worthallthis | The Last Voyages: IC Inbox

"Good morning."

Disinclined as he seems toward communicators, she figures this will have been better in person. She catches him at breakfast, so on the off chance there's anything he'd like to get up to they'll have all day. (Any eagerness to have something concrete to do is neither here nor there.) Drops into the seat across from him too focused to seem breezy, plate divided primarily between eggs and fruit.

"You've probably got all the big questions about how the place runs out of the way, so I don't think there's anything there to cover. These aren't, like, compulsory, but I don't like ignoring them. I'm not gonna tail you around, but if there's anything you'd want to do, anything you'd need, I'm on call."

His own breakfast is as it usually is: oatmeal with blueberries in it, bacon, toast with jam, coffee. Things that are available every day so he doesn't have to make any decisions first thing in the morning. He'd watched her pick out her own food and find him, so he's not surprised. (He might kind of have been dreading it, but he's not surprised.)

"No big questions," he agrees. "Already asked you how I'm supposed to get better, anyway." And her answer, like everyone else's, has been less than helpful.

"That's not gonna be a one-and-done kind of question, y'know," she replies before a sip of tea, brows raising slightly. "Means you've got a lot of smaller questions to ask people, if they come up. Hardly anything people can say until they get to know you better."

Which isn't the goal here. No goals. This is tone-setting, gauging what level of involvement he's looking for out of a temp.

"Which ain't anything to rush either. I just want to touch base and see what you're looking for out of these, if there's anything I can do."

It crosses his mind that there shouldn't be that much to know. It's not like he's properly a person. But knowing the things he's good at might be important in determining how to make him get better. Can't improve the weapon without knowing its specs. So he lets that slide.

He looks at his plate, keeping her in his peripheral vision, as she talks and he ruminates. "Rogers told me," he finally says. "About Christmas." Which means he needs gifts. Including more origami shapes, since that is the only thing he really knows how to give right now.

"Yeah?" In general or filling in personal significance, he doesn't imply. It's something at least. She perks. "Dreading it or looking forward to it now?"

"Neither." Why would he dread it or look forward to it. It's just a thing to prepare for, that's all. He pokes at his oatmeal a little with his spoon, not looking at her. "I need gifts. More shapes with the folded paper. People seem to like those."

Further reason to perk, coming up just shy of beaming at him.

"I can do that! Easy. When would you want to work on them?"

That's encouraging. At least it's an easy thing that he actually managed to kind of ask for, and she doesn't seem to mind helping with. (She actually looks pretty happy to be helping with it.) "I have work after this. But any evening is fine."

He hesitates a moment, then says, "Rogers and I go to the Enclosure for stuff. Maybe every other morning. Will you help let us in sometimes?" This might be partly a test to see how she reacts to hearing how much time he spends with the guy-- he knows they don't like each other.

"I'm in the library most evenings, picking a room in there sound good? Figure you can just show up when you want to, and if not I'll have my own reading to do." No point in setting a strict schedule, nor a daily one. Higher risk of burning him out.

To the second request, she nods. Placid. Distaste, if it exists, doesn't show. "Of course. Same goes for anyplace you need that might be cut off, consider me on call for that too."

Good thing that last answer came with extra commentary, because it gives him time to quietly panic behind blank eyes at the idea of the library. "The library. Has rooms?" It comes out a little faint. He hasn't gotten more than a single step inside before the countless number of shelves turned into visual static and terrified retreat.

That delivery isn't unnoticed.

"Mhm. Further in, kind of around the perimeter. Whiteboards, tables, lamps, sort of for private study I guess? Quieter." The following sip of tea is more show than need. A gesture to pretend she's thinking more on it. "Not that we'd have to be there, if you want to pick someplace I can just swing by before I head that way."

He stares hard at his plate, and finally has to admit quietly, "Can't go in." And maybe he hasn't tried to tackle it yet. The wardrobe is almost comfortable now, but the library intimidates him. "There's. Too much."

"We could try easing you into it, but we don't have to if you don't want to." Bigger things to tackle, surely, but she wouldn't want to associate anything new, or herself, with discomfort. "Wherever you're comfortable, I'm fine. Greenhouse, deck, bowling alley, pool, doesn't matter."

"It's next," he mutters unhappily. "After the wardrobe. Just. Haven't started on it yet." The whole thing with the port interrupted him, and. Well. It's intimidating. Especially with people implying that the damn thing changes on you so you get lost in it.

And he doesn't suggest another place yet. Prod him, and he'll try, but he's kind of distracted by feeling stupid, now.

"No rush. If company'd help with that, though, I'd be fine with that too. Could do origami just in the entryway or something. Or right here, even. It's your call."

Because he should make some small choice, but it needn't make him even more uncomfortable.

Sitting in the hallway outside the library... has potential merit, maybe. He stalls with a few actual bites of breakfast while he thinks. "We can try just outside. Just. Maybe don't be too surprised if I can't." Why HYDRA thought it wise to make it so he can't handle endless bookshelves, he has no idea, and frankly it's annoying. It limits his effectiveness.

So do a lot of things he hasn't quite registered yet.

"No surprise. Easy."

There's no particularly triumphant way to take up a forkful of eggs, but by god she's trying.

"Anything else on your mind, or are we just starting with those? Origami and letting you into the Enclosure."

"And the library. Apparently." He's not sure what else he should be suggesting here, though. By her own admission, she can't really help him with the "getting better" thing.

She's still the warden, though. So he asks, "What would you suggest."

"No idea. Like I said, I don't know you that well." And he doesn't exactly give off the impression of someone waiting - possibly even able - to talk about themselves. A rarity. Seeming thoroughly unperturbed by this, she caps it off with a shrug. "I'd say maybe practice choosing things, but I can't get much more in depth than that from this vantage point. Asking for stuff, maybe."

"That's what the wardrobe practice is for," he says, more subdued. "And probably the library." If he can work up to going into the wardrobe and bring something he actually wants out of it, maybe he can work up to the library.

Even if it's intimidating.

"If you ever want to know more," he offers, only a little reluctantly. "You can talk to Rogers. He knows."

Another nod.

The second portion leaves her looking contemplatively down into her mug, as if the rapidly-cooling tea will convey how to explain what she'd like to without being confusing or upsetting.

"If I were in a real pinch I would, I think, but I don't know if I'd want to consider it a failsafe," she tries, carefully. "There's a lot you can get from someone's own telling of things, but more than that, it's...this place is weird." Obviously. "And people who come here can be different, maybe in not obvious ways. I don't want to just get a whole scoop without earning it, and I wouldn't want to risk parts not lining up."

He is a different person, even if only minutely. He is his own person. No Xeroxes.

"So I might end up just bugging you about it now and then, if it's all the same."

That's pretty much the opposite of what Steve thinks, there-- he's the same, he's always going to be "Bucky" no matter how he actually is. But it's also closer to how the Asset himself feels about the situation. He simply can't think of himself as the same person Steve expects him to be. Like there's some kind of cosmic mistake.

So he's silent a moment, staring at his meal, chewing on it uncomfortably, before he says, "I don't remember most of it. So I can't tell you much."

"Then that's just stuff we won't know," she concludes. "We'll learn at the same pace, or we'll just focus on knowing you like you are now. I'm not too worried."

He is as he is, and it's plenty.

"And if there's anything you're ever wondering in return, ain't a one way street. Any questions, personal or not, still on call."

He gives her right ear a vaguely skeptical look. "I am not good at asking things," he says. He doesn't even know what he'd ask. What do people even talk about when they're not wardens or prisoners supposed to "get better"? What even happens in their lives?

"Not saying you have to. Saying if you were inclined, you can. That's it."

Little by way of demands here, Asset.

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