Story: "No Winter Lasts Forever" (Part 22)
Jun. 1st, 2013 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis story is a sequel to "Love Is for Children," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," and "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," and "Birthday Girl."
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hulk, Steve Rogers, Betty Ross, JARVIS, Bucky Barnes, Nick Fury.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Mind control. Inferences of past child abuse and other torture. Current environment is supportive.
Summary: A mission in Russia introduces the Avengers to the Winter Soldier. Steve wants Bucky back and will stop at nothing to make that happen. Everyone else helps however they can.
Notes: Asexual character (Clint). Aromantic character (Natasha). Asexual relationship. Sibling relationships. Fix-it. Teamwork. Canon-typical violence. BAMF!Avengers. Bucky!whump. Vulgar language. Drama. Rescue. Hurt/Comfort. Emotional whump. Survivor guilt. Friendship. Confusion. Mind control. Memory loss. Slow recovery. Nick Fury makes stupid-ass decisions. Fear of loss. Arc reactor. Fluff. Nonsexual ageplay. Making up for lost time. Tony Stark has a heart. Games. Trust issues. Safety and security. Howard Stark's A+ parenting. Obadiah Stane's A+ parenting. Food issues. Multiplicity/Plurality. Sleep issues. Non-sexual touching and intimacy. Yoga. Personal growth. Family of choice. ALL THE FEELS. #coulsonlives.
Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21. Skip to Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27.
"No Winter Lasts Forever" Part 22
Phil spent the next several hours doing what he could to manage Bucky's situation. He started by reviewing the security feed from the garage. Tony had worked on the engine for a while with intermittent assistance from Bucky. Phil was intrigued to see Tony using the same icebreaking technique he had with Bruce: plying them with dried fruit and bottles of gourmet soda. Eventually Tony coaxed Bucky into resting on the couch, though the man never got any real sleep out of it.
Tony called it a night not long after that, but he let Bucky and Steve stay in what they clearly considered safe space rather than insisting they go to bed. It was stunning display of trust and generosity that made Phil worry a little, hoping that Tony wasn't overcompensating after the ugly revelation of Stark weaponry in terrorist hands. Steve chose to stick with Bucky, napping on the end of the couch with his brother's head in his lap. Phil nodded in satisfaction and closed the file.
Next Phil asked JARVIS for Tony's notes about the anomalous power source in Bucky's prosthetic arm. Some of the files updated as he was looking at them, indication of Tony's current line of study downstairs. Phil looked at the wavering lines of energy. He noted how certain parts of the signature matched the Tesseract while others matched Loki's staff.
His left shoulder ached in memory. Phil slipped a hand under his shirt to rub it. There was no scar on his body, because Loki had stabbed the Life Model Decoy instead of Phil himself. It still twinged sometimes, though, a prickly electric sensation that made his skin crawl.
Then Phil went down to the lab levels in search of Bruce. He needed to discuss some of his thoughts about Bucky. He also needed to warn Bruce about the whole tangle of Bucky and Tony and the prosthesis and the arc reactor.
Bruce blew a gasket over that part. "What was he thinking?!"
"It's Tony Stark. I'm pretty sure that thinking was a miniscule part of the equation," Phil said dryly. "He saw the problem Bucky had with feeling like an experimental subject, and he fixed it in the most direct way possible by putting them on equal footing. He wouldn't have paused to consider the social implications or potential collateral damage to himself."
"Gordian knot, meet laser beam," Bruce muttered.
"Tony's aim with a laser beam is less than precise," Phil said, recalling the wreckage of the room in which Tony had created the new core for the arc reactor.
"Tony's aim with his mouth is what's imprecise," Bruce said.
"Actually he wasn't the one to light that particular fire. Right at the end, Bucky complimented him on the beauty of the arc reactor and Tony bolted out of the room," Phil said.
"This cannot be good," Bruce said. "Tony's going to bounce hard from that."
"He didn't with me," Phil said quietly. He still remembered the smooth feel of the arc reactor under his fingertips and the lucent glow in a darkened room. He had been utterly shocked by Tony's willingness to share that part of himself. As far as Phil knew, the only others granted permission had been Yinsen, Pepper, and Rhodey. Obie's devastating violation had turned a moderate reluctance into a full-blown phobia. Phil still had no idea how Tony managed to overcome that enough to ask for help when he needed it, let alone reach out to comfort other people.
"You proved yourself trustworthy long before that," Bruce said. "Bucky is new, and even with all the stories, Tony had to take it on faith that he was safe. And Tony's faith can be a very shaky thing."
"True. We'll just have to work through this somehow," Phil said.
"Somehow," Bruce said. "How are they, really?"
"Tony's functional, though probably still sensitive. He's in his lab working on things related to Bucky," Phil said. "Remember how he came into the common room last night, just as you left? Tony found an anomalous energy source in Bucky's prosthetic arm that probably affects memory and temperament. Bucky is ... marginally coherent. I suspect you noticed the same thing at brunch that I did, with him."
"Portion control, yes, that worries me," Bruce said. "My guess is that Department X fed him some kind of special ration, always the same few things in the same size serving. So then if he got real food on a mission, he'd try to mimic what was familiar." Bruce tugged his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "So we're looking at recurrent amnesia, mood swings, violent reflexes, probable flashbacks, a possible eating disorder, and chronic insomnia which just makes everything else worse."
"Choice paralysis," Phil added quietly. "Bucky froze up on me this morning when I asked what he wanted to do today."
Bruce's glasses clattered onto the counter. "I don't think I can help with that one," he said as he turned away.
"Bruce, be careful with these," Phil said. He cleaned the glasses with proper lens cleaner and a microfiber cloth. Then he handed them back to Bruce. "We can spread out the workload so nobody gets overloaded and Bucky gets what he needs. I just wanted to make sure you had all the pieces. Given that, how much improvement do you think we'll see?"
"Probably close to complete, though there may be some permanent personality shifts and memories Bucky never retrieves," Bruce said. He put his glasses back on. "Bucky took a lot of damage, but every version of the super-soldier serum boosts plasticity -- that's one of its core features. Steve survived drowning and freezing; I survived a bullet in the mouth; Natasha survived brainwashing and all kinds of physical trauma. I concur with SHIELD's comparison to traumatic brain injury, and sometimes unmodified humans recover from that. So Bucky will probably recover from this. It's just going to take time, and the progress is difficult to predict because we don't know exactly what his healing factor is or how much drag that anomalous energy source causes."
"Speaking of the energy source, Steve voiced an interesting idea that the Tesseract and related technology might destabilize nearby minds, making HYDRA agents 'a special kind of crazy.' It seems like a promising line of inquiry," Phil said.
"Yes, it does," Bruce said with a firm nod.
Phil raised an eyebrow. "You sound very confident about that."
"He can feel it, the Other Guy ... he really didn't like what Loki's staff did to us on the Helicarrier," Bruce said. He shuddered. "It's like, I don't know, some kind of emotional undertow. I can't make much sense of it, but he can."
* * *
Notes:
Trust and care are vital parts of human interaction. Tony expresses care through generosity, especially by feeding people. It's a way of earning trust by proving himself a good provider. He has also learned about building rapport from his business activities. It's harder to express care when someone isn't feeling well and when people have damaged emotions. In this case, Tony also uses showing trust as a means of building trust, although it's not his natural inclination and it costs him to do that. There are tips for expanding your trust radius.
A Life Model Decoy is an android designed to mimic a specific person, with a fluent link so that the operator can perceive everything that the LMD does. This is one of the more popular explanations for how Coulson could have survived Loki's attack.
Phil's laser reference concerns the scene in Iron Man 2 when Tony created the new arc reactor core, and cut the room in half trying to get the laser beam aimed in the right place.
Tony's sensitivity regarding the arc reactor comes from multiple scenes in Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2.
Eyeglasses play into self-image and self-esteem much the same way other pieces of adaptive equipment do, such as prosthetic limbs. Like tools, the brain perceives them as part of the body. Children who wear glasses learn how to treat them carefully if their parents are responsible, and there are tips for adults too. Obviously Bruce didn't have responsible parents and missed all this stuff. So, he treats his glasses the same way he treats himself in general: roughly and carelessly. (This really can be a sign of abuse, or otherwise impaired self-image.) Phil doesn't like to see Bruce doing this, so he's starting to teach more appropriate behavior in a matter-of-fact way.
Plasticity refers to a set of scientific circumstances involving expanded capacity for change. Closely related is the concept of fault tolerance, in which a system can sustain a considerable amount of damage before it ceases to function properly. The super-soldier serum makes people more adaptable and resilient, but expresses itself differently based on variations in the formula and in the individual person. Among the more vivid examples is Hulk's dynamic adaptability: he gets stronger and tougher the angrier he gets.
[To be continued in Part 23 ...]
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hulk, Steve Rogers, Betty Ross, JARVIS, Bucky Barnes, Nick Fury.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Mind control. Inferences of past child abuse and other torture. Current environment is supportive.
Summary: A mission in Russia introduces the Avengers to the Winter Soldier. Steve wants Bucky back and will stop at nothing to make that happen. Everyone else helps however they can.
Notes: Asexual character (Clint). Aromantic character (Natasha). Asexual relationship. Sibling relationships. Fix-it. Teamwork. Canon-typical violence. BAMF!Avengers. Bucky!whump. Vulgar language. Drama. Rescue. Hurt/Comfort. Emotional whump. Survivor guilt. Friendship. Confusion. Mind control. Memory loss. Slow recovery. Nick Fury makes stupid-ass decisions. Fear of loss. Arc reactor. Fluff. Nonsexual ageplay. Making up for lost time. Tony Stark has a heart. Games. Trust issues. Safety and security. Howard Stark's A+ parenting. Obadiah Stane's A+ parenting. Food issues. Multiplicity/Plurality. Sleep issues. Non-sexual touching and intimacy. Yoga. Personal growth. Family of choice. ALL THE FEELS. #coulsonlives.
Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21. Skip to Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27.
"No Winter Lasts Forever" Part 22
Phil spent the next several hours doing what he could to manage Bucky's situation. He started by reviewing the security feed from the garage. Tony had worked on the engine for a while with intermittent assistance from Bucky. Phil was intrigued to see Tony using the same icebreaking technique he had with Bruce: plying them with dried fruit and bottles of gourmet soda. Eventually Tony coaxed Bucky into resting on the couch, though the man never got any real sleep out of it.
Tony called it a night not long after that, but he let Bucky and Steve stay in what they clearly considered safe space rather than insisting they go to bed. It was stunning display of trust and generosity that made Phil worry a little, hoping that Tony wasn't overcompensating after the ugly revelation of Stark weaponry in terrorist hands. Steve chose to stick with Bucky, napping on the end of the couch with his brother's head in his lap. Phil nodded in satisfaction and closed the file.
Next Phil asked JARVIS for Tony's notes about the anomalous power source in Bucky's prosthetic arm. Some of the files updated as he was looking at them, indication of Tony's current line of study downstairs. Phil looked at the wavering lines of energy. He noted how certain parts of the signature matched the Tesseract while others matched Loki's staff.
His left shoulder ached in memory. Phil slipped a hand under his shirt to rub it. There was no scar on his body, because Loki had stabbed the Life Model Decoy instead of Phil himself. It still twinged sometimes, though, a prickly electric sensation that made his skin crawl.
Then Phil went down to the lab levels in search of Bruce. He needed to discuss some of his thoughts about Bucky. He also needed to warn Bruce about the whole tangle of Bucky and Tony and the prosthesis and the arc reactor.
Bruce blew a gasket over that part. "What was he thinking?!"
"It's Tony Stark. I'm pretty sure that thinking was a miniscule part of the equation," Phil said dryly. "He saw the problem Bucky had with feeling like an experimental subject, and he fixed it in the most direct way possible by putting them on equal footing. He wouldn't have paused to consider the social implications or potential collateral damage to himself."
"Gordian knot, meet laser beam," Bruce muttered.
"Tony's aim with a laser beam is less than precise," Phil said, recalling the wreckage of the room in which Tony had created the new core for the arc reactor.
"Tony's aim with his mouth is what's imprecise," Bruce said.
"Actually he wasn't the one to light that particular fire. Right at the end, Bucky complimented him on the beauty of the arc reactor and Tony bolted out of the room," Phil said.
"This cannot be good," Bruce said. "Tony's going to bounce hard from that."
"He didn't with me," Phil said quietly. He still remembered the smooth feel of the arc reactor under his fingertips and the lucent glow in a darkened room. He had been utterly shocked by Tony's willingness to share that part of himself. As far as Phil knew, the only others granted permission had been Yinsen, Pepper, and Rhodey. Obie's devastating violation had turned a moderate reluctance into a full-blown phobia. Phil still had no idea how Tony managed to overcome that enough to ask for help when he needed it, let alone reach out to comfort other people.
"You proved yourself trustworthy long before that," Bruce said. "Bucky is new, and even with all the stories, Tony had to take it on faith that he was safe. And Tony's faith can be a very shaky thing."
"True. We'll just have to work through this somehow," Phil said.
"Somehow," Bruce said. "How are they, really?"
"Tony's functional, though probably still sensitive. He's in his lab working on things related to Bucky," Phil said. "Remember how he came into the common room last night, just as you left? Tony found an anomalous energy source in Bucky's prosthetic arm that probably affects memory and temperament. Bucky is ... marginally coherent. I suspect you noticed the same thing at brunch that I did, with him."
"Portion control, yes, that worries me," Bruce said. "My guess is that Department X fed him some kind of special ration, always the same few things in the same size serving. So then if he got real food on a mission, he'd try to mimic what was familiar." Bruce tugged his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "So we're looking at recurrent amnesia, mood swings, violent reflexes, probable flashbacks, a possible eating disorder, and chronic insomnia which just makes everything else worse."
"Choice paralysis," Phil added quietly. "Bucky froze up on me this morning when I asked what he wanted to do today."
Bruce's glasses clattered onto the counter. "I don't think I can help with that one," he said as he turned away.
"Bruce, be careful with these," Phil said. He cleaned the glasses with proper lens cleaner and a microfiber cloth. Then he handed them back to Bruce. "We can spread out the workload so nobody gets overloaded and Bucky gets what he needs. I just wanted to make sure you had all the pieces. Given that, how much improvement do you think we'll see?"
"Probably close to complete, though there may be some permanent personality shifts and memories Bucky never retrieves," Bruce said. He put his glasses back on. "Bucky took a lot of damage, but every version of the super-soldier serum boosts plasticity -- that's one of its core features. Steve survived drowning and freezing; I survived a bullet in the mouth; Natasha survived brainwashing and all kinds of physical trauma. I concur with SHIELD's comparison to traumatic brain injury, and sometimes unmodified humans recover from that. So Bucky will probably recover from this. It's just going to take time, and the progress is difficult to predict because we don't know exactly what his healing factor is or how much drag that anomalous energy source causes."
"Speaking of the energy source, Steve voiced an interesting idea that the Tesseract and related technology might destabilize nearby minds, making HYDRA agents 'a special kind of crazy.' It seems like a promising line of inquiry," Phil said.
"Yes, it does," Bruce said with a firm nod.
Phil raised an eyebrow. "You sound very confident about that."
"He can feel it, the Other Guy ... he really didn't like what Loki's staff did to us on the Helicarrier," Bruce said. He shuddered. "It's like, I don't know, some kind of emotional undertow. I can't make much sense of it, but he can."
* * *
Notes:
Trust and care are vital parts of human interaction. Tony expresses care through generosity, especially by feeding people. It's a way of earning trust by proving himself a good provider. He has also learned about building rapport from his business activities. It's harder to express care when someone isn't feeling well and when people have damaged emotions. In this case, Tony also uses showing trust as a means of building trust, although it's not his natural inclination and it costs him to do that. There are tips for expanding your trust radius.
A Life Model Decoy is an android designed to mimic a specific person, with a fluent link so that the operator can perceive everything that the LMD does. This is one of the more popular explanations for how Coulson could have survived Loki's attack.
Phil's laser reference concerns the scene in Iron Man 2 when Tony created the new arc reactor core, and cut the room in half trying to get the laser beam aimed in the right place.
Tony's sensitivity regarding the arc reactor comes from multiple scenes in Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2.
Eyeglasses play into self-image and self-esteem much the same way other pieces of adaptive equipment do, such as prosthetic limbs. Like tools, the brain perceives them as part of the body. Children who wear glasses learn how to treat them carefully if their parents are responsible, and there are tips for adults too. Obviously Bruce didn't have responsible parents and missed all this stuff. So, he treats his glasses the same way he treats himself in general: roughly and carelessly. (This really can be a sign of abuse, or otherwise impaired self-image.) Phil doesn't like to see Bruce doing this, so he's starting to teach more appropriate behavior in a matter-of-fact way.
Plasticity refers to a set of scientific circumstances involving expanded capacity for change. Closely related is the concept of fault tolerance, in which a system can sustain a considerable amount of damage before it ceases to function properly. The super-soldier serum makes people more adaptable and resilient, but expresses itself differently based on variations in the formula and in the individual person. Among the more vivid examples is Hulk's dynamic adaptability: he gets stronger and tougher the angrier he gets.
[To be continued in Part 23 ...]
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-06-02 09:24 pm (UTC)I'd miss mine if I had to go without. I tried contact lenses very briefly and hated them. Aside from being uncomfortable, I missed my glasses. I think my face looks better with them than without -- a particular style and shape is flattering on me.
>> i never would have even considered treating my glasses how Bruce did in the movie. <<
Yeah, it made me wince. I've seen plenty of people use their glasses as a pointer, but Bruce is just so rough with his.
>> so i agree with ysabetwordsmith. <<
Thank you! It's useful to get confirmation on this.
visual aids, their care and feeding
Date: 2016-11-10 07:50 am (UTC)Contrast that with my partner, who only in the past 3-4 years has required glasses for close, detail work. He doesn't need them for driving, or doing stuff around the house, or reading tags on grocery store shelves, but if he's going to read a book or an ingredients list, or something written in a small font on a website, he does need them. Since they're *not* a full-time required prosthetic, he is much less picky about how smudged the lenses are and/or where he parks them. I'd estimate that he has to backtrack for them *at least* once a day.
Bruce's handling of his sounds rougher than my partner's, but they do run along similar lines, for similar reasons.
Just my two lenses' worth. :-)
Re: visual aids, their care and feeding
Date: 2016-11-10 08:06 am (UTC)I think I was around that when I got mine, but I liked mine. Always have. They just instantly felt right. *ponder* Like Ansel with the pink hair, I suppose, not something I really noticed missing until I had it, but forever after, I don't like going without.
>>Contrast that with my partner, who only in the past 3-4 years has required glasses for close, detail work.<<
That's an important distinction. The more essential glasses are to someone's vision, the more attached they tend to be. People who don't need them as much or as often may be more careless.
>>Bruce's handling of his sounds rougher than my partner's, but they do run along similar lines, for similar reasons.<<
I really think that Bruce's handling of his glasses is a subtle expression of self-abuse. He's gentle with other people, he's capable of handling objects very gently, but he's very rough with himselves.