[open]

[theuserabides]

who: theuserabides, powerofgod, open to others
what: Basically I am just getting Flynn out of the damn house. Also action 'cause I can't brain prose right now.
where: Anywhere hospitable (aka, not a glacier, a lava field, a festering swamp, the Junkyard...) within a few minutes stroll of a teleporter. Flynn set his wearable to choose at random from the teleporter network

Comments

MOUNTAINOUS ZONE this tag is so terrible

[usavatar]

[Steve is keeping himself busy as best he can - at the moment that means jogging in the mountain areas until he's out of breath, and then boxing against.... a rock. Because it holds up slightly better than a punching bag.]

[theuserabides]

[Unlike certain people, Flynn is strolling slowly through the mountains. He's in reasonable shape for a 60 year old...but he's a 60 year old, and the air is thin.

Well. Now he knows what someone punching granite with bare hands sounds like. Flynn takes a seat on a boulder without any knuckle marks, and waits for Steve to notice him. He's a little too out of breath to want to call out, and this is Captain America. The guy should be able to spot one winded retiree sneaking up on him.]

[usavatar]

[He does, breaking off from a quick sequence of jabs that Bucky particularly liked to use, shaking his hands out as he comes over to greet the older man.] Hello, sir.

[No, he hasn't stopped with the honorifics yet.] I kind of- well, didn't expect anyone out here. [He squints up at the trees, openly bemused.] It's a little... um. It gives me the jitters a little, actually.

[theuserabides]

I set it to random.

[Flynn brandishes his wearable, then follows Steve's gaze into the woods.]

The mountains?

[usavatar]

[He has to laugh at himself a little.] I guess, yeah. The woods I'm used to, we were either sneaking through expecting to take fire parachuting in through anti-aircraft shells. It's just... quiet, and I think I'm waiting for something to happen.

[theuserabides]

No Axis here. ...You might get attacked by a bear.

[Flynn shakes his head, leaning forward and folding his hands together.]

We're all kind of just. Alone with our regrets, here. Not much to keep the past from catching up to us. And it's not so far behind for you, huh?

...I hate it when I drop a word in a tag. 8|

[usavatar]

I don't have any. Many. [Talking to Flynn feels strangely like talking to an older Erskine. It makes Steve feel small and a little uncertain, which isn't something he's felt in a while. He looks down at the bandages wrapped tight around his knuckles and starts to unwrap them, rewrap them, fiddling for something to fix.] How long have you been here?

[theuserabides]

Little over nine months, now. Some have been here...a few months longer than a year, I think?

[Breath coming more easily now, Flynn sits there in his hard-won stillness, watching Steve fidget. Nine months feels like a vanishingly small amount of time to Flynn, who'd become used to ticking off decades or centuries in his exile, but he remembers the despair of realizing he was utterly trapped with barren years stretching out before him. And Steve is younger now than Flynn had been then.]

[usavatar]

Who's tried to leave? Tried to find a way back, I mean. [He gives up on the bandages, winding them into a tidy bundle and stuffing them in a pocket, before he makes his way over to sit next to Flynn.] People keep talking like there's no way home, but there has to be something we can do.

[theuserabides]

Some try to go to the planet, but no one's been able to figure out how to throw the rift into reverse. We've got a lot of tech people, but not many theoretical physicists.

[He pauses, and sighs, looking down at his hands for a moment, at at the beads wrapped around his wrist. Count the mantras, count the years.

Flynn looks back over at Steve.]

Some people don't have much to go back to.

[usavatar]

[Not much to go back to.]

[He doesn't quite flinch, hearing the arctic wind in his ears howling martyr, fake, back from the dead-] I do.

[It's defensive. He does wince now.] Sorry.

[theuserabides]

[That earns Steve raised eyebrows.]

For what?

[Flynn doesn't see other people's emotions as reflecting on him.

Well, except Clu's, but that's a special case.]

[usavatar]

Snapping. [He massages his knuckles against his forehead.] I've been having... trouble with my temper, lately.

[theuserabides]

If that counts as a temper problem for you, I you'll be okay.

[Flynn's voice is dry. He's aware his own sample set is a little skewed, but has Steve ever met another person?]

[usavatar]

[He looks up, still looking guilty.] I shouldn't, though. Let it get the best of me.

wow I accidentally a whole word

[theuserabides]

Eh, so you'll be a little better at that next time.

[Flynn shrugs.]

Might as well save that guilt for something big.

[That is definitely sardonic, Flynn reacting to his own long years of guilt-ridden exile.]