so goodbye yellow brick road

[ex_enlisted288]

WHO: Steve Rogers
WHERE: Village environs
WHEN: Mid to Late October
OPEN TO: Tony Stark + Open
WARNINGS: TBD

---

Domestic Agendas

[ It's been a long time since Steve lived with just one person. Five years, seventy years, a few months and some change. He tries to make himself invisible as much as possible. Lets Bucky know that he's welcome to bring over Liv and Steve will find somewhere else to be if they need alone time. He reads the books he got from Father Mulcahy and gets accustomed, for the very first time, to sharing space with a cat for more than a couple of days. Steve had wanted a pet as a child, but money and multiple health concerns had nixed that plan before it ever came to fruition. The best he could do back then was sneak scraps to the alley cats that roamed the tenement buildings and belonged to nobody.

He's getting a little better at fishing now, too. Several times a week, he makes the trip down to the river and splits his haul between himself and Bucky and the Inn. His newest project is learning how to gut and cook the things, and anyone who stops by to visit is more than likely going to find themselves at the kitchen table, talked into eating Steve's latest cooking experiment. (At least he's getting fairly decent with stews. Hanging around the Inn pays off sometimes.) ]


Great Minds*

[ Steve has been trying to avoid Tony since the incidence with the breathing problems. He's glad the guy is doing okay, but has decided that trying to mend fences any further would be like slamming his head repeatedly against a brick wall. In other words, a futile exercise that may yield results in the far future but only give himself a headache in the here and now. But he does make a point of widening his jogging ritual so that he heads by the forge twice a day - once in the early morning, and once after dinner. Just in case.

And, if Tony is paying any attention when Steve happens by, he may notice a quiet, continuous stream of useless useless you're nothing emanating from the super soldier's subconscious. ]


Tricky Treats

[ On the 24th of October, at exactly high noon, Steve is frequenting the Inn to catch up on gossip and eat a meal prepared by someone with more culinary skills than he currently has. At first, everything seems normal, but his nose starts to twitch. About a minute after that starts, and he clearly isn't able to help it, a fuzzy little rabbit tail appears in the immediate vicinity of his rear end. How embarrassing.

But not the most embarrassing. Not by a long shot. Because there are also two rabbit ears sprouting from where human ears should be. And, in the midst of the usual 'What the hell' reactions, Steve is probably going to try and slip out the back door and head for his own house. Feel free to stop him on the way and strike up a conversation. He'll be bunny-ed for a whole hour. ]


((* - if you want in on mindreading shenanigans, hmu at anthologies and we'll discuss options.))

Comments

[notsoangry]

"There were sign-ups, I saw them at the inn, but the thing is if you don't go looking for it, you don't know that it's there. I'm still relatively new and I had no idea until someone told me they existed." And everyone just seems okay with that somehow, or maybe they'd been here so long they just assumed people knew about the offers. Bruce is shy with people, but he is a communicator at heart. "Luckily Danny posted offering to train people at his dojo, but I wouldn't have been aware he offered classes if he hadn't done that. Maybe the sign up is that you put up a list, and then you directly contact people who had their name on it, rather than assuming people saw it and would do it themselves?"

He's saying it, but the idea of reaching out to people to offer them training is a little nervewracking for an introvert like him. Still, he would do it. "I think it's important that everyone feels involved here, and gets involved here, like you said. That they're pitching in." Not to force them into it, of course, but rather encourage unification. And he also thinks Steve would benefit from doing that too.

Bruce smiles. "She's from ... well not our world. A version of our world. She looked up to people like Captain America and even the Hulk there." Kamala is sweet and smart, and Bruce wants to give her the power to step up now. With a little support. "It's really different from what I've heard, there's a lot more superheroes, more than we can even imagine. Hundreds at least." In their world, there's only a small population of metas as far as they were aware.

[ex_enlisted288]

"So that's easy to rectify. We have something like sign-ups at the Inn, but we also put out the word that we need runners."

Steve flips through a couple more of the lists, then looks up, his expression bordering on fierce. Or at least caught up in the idea of getting things moving. This is workable, getting all the residents together and deliberately fostering a sense of community.

"Runners being people without discernible expertise in something that run around with the latest news. Kind of like a newsie, but without the actual paper. And we can pay them through barter. Honestly, we could do everything with barter."

He grimaces at the thought kids are looking up to him, especially after Berlin and Siberia. But there's nothing he can do about that. "Well, at least she looks up to Hulk. Proves the kid has some good taste."

He tilts his head, eyes narrowed as a thought occurs.

"Hey, you're more of a tinkering type that I am. Do we have a way to make a printing press?"

[notsoangry]

Bruce nods and just listens and watches. He loves witnessing how people's minds work; it's fascinating. His own is so interior and twisted at times, hard to follow. A lot of nonsensical moments, at his worst. "I think also consistent communication is key. We're all stuck here. It's one thing to know who can do what and another thing to feel comfortable talking to them about what they can do. If I didn't have some of you, I'd say nothing at all and hermit to myself." Tony, Steve, and the others pushed Bruce to be able to interact with others simply by existing in his space. He knows they'll have his back so he can try to talk.

He looks fairly concerned at the Hulk part and shakes his head. "The Hulk shouldn't be looked up to. He's dangerous." Bruce himself, he's really uncomfortable with, but he'll take it over that. "I will probably ask some day what the difference was between all of us. Maybe that Hulk isn't so bad there." It's entirely possible! Maybe that Banner found a way to control the beast.

"I also think it's important, this is just a little thing but necessary, that we regularly have people by the fountain. Especially with winter coming. Climbing out of there in the winter is dangerous. We've already had people gravely injured come through, throw freezing temperatures in there and someone could die before any of us knew." Bruce of course is willing to volunteer, and he's been there semi-regularly for that reason. It's just good to have an actual plan. That's what all of this is. Plans of action.

"Making paper will be difficult. I have notebooks that I was given, but we do have to start from scratch if we want enough to create anything like that. I'd be happy to fish around and see if that's something anyone knows how to do. We have a lot of varied talents."