re: winter soldier #1

[kneecaptain]

There you go. Not really dead, and still better off than Jason Todd.

Comments

[bests]

Being able to punch a dent into steel doesn't automatically mean amazing fighting skills. My form gets rusty if I don't keep up with it.

[kneecaptain]

Well, yeah, but none of the bad guys practice.

[bests]

Some of them don't. But you never know what you're going to run into. I'd rather be prepared than anything else.

[kneecaptain]

You're never gonna be prepared, so why worry?

[bests]

Oh, I don't know. Why should we train soldiers so much before we send them out to the battlefield? No amount of talking is ever going to prepare them for what's out there, and there's always going to be someone with a bigger gun.

[kneecaptain]

That's not the same as worrying.

[bests]

I don't worry about it.

[kneecaptain]

Right.

[bests]

I can't tell if you don't believe me or if you just don't have anything else to say.

[kneecaptain]

Well, what can I say? I'm a mystery.

[bests]

You're not dark and brooding enough to be able to pull that off.

[kneecaptain]

You know, I'd take it.

[bests]

It?

[kneecaptain]

Not being… [he doesn't want to say dark and brooding] that.

[bests]

What, you don't want to be a moody hero teenage girls will lust after?

[kneecaptain]

I'm not sixteen anymore, you know.

[bests]

Really? I couldn't tell.

[kneecaptain]

People forget.

[bests]

That was also a joke.

[kneecaptain]

Yeah, I know. [it turns out he actually is p. broody]

[bests]

And we were doing so well with you finally giving me shit and getting some sass out of you.

[kneecaptain]

Oh, so now I'm getting graded?

[bests]

I never said anything about grades.

[kneecaptain]

No, you didn't. But you act like I'm just learning how to talk sometimes.

[bests]

I don't mean to be patronizing. [ pause ] Okay, I don't always mean to be patronizing.

It's just that you've obviously got a damn good sense of humor in there somewhere, but it usually comes out only to be followed by a remark that takes any and all levity out of the conversation at hand.