ten_fwd | if you build it, they will come. hopefully.

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if you build it, they will come. hopefully.

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.

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"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."

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."

"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."

"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?"

"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!"

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.

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.

"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."

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!"

"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."

"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.

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."

"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.

Edited 2014-07-09 07:37 (UTC)

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.

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."

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.

"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.

"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.

"I didn't have a choice," she says softly, dropping to the floor the minute Bucky's grip loosens on her shoulder.

Sinthia doesn't wait to talk more, doesn't even bring a hand to her shoulder--which hurts, all her weight has been hanging from it--as she collects herself. She only looks up at the two men, eyes wide and expression seeming two seconds from crying, and disappears without a trace. There's no flash, no noise, nothing; one moment she's there, hair mussed and in her face, and the next she's gone.

As soon as he feels the shift in weight and knows Bucky has let go, he pulls him back and away from Sinthia. His grip is strong, but not rough. He eases him to the floor and settles on his knees, getting ready to tell Sinthia to run. But the second he catches that look in her eyes, he loses all words.

And then she's gone.

He blinks at the empty space, chest heaving. He spares a second to wonder where she is, hoping to god she'll be okay, and then he turns his head and presses his cheek into Bucky's hair.

"It's okay," he says, voice muted. His arm slackens and slips around Bucky's shoulders, and he lets go of Bucky's wrist. "Relax. It's okay, I've got you. I've got you."

"I almost killed her." Now she's out of sight, Bucky's temper cools and he's left feeling cold and empty. He barely feels any pain left by Steve's grip; he deserves any feeling of pain. It won't make up for the pain he's caused countless people. Slowly he turns to look at Steve.

"She wouldn't be the first kid I've killed." He looks like he might throw up. "I'm remembering more and more. I've forgotten how many people that I've killed I've killed for Hydra....I...she is the first chance I've had to strike back at Hydra."

"But you didn't," he replies, without hesitation. He doesn't stop to think about what might have happened if he hadn't stepped in. Bucky was a precision fighter during the war, great with a rifle, but thinking of him as a killer is something Steve won't allow himself to do.

He meets his eyes, pained by the tortured look on Bucky's face. They haven't gotten far yet, there's still a lot Steve doesn't know, but he knows whatever Bucky's been through has left him deeply scarred. "You remember the war, Buck? Kid's shoes burning in the streets, the only thing left from ... "

He swallows.

"HYDRA did that," he says. "I don't blame you for wanting to strike back. That was the mission. But we're not fighting a war, not here. You and me, we'll figure this thing out together. I've got your back. You are not HYDRA, and you're not a killer. No matter what they did, you're still James Buchanan Barnes."

Steve uses his name every chance he gets. Slowly it is becoming less alien and he feels less disconnected to the name. His eyes flicker uncertainly and for a moment he is standing in a city in the far east, bodies strewn around him. He can almost taste the ash from a burning building.

"For years," He says hoarsely as he tries to clear the vision. "There has always been a mission. How do you sit still on this ship and do nothing?"

Steve sets his jaw, lips pursed.

"By finding ways to do something good," he says. Like rescue a scared kid, or give somebody directions. Like give comfort where it's needed, and tell your best friend it's all going to be OK. "It's not exactly the same, but it takes the edge off."

Being stuck on this ship is driving Steve crazy, little by little. He played the boy in the bubble once, and he has no desire to do it again. But he has no choice in the matter, which means he just has to be a good man when a good man is needed. That's the heart of a decent soldier.

"Like what?" Bucky looks up, and for a second he looks like himself, looking to Steve for leadership. "People are fed. They've somewhere safe to sleep." There is no war. Bucky's shoulders set miserably.

"I don't know what to do.." He doesn't want to talk to more people than he's got to. He is still struggling to form full sentences. His conversation with Sinthia is proof he doesn't know to talk to people normally. He wants to be like a ghost.

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stark_spangled - 2014-08-03 06:38 (UTC) - Expand

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