For ashyperfume

[trainwrecked]

It took a while, before he dialed the phone on the card. Weeks, he thought, he wasn't very good at keeping up with the dates. Or, rather, he didn't care that much.

But time had passed since the party. He'd memorized the information, then burned the card - in his experience already, anything after the last wipe wasn't going away, so he was using what part of his memory he could. Extensively.

In the end, though, he just picked a street phone and punched the number.

"Ms. Fukuyama?" Yes, she'd told him to call her Fuu. He couldn't be sure she'd pick up the phone herself. "This is James Banes."

That was how normal conversations went, wasn't it?

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[trainwrecked]

A depression appeared between his brows, when she called him by that name, concepts that he'd been working on for months struggling to take up the places that he'd made for them (such shallow places, compared to the deep, bruised tracks in his mind).

Then the depression deepened at her request, and he had to pause a little longer before he could comply. Remembering what she'd said, trying to make it relevant so he could talk to her. (What was there to say?)

Eventually, he started. Slowly, his voice a little different. "It's not about gentleness. Or teasing." He knew that it wasn't, because he wasn't hurt or upset. In fact, he felt...

Right. This felt right.

But it wasn't what she expected of him. And the way she was talking to him, patient, attentive to him, matched up with that nagging feeling that it wasn't what should be, waiting for orders from her. It took him a moment, the question, what is it about, then? ringing loud and clear in his mind, and then he pushed the false sensation of peace back. Away.

Catching himself at what he'd just been thinking, doing, made his face twist in anger, the metal fist closing tight so fast the servos could be heard clearly even as his arms dropped to his sides. He turned away, chin tight. Watching her from the side of his eyes. Watching her in her reflection on the refrigerator handle, the reflection on the clean stovetop. It was better than trying to look at her after he had just been... that.

He still took a little more time before he attempted to speak again.

"Pain through food isn't what I can remember, but there was usually pain. Punishment. Experiments. Sometimes merely catching my attention. At least that's what I remember happening, doesn't mean it actually did." Though some of it had been real, he knew the scars. "Then there was amusement. Often satisfaction, at how I handled the pain." Mirth. She'd laughed. "After that, I was told what to do and why, whether or not I tried to tell them anything I thought might be relevant. After a while, I stopped trying, I think."

His right hand twitched, his palm flashing at him her for a moment as he relaxed from its fist, and then returned to it, again.

"This is how easy it is for me to go back. That's why I haven't attacked, yet. I don't want to give them back this asset."

[ashyperfume]

She stayed where she was. Didn't touch him. Didn't move towards him. Let him work through the feeling, process. Probably she should have been afraid . . . But so much harder to be afraid of a man depositing a glass of water on the floor nearby, who then knelt outside the door and waited for her to speak.

A flicker of something darted through her face, unnamed, and she paused in turn, her brow furrowing, pressing in an echo of his.

"I can't promise not to hurt you. I will hurt you at some point; I do that. Angry or careless or god knows what else. I tend to do that, and I'm not sure I would know how to stop if I tried. I'll bumble into things, scramble things up, take them apart, and if no one tells me no, I'll take it all down."

A breath. "So tell me when I've gone too far. I don't pretend to know where you've been. And I don't pretend to know what I'm -- either of us -- are doing. I could mess this up still."

And words as soft as the breath: "I've never wanted to hurt anyone at all."

[trainwrecked]

"Hurting's a part of life," came his immediate response. He didn't even know how much of it was Hydra - or how different even the same words would have sounded, before he'd lost who he was.

And only after did it, slowly, dawn at him that she was apologizing to him for what'd happened. That was.

Nobody'd done that. Not even Rogers, well, not in words, at any rate. His expression softened, a little, and he slowly turned so he was almost facing her. Yes, the name helped, it mattered, even if he wouldn't have admitted it. Things like nothing that he'd been through.

Things like thinking about somebody else.

"Then you're a far better person than me, I think." It wasn't bitter or self-deprecating or anything of the sort, merely a statement of fact, addressing the last thing she'd said. Then he considered the rest.

"You... the hurt in this situation, it wasn't caused by you. I'm... not happy with how easy it is to suck me back in." Because he couldn't stop it, usually couldn't even realize it was happening. Finally, he raised his eyes to meet hers. "But if it's getting that way and I know, I'll try to tell you." He considered it for a moment, his head tilted slightly. "Maybe having a reason to look for it will make it easier to discover. That's... appreciated." A small pause, and he tried if another world would be a better fit. "Thanks."

For the opportunity. For the option.

[ashyperfume]

"Hurting is a part of life." The words were quiet, whether they were agreement or reflection or some combination of the two, it was hard to say. The corners of her mouth turned up wryly, eyes still closed. "And whether or not I'm a better person is still out for the jury. Hurting because you want to, or hurting because you don't know how to do anything else . . . in the end, is there that much of a difference?"

Her lashes separated as her eyes came back to him in turn. Stayed. The wryness was still there, but it had softened, including him in the joke -- and in that, there was acceptance. "How many restarts do you think we get per night?"

[trainwrecked]

He paused for a moment. "I am... reasonably certain I have hurt people because I wanted to." His memory was elusive, but he was pretty sure.

At her question, though, he tilted his head, more in confusion about the need for a reset than anything else. "I don't think anyone else makes the rules. Which should mean, as many as we need." It took him an effort to avoid the self-effacing 'as many as are needed.' If he was trying to become - real, realer - he had to claim responsibility sooner or later, didn't he?

"But I've no need for starting over."

Except he maybe did, if she expected him to actually... eat.

[ashyperfume]

Her eyes stayed with him for the first comment, studying him for a long moment before her shoulder lifted. "I suspect you have every reason to be angry enough. And every right at this point to do as you see fit. Though sometimes, James . . . I can't help but wonder if you're trying to warn me, too."

As to starting over, it was a good response, and one that brought the luring of a smile back to the corners of her mouth. But she knew better. "Does that mean that I can get you to try Chinese again if I avoid spice and promise not to laugh?"

[trainwrecked]

He paused for a moment, eyebrow raised. Was she only now realizing that he had been trying to warn her, about many things but mostly the danger that he posed?

"I don't have that many people to warn."

They either knew already or were aware of the danger, anyway.

But he did frown a bit at the last question. "The laughter doesn't bother me. But I don't see why anyone wants to eat that."

He wasn't trying to be rude. He did mean it, though. He did not understand.