assguardians | ASGARD GENESIS

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!test drive meme

ASGARD GENESIS - TEST DRIVE #1

the test drive meme.

❧ let's do this.

Anyone can post to the test drive meme, including duplicates! Please put your character name and canon in the title of your comment.
All threads are considered open to everyone! Tag around and make some friends (or enemies)!
If you decide to apply to the game, you can use your TDM threads for your app samples! You only need to provide seven comments if you use TDM samples.
You can't be "late" to a TDM! This will be considered open until the next one goes live next month.
You can make up your own scenario, interact with one of the locations in the game, use the welcome process of your character selecting a god house, or use our optional prompt below!
You do not need to pick a god house to play on the TDM! You can have your character still in the process of discussing/deciding/despairing instead.
If you are accepted to the game, you can keep TDM threads as game canon as long as you fudge some of the details depending on your original thread. If you aren't sure exactly how to do this, you can always ask a mod.
Reserves open on May 25 at 12:01AM PST and close on May 31 at 11:59PM PST.
Applications open on June 1 at 12:01AM PST and close on June 7 at 11:59PM PST.
Please always feel free to contact the mods if you have any questions! Have fun, dear (future?) Wanderers. ♥

❧ optional scenario.
As you enter Asgard proper, many of the natives have gathered into curious crowds to greet these mysterious children of the World Tree. Some of them carry baskets of flowers and nervously offer one to any Wanderers that come near. They are vibrant and colorful, picked from the wilds surrounding Asgard, and they might have an odd effect on your character if they sniff the flowers directly.

Purple flowers will make your character very giggly and easily amused by everything they see and hear.
Orange flowers will make your character feel very warm all over, like the sun is beating down on them directly.
Blue flowers will make your character somewhat short and impatient with anything that seems like even a minor inconvenience to them.

Effects of the flowers can wear off anywhere between a few minutes to an hour. And for those new to Asgard, this scenario aligns with some of the general curses we might have in the game!

navigation.

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[ some laughs are worse than no laughs, and this is certainly one of them, it runs chills down bucky's spine in apprehension of what's about to be dropped on him. he's hanging by a thread, in truth, held together by the need to comfort and help his best friend in life (he supposes that's a metaphor now), but that thread is tearing and splitting, staying together by sheer power of will, and he doesn't know how long it'll hold for. ]

Depending on what?

[ grief can mess with your perception of time, of course, but 69 years is kind of a specific number, which feels like it's edging it out of the realm of the metaphorical. he'd say it's impossible, if he weren't currently standing in some strange land overrun by so called gods, he'd say that's impossible, but what does he know. ]

You look pretty spry for your 90s. [ he tries to lighten the mood with a joke because there's only so much of his own demise that he can handle at any one given time. ]

I get that a lot, actually. ❰ though he probably seemed more spry when he still had the body the serum gave him, really. steve — doesn't want to talk about this. he really, really doesn't want to talk about this, especially not with a bucky who'll almost definitely yell at him for it. he's imagined the lecture he'd get from bucky if he knew about the valkyrie hundreds of times over the two years since he came out of the ice, even dreamt about it. it was always more comforting than he thinks it's probably going to be in reality. ❱

A few weeks after you fell, we stormed Schmidt's stronghold. ❰ the words come out with hardly any inflection, as if by rote. like steve's had to explain this before, and is tired of the story now. ❱ He and I ended up on a plane headed for the east coast. I beat him, but the plane's controls were damaged in our fight. It was loaded up with bombs that used the same tech as the Hydra guns — I couldn't let them hit the states. So I put the plane down.

Sixty seven years later, I woke up in a SHIELD office in Manhattan. Turns out I froze in the Arctic, but I didn't die. They thawed me out, pulled me back into the world. It's been two years since then. So.

❰ steve shrugs again, looking down at their feet. at least bucky has both his arms, he thinks, distantly. whatever magic pulled them both here like this managed to get to him before that. ❱

Two years, or sixty nine. Depends on if you go by my clock or the rest of the world's.

[ it's like every ounce of warmth has been sucked out of his body, despite the heavy coat, despite the warm body pressed against him. the colors dull, and he can hear his own blood pounding in his head like a crazed captive pounding on the door, screaming to be let out.

I put the plane down.

he can barely process what steve is saying next, and his grip slackens out of sheer horror. no, he's not shocked, he knows steve too well for that. but he is fucking heartbroken. ]

Jesus, Steve, what the hell.

[ he resumes his walking. they shouldn't have this conversation out here, it's not safe, they're too exposed. not that a room will feel particularly safe either but it'll award them some measure of privacy, of a sense of protection, if nothing else.

he can't do this. he can't even comprehend what steve is telling him right now, the depth of misery that his friend's life had sunk into. how much more is the world going to take from him? what's worse - how much more is steve going to give away? ]

❰ oh — oh. for a second steve blinks at bucky, shocked — and then he squares his shoulders, summons up some positivity, and puts on his captain america voice. ❱

Hey, it wasn't all bad. They got rid of polio. Thai food's real good. The internet's great, there's a lot to learn. Took some getting used to, but I'm getting my feet under me.

❰ bucky's just fallen to his death and here's steve making it all about how terrible he felt. still feels, if he's honest — it hasn't entirely sunk in that the winter soldier was bucky, is bucky. it's something he knows, understands, but can't feel. he was just getting used to missing bucky, to looking over his shoulder and seeing no one there waiting for him. coming home to an empty apartment and cooking shitty meals for one, eating them sat in the single chair. bucky was gone, and steve was accepting that — and then he wasn't, and now he's here.

here, and needing a shoulder to lean on more than steve right now. as they walk toward — steve's not sure, bucky's the one guiding them. somewhere secluded, probably, more private — steve tightens his grip on bucky's waist. ❱

You doin' alright? I've done the whole waking-up-from-dead thing, it's a knockout. You need to sit down?

[ is this what it was like for steve, all those times bucky tried to reassure him that what he could reasonably do was good enough? because bucky doesn't feel reassured by the mention of foreign concepts of thai food and an internet. sure no polio is good news, and really any kind of food that isn't rations, or boiled beyond any recognition of flavor is sure to be a hit with him, but this is the last thing he cares about right now.

what about his family? his parents already lost him once, only to get a retraction letter informing them of their son's miraculous survival - and immediate return to duty, alongside his childhood best friend, the kid who spent enough time in their home to count as another son. and then they lost both, within months of each other, never having gotten to even see bucky in between condolence letters.

he can't concentrate on what he's feeling for his own life, can't afford to open that box, but it is definitely struggling against him, bubbling up only to be pushed back down. he wants to scream, he wants to punch that optimistic can do voice right out of steve's mouth because no amount of it worked out miracle is going to make it okay that steve had to lay down his life. ]

Let's just get indoors.

[ spoken through gritted teeth. he's not really sure where he's going, but he remembers something mentioned about a place to live, and right now all he's got in him is putting one foot in front of the other. ]

❰ yeah, he probably should have known that wouldn't do much to make bucky feel any better. it's not as though anyone could have dragged steve out of his misery when bucky died — no matter how peggy'd tried to convince him not to blame himself, all steve had had to do was hold on — or dragged his thoughts from the life he'd left behind when he'd first woken up out of the ice. it's a goddamn bitch of a shitty situation, and steve was never very good at pretending to be any more upbeat than he really is — that was always bucky's thing, covering up his problems and feelings so that steve didn't have another thing to worry about.

steve falls silent, then, at first following bucky, and then ending up leading him when he realizes bucky has no real destination in mind. there are houses set up for all the people who've been drawn into this place, and steve steers them toward the one designated for heimdall's chosen in silence. it's a lot to take in, on top of dying, and it's during the trek to heimdall's house that steve decides he won't tell bucky anything about the winter soldier. not yet, at least — not when he's already got so much to contend with. maybe later, maybe when he's settled.

maybe never.

they get into the house and steve hesitates for just a moment before slipping out from under bucky's arm, heading towards the bedrooms. his back to bucky, his hearing dulled by being back in his crappy old body, it's the closest bucky might get to privacy in a while. ❱

[ the walk is a daze, once again. normally perceptive - and hyper aware since first setting foot on the front - in the back of his mind, bucky's surprised to note that he can't remember a single thing about their journey to the house they're now standing in. how long did it take? no clue. how did they know to get here? did they ask someone? no idea. how many people did they pass on their way? he sure doesn't have the answer. losing time is not an experience he hoped to ever go through again. it was crucial, on zola's table, it was imperative to his survival that he step out of his body and find somewhere nicer to pass the time until it gave out. but this...this is something completely different. there's no imminent threat, no one's hurting him, and steve is by his side. steve, as he used to be. steve who needs him.

steve, who gave his life to end hydra's horrifying advantage, giving the allies their best chance to end the war.

he takes a breath when steve steps away, and tries to reorient himself to his surrounding. it seems comfortable enough, definitely better than anywhere he's stayed at in recent years. his feet guide him to the kitchen for a glass of water, then refills it and gets one for steve as well, tapping his shoulder once he follows him to explore the rooms. ]

Couldn't find any ice, but it's cool, at least. [ one glass for drinking, one for holding against those nasty looking bruises. taking care of steve is easier than dealing with whatever it is he's feeling. ]

❰ steve stands in the doorway, staring into the room without really seeing it. he's stuck back in dc, in that hydra truck, puzzling through seventy years of missed opportunities and fuck-ups. bucky's alive, his heart crowed; bucky's alive, his head despaired. he'd gotten a second chance with his best friend, a second chance he'd fucked up so badly it'd taken seventy years to make it right — if bucky survived the fall, steve certainly could have. if he'd dropped after him, if he'd gone to look the second they'd stopped the train —

bucky taps his shoulder and steve starts, looking over his shoulder and accepting the glass on autopilot. here's a third chance, the opportunity to get it right. he can't let himself be distracted by guilt or despair or even frustration. bucky's here, now, alive, both arms intact. so steve can't see red anymore, so his chest is tight again, so his spine bends. bucky is so beyond worth the trade he'd have handed all his health up without complaint if he'd known it was the price. ❱

Thanks, ❰ he says, and puts the glass to his eye. for a long moment he stays quiet, and then he huffs a laugh. ❱ I was just gonna ask if you had any Lucky Strikes stashed away in your uniform. Forgot.

❰ steve was never big on traditional cigarettes before the war, since they aggravated his asthma so bad. bucky smoked, but he always tried to keep it away from steve as much as possible. during the war, though, cigarettes were unavoidable, and steve wound up smoking as much as any gi. in the future, captain america couldn't be seen smoking, so he'd all but kicked the habit.

and now he's right back to where he started. ❱

Must've fallen out.

[ he says without checking. he'll be damned if he hands steve a cigarette now, much as he'd like to light one up himself, if only to have something to do with his hands.

now, when the only foreign thing in front of him is a comfortable bed, bucky's body reminds him of how well and truly exhausted he is, and he takes steve's suggestion of sitting down.

he feels like he might just sink right through the floor and come out the other side. is there another side? is there any knowledge he can hold onto in this strange place? he's too tired to linger on any question, too full of pain. ]

How long since you shrunk? [ it seems pretty clear that steve was not in this state when he took on red skull and crashed. he has the utmost respect for his friend, but also a grasp of basic reality; there's no way he would have beat red skull when he couldn't even take on a new york goon, and there's no way in hell he would have survived being frozen alive. ]

❰ god, fuck, it's so — it's stupid the way that easy lie hits steve right in the solar plexus. he feels, for a brief, terrifying moment, like he's going to burst into fucking tears.

it's so bucky he can't fucking stand it. really, can't stand it, he makes it to the bed just in time to collapse into it next to bucky, head in his hands while he works through the terrible joy in his chest. he's back, he's here, he's just the same as he always was and he knows steve. it's been so long since he could say that about anybody. ❱

I showed up here like this. Was big before I got here, ❰ he gets out eventually, following it up with a big gulp of water. he needs something to steady him, this has passed ridiculous and is officially just sad. ❱

[ it may have been a while since he's had to comfort his friend, but muscle memory sends bucky's hand straight to his back, rubbing soothingly before settling on his shoulder for a squeeze.

this, he thinks, I can do. and it's selfish and it's ugly, but it doesn't change the fact that it helps, it helps ground him, gives him something truly familiar, a little piece of home, a use.

there's so many questions he needs to ask, he will ask, but he doesn't want to touch them yet. he doesn't know if they have time, or how much of it, but surely it's okay to at least take today. they're both dealing with a lot. ]

So it might just be this place. [ he may not have understood half of the welcome spiel, but he does remember something about changing magic - and going from 5'4" to 6'2" definitely looked pretty magical to bucky. that might mean that if he just gets steve home he'll be healthy again.

it's a chance. it's a goal. it's something to work towards. because bucky is gone but steve isn't. he still has a life to go back to. it's bucky's job now to convince him of that.

this is going to be harder that storming zola's train. ]

Yeah, maybe.

❰ a beat, and then — ❱

What? No. I mean, yeah, it probably is, but —

❰ steve groans, annoyed at himself, and shakes his head. he can see where bucky's going with this, and it's not anywhere steve wants him to go. it's not anywhere steve wants to go. ❱

Bucky. We're not trying to get me home, alright? I don't even know how we'd do that. Neither of us is magic.

❰ or, maybe, who knows, those gods were saying a lot about magic before, maybe they're magic now. but definitely not magic enough to get steve back to the future on their own. good, steve thinks, wild — and then he remembers the winter soldier and feels sick to his stomach. if he doesn't go back, who brings that bucky in from the cold? who reminds him that he's a person? ❱

I don't want to be anywhere you aren't, ❰ he says, almost desperate. the winter soldier is bucky, but he doesn't remember being bucky, and steve misses his friend, is that so bad?

it is. he has to go back. the realization hits steve like a sack of bricks, and he curls back in on himself, hand pressed over his eyes. he has to figure out a way home and voluntarily leave this bucky behind. fuck. ❱

[ yup, definitely harder than storming zola's train. harder than anything the commandos have tried, in no small part because bucky very much agrees with steve's sentiment - he doesn't want to be anywhere steve isn't. he doesn't.

but it's not right. he's alive for the moment, it seems, by some magic he won't even try to begin to understand. but steve is alive period. he can't just hold him back like -

- god, he really is turning into steve, isn't he. first it was the girl, and now it's the rational. he curses inwardly and reminds himself it's not the same. it's hard to cope with, feeling very much alive as he does, but he isn't. and there lies all he difference in the world. ]

I don't know how we'd do that either, but we'll figure it out. [ or at least make a damn good attempt of it. if steve stays here with him and something happens to him - how is he supposed to live this strange one-foot-out-the-door of an afterlife with that weighing over his soul? maybe this is a test, to prove his own worth. well, he can't really say what that is, can he, that's for someone else to decide. what he can say is he's not the sort of man who would risk his best friend's life and well being just because he's going to miss him when he goes. ] Gotta get you back to your enternet, whatever the hell that is.

[ he tries for a smile, though he's very much not feeling like smiling, as one look into his eyes will attest. he tightens his hold, trying to offer what comfort he can.

he's here. for the time being, he's here.

with his other hand, he lightly pokes at steve's forehead. ]

You got me, right in there. [ just like he had steve in his head when he shipped out. they've known each other too long to ever truly be alone. ]

❰ steve's always known the world is a cruel place. nothing is fair, he's seen that for as long as he's been aware of the world at all, but he's always fought to make it a little more fair. he's taken the shape of the world and tried, over and over, to bend it towards justice, towards kindness, at first in his small corner of it and then in europe and then all over the world. the world is cruel but steve intercedes where he can, and shines a light where he can't. it's been enough. had to be.

there's nothing to do for this. there's no way to hammer the world into a shape he can stomach for this, no justice to mete out. he has bucky, for however long it lasts, and he'll have to walk away from him when they figure out how to make it happen. to another bucky, true enough, and that dulls the ache of it a little — but only a little.

his shoulder blades, crooked and angular under his top, heave once, twice, as steve takes two deep breaths, takes everything he's feeling in gentle hands, and folds it away under his ribs for safekeeping. there's nothing to be done for it. feeling sorry for himself won't change anything. he has this bucky, the bucky who knows him, for as long as he has him, and he's not about to waste a second of that time wailing over the inevitable. ❱

I wish, ❰ he says, serious, ❱ I could show you a lolcat. You'd love them.

❰ he'll have his memories, sure, but it's not the same. it'll never be the same. all those science fiction pulps and excited what-ifs about the future and bucky's never really gotten to see it. ❱

[ many years ago god only know how many miles away - bucky came upon a young kid, trying to stand up for himself against impossible odds, and he offered him a helping hand.

he's not quite sure if he's surprised by how easy he finds it to push aside his own emotions now to the same again. at the end of the day, he doesn't have it so bad; there's a bed, maybe later they could find something to eat - this second lease on any sort of a life certainly seems preferable to the crash he was headed towards. ]

Yeah? What are they?

[ his smile is a little easier this time around, as he allows himself to begin to process the possibilities of a future - and all that steve could have seen in the past two years. ]

You got yourself a flying car? [ he would have loved one of those. considering stark's involvement with arming the commandos - he figures he might have even had a decent shot at a discount. that, and about 50 years of saving, and he might be able to afford one for his golden years.

he still would have enjoyed the hell out of it. ]

These pictures of cats with funny phrases on 'em. The grammar and spelling's all wrong, like a cat really trying to talk like a person. It sounds stupid, but some of them are really funny.

❰ the first time someone had put steve in front of a computer and pointed him to i can haz cheesburger he hadn't really been in the mood to laugh about much of anything — great, another stupid joke in the stupid future that he didn't understand — but it's been a couple years now and he's developed an appreciation for them. they're stupid and pointless and, occasionally, really goddamn funny. bucky'd get a kick out of them.

steve keeps two lists, in the future. one of things he needs to look into, in a little notebook he keeps with him all the time. the other is mental, because if someone found it it'd be the saddest goddamn thing — he keeps a list of things he'd show bucky, if he could. peggy, too, sometimes, or the rest of the howlies, even a couple things he wishes he could have showed howard. but mostly it's all about bucky, and the things the future could have given him. ❱

No flying cars yet, ❰ he says, apologetic. there's a smile in the corners of his mouth, fighting against the sorrow to be seen. ❱ Telephones fit in your pocket now, though. They're these little slabs of metal, I always worry I'm gonna break mine. You can look up anything you want in them, they're like little encyclopedias now. And they can hold days' worth of music.

❰ the future isn't all bad. some things are pretty great, really. ❱

[ he's not quite sure how they ended up talking about something this strange, but he's not about to complain about it - it beats everything that's going unsaid.

they'll have to say it, or, well, some of it, at some point. but not right now. they're both well aware of what it is. it's not running away, it's...compartmentalizing. ]

If you say so -

[ the description isn't really selling the joke but it must be one of those things you have to see to get, because he trusts steve's judgment, particularly when it comes to things he'll like. there's no one on earth who knows him and his sense of humor better, after all.

damn. he really wanted that flying car. not that it matters, since he won't be getting it anyway, but he wanted it to exist. he wonders if it didn't work out because it was too complicated - or if howard stark died in the war.

no. compartmentalizing, dammit. he's not going to ask the big questions right now because he cannot take the answers with any form of dignity and that's not the last memory of him he wants to leave steve with. god. why is it so damn hard to push this aside. he feels plenty alive, and maybe that's what makes this whole situation so hard to swallow. ]

You're yanking my chain, aren't you.

[ he tries to find his way back into the conversation, to get excited about phones that are somehow also record players and encyclopedias? who even thought of a thing like that? record players are huge, phones are big, and how do you even read on them? how do you fit these three functions into one little slab of metal that can be slipped into your pocket? these are the questions he wants to be able to focus on right now, but he just can't seem to muster the enthusiasm, though he does give it his best effort. ]

Hand to god, ❰ he says, and raises his head up next to his head for emphasis. ❱ It's crazy, Buck, the things they can do now. Hey, let me just —

❰ steve pushes off the bed and starts turning the room over, searching for paper and a writing implement. it takes him a few minutes, but he finds something that will serve his purposes, and takes a minute to sketch out a quick example of a starkphone. when he's done, he holds it out to bucky, eyebrows way up and pen waving between them while he talks. ❱

That's what phones look like these days. They're all connected to the internet, and you can look up just about anything on them. You can send messages between phones like telegrams and they'll arrive instantly. It's really something.

❰ this is absolutely definitely easier than talking about any of the myriad other things on both their minds at the moment. steve's imagined how he would tell bucky about the future hundreds of times, never knew where he'd start, but this is as good a place as any. the interconnectedness of it all, the accessibility. information's so easy to get, now, and there are a lot of ways that doesn't sit well with steve, but the ability to google just about anything and get an answer in seconds is one of the coolest things about the future. ❱

[ his eyebrows shoot up as he looks at the sketch. steve keep talking (about that internet thing again, must be a big deal), but there seems to bucky that the most basic of functions are missing for this thing to qualify as a phone. ]

How do you dial? Where's the earpiece?

[ how is this a phone it looks like a rectangle. if he had to guess what he was looking at based on this drawing he might have gone with notebook, but he certainly wouldn't have come anywhere near phone. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

ASGARD GENESIS - TEST DRIVE #1

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