Out of the freezer

[disassembling]

What: AU where The Winter Soldier is found by SHIELD before CA: TWS and settled in with an agent.
Warnings: Just tl;dr. It is my specialty.


Trains weren't generally a source of overland transport anymore, not with planes so conveniently available, but there were points where subtly was required more than quickness. There were less questions about trains, fewer looks with the amount of goods moved into a country so more was able to get through. It was easier to pay people off in shipping yards to look the other way while important items were shifted in and out.

If it had been known early in the process that his superiors had known that an agent had defected and tipped off that there were weapons being moved in from Russia, he would have been removed from the train. Too little, too late though, and the train was hit with SHIELD looking for both intelligence and weapons from the Soviets. It wasn't until a STRIKE team had made it towards the back of the train that some members suddenly realized that their mission had just gotten a lot more complicated.

Cryostasis was a process developed out of the 1940s, though perfected over the years by the Soviets first and then the Americans. Of course, it only worked on him, others never coming up from the surface again because their bodies were advanced enough to cope with the strain on the body and the healing powers required to make it back out of deep freeze. He was special because he was a weapon, made that way to survive the worst conditions. So he bubbled up as he was thawed from the inside out in a process that took hours generally but could be sped up.

Speeding up the process left him disoriented and intractable, irritated and violent. It was fine when enemies of the organization were kicking in the door and shooting the scientists in charge of thawing him. The damage was done though, the anti-freeze drug fast acting in his body as his muscles became suffused with warm blood and his lungs filling with a deep gasping breath as he arched, his blue eyes unfocused as men yelled orders, called in findings. It was all a blur to him.

Someone touched his cold flesh shoulder, but they were gone in the next minute as his metal arm swung around and slammed into the man's gut, blasting him away. He rolled from the chair, acting only on instinct as he grabbed the nearest object - metal table and threw it into a group of men raising their guns. He fought them; worse, he killed them until another team moved in and manhandled him to the ground. Someone did something; a familiar voice called a set of words that made him relax and stand down, so he did.

He was blind-folded, cuffed from wrist to elbow so his shoulders were forced to bow in awkwardly, but his legs were left free so that they could walk him into the SHIELD medical facility where many interested parties had gathered in the time it took to transport him. News had circulated and damage control had not been fast enough where the fact a man was found half-frozen on a train. If he had had his memories of his other life, he might have found it ironically he was found on a train.

The only words spoken above whispered tones was that there had been another similarly unfrozen a few years before. "Call them in. Maybe give us a clue on stabilizing this guy." He was pulled off, seated and chained to a bed in a padded room. With the blindfold off, he knew he could break down the door if he was ordered to. He was deemed too 'unstable' to be in a more populated area, so he was caged and observed.

Damage control indeed. Where were his orders and mission debriefings?

Comments

[disassembling]

He knew that and didn't think that anyone owed him any sort of apology over it. He knew that there was nothing to do be done when orders were received, and he knew that better than most. It was a pity he would no longer be receiving orders for missions himself, but he accepted that as well. "That's fine," he agreed.

He glanced aside, staring at the floor for a few moments as he gathered his thoughts, finding it strange to have them so often when she was around. She expanded his little dark world, and in return, he felt like he was slowly uncurling from a dark place. "Being filled up sometimes comes with pain," he replied simply. "Pain brings order, and my memories have to fall into order before I know what I can do with them."

His head snapped around quickly at her offer to stay away, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. "I can take the pain," he replied coldly. "I remember pain, but I can handle it. I always do, but you leaving will be worse."

[eleutheria]

She knew he didn’t required an apology from her, he had made it clear that she didn’t needed to apologize to him, but it was something she couldn’t prevent doing so, it was part of her manners sometimes and she couldn’t change it. “Alright, in the case I can’t come to let you know I have to leave, I will make sure someone else will inform you about it.” And she will have to make sure it will be someone that will deliver the information properly and to let him know when she might be back or when anything out of the ordinary happened.

The fact that he was apparently so used and maybe even expecting the pain made her a bit angry, she knew that pain wasn’t something that should be so strange in their worlds, but from the way he talked about it, such things had been used as the main tool to shape him and bend him to other’s wills, so she had all the more reason to try to avoid doing the same, to try and break him out of the expecting pain wherever he did something wrong or the like.

“I don’t want you to deal with the pain if it can be avoided, I am aware that pain has probably been a constant in your world and with whoever you were before, but it’s something that’s not going to happen here.” Or at least not consciously, she was going to make damn sure no one hurt him even if that meant that she had to leave him alone for a bit.

[disassembling]

He figured that had her word enough that she would make efforts not to strain the little trust he had in her. There were few who lived to betray his trust, limited though it was. He actually surprised himself in realizing that he was capable of trusting, that the weeks in isolation and anger and confusion had broken through a little of the conditioning that made him relatively nothing but an object to be commanded. "I... accept your terms," he finally said softly, nodding his head.

Pain was a part of him, and he didn't fear it. His flesh might have feared it, might have remembered it well and shivered or trembled, but he thought it a purely physical reaction. He simply accepted pain, screamed it out when he had to and went back to being what he was supposed to be. The fact she might not want him in pain confused him. It was part of his life.

"Pain loosens up things that have no place in my training," he said slowly, tasting the words. He felt... angry about it though, and that had never happened before. Why was he angry? "You don't know that for certain either. These people who observe me will make a decision on me and inflict what they need to in order to keep me molded a certain way."

[eleutheria]

She smiled just a bit at that, since it was a rather significant thing and it was a sign of trust she supposed, she was probably the only person in this place he trusted at the moment and now she realized the huge weight that was on her shoulders and how much she will have to work on keeping that trust and not lose by someone’s else mistake or worse something she might accidentally do, the first step will be to ensure that she didn’t failed in this first promise she had made to him.

Another spark of anger at that, it was aimed at whoever had brought and made pain a normal and expected state on Bucky’s life, they better hope to God that if she found them she managed to reign her anger and not act recklessly, something she might be quite capable of doing on very rare occasions. “They will not hurt you, I will make sure of that and they know better than to even try it.” They will have to get over her first and if that ended with busting Bucky out of here, she was very well going to do it. “I know that pain as a normal tool used against you has regretfully turned into part of your life and routine, but I am really going to try with all I have to keep them from hurting you.”

She was more than aware that they were listening to them and that Fury was going to end hearing about this, but she didn’t care, she had already made it clear to Fury that Bucky was not to be hurt in anyway if it was to be avoided if they wanted her full cooperation to whatever they might want to do with her.

[disassembling]

He watched the anger flick across her face, and he sat a little taller on the edge of the bed that was now his for the time being. He was relatively unmoved by emotions, siphoning them off as something that clouded one's judgement at the best of times, but he knew he felt it too sometimes. It surged and boiled in him, but it was quick, brutal and often deadly. Her anger was there and then gone, and he felt his eyebrows knitting together at the idea that she was angry because he knew what pain was for and how it was used. Did she really struggle with the concept?

"You're... going to keep them from training me?" Because pain was in some regards part of his training, and it wasn't just mental either. Physical pain came with training, with improving his skills even if it was simply the bloated kick-back of a new rifle that he hadn't braced for. Pain and training often went hand and hand so the idea of it not being there was odd. "I won't let them hurt you either then," he added slowly. It seemed... fair.

He rose from his seat and turned to face the observation window straight on. He clenched his metal arm, and the roomed filled with the sound of the plates shifting and interlocking. "Do you hear me, agents? If she's experiences pain, I will return it to you."

[eleutheria]

Quite clearly she will need to think better about how she expressed certain things to him or maybe she should take the time to think some of her words better before saying it, he had already assumed they were the same and used for the same purposes, which wasn’t exactly truth and that should have clued her enough into being a bit more clear with her words and not just let some of her emotions take over, clearly certain things didn’t changed for her either.

“The pain of physical training is a different deal, Bucky, the one that’s inflicted on you to punish you or I don’t know force you to accept an idea or behavior or certain aspects of your training, the one that’s deliberately inflicted to you for those purposes that’s the pain I meant, the pain of training and physical restrain from a mission is something I can’t prevent.” But she wasn’t sure if they were going to allow him to train, maybe she could see if they allow him to at least take boxing or something. “Oh well…”

Before she could say anything else about that he stood up and went to the observation window, with a small shake of her head she stood up as well and followed him. “Now Bucky, you can’t blame them if I get hurt, I told you things can happen and they might not have anything to do with it, sometimes if I get hurt it could be my fault as well, you know.”

[disassembling]

So, that was it? He wasn't going to be punished, but he could experience everything else? That seemed odd to him still because behaviour modification was always presented to him as a new sort of training, a discipline for rebelling in a mission, though he never actually disobeyed a direct order. He bridled sometimes, but never did more than throw his head around to test the restraints so to be speak.

"When will they train me? When will I be able to stretch my muscles properly? I won't be much use if I continue to lose muscle mass," he said simply and logically. He did move around and practice what he could in his cell, but it wasn't the same. It didn't require anything particularly difficult from him, though he did it as much as he could anyway. "Do they not modify your behaviour with pain?"

He looked at her, turning away from the window after his declaration, though he wasn't about to take it back. "Their mission, their responsibility. It's just a good thing you heal fast," he said and fingered at her healing flank.

[eleutheria]

“I am not sure; they haven’t told me anything about it.” And she had a feeling that they were not going to do so till they were sure that he wasn’t going to attack them or try to escape or cause any sort of trouble, but she knew that being idle was something he wasn’t entirely happy about and she could understand him, being idle was something she hated and one of the reasons she spent so much time on a punching bag, maybe she should consider that with him. “I will try to see if that can’t start with at least something basic for the moment.”

She did a double take at his last question and nearly frowned again. “No, they don’t do that kind of things here.” Or so far she didn’t thought they did, she was sure in the past Peggy wouldn’t have allowed something like that at all, but they had no qualms in using Bucky against her to make her stay.

“Well part of the responsibility is mine.” She tried not to react much or at least not in a way she had used to react when he touched her in the past, they didn’t needed that kind of complication now or possible ever, but she allowed him to touch her and was thankful the wound was probably healed already. “One of the perks of the serum I guess.”

[disassembling]

While was used to not being told about things that were outside of his 'need to know', he thought that she was living a different life but it sounded he same as his. The more she spoke on things, the more it seemed like she only had an illusion of freedom. He wondered if she realized it but decided not to say anything about it right now. "I do the best I can in my room. I will make do." He didn't want her to get into trouble.

They didn't? He raised an eyebrow at her but left the subject alone. If it wasn't going to happen, that was fine. If it didn't, he could bear it just fine.

"Then take better care to dodge," he said coolly as his finger brushed over the injury, not being particularly merciful about his probing until he was certain that it had mostly healed up. "One of many no doubt."

[eleutheria]

She sighed just a bit, it annoyed her to be so limited to what she could and couldn’t tell him, she couldn’t very well go and tell him that the reason he was so restricted was because they didn’t trusted him at all, but she wasn’t sure if it was better for him to think he was going to also be treated as a weapon by them, they were trying to break him down from whatever had been done from him and according to Fury or from what she had understood in between the lines, it had been done before. “I will still see what I can do; of course I can’t promise anything but I will try.”

Maybe if she got him to agree to focus on that, not try to use what he was given as weapons and try to escape or hurt anyone, Fury might agree to something even if it was the most minimal, as it was the main priority was to keep Bucky contained and under their watch, she was more than aware, since that first meeting someone might try to reclaim him.

“…Sometimes I don’t try to dodge, not if it keeps other people safe.” She briefly remember when she took a shot for him in the past, acting as a literal shield to keep him from harm and how pissed he had been at her for it. She hissed when he poked at her side, it was still sore and she didn’t appreciated the unmerciful way he was prodding.

[disassembling]

He shrugged with indifference, aware that they would treat him however they were going to treat him, and he had little choice in the matter. It wasn't like people came into his room except to put food down and gently inquire about his state of health. The first week of meals had ended up in the toilet, his body not used to that kind of solid food. He made do now, but beyond meals, they left him alone. "I expect nothing," he clarified.

He paused in his probing at her words, his eyes lifting from inspection to stare at her. His eyebrows knit together before he inhaled sharply as hazy memories exploded a headache in his temples. He stayed on his feet, but his eyes went glassy and a sheen of sweat broke out on his skin as he hung his had a bit. She took a bullet for him... when was that? He hadn't been happy about. Was it because he could heal... no it was before he shrugged off injuries.

"...you..." he hissed and stepped away from her, shaking his head as if to rid it of an annoying sound. "You took a bullet for me...?"

[eleutheria]

There was a small mental note to inquire later as to just how they had been treating him, she hadn’t had a chance to inquire just yet since she was preyed upon the moment she arrived to tell her Bucky had escaped and now with being here with him that had been pushed back so far, for their good she hoped his treatment had been good and no one had said or done anything to him, though she was sure he could retaliate if someone tried. “I know, we will talk about this later.”

Or never if they decided to let this topic die, she was going to still see what she could do about it though.

When his whole demeanor changed though, his frame turning tense and his gaze looking a bit lost, she stood there in shock for a bit not knowing what had brought forth that reaction and wondering at the same time if she should be ready to defend herself or not, when he stepped back she stood there for a bit and oh God, it was this what happened every time he remembered something.

She acted before she could think better about it; she moved closer to him and rested her hands against his cheeks, to gently stop the shaking of his head. “Calm down, Bucky and yes…I did that once and I don’t regret having done so.”

[disassembling]

Depending on the memory, he sometimes simply twitched and sat through it unless it was a particularly large or strong one. What he experienced was both long and strong, rolled into an intensity that took his breath away as he tried to distance himself from it, not certain what else he could do as he rode it out, feeling the cold through his wool jacket, the thrilled adrenaline that game with combat and the sound of gunfire, the twisting to realize he could never get his gun up and then her body in front of his own. There was a grunt as the bullet impacted, but he was well-trained and hardened enough to ignore her injury to fire and kill the soldier in question first. Then he had worried after her, snarling and shouting at her for daring to take that bullet...

He groaned, swaying on his feet until the warmth of her hands on his cheeks steadied him. He still swayed, but he bowed his head to her hands, breathing hard as his vision slowly cleared as the memory faded away. His hands itched at his sides and finally reached out to settle on the swell of her hips, desperate for contact but unwilling to draw her in. "...you shouldn't have... I was angry with you. I think... I was angry, wasn't I?"

[eleutheria]

And it was now seeing this reaction to that sudden memory that she realized how difficult the road was going to be for them, which brought her back to her plan of being careful about what she said and try to ease this as much as she could for him, but then he had apparently remembered certain things when she had been away and maybe there was nothing she could really do to stop the inflow and the best she could do was trying to be here to steady him through it, just like she was doing now and like she had kind of done during those brief moments in the past where his mind wandered and she knew he was recalling what had happened to him in that facility she saved him from.

She stood still and gave him the time he needed to compose himself, she didn’t reacted when his hands came to rest against her hips, it was an action she was used to and had even missed, but she couldn’t let her mind wander right now. A small sad laugh escaped her lips and she couldn’t help but close the distance between them, her forehead pressing against his. “You called me a stupid idiot for doing something so reckless saying that you could be easily replaced but I wasn’t.” She just looked at him and smiled sadly. “The problem was that wasn’t true because you were and still are irreplaceable to me, Bucky.”

[disassembling]

It was strange to talk about a memory that he had just gotten back, a memory that she had no doubt had and kept locked inside. A part of him, small and snarling, wanted to avoid any more of them because they put a new perceptive on her, on life, and on his situation. It made him realize that there was a life before the mission and the killing, before he had been wiped clean and built up again as the fist of Hydra. She knew, and for the first time, he could perhaps mention a memory and she might be able to talk to him about it rather than look scandalized and beat him for it.

His eyebrows knit together at her words, looking at her with a strange intensity. "Am I now?" His voice dropped in tone and temperature. "Are we... were we...?" He couldn't find the words, couldn't remember what that kind of intense bond was even called, but he struggled to understand why anyone would take a bullet and find him irreplaceable. He was... no, he had been different then.

[eleutheria]

She was more than aware that some memories might bring even worse and more intense reactions than this one, she will need to be prepared for whatever was meant to happen, even if he lashed at her and tried to attack her, but she wasn’t about to give up on him not when she had found him again and right now she was doing what she could to ease him through this and it seemed to be working right now.

There was a small nod in response to his question. “You will always be.” He was truly the only thing she had, it seemed to be their thing apparently, Peggy was still around but she was so afraid of going to see her. And granted, the next thing she did was probably the stupidest thing she could have ever done and she wasn’t even sure what had pushed her to do it, because next thing she realized her lips were pressing against his and granted it wasn’t the kisses they used to share but it was the worst move she could do right now.

He was confused, vulnerable and this was going to make it way more, just thinking about that was enough for her to pull away and put some distance between them, before she could say something, anything to save this situation, the door to the room opened and she nearly died when she saw Fury there –looking oh not so pleased.

“Rogers.”

And oh she recognized that tone and she stood a bit taller, slowly she turned to look at Bucky and tried to keep her composure about herself. “I will try to come back as soon as I can and I will see what I can do about getting you something to do, just be patient alright.” And alright maybe she was escaping the room, she had messed up, she had and by the way Fury was looking at her once she was out and the door closing behind her, she really had.

[disassembling]

He always would be? The sheer idea seemed to stall him from making any kind of response, aware it would take him time to sort out exactly what that meant. His eyebrows still knit together as he tried to sort of the warmth in his belly that had nothing to do with food or even drinking something warm. It was like he was experiencing some kind of twisting that was not uncomfortable but instead... anticipatory?

And his world ground to a halt so suddenly it shocked him. The feel of her lips against his own drew no memories from him immediately, but there was a flush of familiarity with it that caused his shoulders to sag as he tried to remember how to kiss in the first place. His lips did respond, pressing against her own, even nudging hers a bit before she was pulling away, and he found himself longing for something like that again. He didn't even have to think with it.

It wasn't until the door opened that he realized he had been standing in a daze, but his blue eyes narrowed dangerously at the interruption. He took a step, small but still menacing, but her look caught him and he slowly returned to standing simply. "I'll be patient," he murmured softly. "I'll be waiting," he added as she slipped out and moved to sit on the bed before he lifted a hand and ran his flesh fingers over his lips.

[eleutheria]

Just like she had expected it, Fury hadn’t been pleased with her and it wasn’t due to the fact that she hid the real nature of her relationship with Bucky, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D didn’t give a damn about that particular detail, what bothered him was the fact that she wasn’t acting with a level headed logic for such a particular situation, and if she wasn’t with a cool head she was going to be kept from being in contact with him.

Suffice to say that in a way she agreed, she couldn’t let that kind of things to get in the way when Bucky didn’t remembered or barely remembered anything, and maybe that was the reason she stayed away for a bit, to gather her thoughts and try to carefully lock all of those things away, it kind of helped the way some agents were looking at her, she needed to pull this off.

It took three days before she finally felt safe enough to go back and visit Bucky again, from what she had been told they had at the very least caved in and provided books to keep Bucky entertained, and she was told they were willing to let Bucky have some light training as long as the proper measures were taken and Fury had left her with the task of informing that to him and get his word to respect the rules since he only listened to her apparently.

Before she was sent in, an agent had been in front of the room looking rather nervous before rather gratefully handing a food tray to her; apparently some were still wary about him. She walked inside rather calmly and set the tray on the table, noticing that he was apparently on a special diet, and didn’t flinched when the door closed behind her. “How are you today, James?”

[disassembling]

He spent the rest of the day in a sort of daze, wandering around his room and all too often touching his lips, tasting them and even sometimes just staring at a wall. The memories started to leak through the cracks of his blank mind hours later, but unlike the others that tended to come horrible and painfully, these came sweet and slow, filling his mind with warmth and anticipation despite that some of them were of times when he had two flesh arms. They weren't all that clear in places, like watching someone else's dream, but they contented him and made him plenty docile even as people came to check on him or provide him food. For the most part, he sat quiet and didn't even mind the time slipping by.

He had loved her. It seemed foreign to think about that because even now he couldn't say that he recognized any emotion as love. There was nothing inside of him to replicate the feeling, too dulled from emotion as he was through fierce conditioning. Way back then though, he had loved her; he had a memory of telling her so, even if it felt like someone else's life.

By the second day, someone provided him with a novel to prevent him from going into a 'kiss coma'. He didn't know what that was, but he suspected it might have been an attempt at a joke to him. He didn't recognize the man in question, but there were hand actions that he did understand. 'They are coming. Patience'

So, he read the novel for nothing else to do, passing hours between increasing his activities in the room. His body was mostly incapable of going soft, but he was to be prepared for when the orders came down the line when a handler arrived to take him in hand. More books arrived when he finished the first, one of which had a page marked with the familiar sign of Hydra that he knew well enough, but he was discrete in pulling the page and getting rid of it during his next piss.

He was sitting on the floor reading when the door opened, and his blue eyes flicked up from the pages to regard Stephanie as she entered with his meal. With a single fluid movement, he flowed to his feet as the door closed them in together, ignoring the book immediately to instead shift to sit on the corner of the table. "Was that your first kiss since then?" He ignored her question or the use of his apparent first name.

[eleutheria]

She had dared to hope that what had happened last time will go unheeded and without any mention of it, even though she had been told that he had been rather docile and calm afterwards, she wanted to think it didn’t had anything to do with what had happened between them, even though she had also been told about certain behaviors he had been doing since then but she was quite willing to ignore them.

Of course, life was not about to give her a break and she supposed that maybe she deserved this for doing something so stupid to begin with, she had taken advantage in a way and the guilt was still there. Not allowing her rather calm demeanor to break, she had worked too hard for it to fall this quickly, she looked at him steadily. “Does it matter if it was?”

And well no one needed to know that was indeed her first kiss, she couldn’t forget that there were people listening to them and she wasn’t sure what will happen with him if she admitted that it was, so she was going to avoid the question for the time being. “I have been told they were providing you with books, have you been enjoying those?”

[disassembling]

He was more than aware that they were being monitored and listened to, but he was so used to it by now from both agencies that seemed to have a hand in his captivity that he paid it little mind. Knowing that his handlers would be coming sent a sense of normal to his life, like the end of a mission when he waited for pick up.

At her question to his question, he shrugged his shoulders to dismiss the topic if it was going to bother her. He instead glanced at the tray of food that she had brought, aware that it was far more tasteful then what he normally ate, but he was less interested in food (which he could eat on his own) and more interested in her. She had stayed away a few days and she hadn't stayed long on their last meeting.

He gestured absently towards the four books that were set neatly on his bed, one folded up to mark his spot. "It passes the time between my exercises and your visits."

[eleutheria]

Considering that the monitoring had increased after her faux with that kiss, she really didn’t wanted to risk getting into more trouble with Fury and in this case unconsciously find herself even more in the sight of the people trying to get him back, though she had already done quite a good job at it and she didn’t even know it, nor when to be prepared for them.

She was actually quite relieved when he shrugged and he seemed willing to drop the topic, she really wasn’t ready to talk yet about the real nature of their relationship, much less when he could barely remember her and with so many people listening to them, paying attention to any word she might say and exposing something that was of private nature between them.

“I am glad that at least they are providing you with something.” Her eyes flickered to the books and then back at him. “They are also considering letting you take some training, nothing to complicated just rather basic I guess, but you need to swear not to hurt anyone of course.”

[disassembling]

He would have liked to talk about it, to pull the details out of her and compare it to what he remembered recently. It was clear that she wasn't interested in such things and was guarding herself, which meant that she had gotten into some kind of trouble when she had left over three days ago. He remembered well the man who had come, the look he had given her and he lifted his flesh hand to rub his chin in a wholly human gesture, showing the window beyond that he was fast losing the training of standing perfectly still and giving nothing away.

"It is better than staring at the walls," he agreed softly, watching her out of the corner of his eye, ignoring his books for a lack of interest in them. "Basic training?" He considered that seriously for a few minutes, relating it to the messages he had received; out of his cell would make it easier for extraction, wouldn't it? "I won't hurt anyone unless ordered to," he finally agreed with a shrug.

If she told him to hurt someone, he would. If his handlers came and ordered him, he would do just that. It was an order after all.

yep she's going to be so pissed when that happens and he knew all along

[eleutheria]

If she’s startled by the gesture, when she’s now used to him being still and blank, she doesn’t shows it but it is enough to let her know that he was probably very interested in talking about it and she knows she could easily indulge him, but she is not ready to lay off her heart and whatever it’s there for the eyes of all the people listening to them. “We are going to talk about this, eventually, right now we have to focus on more important things.”

Like the fact he needed to remember just the basics of his life, to break out from whatever training and conditioning he had been through, trying to see if he could tell them anything about the organization he was supposed to collaborating with, important things for S.H.I.E.L.D to know and knowing the sad sob love story of Captain America wasn’t in that list, “Alright then.”

She really wanted to say that no one was going to order him that, but she knew that was a lie and that if everything went according to plan he was going to get those orders eventually. “From what I was told, you’re going to be taken to another room for it, you’re not going to be training with anyone in particular, I offered but they said no, but they want to be sure you will collaborate willingly when you’re moved and don’t try to make a break for it.”

Neither he nor I regret anything

[disassembling]

He didn't even shrug at her words this time, taking it at face value but having little to contribute to it either. They would clearly talk about it whenever she wanted to talk about it, and he saw no point in pursuing things that were out of his reach. He wasn't certain what she considered so important, but they didn't really discuss those things either. Her visitations never seemed to last that long, but they sustained him anyway.

"I can train on my own," he said simply. Few could keep up with him anyway, so he used to doing what was necessary to keep himself in shape. Normally he was given training modules ahead of time to practice a new skill or with a new weapon, but he generally had to do that alone. He apparently loaded, cocked and fired a gun too fast for many people to help him with it. "You offered to train with me, but you were denied?" He didn't like that.

"Why would I make a break for it?"