ten_fwd | First Entrance

Entry tags:

First Entrance

He'd been to visit Peggy when he got the call from Director Fury to check in. He was making it a routine, every Tuesday afternoon when he wasn't on a mission. Then it became every Tuesday afternoon and every Saturday morning. It's funny how long it took him to work up the nerve to see her, and now it's all he can do to stay away. She's still his best gal.

He parks his bike in his usual spot in the underground garage next to the Triskelion, shoulders the bag with his gear in it, and starts walking to the elevators. He's wondering what kind of mission Fury's sending him on this time when the sun catches his eyes ... wait, where's that coming from?

He blinks hard, and when he opens his eyes ... this is not the elevator. This isn't the garage, heck, this isn't even D.C. He's in a room, some kind of restaurant or bar. People are milling about, some in uniform and others in civvies, and outside the windows ... jeepers, that's a lot of stars.

His hand tightens on the strap of his bag and he plants his feet shoulder's width apart, jaw set. He isn't sure what kind of trick this is, but if he doesn't get answers soon he's going to start demanding them.

[ooc: Hello! Steve is pre-Winter Soldier, but only just, and he has entered the room in civvies. Slacks, button-up, leather jacket, boots, his usual affair. His cowl is in the bag, along with his shield and a few other things, but by all accounts he looks like an average guy. Well, an average tall, strong guy. Any takers welcome!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Nobody calls me by my whole name either. It's just Sinthia most of the time," she says. "Or Sin. But I really dislike being called that."

She frankly hates it, but that's a rather vehement opinion. "No one yet. I only just got here."

"Sinthia it is," he says, smiling lopsidedly. The idea that maybe they're sending a kid around to disarm him has crossed his mind -- he doesn't know where he is, or who's behind this, and these are two things he wants immediate answers to -- but his primary objective is to keep her calm anyway. "Good. Me too."

It's all information he's filing away, forming his opinions and battle plan even as he rests his elbows on his knees and grins at her. "I'd like to find someone to talk to. Is that OK by you?"

She smiles back--mimicry is a good tool--and she finds she actually genuinely likes his grin. He seems nice in a way that most people don't, not like he's simply smiling at her to get her to shut up and go bother someone else.

Until he asks if he can find someone to talk to, and her smile falls a little. "Do you not want to talk to me anymore?" She thinks she's been reasonable this whole time. She hasn't asked anything she knows the answer to, or anything that strikes her as overly stupid.

"No!" he answers quickly, helpless in the face of that little frown and sad voice. "I mean, yes, I do. I thought you could come with me."

Please don't be sad, Sinthia. Steve has no idea how to go about cheering you up in space.

"Oh."

This is not a position she's put in very often. "I thought you'd want me to leave if you needed to find someone to talk to."

"Hey, what'd I tell you?" he asks, very gently knuckling her jaw. It's just barely a tap. "We're gonna find out what's going on together."

He smiles, and it makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. "You want a boost up? I can carry you so you can see what's going on around the room."

She lets her head shift when he brushes his knuckles against her jaw, eyeing Steve for a moment as she hesitates between telling him and not that she could just levitate herself up to his height. But Sinthia isn't sure how he'd react if she did tell him, honestly. The amount of genuine concern around her is a little disconcerting.

"...Okay. You can pick me up." Though, if asked, Sinthia wouldn't be entirely sure how this is done. She doesn't get picked up a lot. Or, you know, ever.

"OK." He shoulders his bag and shifts it so the weight of his shield is against his back. Then he holds out his hands, waits for her to open her arms, and carefully hoists her up by her hips.

He's strong, but gentle. He wouldn't drop her. Soon, she's propped up on his shoulders, legs dangling around either side of his neck. He pauses before straightening up. "How's that? Comfortable?"

Well.

That was a thing.

Sinthia is not used to being this tall, nor to sitting on another person she is not trying to actively anchor to something more stable than she. As a result she's somewhat tense about the motion of being set in her current spot, and is gripping Steve's shirt like if she lets go she might spontaneously plummet to the ground, but she's stable. It takes a second for her to realize that a lack of answer to his question is probably not going to be taken as assent.

"I'm...yes. Comfortable," she says, looking down at his head. (And frowning for a moment, because this talking thing is much easier to do when she can see someone's face for clues.) "I've never sat up here before. Please don't run me into the ceiling."

Steve grins at her. "Promise."

He's a little uncomfortable not having quick access to his bag, but he's willing to bank on people not coming at him when he's got a defenseless kid on his shoulders. Besides, if someone wanted to hurt him, he figures they would have presented themselves by now. So he keeps his hands propped on her thighs, making sure she's secure as he begins to move.

"Are you from Germany?" he asks, conversational even while his mind has switched gears to the tactical. Find the best option for answers, the weakest link, or the highest ground, and proceed from there.

Sinthia imagines, somewhere in the part of her mind not actively taken up by the desire to not run into anything, that this must be a little like what riding an elephant is like. (This is not a comment about Steve, really; to most adults he's larger-than-life, and to a small child he's rather huge.)

"I am," she answers, relieved to have something she can latch onto for conversation. "I was born in Berlin. But I was in Austria just before I got here. In the mountains," she says, and relaxes marginally while thinking about the view on the snow from those wide windows set into the rock. "Are you from America?"

"Yeah," he says, a little distracted. Not by the room, but by her words. He pictures Berlin, the mountains, Austria. Sometimes he can still smell sulfur. "I grew up in New York. Now I live in the capital. You know where that is?"

"Yes," Sinthia replies, nodding. "Washington, DC. It's between Maryland and Virginia at thirty-eight degree and eighty-nine minutes north, and seventy-seven degrees and three minutes west," she says, proud of remembering the location on the grid. She's memorized the map in her father's office and the marked cities thereupon.

"I don't really live in a city," she says. "I live underground mostly, in the Alps. Innsbruck is the closest place to us, though," she murmurs. She always wants to hum along to In the Hall of the Mountain King every time she thinks about living inside a mountain with her father. He reminds her of the troll king sometimes.

Steve pauses, cocking his head back to look at the kid. "That's pretty good that you know all that. You're pretty smart, you know?"

It's really impressive. Steve was a smart kid, but a lot of that was due to forced isolation from being so sickly. He did a lot of reading when he couldn't go outside. "I've been to the Alps."

"I know," she says with a serene smile, looking down at Steve. He's good company so far, he can keep up. And she says I know instead of thank you because she's fairly sure that if she were unintelligent, Johann wouldn't have kept her. And things come easily to her, anyway.

"When did you go?" she asks, comfortable and not suspecting at all that they're talking about the same place. Everyone else has been very careful to remind her that they're from different worlds, and different times. "And what part?"

"A long time ago," Steve says, his voice taking on a heavier register. It wasn't that long ago for him, but it was long enough that now his whole world has changed. Everything is different. That world is gone. "I once fought a war all across Europe."

It's not the kind of topic you usually cover with a little kid. Steve would be glad to leave it at that. "I did get to see some beautiful places, though."

"We're at war now," she says. "The whole world is, all at once. Again," Sinthia notes, sounding less than pleased with this but also less than particularly perturbed. She hasn't really been alive long enough to know about many other conditions of life, sadly.

She smiles when he mentions beautiful places, though. "There's a window in my father's office that's the prettiest view ever," she says. "It's big, it looks out on the mountains. I like watching the snow."

The pristine picture she paints is lost on Steve, who has gone rigid as the first words out of her mouth sink in. His hands remain gentle, though. If Sinthia notices anything at all, it'll only be a slight shift in his shoulders.

"What year is it?" he asks carefully. For the first time, he's considering that this little girl may not be from 2014.

Oh, she notices. And she looks down at him, leaning to one side curiously to see his face. She wasn't really aware she'd said anything that could make him mad.

"1944," she answers. "What about for you?"

His expression could be mistaken for anger, but if she can see his eyes she'll see that they're cool and confused. He's frowning just slightly, a deep line between his eyebrows. "2014."

He glances up at her, wondering what the odds are he'd meet some kid from the Second World War here on a ship traveling through space, or at least giving off the impression they're traveling through space. Steve's been tricked before, but none of the illusions SHIELD painted were as detailed as this one.

"I guess, wherever we are, they don't put much stock in time," he says, forcing a smile. It could be a coincidence. It could be. He's just got a bad feeling about the whole thing.

She leans way over--holding herself steady is easy--and looks at Steve's face, brows creased as she does. "What's wrong?" she asks. "What did I say?"

He stops walking once a mess of dark hair floods his vision, hands tightening protectively on her legs to keep her from losing her balance. He blinks at her, upside down and worried as she is, and huffs a laugh.

"I remember that war," he says, by way of explanation. "I didn't expect to meet anyone here who did, too. That's all."

Regardless of what's happening, war is never something you talk about casually. Not with a kid who, god knows, may have seen some pretty awful stuff.

The upside-down face is still easy to read, concerned as Sinthia is, and her brows crease a little more. She's not stupid; she knows people are dying all the time in the war. It's half of what her father wants to happen.

"I'm sorry," she replies, softly as she sits back up. "It's supposed to be over soon, though. We have a weapon that will win it quickly, as soon as it's finished." Or so she thinks. Unfortunately...that isn't really how it goes. Mainly due to Steve. "We would have had it done before except someone let loose all the workers at the factory. And then blew it up."

Strictly speaking Johann blew his own factory up, but he didn't exactly specify upon the recounting Sinthia managed to overhear. And she's not questioning it much.

Conversely, Steve's questioning everything.

He's still even after Sinthia sits back up, staring blankly ahead. He can feel his pulse his neck, the rattle of his heartbeat in his ears. Right now, all his focus is on being completely still.

'We have a weapon that will win it quickly...'

'...someone let loose all the workers at the factory. And then blew it up.'

His thumbs twitch.

"Hey, kiddo," he begins, voice surprisingly gentle. "I'm going to put you down for a second, OK?"

"Okay," she replies, knowing something is up as he swings her down, just as gently as he picked her up. This is a girl who doesn't understand Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and who has no memories of life outside HYDRA and the war--mostly because she hasn't really had a life outside those circumstances. But that doesn't mean she can't tell something's wrong.

"Does it upset you if I talk about it?" Maybe, if he's from after her, he knows how the war ends. Maybe he's upset that America lost. She doesn't know and doesn't want to go looking yet.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject