth over what was meant to be a fond memory, but that laugh and the physical affirmation settle away the rough edges that threaten to arise again and he nearly melts into the bar beneath Tony's hand. He slumps forward a little, exhausted, onto the supportive weight of his metal elbow like a kickstand braced against the bartop.

A reluctant, wry sort of smile tugs at his lips for the first time since this whole thing began. Still hesitant, once bitten twice shy as far as emotions go, he launches into his version of things.

"Made stuff for the troops all the time, usually standard stuff. Sometimes a few modifications. Got really excited about the whole team Steve led, I think, so he started churning out stuff for us whenever he could. He gave me this... rifle," He says, and that fondness shows itself now for the first time audibly and in the slight crinkle of his eyes. "Probably the most advanced weapon I ever held in my hands at the time. He thought of everything- night vision, custom stock, took my god damn measurements and factored in the length of my torso, the distance between my eyes. Pretty sure it even calculated wind resistance, but-"

He licks his lips, stops, can't quite suppress the smile or the bubble of feeling in his chest. Nostalgia, laughter, something threatening to overthrow him.

"He forgot to factor in the actual shooting part somehow. The god damn thing couldn't hit the barn side of a broad, pulled left every time. I had to start aiming six feet to the fucking right every shot."

"Specialists need special gear and special attention." He quotes by rote, one of the few stories Howard would bother to tell three glasses of Whiskey in, rattling off something nostalgic to Jarvis and Peggy when he was knee high. Something he couldn't think back on without at least a small edge of bitterness for years but now? It's easy. Comfortable, even, to think back and soak in the details he can recall, leave things washed in warm gold instead of the cold uncertainty that Howard had been happiest before he was born and he'd never do anything to change that.

Tony angles himself twoard Barnes, the fluid sprawl of the drunk settling him against the bar though his eyes remain sharp and clear. The Whiskey and moonshine have done their work of quieting his mind and soothing his anxieties- all his focus? Is on Barnes. The weight of it, Pepper's said, is like a physical thing. Tony's never noticed, normally he doesn't bother giving anyone all of his attention, he's got too much going on.

But whatever this blunder of his Father's- this piece of the past, of the man he never truly got to know? He wants to hear it. Memorize it. Paste it in place and make a more complete picture of Howard Stark.

"Wait- the Buckshot? That thing bruised the fuck out of my shoulder." He knew that gun. Shot it off once in the range behind the mansion when he was young before Howard shipped it off to a museum somewhere. "The rifling on the barrel was off center by a few millimeters, the spacing of the internal spiral fucked just enough to- yeah. I wanted to fix that but he put it behind glass somewhere before he told me what it was I was 'fooling around with'." Air quotes, insert eyeroll here, laughter on his lips, thinking back to the kick.

"I'd put money on him rushing to finish it before you went out on the next mission- and if you're rushing you get sloppy. Or his math was off- but I doubt that."

Specialists need- an eyebrow arches a little at the words spoken from memory, apparently that's not a quote Howard ever bothered to share with the specialists themselves. If he had, he probably would've gotten a few laughs and a gentle correction along the lines of all we need is a map and an ass to kick. Morita probably would have protested, the man loved any kind of neat explosive you could give him, but the rest of them functioned just fine with guns and scrap metal.

He bears the weight of Tony's attention with steadiness and ease now that they're over the biggest of their hurdles and honestly? Maybe that outburst had been a little cathartic. Maybe something about the way all this went down was like ripping splinters out of a wound; painful at first but now that the worst is over the healing begins. The sheer relief of it is almost crippling. No amount of pointed attention can really replace the heft of what's been taken from his shoulders.

"Probably a rush-job," Barnes agrees with a little nod. Can't attest to Howard's math, but, "Seems like we were always behind, back then. He put stuff out for us as fast as he could, can't believe he ever managed to sleep frankly. Wouldn't mind having that thing back, either, if you could fix it."

Oh well. Maybe one day he'll be well enough in Tony's favor that he gets a gun that sits as comfortably against him as that one did. He cuddles his rifles like women when he snipes, curls around them and molds to them. That one fit like a glove.

"He probably didn't. His record was sixty two hours with no sleep." One of many records Tony beat easily while in college. Things they had in common, things they never got a chance to discuss because Howard was so busy, because Tony was so argumentative and resentful. He shrugs off the usual welling of regret in favor of huffing quietly, imagining the young man his father had been, scrambling to keep the Howlies equipped. "He didn't have the luxury of an AI assistant to double check his work before he sent it out."

Tony did, for the Avengers. It made flipping through options faster, more efficient, more effective. J could extrapolate data well enough to keep them equipped, work as a second mind and pair of hands after Tony explained what they were working on and why.

"...I make up my mind on developing actual weaponry here? I'll think about it." Because gunpowder isn't difficult chemistry. Thermite, napalm, all that shit? He could put together with what's lying around the forge with a little bit of digging around the forest for sulfur deposits. There's an argument for: Survival. The argument against- how can they know it'll be used appropriately? Accountability matters. Glitter grenades and bombs are innocent fun. A sniper rifle?

Might help with hunting.

Frankly, if you want the real and honest truth of it? He regrets the request the second it's out of his mouth. At any given time it feels like he's shorn into two beings; half of him is a soldier, a piece of metal, a tool that appreciates things like custom stock and excellent battle strategy. The other half is a person, and that person is tired. Part of what made this place so easy to adapt to is that second half, that desire for peace and calmness. Normalcy, real feelings, time and space and distance between bloodshed and loss.

But he can never seem to erase Half A. Seventy-something years of habit and some of it even before Project: Winter Soldier, it's a hard thing to break.

So he falters a little, and his voice cracks when he finally says, "Take your time on that."

A nice, long time. They've got enough to get by, after all. They've got machetes, hatchets, crossbows, enough to fend off the local wildlife - even a nine foot tall Wendigo that weighed more than him with claws like knives. He brought that down with not much more than his metal arm and an electric flower.

...And a whole team of people, and a casualty.

He sighs. The other side of the coin: Peeta might be alive if he'd just had a god damn gun.

[MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

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