#thewinterslight

"Shake it, darlin’," Dugan hollers up at stage, leaning back in his chair, eyes dancing as he watches Bex do her thing on the stage.

Damn, he thinks to himself, not even bothering to pretend like he wasn’t having one hell of a good time.  Little lady’s got her some moves.

For me, one of the most challenging aspects of playing good old Dum Dum is trying to wade my way through his comics canon.  I dove headlong into it while diving headlong into playing him, and it’s been — a bit interesting trying to nail down some of his backstory bits.  This is the first time I’ve played a character who had comics canon where there wasn’t also strong MCU canon to pull from; in those cases, I tended to play more strictly MCU with comics canon around the edges, as that’s what I knew.

So with this guy, it’s trying to explore just who the hell he is as I want to play him, while doing my level best to integrate the new canon that I’m learning as I get further into the comics, as seemlessly as I can.  It’s a mix of canon as I’m learning it (which, god bless it, isn’t exactly as easy to do as one would hope at first glance: G is discovering many things about the way that comics canon can get a bit wibbly wobble timey-wimey up in its business), my personal headcanon to fill in gaps or to smooth out contradicting information as I’ve been able to find it, and then slotting him into whatever verse he’s running amok in with other muses and adjusting things once again (often as a team) as needed with those muns to account for the weird edges where comics and MCU overlap kinda funny for all our characters.

A lot of people do this all the time, as they play characters with a similar kind of provenance; for me, it’s definitely been a fun and interesting new experience.  Normally I’m able to ask the canon, or query the internet, for something like “when and how did my muse’s wife die” and get a pretty standardized response.  This time, it’s “maybe like this, probably by HYDRA, we think you were frozen in a lake for like ten years at the time, so she died while you were possibly missing most of the 60s, you were maybe dead at the time or maybe you were like a Dugan-cicle, but you were also in Vietnam at the same time with or without your family that was already dead … maybe”.  And since my poor budget can only handle so much of an influx of comics at one time, It’s been interesting trying to determine just what’s up until I even suss out which volumes of what to look in for some primary research times.

[EXCEPT GODZILLA.  HE’S MY PUNCHING-BUDDY.  YOU CAN’T TAKE OLE ZILLY AWAY FROM ME.  THAT’S SOME CANON I DO KNOW FOR DAMN SURE.]

((In a much more ridiculous note, the second biggest challenge was The Agony of the Face Claim.  I love Neal McDonough in the MCU, but there’s a serious dearth of images, gifs, etc. of him all done up awesomely as Dugan.  In the past, I’ve never really had to change out the FC for a muse I’ve played.  They’ve either been the actor who played them and all was well, or they were whoever I damn well pleased as they were from a book, or were an OC.

The night is dark, the air cool on his bare skin.  Summer is starting another slow side into fall; the days are hot, the air often heavy and still, enough to make you crazy with the longing for a nice gentle breeze, but the nights have a just enough of a bite to give a man hope that autumn’s finally on its way.  There’s a stirring in his tent that has his eyes popping open as he reaches for the knife under his pillow — but it takes only a moment to identify the soft tread of her footsteps, to smell the faint scent of the soap she uses to wash her hair whenever they’ve got the chance to get their hands on it and no reasons to mask its soft perfume.

The footsteps still as Bex realizes he’s awake, and for a long moment there’s a silence in the tent between them.  A silence that’s tense, but not uncomfortably so; somewhat questioning perhaps, but more than anything else it’s anticipatory.  As though a silent question had already been asked, an offer made an accepted even before Nick pushes himself up from where he’s been sprawled naked across his cot, swinging his legs over the side as he sits and looks at her shadowed silhouette in the darkness.

"You know this is a bad idea," Nick says softly, not bothering to pull the thin sheet over his lap.

"I know."  She’s moving toward him, and he reaches for her as she comes closer, pulling her down onto his lap. Her arms wrap around his neck, her cold fingers on his skin sending a pleasant little shiver running through him.  His hands rest on the small of her back and he pulls her in closer against his bare skin; she shifts, wraps her legs nice and tight around his waist.  "Don't give a fuck, though."

There’s a soft purr in her voice that has Nick grinning as he tells the part of his mind that’s in charge of weighing the pros and cons of his decisions, the effects and consequences of his actions, that it’s time to hit the racks for the night.

He laughs, pulling her shirt up slowly, inch by inch; when she makes no move to pull away he tugs it up over her head, tossing it over toward the pile of his own clothes on his duffel on the ground.

prompt

        Much like Steve there’s a level of grime and sweat that’s rather prominent but beneath that it’s actually…sour. She smells…sour. It isn’t a bad sour, it isn’t a stench, no, it’s more like a tart that she smells like, kind of sour. There's a little scent of alcohol to her but that isn't really a big detail and it's so faint it barely exists. There's a bit of spice to her as well, she doesn't know where she gets these scents, because it's Bex, but. Well.

She felt guilty, but there was nothing to be done about it now. 

A quick glance at her phone told her it was still early enough that Bex might not be in bed, so she closed the door and took her coat off.