bakerstreet | I'll Look Out for Them

I'll Look Out for Them

✖ I'll Look Out for Them ✖
a "secondhand" shipping meme

They were your best friend, your comrade, or even someone you simply owed a debt to. Or maybe, unfortunately, you were the one that put them in danger that lead to their demise. No matter what they were to you in life, in their death, you feel as if you have one duty to them. They left behind someone, someone they loved more than anything. This was their significant other, yet you promised your dying companion (or you discerned yourself) that you would look after them. Take care of them, maybe, but at least look after them; it's the least you can do.

It will not be easy, especially not at first. The one left behind will be grieving, of course, and, so, perhaps, will you. There may be some contention, depending on the situation, and, if you did not know each other well before, some awkwardness. Still, in this time where there is nothing and no one to cling to, when the world has been thrown off its axis for them, both of you may find a sort of comfort and solace in this new routine.

That will not last, either.

Soon, feelings begin to change towards each other. Edges soften, people are seen in a new light. A small warmth blossoms between the two of you in this cold world. It takes root and grows, and grows, and grows...

Until you're left with questions and possibly even guilt at this arrangement. How much of this is real and how much is the grieving process? Are you just a replacement for the one they lost?

Is this what their lost love would have wanted?

✖ Comment with your character, canon, and preferences, including preferred role.
✖ Reply to others and use the RNG.
✖ Feel free to be as liberal with the interpretations of pretty much anything in this meme. Make it AU. Make up somebody they both know. Have them be total strangers. There's options for everything.

Promise ✖ You told them you would take care of their lover, no matter what. You intend to follow through with that.
Close ✖ What are friends for if not taking care of unfinished business?
Debt Owed ✖ Kindness or favor has to be repaid, even if it's an investment in someone else.
Atonement ✖ Whether or not you particularly cared for the person who's gone is irrelevant. You just need to make up for past sins.
No Good ✖ You're taking care of the one left behind, but not out of good intentions. There may be ulterior motives here - no, there are definitely ulterior motives here. Or maybe this is the one good thing you've done in your life.
Guilt ✖ It's your fault that you're here and their significant other isn't. It's a paltry repayment.
Bearer of Bad News ✖ You can't blame them for wanting to shoot the messenger. You are telling them their lover is dead.
Related ✖ In days past, the living partner would be cared for by their dead partner's family. As a sibling or cousin of the deceased, you want to continue that tradition and take care of "family."
Wo/man Up ✖ Actually, their lover isn't dead, they're just dead to you, unable or unwilling to take care of business. You're stepping up.
Friends ✖ You were all friends before, so it's only natural for you to want to look out for them now.
Derisive ✖ ...this is the person they loved so much? This is who you're supposed to protect? Pathetic.
Resentful ✖ You can never forgive them. They're the reason your lover is dead, no matter how they treat you.
What They Saw in You ✖ You're beginning to see why someone would love them, how they'd want to give up their old ways and change. It's almost...nice.
Warming Up ✖ If you didn't get along at first, the claws are being put away now. It's better to at least be civil, isn't it?
Still in Danger ✖ Whatever killed one half of the pair is still out there, and the other half is in danger themselves.
Other Complications ✖ Not only did your mutual acquaintance leave behind a lover, but also children. You find yourself getting closer and closer to them, too, even if they aren't yours.
Compromised ✖ You can't look after them with a level head. You love them.
Can't Love Again ✖ You've lost before. You can't risk losing again, can you?
Out of the Dark ✖ One or both of you find yourselves in a hole. You can barely eat, hardly sleep, and depression has taken hold of you. Together, though, you may find the light and a way out of despair.
First Time ✖ Simply what it says. You two have taken your relationship to the next level.
Changed ✖ Before, you were bitter. Hard. Jaded. Now, helping someone - specifically, helping this person - has brought a new kind of joy into your life. You could get used to it. Easily and dangerously used to it, to be brutally honest. You shouldn't allow it.
Living Together ✖ You can take care of them more throughly if you're in the same place as they are, obviously.
Hidden Jealousy ✖ When their lover was alive, you were jealous of everything they had - including the fact that they had the person you're looking after now. Admitting this may make you feel like the most awful person in the world.
Secrets Revealed ✖ Eventually, your involvement with the death of their beloved will come out, and they will never be able to look at you the same way.
Dependent ✖ Replacing one unhealthy habit with another, you've become utterly dependent on your relationship with your caretaker, your guardian, your lover.
Won't Be a Replacement ✖ You can't help but feel as if you're merely serving as a stand in for what they've lost. It's understandable, yet you still can't allow yourself to be that and only that.
Not Really Gone ✖ What is dead should stay dead, but what if who you thought was gone isn't really out of the picture? Will they be happy with finding someone else so cozy and in love with their special someone?
The Same Mistakes ✖ You're falling into the same patterns that lead to their death. Will you meet the same fate?
Who's Helping Who ✖ You think you're taking care of them and helping them through their loss. Is that the case? But who's never been this happy before in their life?
Move On ✖ It's time to put ghosts to rest and let old demons go. You can't let your life become a graveyard.
Tragedy ✖ The ending is unhappy or even deadly for both of you.
Happy Ending ✖ In contrast to the above, you're both able to live as together as happily as you possibly can, whatever can be allowed.
WILDCARD

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He just nodded at that, "Yeah, I get that." He gave a one-shouldered shrug, "I still don't go up on the roof except from the south door." The one that was on an empty-of-other-buildings side and had AC and electrical units blocking visibility from below or from the buildings on the other sides.

Clint didn't have the same kind of enemies Bucky did, and probably not the same number of people who wanted him dead in general, but it was definitely a facet of paranoia that he understood.

The information about the south door was quietly filed away in his head. He could tell from the way the man talked and recognized his position that he understood. If he would only use the south door, that'd be what Bucky used to if he ever needed to go up there.

He honestly didn't know what else to say. Bucky really wasn't a person that used many words anyway. Another bad habit learned from all his torture and one that Steve worked on incessantly. Always making him decide things and asking him open ended questions that couldn't be answered with a single word. He was a little better but nothing like he used to be.

"Did I make enough for you?" Abrupt change in subject was a go. He didn't move from where he was crouched either. He would work on it though.

He nodded, "Yeah, I'll have a sandwich or some soup or something later." If he remembered, and if he didn't have to go back to the main kitchen to get it.

He sighed then, dragging a hand through his hair, "Look, we both suck at this feelings thing. You want to go over to the range instead?" Because using up a whole box of ammo seemed to be the way that Clint coped with things best as of late.

"I can bring something up if you want," Bucky offered at the mention of food because Clint needed to eat and if that was the best way to make it happen so be it. He ate regardless of what happened because of his training. Three meals at exactly the same time.

His gaze shifted away from the window and back to Clint. He didn't deny what the man said and he gave him a nod, "The range will be good. I'll need to get my rifle."

He'd been about to answer that Bucky didn't have to play room service, that Clint was perfectly capable of feeding himself, but he decided against it, at least for the time being, just nodding at the reply.

"Go ahead, I'll be here." Mostly because he still had to load the handguns, if he even decided to use them and not his own rifle, and at the moment it was a tossup, one that wold probably be decided with 'both' as it often was as of late.

Good, because at this point he was probably bringing it down no matter what and if they kept it up long enough Clint was going to notice it was always at precisely the same time. He slept on exactly the same schedule too. Up at the same time, sleep at the same time, even if it was difficult to actually get to sleep anymore.

"I'll be right back," Bucky told him and he headed back upstairs, trying to ignore the fact that Steve's boots weren't inside the entrance to the apartment. They were hidden, like most of Steve's things, in what used to be the man's closet. Bucky didn't go in there. He moved into the living room to pull out his rifle and case, along with his handguns and a set of throwing knives.

He didn't knock when he returned to Clint's apartment with his gear, only waited inside the door and looked for him, "Ready?"

That sort of schedule was definitely the kind of thing Clint was likely to notice, though it would probably take a few days, he saw better at a distance after all.

He was waiting, handguns holstered against his ribcage and rifle slung over one shoulder, "Yep." It was a short walk to the other end of the hall where the entrance to Clint's range was, he waved Bucky through to the small control room, "You prefer holograms or dummies?" Clint could go either way, holograms for the bad days, when he wanted actual faces to shoot, and dummies for the rest of the time.

Most people didn't realize but there weren't many that actually paid attention to him that closely. He expected that Fury probably did even if Coulson was supposedly in charge now.

He followed Clint, his own weapons in place besides the rifle he still needed to put together and he shrugged his shoulders. "Doesn't matter, surprise me."

Bucky was terrible at decision making too. Something else that Clint would learn quickly or maybe already noticed. Regardless, that was what happened when you weren't allowed to think for yourself over the course of seventy years.

"Holograms." He concluded, "How do you feel about a zombie uprising?" He figured actual people wouldn't be good for either of them at the moment, but a shambling horde could be alright.

"Once the door opens you've got thirty seconds to find a roost before the program starts. Headshots will kill them, anything else probably won't even slow them down. Ready?"

Zombie uprising? Bucky wasn't entirely sure he followed. There were a few, brief mentions of the creatures in things around his time but it wasn't something he paid attention to. Books were more Steve's style and he wasn't old enough to see the films that came out at the time. It was missing and he didn't like it, but he wasn't going to ask. He would see soon enough and look it up later.

"Thirty seconds," he confirmed, not unlike he might a mission. "Headshots only." He gave a nod of the head, "I'm ready."

"Okay, let's go." He pushed the door open, he knew that the verbal countdown wouldn't start until the timer got down to fifteen, and it was more as a courtesy than anything, since he was usually perched by that time. But he also wasn't usually sporting as much of an arsenal as he had at the moment, that would slow him down a little.

The structures in the range had a holographic overlay of half-ruined buildings, some of them burned out, some of them just in time-worn disrepair. Whatever had happened had apparently happened some time ago. Of course, it was only on the surface, once inside they were the same open-frame climbing structures that every practice range in the building had.

Clint made a quick sweep of the room, because while the buildings themselves were always in the same place, the windows and crumbled areas changed, which was something he appreciated, "You take the north side." He said, "I'll take the south. We'll see how many show up in the first wave and go from there."

His rifle was sling over his shoulder and he pulled a handgun, running it like he might anything else. It felt like a mission and the familiarity was good. He felt lost most of the time but right now he was centered.

Bucky was impressed by the inside of the room. He couldn't imagine what an asset a variable training room would be. He assumed the platforms didn't move but the scenery looked like it did and that was enough sometimes.

"Acknowledged," he nodded, keeping his handgun out as he worked in that direction. He was quick and efficient, climbing to his perch as the ten second countdown started.

Climbing was something Clint was good at, and good at doing even when kitted out like he was. Once he reached his perch he scanned to find Bucky's chosen vantage point.

Once the countdown had ticked down to zero, he expected the street below to simply be full of zombies, as that was how it had usually happened before, but for the immediate moment there wasn't anything, no movement, and that puzzled him, so he turned, scanning horizons that he could pretend were actually there and not just projected on the walls.

It was when he spotted the incoming horde that he swore, and colorfully as he shifted his stance, because with that many coming in that fast, he was going to have to start with the rifle and work his way down, "Incoming, west side." He called over to Bucky, too startled by the swarm to realize that the same thing was happening at the other end of the street as well.

As he reached the top, he laid out and leveled his rifle toward the street below. Flat made it harder for someone to hit you and the roof worked in his favor. He eyed down the scope, frowning when the simulation didn't simply provide targets and instead, his gaze tracked to movement to the end of the street, then to the west side.

"Incoming North," he relayed in return, leveling his rifle as he counted them. "Twenty-seven targets." More than he expected and it would have been challenging enough without the others incoming as well.

"About the same over here. Work from the outside in, channel them, bottleneck to where we can pick them off."

Not that they wouldn't climb over each other, it would just take them time to do so, which made their job easier in the long run, after immediately making it more difficult. He also suspected Jarvis, or whatever program ran the simulations, probably had more in store for them than just the initial wave.

"Acknowledged,," he responded distractedly in russian, not thinking about what he was using or he was speaking to and instead focusing on lining up his first shot. He expected them to go crazy once one went down but he really didn't know for sure. He added, "Mark."

Then fired. Three perfect shots in a row and attempted to follow Clint's orders to drive them inward.

It took Clint a moment to realize that the reply hadn't been in English, and he both thanked and cursed Natasha a little for teaching him the little Russian he knew, because he could only imagine that wasn't a good sign.

Not a bad enough one to call the simulation to an early halt, but definitely something he'd be keeping an eye on.

The herd did shift at the gunshots, turning toward the sound and starting to move towards it as best they could. Clint was doing exactly as he'd instructed Bucky to do, taking down the ones at the edges of the crowd, funneling them where he wanted them to go.

Everyone of his shots hit exactly where he planned for them to strike. It was satisfying and it was even better that they weren't real people. He wouldn't have to feel guilty about it in the middle of the night. They moved quicker the more of them went down and were starting to pinpoint their location. This was going to be interesting. How far did they let them get?

"Six down," he relayed, adding two more to his total.

"Good." He called back, adding: "Don't let them get to the base of your roost, they can't climb, but they pile up, makes it harder to hit them." Partly due to the angle, and partly due to the fact that the still moving ones would simply continue crawling up over the ones that were down.

"Probably be a second wave once we get through these guys." He added, shifting his aim just a little so that he could close off the walkway behind his current herd by taking down a couple at the back of the group.

“Confirmed,” he responded, shifting his focus from his scope outward to other entrances to the area. Thus far, none of them managed to get close enough to Bucky to create any sort of problem. His were a little more scattered than Clint’s—he didn’t know he should be blocking the road off with them—but they were cleanly going down. The acknowledgement was also for the second wave that might be approaching. He suspected there was going to be a twist at some point. There were a lot of them here but honestly, as steady as his hand was, it wasn’t difficult either.

Clint himself was scanning the horizons, even though he knew it really was just the walls, the projection was good, excellent even, enough so that the scope actually picked up distance instead of the wall itself, and he hadn't yet got around to asking Tony how that worked.

"Aww shit." He said after a moment, "We've got survivors. North, north-east, headed towards the hotel building. You see 'em?" Sometimes the simulation threw survivors to be protected, and he should have figured it would do so now, when it was the last thing either of them needed.

His attention shifted from a falling body in his scope to the survivor that suddenly appeared. He counted them quickly and confirmed, "Yes, I see them." It really wasn't something he wanted to deal with but if that was what the simulation was today, so be it.

What was the best course of action? Stay and defend from a distance or go down and get dirty doing it? He took down two zombies coming up the stairs to the survivors right and said, "How should we handle this?"

Clint was more familiar with how this worked and what they needed to do. Hopefully the program wouldn't deviate too much from what he knew.

"If we can verify that the building's clear, just keep the biters off until they can get to it, if it's not, we're going to have to get down there and redirect them."

Knowing that Bucky had a clearer shot at the building itself he said: "Check the windows for movement, I'll keep the herd off of them for now." He knew that nothing was guaranteed and that there might still be zombies in the building even if the movement wasn't visible from the windows, but they at least had to check for anything obvious.

"Confirmed," he said again, taking out a final zombie before his scope shifted to the windows. He started at the bottom, methodically moving up to confirm that there was no motion and frowned at a second story window.

"Movement, second story," he relayed to Clint. "Not civilian."

Clint cursed again before breaking down his gun, "Cover me, I'm going to get down there and move them somewhere else." He did a quick sweep of nearby buildings, brow creased and just a little tense, he knew it was all a simulation, but he still felt like he'd failed if he didn't take care of the survivors in time, "How's the shop at the end of the block look to you?"

He gestured to indicate which one he meant. The windows on the ground floor had been boarded up at some point, which he was taking as a good sign, and he didn't see any movement in the upper levels. There was always a chance that the ground floor was still swarming, but it didn't appear to be.

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