>>No, I think denial is right up there with all Howard's other traits-annoying authority, risk taking. Magnifying it wasn't going to help him.<<
It may not just be the Tesseract. He and Dr. Erskine were both at ground zero for Project Rebirth. To get the main effect, you have to combine both halves perfectly. But that doesn't mean the halves are inert until combined ... or that the shielding was perfect.
If we posit the Vita-Rays as falling within the same class of plasticity-enhancing energy as the Tesseract and Loki's staff, well, that was Howard's half of the project. Marie Curie died of cancer because nobody knew about radiation shielding when they first started working with radioactive substances. So Howard could've gotten very subtle bumps from his own work, before he ever got involved with the Tesseract itself. Like going from beer to vodka.
>>I think Rhodey might get that a pissed off Tony (and, the Ten Rings shooting up the convoy with Stark weapons... iron-clad pissed) can do much anything he means to do. Including survive.<<
Yes, that's true. *ponder* Rhodey probably also knew more about Tony's experience surviving prior attempts.
>>The Reaper is an authority figure, it pisses Tony off when it comes for his.<<
I actually know of a veteran who responded to Death's appearance by screaming obscenities and death threats. Death very sensibly shut the door and walked away, opting to wait until the fellow was ready to depart.
Yep, I could see Tony doing that. Clearly. "If you so much as sneeze in my direction I will fuck you up. I will invent immortality and put you right out of business. But hey, stick around a few weeks, let me do my thing, and Tony Stark will show you a real good time. So what do you say: Deal?"
>> That, getting all his 'taking care of Steve' mirrored right back at him; he probably balked once and without much bite gotten "just doing for you what you did for me". Yeah, that, the brain-jacking and whatever tesseract-lite is in the arm... <<
Bucky is half-proud and half-disconcerted by the role reversal. He and Steve had just started to adapt their relationship after Project Rebirth when they got split up. So they have to finish doing that now, with the auxiliary power source making it harder. But both of them are good guys at heart, and they're actually happiest in the middle of a command structure: someone else picking the missions so they don't have to do the slog work of finding what needs done, but then they're in charge on the field. So it's not too much of a stretch to trade off who's giving or taking orders.
The challenging part is the personal stuff. It's easier for Steve because he always had the drive to take care of other people, and he has good memories of Bucky taking care of him. It's harder for Bucky to let someone take care of him because it feels like going backwards. He hasn't quite connected the fact that what feels good to him, feels just as good to any other person with nurturing instincts, so that accepting care is a way of making someone else happy. The background helps, though. Steve isn't going to give up taking care of Bucky just because it's a little uncomfortable for Bucky to get used to while he's recovering from captivity and needs some extra support. And Bucky settled with the team a lot better than he did with SHIELD medical.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-09-17 07:09 pm (UTC)It may not just be the Tesseract. He and Dr. Erskine were both at ground zero for Project Rebirth. To get the main effect, you have to combine both halves perfectly. But that doesn't mean the halves are inert until combined ... or that the shielding was perfect.
If we posit the Vita-Rays as falling within the same class of plasticity-enhancing energy as the Tesseract and Loki's staff, well, that was Howard's half of the project. Marie Curie died of cancer because nobody knew about radiation shielding when they first started working with radioactive substances. So Howard could've gotten very subtle bumps from his own work, before he ever got involved with the Tesseract itself. Like going from beer to vodka.
>>I think Rhodey might get that a pissed off Tony (and, the Ten Rings shooting up the convoy with Stark weapons... iron-clad pissed) can do much anything he means to do. Including survive.<<
Yes, that's true. *ponder* Rhodey probably also knew more about Tony's experience surviving prior attempts.
>>The Reaper is an authority figure, it pisses Tony off when it comes for his.<<
I actually know of a veteran who responded to Death's appearance by screaming obscenities and death threats. Death very sensibly shut the door and walked away, opting to wait until the fellow was ready to depart.
Yep, I could see Tony doing that. Clearly. "If you so much as sneeze in my direction I will fuck you up. I will invent immortality and put you right out of business. But hey, stick around a few weeks, let me do my thing, and Tony Stark will show you a real good time. So what do you say: Deal?"
>> That, getting all his 'taking care of Steve' mirrored right back at him; he probably balked once and without much bite gotten "just doing for you what you did for me". Yeah, that, the brain-jacking and whatever tesseract-lite is in the arm... <<
Bucky is half-proud and half-disconcerted by the role reversal. He and Steve had just started to adapt their relationship after Project Rebirth when they got split up. So they have to finish doing that now, with the auxiliary power source making it harder. But both of them are good guys at heart, and they're actually happiest in the middle of a command structure: someone else picking the missions so they don't have to do the slog work of finding what needs done, but then they're in charge on the field. So it's not too much of a stretch to trade off who's giving or taking orders.
The challenging part is the personal stuff. It's easier for Steve because he always had the drive to take care of other people, and he has good memories of Bucky taking care of him. It's harder for Bucky to let someone take care of him because it feels like going backwards. He hasn't quite connected the fact that what feels good to him, feels just as good to any other person with nurturing instincts, so that accepting care is a way of making someone else happy. The background helps, though. Steve isn't going to give up taking care of Bucky just because it's a little uncomfortable for Bucky to get used to while he's recovering from captivity and needs some extra support. And Bucky settled with the team a lot better than he did with SHIELD medical.