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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"Yes," she murmurs. "I was born in Berlin, but I live in Austria," she repeats dutifully. "It's 1944 for me."

Somewhere in her world right about the same time she disappeared, there was a train on its way to delivering a doctor, and a soldier lost his life. Whether or not he died is another matter, but the life he would have had if not for her father's continued existence is most certainly a casualty of war. But Sinthia doesn't know about that yet.

Bucky knows better than to burst a dame's bubble. For all he knows, she wants Germany to win the war. "I was in Germany in 1944." He takes a seat beside her without invitation. There is a frown of concentration on his face He's got a lot to remember about that time period.

"I guess it was a beautiful country."

"Were you in the same war with Steve?" she asks, as if this is something she's used to discussing--there's the slightest tremor on the man's name, but she doesn't falter.

"I thought it was. But I only saw a little of it."

Bucky nods his head once. His eyes narrow and he examines her closely. Why did she react to Steve's name? Had they fought. Nothing about her is familiar to him, not that this is unusual.

"Should I remember you?"

"I don't think so," she says, shaking her head slowly as she studies his face. It's almost like she should recognize him--almost. There's something so vaguely familiar about his expression, but nothing she could place. It was probably nothing, she thought, and shook the feeling away.

"But he's the only other person that knows the same set of events I do." She pauses. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"We can talk." Bucky is curious about her version of events. He's got Steve's and his own returning memories, and the version of events Hydra and Russia gave him. They do not match up and he wonders which hers will correlate with.

"What did Steve tell you?"

"That we lost the war to the Americans, and my father is dead." He only really told her the first part; the second, she went looking for.

"I don't know what the Allies are doing. Or were doing," she says. "I've never met any of the soldiers that would tell me more than their numbers and names." It's...complicated and difficult, for her, to describe the situation where she is.

"I am sorry about your father," Bucky said automatically because that was what a normal person would say.

He frowns. "Were you at a camp?" Generally soldiers who were captured gave little more than their rank. Otherwise they were free to talk, weren't they?

"It's alright," she replies, in much the same automatic way. Hers is less because it's what normal people do and more because she simply doesn't know there's another response for that statement.

"I was, sort of. I live at the bases and factories," she says. "We've moved around quite often, but none of them are very different from place to place." But the soldiers are, and it's how she's learned the languages she can but never does speak. She practices on captured soldiers, but Sinthia knows better than to say that out loud. And she doesn't really like thinking about it anyway.

"They are all the same," Bucky agrees. Every Hydra base he's been sent to has a similar layout, only the technology has changed over the years. He could find his way around them blindfolded if he had to. "It's efficient." He frowns. If she and Steve know a similar timeline then surely she must be aware of Hydra. He's read the file, Steve led multiple attacks against the Hydra bases.

"German or Hydra bases?" he queries shortly.

She takes a breath, a long, steady inhalation of air until it stretches her lungs and they burn to release it, and lets it out in a short, tiny sigh that seems to make her shoulders drop.

"Both," she says quietly. "My name is Sinthia Schmidt. My father's name is Johann."

Because that really says it all, doesn't it? She's not only aware of the organization Bucky was tortured by, but she's the founder's daughter, part of it herself. An experiment herself, but still.

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.

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."

"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.

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."

"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?"

"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.

"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."

"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.

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