Agent Washington (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unrecovered) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
legionworld2016-07-22 04:00 pm
unrecovered) wrote in legionworld2016-07-22 04:00 pm
Entry tags:
Working It Out
Who| Wash and anyone who wants to come bother him
What| Wash works out some issues on a punching bag.
Where| The training gym
When| Not long after arrival, after the end of the Lantern plot
Warnings/Notes| Wash has Issues, you guys.
Once Wash gets his bearings - insomuch as he can around here, at least - it doesn't take him too long to get his hands on gym clothes that fit (easily, too - the future is weird but convenient), store his armor in his newly assigned quarters, and track down a training area. There's a lot in the gym that he doesn't recognize, but the punching bag hanging in the corner is familiar enough. It's low-tech even for him, but it works.
It should be an easy training routine to fall back on: precision blows against a stationary target, with focus on speed and technique. Unfortunately, that falls apart fairly quickly - it doesn't take much combat training to see that Wash is moving as though he's expecting the bag to hit back. It's almost as though he's seeing something else there.
To be fair, he is. His body goes through the motions of training and his mind works overtime, trying to process where he is and what he's left behind. He hasn't had time to think about Chorus, about what he and the Reds and Blues had been thrown into and barely come out of- or might still be stuck in. He doesn't know. He wound up here. They're stuck in the last battle of a hellish war and he's not there to help them-
And he knows who to blame, but the Time Trapper is out of his reach and the fuckers who co-opted the war in the first place are-
-are the ones who dragged them into this whole fucking mess on Chorus to begin with.
He sees Felix-
Asshole. Dead. Move on.
-and swings at the bag, a hard right that sends it swinging.
He sees Locus-
Broken. Not here. Nothing you can do right now. Move on.
-and follows up with a hard kick, sending the bag careening back in the other direction.
He sees Hargrove-
And to think I worked for you.
-and misjudges his next strike, skinning his knuckles against the moving bag but failing to land a hit. The face in front of him doesn't disappear. He can't derail the train of thought. He'd been where Locus had been, unstable and desperate and working for Hargrove, trying to find an out- he'd found the Reds and Blues and some weird flavor of mercy, but if he'd had a Felix instead, or been on his own, then-
I'd have been next to them, turning war into genocide. Three shades of gray instead of two.
For what it's worth, he's getting better at recognizing when he crosses the line, even when he's directing the unwarranted cruelty towards himself. He snaps back to the present and grabs the bag, stopping it mid-swing and stilling it in front of him while he breathes, grounding himself.
He's fine. He's fine. He wasn't for a while, but that was years ago and he's been working on getting better. He's a soldier. He has a job to do. Finish this new war, save the whole damn multiverse (because things can never be simple), go back to hopefully the right time and place, finish that war. He can't do any of that if he doesn't settle himself first. He has to get better.
The redness in his knuckles has already faded by the time he looks at them. They really weren't kidding about that healing factor, were they. One more thing to get used to.
He takes another deep breath, rolls his shoulders, and resumes his stance. It's easier to work through the exercise the second time around, namely because he's focusing on what he's doing and not letting his mind wander. It means he doesn't have a lot of awareness of the people around him at the moment, but if that narrow focus keeps him from seeing dead men in place of gym equipment, it's worth it.
What| Wash works out some issues on a punching bag.
Where| The training gym
When| Not long after arrival, after the end of the Lantern plot
Warnings/Notes| Wash has Issues, you guys.
Once Wash gets his bearings - insomuch as he can around here, at least - it doesn't take him too long to get his hands on gym clothes that fit (easily, too - the future is weird but convenient), store his armor in his newly assigned quarters, and track down a training area. There's a lot in the gym that he doesn't recognize, but the punching bag hanging in the corner is familiar enough. It's low-tech even for him, but it works.
It should be an easy training routine to fall back on: precision blows against a stationary target, with focus on speed and technique. Unfortunately, that falls apart fairly quickly - it doesn't take much combat training to see that Wash is moving as though he's expecting the bag to hit back. It's almost as though he's seeing something else there.
To be fair, he is. His body goes through the motions of training and his mind works overtime, trying to process where he is and what he's left behind. He hasn't had time to think about Chorus, about what he and the Reds and Blues had been thrown into and barely come out of- or might still be stuck in. He doesn't know. He wound up here. They're stuck in the last battle of a hellish war and he's not there to help them-
And he knows who to blame, but the Time Trapper is out of his reach and the fuckers who co-opted the war in the first place are-
-are the ones who dragged them into this whole fucking mess on Chorus to begin with.
He sees Felix-
Asshole. Dead. Move on.
-and swings at the bag, a hard right that sends it swinging.
He sees Locus-
Broken. Not here. Nothing you can do right now. Move on.
-and follows up with a hard kick, sending the bag careening back in the other direction.
He sees Hargrove-
And to think I worked for you.
-and misjudges his next strike, skinning his knuckles against the moving bag but failing to land a hit. The face in front of him doesn't disappear. He can't derail the train of thought. He'd been where Locus had been, unstable and desperate and working for Hargrove, trying to find an out- he'd found the Reds and Blues and some weird flavor of mercy, but if he'd had a Felix instead, or been on his own, then-
I'd have been next to them, turning war into genocide. Three shades of gray instead of two.
For what it's worth, he's getting better at recognizing when he crosses the line, even when he's directing the unwarranted cruelty towards himself. He snaps back to the present and grabs the bag, stopping it mid-swing and stilling it in front of him while he breathes, grounding himself.
He's fine. He's fine. He wasn't for a while, but that was years ago and he's been working on getting better. He's a soldier. He has a job to do. Finish this new war, save the whole damn multiverse (because things can never be simple), go back to hopefully the right time and place, finish that war. He can't do any of that if he doesn't settle himself first. He has to get better.
The redness in his knuckles has already faded by the time he looks at them. They really weren't kidding about that healing factor, were they. One more thing to get used to.
He takes another deep breath, rolls his shoulders, and resumes his stance. It's easier to work through the exercise the second time around, namely because he's focusing on what he's doing and not letting his mind wander. It means he doesn't have a lot of awareness of the people around him at the moment, but if that narrow focus keeps him from seeing dead men in place of gym equipment, it's worth it.
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