ximilialog | (August Catch-All) The Things We Do

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(August Catch-All) The Things We Do

CHARACTERS: Sam Wilson & You (Open + Closed Starters)
LOCATION: Various aboard the station
DATE: Immediately post mission + the days after.
CONTENT: Catch-all prompts for post mission feelings
WARNINGS: Will be added to Top Levels

[ Top Levels in comments:
Infirmary: angsty hurt people after returning from the mission
Mess Hall: the evening post mission, after the food delivery, alcohol is on the table
Simulation Room: the day after the mission, sam disappears and can be found zoned out in the simulation room
Training Room: hot dude working up a sweat while training, various days post mission
Lab and Tech Storage: redwing is the best boi, fight me (and Sam)
TBA: maybe closed starters for Bucky/Natasha?

If you'd like a closed starter or have a different kind of thread idea for which none of these setups work, feel free to hit me at

inkcharm, Discord inkcharm#4573 or send me a PM. ]

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[ It's nutritious, too, isn't it? In a manner of speaking. Vaguely. Theoretically.

Best not think about it too much. ]

Alright, fair enough. Drink's a drink, end of the day.

[ And Sam's in a mood to dull just the very edges, just a little. Besides... he's homesick. ]

I'll join you in that. If you're in the mood for company?

[ The whole point of drinking is to not think about anything too much, so yeah. Don't get those gears turning too hard right now. ]

Yeah, absolutely. Pour us some.

[ He leans against the table, watching while Sam serves them both. ]

James Kirk, by the way. Since we never properly introduced ourselves.

What, you weren't gonna let me default you to 'blue eyes' and 'space guy'?

[ Sam flashes a quick grin as he pours both of them a generous 2 ounces for starters. ]

Sam Wilson.

[ He deserves a gold medal for not making the obvious joke regarding James' last name. Guy probably heard it a million times already. ]

I'll allow 'blue eyes', but only if you're hitting on me.

[ He manages a quick grin and a wink shot at Sam. Look, he did not start it this time. ]

Well, a pleasure to properly meet you, Sam, [ He lifts his glass for a clink. No toast, though, nothing to drink to right now. ] Doing alright? What with the cure, and all.

[ One eyebrow quirks up briefly, but then Sam glances down at the table between them, grinning so his teeth show. The expression is brief, but damn near bashful, at odds with the otherwise very easy, smooth confidence Sam displays. Tends to happen when people compliment him or come onto him - and people, in this case, means largely men. Sam's a little more steadfast and casual with women. ]

Duly noted, Jim.

[ It's not a rejection - it's just that Sam's reckless with everything about himself but this. He keeps his heart close to his chest. Flirting comes easy, though, if the mischief in the curl of his smile is any indication. And not something he's that often on the receiving end of, if the way the richness of his dark skin deepens on his cheeks is any indication. Their glasses clink, brief but pleasant. ]

Pleasure's all mine. Doin' as well as most of us are, I think. Glad for the good we did, wish we coulda done better. You?

[ Oh, well. That's just terrible, Sam's too damn cute when he reacts like that, and Jim's interest sparks all the more. For what it's worth, it's not like he's aiming for anything even remotely serious, and for now the most casual kind of teasing and flirting works just perfectly for him.

All in due time, of course. That blush is victory enough for now. ]

About the same.

[ Could've done better, could've done more, weren't given the chance... Jim still thinks they could've done more researched, asked more questions before going along with their plan. But well, no point looking back now, it's not going to change it. Something to remember for future missions, though. ]

Glad we've all made it back here, at least. And that everyone's healed from the infection.

[ It's not Sam's own opinion, but rather a universal fact, that there is a distinct lack of people flirting with Sam Wilson in this universe. A crime, quite frankly. ]

Yeah, tell me 'bout it. That was... yeah.

[ His gaze slips far away for a moment, but Sam just shakes his head, forces himself to look at Kirk instead. ]

Glad we were able to help the people, too, as much as we managed at any rate. I got no intention of stepping on anyone's neck just to get my way.

[ Don't worry Sam, Jim will be more than happy to make up for that deficiency all by himself. He definitely can manage that.

The current topic is just not very conducive to that, though. Jim looks less than happy about it all, and he very nearly says that they did kind of step on someone's neck to get what they wanted. It might've been unintentional, after all So-Yeon never told them what would happen if she gave them the orb, but they didn't bother asking either, did they?

Anyway, he's mulled that thought over and over in his head by now, beat it to the ground so much that his head hurts. He has to let it go at some point. He just doesn't know how. ]

You think all the missions will be like this? Being pushed to sacrifice something or someone else for the sake of the orbs?

[ Nah, Sam's right there with Jim. It doesn't sit right - never has, never will. So-Yeon shouldn't have had to die, and had Sam known that would happen he'd have pushed harder for them to stay a while longer, to help make things more smooth and give her just a little more time... he doesn't think they'd ever have left without taking the orb. He's not sure it would have been wise for So-Yeon to keep it, if it might have killed her either way, just more slowly. But still... Sam doesn't want to trade lives, and yet it always seems to happen. Karli dies and he carries on her fight. Tony dies and saves the world. Natasha dies and restores trillions of lives. Riley dies and Sam lives. ]

I think situations are always gonna be more complicated than we like. Everytime you try to improve things for one group, you're practically guaranteed to make things worse for someone else. All we can do is learn from it and try to do better, choose better. Of course, we got the added difficulty of a collective. Some of us will be willing to step on others a little harder to get what we want - or to make sure their personal desire outweighs that of others. And I guess most of us would feel justified. Most of us are here to fix something that haunts them and feels like a cataclysm to them personally.

Yeah. Guess you're right.

[ But it's still shitty, even if he knows there's no way to predict in which direction they will all decide to go in. Maybe some will think like him, others definitely won't. He may be on a space station, something that's not completely unfamiliar to him, but everything else is. Not for the first time, he reminds himself that this isn't his crew, so he really shouldn't expect anyone to act a certain way.

But for him personally? His regret isn't worth putting his own ethics on the line, or throwing his own beliefs out the window. It's not something he'd trample over other people for, or even refuse to help them. Well, that and something else that's been on his mind from day one. ]

Still find it strange that at least a good portion of us are so willing to believe what we were told at face value. Truth is we don't really know what they want the orbs for, or if they really can undo our regrets— or that they would, even if they could.

[ They're very much alike in this. Sam's regret, for one, is not one that will soothe an ache in him. Giving someone another chance whom he failed to save, not because her death haunts him, but because he genuinely believes she didn't deserve to die - and he'd rather have her alive and continuing to loathe him or even try to kill him, than to have her last moment be a painful, slow death in his arms.

But if he gets personal missions like last time - the directive not to help anyone? Well. He'll fail those without a second thought, for much the same reasons Jim would.

Sam takes the earpiece out, taps it against the table, then slides it aside, and gestures for Jim to do the same - when he does, Sam puts a spare glass over them upside down before he speaks again: ]

Can only speak for myself, but... ain't so much that I believe it at face value. More that we seem to have little other option for the time being than to go along. [ He swirls his drink around the glass once, twice. Jim opened this direction, so... ] What do you make of Viveca?

[ There are always people who don't deserve to die, Jim's seen plenty of that unfortunately. His own regret wasn't exactly a conscious choice, though. More like a vague, blurred dream that turned into him turning up here. It's one other reason why he's suspicious of this whole mission system, and the desire for the commander to have them get the orbs for him. He didn't even agree, at least not with all the information available, and more and more he learns new things that remind him exactly of how little he knows about what they're truly doing here.

He takes the earpiece out too, setting it aside. Not sure he believes it'll make much of a difference, if Viveca wants to keep tabs on them she'll have other ways, but if it gives Sam some peace of mind... ]

There are always options. Mine, right now, is not to get involved in these missions without knowing everything about it.

[ And even then— he doesn't know what the orbs are for. He doesn't want to contribute to some insane plot to destroy the universe or conquer everything in their paths. He won't be a part of that. ]

Not sure. I haven't spoken to her directly yet, so I can't say much in that regard. She might just be an entity programmed to look after the ship, or she might be the ship... I'll have to talk to her sometime. At the very least I'd like to figure out whether she's sentient or not.

She seems...

[ Sam pauses, frowns a little. It's hard to put into words, and he's not unbiased here. The fact that she's presenting as some form of caretaker, the fact that she can appear sympathetic and empathetic, while also mimicking Karli that closely...

It's messing with his ability to stay impartial to her. He wonders if the same's true for Bucky. If they're falling for a cruel trick. Sam knows that Viveca may just be a highly advanced program, something sending exactly the right signals to trick him into feeling attached to a few pre-written lines of code. Damn if it isn't working, and he kind of hates that. ]

I don't know if she can feel, if she can think for herself. She's real good at seeming like it, though. Real good at selling the company line, too - if that's what it is.

[ He's just not sure if she's something that speaks for itself, or a mouthpiece for whatever the Commander wants her to say. Or a little bit of both. Jarvis, Ultron, or Vision?

Sam can't tell. ]

I don't know if we'll ever figure that out. The best we can do right now is be cautious and stay impartial towards her, as well as the Commander. Assuming he's an actual real entity that exists.

[ Jim at least doesn't think anyone has met this Commander in person, so it's entirely possible that he's just another aspect of the ship's system, the AI's programming, or a whole other AI inhabiting the same station. An entirely worrying thought, that there might not be any one person actually running this ship. ]

They only seem to give so much value to life, so if they are sentient, I'd say we might be— well, fucked in the long run.

There's always the other option, of course. AI becoming advanced enough to want to buck its creator and side with the underdog humans.

[ But not every AI is Jarvis, and not every AI is Ultron, so not every byproduct ends up the Vision. ]

You're our resident space guy, right? You ever encounter anything like this before?

Guess so. But we don't have nearly enough information just yet to make any assumptions either way.

[ Sounds like they'll have to wait and see. Possibly play along, for the time being, if nothing else then simply so they can gather more information. ]

Not sure I'm the only resident space guy, but— no, I've never seen an AI this advanced. Our ship's computers have a voice interface but that's about it; they're nowhere near as advanced as this. [ He tilts his head. ] What about you? You seem to know your fair share about artificial intelligence.

Let's call it distant second hand experience. I worked with some people who were really into that sorta stuff.

[ Sam shrugs lightly. ]

I can keep up on some engineering with my own gear, but I ain't the guy for AI questions. Those aren't here.

[ Yet. Sam's perhaps being a little modest on his own engineering capabilities - he's more than able to handle calibrating and fixing Redwing, nevermind working with the drone, and Redwing's not exactly a minor feat of engineering. He's just not the guy to go to in order to build something like it, nevermind for anything related to programming. ]

Also worked with a guy who started his existence as an AI. So Viveca might not be the most advanced thing I've ever seen, technically. Sadly don't mean I can gauge where programming stops and something else begins with her.

[ He and Sam are much the same in that regard, then. Jim's better than the average at engineering, actually if he hadn't been hellbent on becoming a Captain he'd likely have been an engineer, but he's made it more of a hobby since. He can definitely hold his own when it comes to fixing, upgrading or finetuning existing equipment, and simpler things he can put together by following the blueprints, but he doesn't have quite enough knowledge or practice to just invent something out of the blue.

It's useful and important work nonetheless, but indeed nothing quite close to working with AI systems. Jim can't even begin to understand how those work, though he can empathize with the humanistic aspect of pretty much creating a kind of life form. ]

Even if you could, you can't say for certain what her goals are, what her true nature is. People come in all shapes and sizes, and I imagine the same can be said for non-organic life forms, whether or not they're created by someone else.

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(August Catch-All) The Things We Do

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