riverviewlogs | I don't mind, forget it, there's nothing to lose (OTA)

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I don't mind, forget it, there's nothing to lose (OTA)

who: Ivar and you + some closed prompts
what: Catch-all for August! Amnesia plot and regular prompts
when: Later half of August, the 9th onwards.
where: All over the city
warnings: None

A. Ivarsdottir. Def: Old Norse for Ivar's daughter. - OTA

While Letha seemed determined to hide Winter away like she was some hideous monster, Ivar's attitude was in a complete 180 degree direction. He couldn't have been prouder to be a father to such a wonderful little girl. Because of his impotency, he'd always thought he'd never be able to have children. To get the chance to be a father was more than he ever could have hoped for.

Anyone who might have been worried about how someone so filled with anger was going to be around a child would soon have their fears put to rest. Ivar was as doting and gentle as any new parent, wanting nothing more than to hold Winter close and gaze down at her little oddly-colored eyes.

She was still a little fragile, so mostly he was found with her in the hospital. But every so often, he got permission from the staff to take her outside, provided she was suitably protected from the sun. That pale skin, white as snow, would burn easily without her dressed up. No matter where the location was, Ivar was going to be approaching friends, acquaintances, and let's face it, perfect strangers to brag about his child. "Have you see my daughter?" He asks everyone with just about the proudest expression on his face that he could have.

B. Just fade away. - OTA

Compared to most of the denizens who have been afflicted with amnesia, Ivar seemed to be unaffected by what was taking everyone's memories. He wasn't stumbling around completely unaware of who he was or where the Quarantine was. But there's some subtle details that one might notice about the Viking that show he's not as unaffected as he's pretending to be.

He doesn't seem to use anyone's name in conversation or bring it up until the person he's talking to has done it himself. Five minutes after he leaves them, he won't remember it anyway. Also, in a first for the Viking, he's without weapons. Holding onto them had only caused a deep gash across his palm since he was unable to remember how to wield them properly. All he was keeping were the arm guards Tony had made for him. He figured the blades that could pop out of them were enough to keep him safe if anyone tried to attack him.

Finally, for anyone close that have heard him talk of his family, he seems to have forgotten entirely about one of his brothers, only mentioning three instead of four. This actually is one of the more advantageous aspects. Sigurd has been nothing but a constant torment his entire life, providing a neverending source of anger for the Viking. He's actually much happier not remembering the worst one of his older brothers. All in all, the more perceptive denizens of the Quarantine might realize something's amiss, but to everyone else, he might just seem a touch off.

C. A llama is a made up animal. - For Marco

"...What is that?" Ivar has seen a lot of strange animals in his time here. Heck, he owns a pair of fire and electric horses, for goodness sake. But every so often, there's an animal that continues to surprise him. After all, he's from a time period where very little of the world and its creatures have been discovered. This thing before him is fluffy, has a long neck, and overall is just...weird. He's never seen anything like it before.

He holds out a hand, having seen enough animals to know it was better to let them come to him instead of approaching them in what they could interpret as an aggressive manner. Besides, the wheelchair made some of them nervous. He continues talking to it in a low, casual tone. "So what are you then? Some sort of reject horse?"

Of course, he's never expecting in a million years that this funny looking creature might actually be capable of answering him back.

D. A little family just struggling together. - For Letha.

Ivar had barely been speaking with Letha. He was still furious at the way she was treating Winter. He wouldn't have even seen her at all had he not been coming to the hospital on an almost daily basis to see their daughter. Even then, she was lucky to get more than two words out of him, maybe a question of how the two of them were doing if she was lucky. When Ivar got mad, he could hold onto grudges forever. It could have been worse. If provoked again into a real rage, there was no telling what he might do, no matter how much he loved her.

But when he showed up to see Winter today, she was already being held by Letha, and apparently without any prompting by the nurses. It was such a surprising sight that Ivar merely sat there in the doorway, watching the two of them for a moment. It was such a pretty sight, so normal to see her actually acting as a mother caring for her child. "Well, that's more like it." He wheeled himself into the room and up to the edge of Letha's bed.

He reached out a hand, letting it rest upon the skin of Winter's tiny baby-soft one. "I was wondering what it was going to take to get you to come to your senses." As usual, he was blaming everything that had happened solely upon Letha. There would be no apology or soft words coming from him. There never was.

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This wasn't the first time that Bucky had seen Winter, though he didn't know her name and he certainly hadn't known that she was at all connected to Ivar. To see the teenager with such an expression on his face was unusual, but-- good, it proved that all his posturing about being unable to feel emotion or connection like others was nonsense.

He wasn't about to judge him being a father so young, he knew that men became fathers and women became mothers a lot younger in the time that Ivar came from, though it was sad in a way to see him have to grow up so fast. He hesitated when the baby was presented to him, eyebrows raised slightly.

"I didn't know she was yours."

"Not technically. She's from Letha and her husband." There was a fierce light of possessive love in his eyes. "But she's mine in all the ways that count." Ivan had rarely felt love for anyone in his life. But he felt it for Winter. She needed him, especially with the way her mother had all but rejected her. He knew exactly what damage that could do to a child growing up. Despite his youth, he was considered an adult by Viking standards. He was going to be the father his own had never been for him.

"Her name is Winter Istrid Regis Ivarsdottir." It was a name nearly longer than the girl herself, but the first part of it was obvious. Her coloring was white as snow, pale without a trace of color. She was currently looking around with a slightly sleepy expression on her face.

A tiny part of Bucky couldn't help but judge that name, it sounded a bit long and pretentious for his tastes, but he would never say so out loud. Not just that, but it seemed to him kind of cruel to call an albino baby Winter, she'd get enough trouble in her school years without giving easy ammunition to the bullies.

"I met her before, I saw her in her Ma's arms."

That had been an awkward meeting to say the least.

"What brought you to adopting some other man's baby?"

Ivar shrugged, Winter jostling slightly in his arms at the movement. "It was the right thing to do. Letha and I have been together for awhile and raising her up by herself was no way to do things. Children need fathers." Ivar sounded adamant and firm about that last part. He'd grown up without one and would be the first one to admit how that had screwed him up worse than he already was.

Then his face goes dark. "Besides, with the way Letha is behaving, she needs me all the more." He was still quite mad at her for all but rejecting her daughter.

"You need proof that you have that empathy in you, that's it right there." He probably shouldn't say it so baldly, but he did better with things when they were right out in the open. "Not a lot of fellas will step up like that and love a baby that didn't come from them like it was their own, you should be proud, and she's a lucky kid."

He doesn't push for information on how Letha is behaving. He doesn't know the woman well at all, and it's not his business what problems there might be in the relationship unless Ivar actually chooses to confide in him.

Ivar looks faintly surprised at Bucky's assertion. For all that he can read other people, he's not very perceptive when it comes to himself. Empathy isn't something that usually comes naturally to him, but in this case, it had been instinctive. He'd felt love for Winter from the first time he saw her.

He also looks a little pleased. Apparently, he's been making more progress than he's given himself credit for. "Is that what you'd call it?" He looks down at Winter fondly. "She is lucky. I know what it's like to be different, to have the whole world is set against you from day one." He wished someone had been more supportive of him growing up. His mother has been there, but she only saw what he couldn't do, not what he was capable of.

"That must've been hard."

Bucky might know what it's like to have the whole world against him, but he doesn't know what it's like to live that as a kid where your only crime is genetics that make you different from the others. It puts into perspective just why Ivar has had to build up such a hard skin, and it makes it all the better to see that all traces of goodness or empathy haven't been erased from him.

"I'd like to say I got used to it, but that'd be a lie." He'd come from a society where physical prowess, being able to keep up and raid to bring glory, that was all that mattered. No matter how good he got with his weapons, no matter how smart and clever he was, he would forever be judged from the first moment people looked at him.

So he'd learned to expect the worst out of people. If they weren't going to give him a chance, neither was he. It was better to be hard, block everyone out so that they couldn't hurt him. But, apparently, Winter had managed to get past his defenses. "Letha said she's something called a healer. She has powers, something about draining life from people, but it doesn't work on me. She'll need guidance as she gets older on how to use them."

"Draining the life out of people sounds like the opposite of healing them."

Not that he has any idea what he's talking about, all of these supernatural creatures were alien to him. But he's had a long time dealing with the weird crashing into his everyday life, and so he knows how to take it in stride by now. He reaches out one gloved hand, the metal one, towards the baby fairly sure she can't drain life from a prosthetic.

"You know why it doesn't work on you?"

"She takes the life force out of people and can put it into other people to heal them. That's why she's called a healer. Apparently, they're something of an abomination in Letha's world." But Ivar didn't care. She was an innocent child. It's not like she could control her powers just yet. As she grew older, Ivar felt confident that he could teach her how to control them. If she could refrain from using them on him, she could learn how to do it with other people.

Winter blinked up, focusing in on the hand coming towards her. One pale little hand tried to work its way out of the blanket. "She feels safe and calm when she's around me. It's an instinctive thing. She felt this way even before she was born. It's why Letha always felt better when I touched her, even though Winter was unconsciously draining her life." Winter associated him with security and love, so naturally all of her weeks-old self control went into keeping her father from being harmed.

It was impressive for a baby to recognise that much and put in so much effort at so young, but obviously Winter was not a normal baby. Bucky wouldn't stop the little girl if she managed to get a hand out and touch his glove, the prosthetic would offer him protection from any powers.

"Good job she's not in her world, then."

It might give her a chance to be raised somewhere without stigma and hatred colouring her childhood. At least, assuming they stayed here that long.

Winter did indeed touch Bucky's hand, and when there was a lack of the white glow that accompanied her powers failed to manifest, she looked supremely curious as to why that was. This was the first time her powers had failed to work on anyone. She was too little to understand what a prosthetic was.

"Exactly. I figure this place has enough people with different powers already, so she'll fit right in." If only Letha could see things the same way he did, then Ivar's little family would have been perfect. Or so he thought with all the naive optimism of a teenager.

It's been a very long time since the last time he had a baby holding his finger like this, not since he had two arms and no issues other than worrying if his paycheck might cover the rent and food. Those were better days. He wishes sometimes that he could have told his past self not to go to war, that it would be better to be in prison as a deserter than--

But he would have gone anyway. He would have wanted to watch Steve's six, nobody else could be trusted to do it properly. So he would have ended up in the same position even with a warning, the same future no matter what he did. He hopes that this little kid has a better one ahead of her.

"If she has folks that care about her, that's the first battle won. Doesn't matter how different you are, if your folks support you then it's easier to face. I learned that from someone I used to know."

Ivar's face falls at Bucky's words, reminding him of the other sort of difficulties Winter was facing besides just having unusual powers.

"Well, she has me." That one sentence made it quite clear where her mother stood on the matter. She barely held her and considered her to be an abomination. Ivar hadn't forgotten how she'd seriously considered his suggestion of putting her in the woods to die if she wasn't going to raise her up with love. He loved Letha, as much as he was capable of doing, but this has caused a rift between them.

"Letha... she doesn't see her the same way I do. Women who feel about their children the way she does tend to abandon them in the forest so the wolves will kill them where I'm from." Ivar's own father had tried to, but the love he held for his son overcame the desire for a merciful end. In his darker moments, Ivar sometimes wish he had, rather condemn him to the hard life he'd had.

Bucky didn't know a lot of women who hadn't instantly fallen in love with their children and devoted their whole hearts to raising them no matter what their possible flaws were, but he knew they existed. Perhaps it really was different on Letha's world and giving birth to a healer was an abomination, but it wasn't the kid's fault that she was what she was.

"Then you're gonna have to be the protection and support she needs without her." That wasn't an easy thing to put on anyone's shoulders, much less a teenager with empathy problems. But he had decided to be a father, so that made this baby his responsibility. "You have friends that can help you out."

It was a hard thing to hear, but Ivar already had to grow up fast. If he was old enough to fight, kill, and be the main strategist for a war, then he was old enough to take care of a child. He glances down at Winter and his shoulders straighten. No matter what Letha thinks, he's going to take care of Winter the way she deserves. The way he wished his own father had done for him.

"Yes. Having friends does help." He gives Bucky a meaningful look. Sure, the ex-assassin is screwed up, but then, so is Ivar. They get along well enough. "That's something I never had back home."

That meaningful look has him skittering back instinctively, shying away from the truth of friendship with anyone. It's just a bad idea, even if he knows deep down that it's already too late and he's in too deep.

"Better friends, kid. Safer ones, you don't want to raise a baby around someone like me."

That's probably the most openly he's put it in words since they met, usually he just flees in silence when things get hard, and it's fairly obvious he's not far off from doing that again now.

He's been around Bucky enough to recognize the physical signs that the man is getting ready to bolt. It's like watching an animal tense up, muscles bunched together, and a shutter closing his face off. Really, doesn't he ever get tired of trying to outrun himself?

"I'm not a kid." Which is precisely something a kid would say. "You're a lot of fucked up things, but if I thought you'd hurt my daughter, I wouldn't hesitate to never talk to you again." That was putting it mildly. Any threat to Winter was getting put down permanently. But anyone that struggled with their conscience as much as Bucky did clearly would never harm an innocent child. Ivar put a lot of trust into his friends.

"Then you shouldn't talk to me, I can't be trusted. Not around anyone, I'm dangerous, and you don't understand just how dangerous."

Nor was he about to be explaining it any time soon. He just backed up another step and then turned to go, pretty confident that Ivar couldn't follow him at the moment because of needing to hold onto the baby rather than wheel his chair.

Ivar lets him go. No need to push things right now and end up getting into a fight. One of these days, he's just going to tie Bucky down to keep him from running away at the end of their conversations. He mulls over Bucky's words. He really should heed the warning. Being friends with him is like having a wolf hang around, a wild animal that's lulled him into a sense of security because he hasn't shown himself to be dangerous in a while. But Ivar knows what Bucky is capable of. Maybe he should think about cutting ties with the man.

Then he looks down at Winter. "What do you think?" She, of course, has no answers for him. Ah, well. He'll figure it out later. Best get her back to the hospital so that they can both get some rest.

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I don't mind, forget it, there's nothing to lose (OTA)

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