She wished at that moment that her cigarette had had more life to it. She missed it in her hands, between her fingers.
So keeping herself safe involved keeping him safe. She didn't like that -- that reliance on someone else not to make a mistake, not to slip up. Humans were imperfect, prone to distraction, to exhaustion, to error.
"There's always someone better," was her short reply. "Better than you, better than me. The trick is to play the game so the odds are always in your favor -- and then don't rely on the odds to save you."
One hand pushed the hair back from her face, mouth twisting. "Don't get me started on how stupid the idea of an algorithm like that is. I'm sure some Hydra mathematician who sees the world only in black and white thought that formula was a stroke of genius. But in a world of over 7 billion, knocking off 20 million is a grain of sand. Humanity isn't that simple. Sometime, somewhere, someone is bound to do something inconceivably, unpredictably stupid."
In spite of the fervor of her words, she trailed off, and for a long moment stared into the darkness beyond the nearby streetlamp.
"I won't rely on you to protect me." The words came suddenly again, quiet but sharp on her tongue. "But I have things to do that I need to stay alive for, so I'll trust that you won't make that goal harder. I'll do what I can to interrupt or confound whatever hold they're trying to have on you. But you're required to stay alive so that I don't have to worry about what happens after."
no subject
So keeping herself safe involved keeping him safe. She didn't like that -- that reliance on someone else not to make a mistake, not to slip up. Humans were imperfect, prone to distraction, to exhaustion, to error.
"There's always someone better," was her short reply. "Better than you, better than me. The trick is to play the game so the odds are always in your favor -- and then don't rely on the odds to save you."
One hand pushed the hair back from her face, mouth twisting. "Don't get me started on how stupid the idea of an algorithm like that is. I'm sure some Hydra mathematician who sees the world only in black and white thought that formula was a stroke of genius. But in a world of over 7 billion, knocking off 20 million is a grain of sand. Humanity isn't that simple. Sometime, somewhere, someone is bound to do something inconceivably, unpredictably stupid."
In spite of the fervor of her words, she trailed off, and for a long moment stared into the darkness beyond the nearby streetlamp.
"I won't rely on you to protect me." The words came suddenly again, quiet but sharp on her tongue. "But I have things to do that I need to stay alive for, so I'll trust that you won't make that goal harder. I'll do what I can to interrupt or confound whatever hold they're trying to have on you. But you're required to stay alive so that I don't have to worry about what happens after."