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[ Oh.

Well, alright then. ]

Forty minutes.

[ The text was an acknowledgement of the location and time, then Will signed off.

As he was currently liaised with the Perimeter Guard, it wasn't difficult for the profiler to secure his weapon of choice and additional ammo. He positioned the gun on his hip, ammo and a bottle of water tucked into a bag, and then he headed outside the fence.

Getting out of the fence had taken a little cajoling, as the guard didn't seem happy with the idea of a single resident heading out on his own. Will had to do some fancy talking and eventually pull out his work on 'monster advising' before he was let through and left to his own devices.

As he moved through the forest, part of him acknowledged that being out here, without any sort of back up or support was a little ... daunting. The rest of his psyche gave a fatalistic shrug and he just kept working his way through the woods. Oddly enough, had anyone tracked his actions it would be fairly obvious that he recreated the path James had shown him on that first trip out.

Regardless, at approximately thirty-five minutes after the last text, Will began the dangerous climb up what was left of the abandoned building, heading for the rooftop. ]

[Bucky is already out there.

He stands atop the building and watches, waiting for the first glimpse of Will to make sure that it really is the profiler coming alone and not some sort of trick. But, obviously, it is him and Bucky sees him coming from a good distance thanks to his vantage point, not that he shouts out or gives any indication of his presence until Will gets to the roof itself.

Bucky doesn't look good. His hair is lank and greasy, his clothes are filthy, and there's a shuttered blankness to his eyes that wasn't there before.]

[ Hauling himself up and over the last obstacle to the rooftop, Will wasn't surprised to find James already in place. What he knew of the man, he didn't expect that he'd ever volunteer to allow someone the higher ground and as he got a look at the man's appearance, it was hard not to speculate that James had been up here for some time.

The baby profilers he taught back at Quantico could have looked at James and read the signs. Will couldn't avoid them if he tried, though he forced his eyes downwards and reminded himself that he'd promised to try and avoid speaking to what he profiled off the man.

It was difficult -especially given what they were doing here- to bite back asking what had happened, but Will managed to mind his manners.

Brushing off his hands, he walked towards the disheveled figure, careful to approach James head on and keeping his hands where the man could see them. ]

I only brought my handgun. I'm more effective with a shot gun, but those are fairly hard to miss with.

[ Seriously. If you were law enforcement and couldn't hit someone with a shotgun you needed to ride a desk. However that wasn't the point.

The point was to assure James that the only weapon he had to track was the Sig Sauer 226 sitting on his hip. ]

[Bucky is also more effective with something like a shotgun or a rifle, he was originally a sniper and those kills have never faded, but the difference in skill is almost negligible after the intensive training as the Soldier. He can see the Sig Sauer, a decent handgun, but nothing special. Good enough to learn on.]

Okay, show me what you can do.

[He lopes about halfway across the roof and takes a soda can out of his pocket, setting it on the ground.]

Hit it.

[He'll be watching Will carefully to gauge what's wrong with his technique to make him such a purportedly bad shot.]

[ While he is a bad shot, he is well versed in weapon safety. The Sig doesn't leave it's holster until James has set the target and returned back behind the line of fire.

Drawing the gun, it's muzzle is kept pointed down while Will indulges in giving James a baleful look. ]

Couldn't have eased me into this? Like with half a wall?

[ The tone was rueful, but in the next minute, Will adopted a firing stance and lifted the weapon.

As he'd explained when they spoke, he took a two handed Weaver stance with his weight on his back foot. It wasn't the stance itself he had trouble adopting, but rather some of the finer nuances that would help him control re-coil.

His ability to sight his target was sound, and quick enough to keep him alive out in the field and he squeezed off a shot with technical soundness. But the kick of the weapon and his struggle to control it saw the bullet fly a half inch off the center mass of the can.

Were he shooting at a target board, rather than bullseye, he would have struck the figure's shoulder or rib area. With the small can he just ... missed. ]

[Not too bad, but painfully slow to Bucky's eyes and far too technical. It's like he's going through the motions of a paint by numbers, each step leading into the next without any feel for how the whole is put together. All in all, it's not that terrible, not nearly as bad as he got led to believe.]

Forget the stance. Forget having to use two hands.

[He takes a half step towards Will as if to set him in the right position and then stops, movement aborted before it can even really begin.]

Try again.

[ Though he was out in the field, Will had never been an 'agent' in the formal sense of the word. It was actually Jack Crawford's influence that had seen Will's license to carry concealed renewed. Left to his own devices, it was probable that his licenses would have been revoked years ago.

Will caught James' movement out of the corner of his eye and he waited for the man to stop up behind him, the way Beverly would, and adjust his stance. But the movement was aborted and James simply requested that Will try again.

Taking a deep breath, Will let it out and squeezed off two more shots. The first of the two struck the ground close enough to make the can tip over, the second shot -probably taken as much on instinct and kenetic muscle memory as technique- actually struck the can and sent it skittering towards the edge of the roof.

Will continued to hold his stance for a moment, then he set the safety and lowered the gun's muzzle towards the roof top. ]

Do I get points for touching it? [ He looked over as he spoke and offered that small smile of his. At least his ego wasn't so wound up in his ability to shoot a gun that he couldn't laugh at himself. ]

Only when you can do it ten times in a row without missing. Do it once and it's fluke, do it twice and it's a start, three times and you've got it.

[Bucky walks over to pick the can back up again, it has a small chunk missing from the base now which makes it more unstable, but it's still usable as a target. The sound of gunshots is so familiar to him that it's nearly comforting, and that's not a pleasant thing to realise.]

Don't lock out your arm, elbow and wrist loose, or there's nowhere for the recoil to go but back through you and knock you off balance. Don't anticipate the shot, it makes you tense. You have to be able to draw, aim, and shoot in less time than it takes for someone else to draw.

Technically speaking, all ten of my shots did hit Hobbs. [ Will said in a low tone as he went through the motions of dropping the clip glancing at it and then reinserting it. He could count, so the motion was probably just a habitual one rather than any actual need to review how many chips he had in the clip.

As soon as James was clear of the target box, Will lifted his arms again. The advise to not lock his arm produced another flashback to Beverly and Will felt her hands on his arm and shoulders, giving his elbow the give that James' now advised. ]

Not anticipating the shot is half the problem. [ He agreed, focusing on his breathing, fingers relaxing and re-gripping the weapon. ] Part of why I left homicide was my reluctance to discharge my weapon.

[ Don't ask why he left the police force and went to join the FBI with this reluctance to use his weapon. That was a long story, pertinent to no one but Will, Jack Crawford and probably Hannibal.

Another round of breaths, then half way through an exhale Will quickly jerked up the gun and fired.

By forcing himself to act without giving himself time to think, this shot actually went through and through the can. Not as perfectly centered as a shot James or even Steve Rogers might produce but he hit it. ]

[That's much better, though Will won't be able to stand and breathe for a short while in order to calm and centre himself in an actual gun battle. Still, it's a step in the right direction and proves that he can aim, and there's a foundation to build on.

He tries not to look too deeply into why this is helping him relax for the first time in days. He wants to believe that it's because he's helping someone, but it's probably because guns are so familiar to him that they're comforting in a way. Even before the Soldier he had been a sniper, this is just where he's most suited to being.]

Good.

[He doesn't go to collect the can, it's pretty useless now that it's got a hole in it. Instead, he picks up a tennis ball sized piece of rubble from the roof and hefts it into one gloved hand.]

Next, moving targets. Any opponent isn't likely to just stand there and let you shoot them, you've gotta be able to anticipate movement and compensate for it. I'll throw this up, you shoot it out of the air.

[Perhaps slightly more dangerous, as Bucky will be semi in the line of fire, but he's confident that he can deflect the bullet if it goes that far off course.]

[ This is going to end in tears. Probably Will's own.

If he's aware of the fact that James seems to be, calming, for lack of a better word Will doesn't mention it. It's possible that he's so focused on the training that he's not paying attention, or that he's subconsciously inventoried the change but maintaining his focus.

Not that the focus appears to do him any good.

While he's effective enough at tracking the movement of the debris, the shot he eventually squeezes off goes wide of the mark. Not enough to be a risk to James, but enough that the debris drops with a clatter and not even a scratch.

Exhaling a long breath, the profiler lowers his weapon to point at the rooftop and give his head a shake. ]

You should charge me for every missed shot. You'd make a small fortune in a short amount of time.

Wouldn't do me much good, I don't really have anything to spend money on.

[The shopping he does is very minimal, he prefers to sneak into stores after hours and take what he wants. Or, now that he has a surprising amount of people who seem to have subscribed to the Feed Bucky Campaign, he just fetches something from one of the boxes left out for him.

He heads over to pick up the debris.]

You have to compensate for the weight and the wind, fire at where it's gonna be and not where it is. Here-- I'll show you.

[He holds the piece of debris out to Will. If he doesn't want to take it and throw it, Bucky won't make him. He can teach without a demonstration, but this is actually something he's competent in.]

I understand the theory. [ Will explained, his voice calm though tinged with a little personal frustration. ] I'm just not good at the hand/eye coordination to be effective with the shots.

[ Hell he couldn't hit a man fleeing in an enclosed space. Granted, he'd been suffering from audible shock but he should have been able to hit Tobias.

None of this stopped him from flipping the Sig around to offer it -grip first- towards James, his other hand held out for the debris. Once that transfer was completed, Will moved to position himself for playing trap release. ]

Let me know when you want it thrown.

[He doesn't need the Sig, he has his own guns concealed on his person, but he might as well use Will's gun to prove that it's suitable for this sort of shot. He doesn't shift his stance at all, still just fairly at ease, nor does he ready the gun at all.]

Whenever you want, I'm prepared.

[This is what he's been trained for, ruthlessly, for seventy years. He doesn't need forewarning to shoot a bit of rock out of the air.]

[ James' relaxed stance reminds Will of Beverly. Jack was also a phenomenal shot but Jack tended to be like a bull, and he used a shotgun as often as he used a handgun. Beverly had the lean graceful lines and lithe competency that Will could see in James.

He gave no further commentary or indication of when he was going to toss the debris. Instead, after a couple of breaths, he turned and flung the chunk of broken building up and into the air. ]

[He might be showing off-- no, he's definitely showing off when he actually makes a move, but it just feels good to prove that he's still capable of doing something, even if he's screwed up in a lot of other ways.

The gun comes up and three shots fire in quick succession. The first hits the debris, the second hits the broken piece of debris that splits off from the first shot, and the third decimates it into nothing more than dust. He didn't take a stance or even seem to aim, just raised the gun and fired it like it's an extension of his arm rather than a separate weapon.]

[ Will watched the display with a calm expression, that was also genuinely impressed.

He could certainly appreciate the skill he was just privy to watch and as a remaining pebble, from the original debris, bounced across the rooftop to bump against his foot, he watched it. Then he looked back up and over to James. ]

Can I just take you along and you shoot the monsters for me?

[ The question wasn't entirely a joke! ]

No.

[He spins the gun to offer the handle to Will to take again, looking ever so slightly more relaxed now. He hates that about himself, that gunfire is an almost comforting noise.]

You have to learn to defend yourself, because other people won't always be there to shoot the monsters.

[ Reaching up to automatically take the weapon back, Will looked down at it in his hand. ]

In all the times I've had to defend myself, I've almost never used my gun. The one time I did discharge it to save my life, I used it to deafen the man trying to garrote me.

[ If ever there had been a time and a place to take a head shot. ]

That's why you need to learn, you understand that it's a last resort, I wouldn't be teaching you otherwise.

[He's already refused a student that's too trigger happy.]

You're not as bad an aim as you think, is it aiming at a living person that makes it harder?

[ The question caused Will pause as he had to stop and think back. Unwind the layers where Hannibal had manipulated his natural reluctance to fire his weapon into something else entirely.

And then dig a couple more layers down beneath that.

It took a couple of minutes, but then he gave Bucky a sad smile and nodded, glancing down at the weapon. ]

It was part of why I left the police force, my reluctance to shoot another person would put not only my life but my partner's life in danger.

[ And back then, Will had firmly categorized his reluctance as the desire not to take another life. Now, he was forced to recognize that he'd feared he'd end up enjoying it too much and wouldn't have been able to stop himself. ]

[Bucky never really felt that reluctance. He had been a soldier in the war, he had shot the enemy to survive, and then he had shot the enemy to make sure Steve survived, and then he had become a gun for someone else to shoot. But now-- now he wanted to never have someone else's life extinguished because of something he's done.]

That's why you have to learn to be accurate, being a good marksman is what will help you save lives. If you came for me, I could shoot you in the knee and incapacitate you non-lethally. If you tried to do that to me, you might hit me in the stomach or throat.

James. [ Will began, looking at the Sig in his hand. ] I'd probably miss entirely.

[ Wait, not quite what he wanted to say. Looking up from the gun, he exhaled a long breath. ]

There are a lot of things I'm good at, and honestly in my job ... if I do my job right, guns shouldn't ever been necessary. I do the work to ensure that the people breaking down the doors have a thorough understanding of the monster they're facing. I don't ... break down the doors.

Guns are always necessary, it always ends in a fight.

[He sounds more weary and sad than he does argumentative.]

Take a look at your scars, at mine, and tell me that's not the case.

[ Will really isn't trying to bring this to the point of being an argument. He has no desire to argue with James and is a little curious about the man's almost ... resignation to the fact that guns are a necessity.

At the challenge to look at his scars, Will actually did glance down at himself. He poked at his stomach, then looked at his hand, reached over the back of his right shoulder and then prodded at the front, eventually touching his cheek. Eventually he looked back at James. ]

Out of nine permanent scars, only one is the result of a gunshot. The other eight are from knives, a scalpel and a circular saw.

[ He paused, giving it some thought and then added. ] For the record, the gunshot was the only instance where the perpetrator wasn't trying to kill me.

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