if you build it, they will come. hopefully.

[abyssum_invocat]

So. Replicators.

They take some getting used to for a child who's never come across technology even remotely similar before, but after a few wrong turns and a bit of confusion over how what it spat out at her was supposed to be decent clothing Sinthia got the hang of it. Enough, anyway, to order food and drink, and a modest bunch of parts to make something.

A something which, if the instructions are anything to go by--thankfully they're pictograms as well as words, in case the passersby like the mun don't read German--will be a quite pretty little mechanical tellurion.

She's totally interruptable while building this, yes. Periodically she needs breaks.

Comments

[bestpal]

Bucky's relaxed attitude vanishes. His muscles tighten and he's caught. Trapped. Does he attack her or will there be repercussions. His eyes flick around, looking for security.

"Schmidt. Do you have a mission for me?" Why else would she be here? They've found him. He clenches his hands, warring with programming and the certain feeling he does not want to work for them again.

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia blinks, startled, when his muscles tighten and he...becomes an entirely different sort of person.

"No," she says blankly, brows creasing as she shifts back just enough so that she has the room if she has to throw up a telekinetic wall. "I don't know what you're talking about."

[bestpal]

"Hail Hyrda," Bucky says with only a small flash of anger. He doesn't want her to know he won't follow orders not any more. He can hide, he can pretend.

He wishes that there isn't a part of him that yearns for orders. For the world to be simple again.

[abyssum_invocat]

A definite chill washes over her at that, and her face pales as she tenses up, eyeing Bucky while she considers running. She doesn't know where Steve is, or Steph, but she's very, very willing to go find them.

"Don't say that," she hisses tightly, unwilling to run away but equally unwilling to stay. "Don't ever say that to me again."

[bestpal]

"Why?" Bucky's voice becomes demanding. "You are Hydra, aren't you?" There is a definite edge to his voice. Worry, stress. He knows her surname. He wouldn't forget it not ever. His metal hand digs into the arm of the chair.

He practically vibrates from the effort to stay still. "Are you afraid I will hurt you?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"Yes," she murmurs, barely audible. "I'm HYDRA. I don't get a choice but to be."

She doesn't answer whether she's afraid, because she doesn't know yet. She's apprehensive, and unsure, and not happy or content, but it's a far cry from that to afraid.

[bestpal]

"Why not?" Bucky's muscles became knots. Is she playing with him, testing him? "If you are Hydra you have orders for me, if you aren't you are the enemy." His voice sounds hollow, he wants her to contradict him.

"I am there weapon. You must know me."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I don't!" she refutes. "I don't have anything for you." Her face closes, frustrated and confused as she shakes her head.

"I'm one of their weapons too. But I don't know you," Sinthia says. "Don't call me like one of them. I'm not."

[bestpal]

Bucky shakes his head and all but lies in frustration. "No, don't lie to me! I am their weapon, their best weapon. You are testing me. I'm loyal." I'm loyal he repeats to himself. Where is Steve?'

"Who have you killed for them? No one."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I'm not lying!" she shouts. "I don't know where he is," Sinthia says, trying to make him believe her. His question makes her go quiet, and still, and she only barely shakes her head.




"Four people," she whispers. "They were soldiers."

[bestpal]

"Four." The number is so minimal it makes Bucky angry. He stands up and stares down at her. "Soldiers have killed more than that. You will not make feel sorry for you."

He clenches his fists. "Do you know how many people your organisation has made me kill?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"It's not mine," she repeats, as forcefully as she can though when Bucky stands she scrambles off her chair to put it between him and herself. Her eyes dart around the room looking for anyone she recognizes that might be able to mediate--or failing that, act as a slightly sturdier barrier between them.

"I haven't made you do anything. I don't know you!"

[bestpal]

Bucky comes forward unbothered by the chair. He doesn't reach for a weapon, not yet, he doesn't want anyone to interfere. "Hydra experimented on soldiers. Did you know that?"

He watches her face closely. "I will know if you lie." If she looks away, or twitches nervously and says no, he will be on her. He's had his fill of lies. No matter how ugly the truth is, he wants it. He does not anyone to twist his mind again.

[abyssum_invocat]

She just doesn't answer for a long time, face blank and frightened and unsure. She knows it would be a lie to say she doesn't know anything, but Sinthia doesn't want to admit that she's been part of that.

She can't make herself answer truthfully.

"...No, I didn't know," she murmurs cautiously, willing him to believe her.

[bestpal]

"Liar," Buck said his voice is flat and deadly. He kicks the chair out of the way and his metal hand flashes out. There is a red mist over his vision as half pushes, half throws her up against the wall. "You killed soldiers like me."

He flashes back to the experiments, the pain and his fingers tighten around her shoulder. "You shouldn't be alive."

[abyssum_invocat]

For all her civilization, her trying to hide it and not frighten anyone, Sinthia's reflexes are still snake-quick. She balls up with a shriek, bringing her knees up to protect her stomach while in motion, and shoving out with her hands as hard as she can once she's pinned.

It's only helped by telekinesis, by what feels like a solid wall of air pushing between them. "Let me go! I didn't hurt you, I didn't want to hurt anyone!"

[bestpal]

"Liar." Bucky pushes against the invisible shield. He pushes against it in frustration as though he could break it. "People don't die peacefully." His eyes are nearly black. "Hydra changed me, they made me a killer. It is only fitting that I kill you."

[abyssum_invocat]

"Let me go, let me go!" she shouts, pushing at him harder and trying to push him away. Her shout becomes a scream, echoing in the mind much longer than in the ears. For a moment she switches to projecting, not meaning to intrude but also not thinking about harnessing the ability.

It's like a miniature newsreel playing, her memories scrambled but horrible with bloody childlike hands wet with the stringy innards from another person.

[bestpal]

Bucky's studied files on super powered humans and he recognised the telekinetic. The only way to fight it is to get them to drop the shield. He eases up his pressure on it and looks deceptively uncertain. He wants her to believe he can't fight her.

"Stop that," Bucky shuts his eyes against the onslaught of memories which aren't his own. He won't accept them. His voice is sharp. "Your tortured them."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I didn't!" she screams, kicking in his grip and guarding her head with the arm he isn't holding her up by, as protectively as she can manage.

"I didn't torture anybody! I didn't want to! I tried to do it as fast as I could," Sinthia murmurs, voice shaking as much as the rest of her is in the bubble of her telekinetic shield--while it lasted it was safe, but with her current state of less than stellar concentration there was no way to tell how long that would be.

[stark_spangled]

She won't ever have to find out.

Steve comes up behind Bucky, silent and swift, wrapping his arm around Bucky's neck. No sooner is he in the choke-hold than Steve is forcing his arm behind his back, pinning it between them.

"Bucky, let her go," he grits.

Everything has been unsteady since Bucky Barnes showed up. Steve doesn't know if this is a trick, or a trap, or a really vivid hallucination; what he does know is his friend needs his help, and he's not going to abandon him. But the second he heard screaming his instincts kicked in, and as soon as he made it to the scene there wasn't a doubt in his mind what he had to do.

"Let her go!" he repeats.

[bestpal]

As soon as the arm locks into place, Bucky immediately tries to fight out of the hold until he hears Steve's voice. He freezes, he isn't going to fight Steve not again. Unless, a voice whispers inside of his head, he keeps protecting her. To make sure Steve stays on his side, he drops his hand a little.

"She's Hydra," he hisses, his eyes blazing, still locked on his target. "She's tortured soldiers."

[abyssum_invocat]

Every time he says that word, she shakes, and her diaphragm flutters against her ribs like the frantic wings of a trapped moth. But she can't find any way out; if she teleports she'd take him with her, and she doesn't want the man dead from ending up in a wall or bulkhead. She can only push him so far with telekinesis, and she can't concentrate enough to let herself loose by making herself intangible. For such a powerful girl, fright and panic are still the icy hands that immobilize her.

"Why don't you understand," she whispers, voice gone terribly quiet while she stares at Bucky, as if she can't bear to admit what she's done aloud, or if she does she might be sick. The pallor of her face certainly suggests it. "I didn't get a choice." It would have been them, or her, and there was no third option.

[stark_spangled]

"I know," he grunts, keeping his hold on Bucky tight. Bucky's stronger than he used to be, and Steve can't risk slackening his hold only to have him go after Sinthia. "But she's just a kid, goddamnit. We're better than that."

His eyes stay on Sinthia the whole time, even as his focus is completely on the trained soldier struggling in his arms. She's terrified, but somehow her words echo in his head louder than the pulse of blood or his racing heart.

You're going to be okay, he thinks. Bucky's hand has dropped a little. Steve can talk him out of this, he knows he can.

[bestpal]

"Makes no difference," Bucky grits his teeth. "She had a choice." It wasn't taken away from her. Had he been in control of his own thoughts he would never....And he would never treat a kid like this. His head bows, he isn't better than that. He's killed kids before with a lot less provocation than the girl is offering her now.

Hydra operatives shouldn't be scared, it is enough to make him pause and really look at her. He finally responds to the command in Steve's voice and lets himself go limp. Things are so much easier when he doesn't think. There will be no apology from him. Not yet, he can't bring himself to do it.