6944/A History of Violence

A History of Violence
Date of Scene:	15 July 2021
Location:	Avengers Mansion - First Floor
Synopsis:	Nadia Pym-van Dyne and Bucky Barnes come face-to-face with their past. It's a difficult moment, but they persevere.
Cast of Characters:	Steve Rogers, James Barnes, Nadia Pym-van Dyne

---

Steve Rogers has posed:
With Tony Stark temporarily out of commission (enchanted by some witch/skank depending on who you asked), the Avenger's resident engineering genius was not available to help with a very pressing problem.

Fortunately, the head of one of the brightest think tanks in the world *is* available. Arguably as good an engineer as Mr. Stark, a physicist on par with Dr. Pym, and according to the exacting standards of Janet van Dyne, one of the few people Janet genuinely likes.

The fact that she's only 17 should not be considered relevant.

Steve and Bucky come up through the service entrance, Steve having waved Buck through the Avenger's security systems. The mansion itself is sprawling and palatial-- an embarassment of square footage even for New York-- but the underground facilities make it even larger and more useful as a base of operations for the team.

"Bucky, it's the 21st century," Steve tells his friend plaintively as they exit the elevator into the main floor. "You need to get over yourself and try some new things. I asked Janet what to bring, she said pizza, I asked what toppings, she said pineapple. When it's your turn to bribe someone, you can decide on the pie."

He hoists the two pizzas under his arm at Bucky pointedly, and cranes his neck left and right. He whistles, a sharp and familiar two-tone. "Nadia? You here?" he calls. "I brought a project, and pizza!" he offers. The smell of sweet thai chili sauce, pineapples, and various pizza meats wafts up from the two boxes in under his arm.

James Barnes has posed:
    Said project is walking next to Steve. ... currently he doesn't have much of an opinion about pizza toppings other than to say, "I'm so fucking sick of pizza." Language man, language, right?

    But he's cranky and cranky Buck has a foul mouth. That weird electrical overload thing has happened a few more times with his arm since they left Coney Island, and truth be told, it's making him feel a little nauseous. That shit HURTS. It's like someone setting the nerves in his shoulder on fire.

    "You sure about this?" he asks, "I mean... bringing me here?" Wouldn't be the first time Steve's done what he's not supposed to for Buck's benefit though; case in point, they just left Baron Zemo... a free man, mostly. It won't be the last probably.

    It's more the elevator ride that gets him than the pizza choice. Twenty-one floors? UGH. In a tiny little box for that many floors. If there's musack, he might vomit before they get there.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia is not the easiest girl to pin down, but there is a short list of people she will always make time for and near the top of that list is Steve 'Captain Stepdad' Rogers. There are sounds from the garage level, sounds of tires squeeling like someone believes that drift racing is the only proper way to park an expensive sports car.

Not long after the science and engineering wunderkind herself appears. The seventeen year old Nadia Pym-van Dyne has a cute heart shaped face framed by a bob of chin length brown hair. She's dressed in blacks and reds with a hint of gothy punk, plaid pleated skirt and a shirt that reads 'Just a G.I.R.L. who loves Hornets!'

"Steve!" Nadia's eyes find the pizza bearing authority figure first, or maybe she was drawn by the smell of the pizza, it's hard to say. She dashes over and jumps a little to give him a hug around his neck. "What's this problem you said you need me to look at? I brought tools." It seems literally impossible there could be tools anywhere on her person in her current attire. "The pizza smells great! Is that pineapple and thai chili?!" She seems excited, far too excited about pineapple on pizza, perhaps Steve has brought Bucky to the Devil herself!

From hanging off Steve, slowly Nadia's eyes track over towards Bucky. Her reaction however is not what Steve is probably expecting. For most people there would be a bright smile and emphatic waves and greetings. It seemed like she was about to do that too, only she stops and just sort of stares at him for a long moment. "Do... I.. know you?" She hesitates, in a completely un-Nadia-like reaction to meeting someone new. "You seem familiar..."

Steve Rogers has posed:
"If you're worried about Tony, then stop. Tony's my problem. If you're worried about meeting Nadia, then also stop-- she's a sweet kid and the second you put some work in front of her, she'll be happier than a kid in a candy store."

They leave the elevator and are intercepted by a fast-moving Waspette-shaped blur. Steve 'oofs' and catches Nadia one-armed, moving the pizza boxes just a little so they're not upset by her effusive greeting. "Hey Nadia," he greets the girl. The pizza's set on a table. "I come bearing genius fuel," he tells her.

"Nadia, this is my best pal, James Barnes," he tells her. Misreading her sudden hesitation, he pats her shoulder encouragingly and nods at Bucky. "Bucky, this is Janet's daughter, Nadia. She's a genius with machinery and design. I think you two have a mutual friend, too-- Shuri?" he points out. "Shuri helped him fix his arm before, but it's on the fritz again and not working right. We're also having an issue with some, um, other stuff, but that can wait until you can look at his arm. Think you can spare the time to help him out?"

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky's pale blues fall on Nadia. His brow furrows a little, nothing concerning though, it's just a LITTLE creasing, thoughtful. "No, I don't think so..."

    But mayyyyybe. It might be there, like a word on the tip of his tongue that he can't pull to the front of his mind.

    It's about then that another of those *ZAPS* nails him. It's like a dog wearing a shock collar set too high. The arm jerks, his hand clenches and relaxes on its own and he lets out a growling little gurgling sound that clearly translates to: fuck me, that hurts.

    To his credit, he doesn't voice the thought in front of a kid. He's a lot of things, but he's still well enough mannered to not add to the swear jar in front of children unless things are really really bad.

    Once he's recovered, he leans in toward Steve and whispers, "She's Shuri's friend?." There's a little trepidation in his voice there, because well, as much as he loves the little Princess she is the biggest pain in his ASS sometimes. He's not sure he needs another one like her.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia releases her grip on Steve, nodding faintly, her eyes still stuck on Bucky. "His arm?" She is staring at Bucky and begins circling around him a bit to get a better look. That is of course until Bucky is zapped with another electrical surge and struck by sizzling pain from his arm. That seems to snap her out of it at least momentarily, a look of concern crossing her face. "Are you okay?"

She shakes her head seemingly pushing whatever was bothering her to the back of her mind for the moment. "I can't imagine anything Shuri worked on malfunctioning like this on it's own? Can I see it?" She moves closer to Bucky, as she does she reaches into her skirt pocket and somehow withdraws an entire toolbox, which she carries over with her.

Steve Rogers has posed:
"It's a prosthetic," Steve supplies. "Like I said. It's a really good one, and Shuri poked at it a bit, but it got damaged a while back and it's been zapping him ever since. It's just hard finding someone smart enough to know how to repair it.

Steve reaches over towards Bucky's arm. He pauses and gives Bucky a reassuring look, waiting for permission, and rolls the sleeve back a ways to reveal the complex prosthetic.

James Barnes has posed:
    He's trying not to stare, Bucky knows his staring can be a little ... intimidating. Sam reminds him of it all the time. But since the moment Nadia asked that question, he just can't help it.

    Add to it the name, Nadia. Damn. "I'm... okay. I mean, it hurts, but I'm okay."

    "It got zapped with something while..." He was killing HYDRA goons to save mutant slaves. Yeah, that doesn't sound like an appropriate explanation for a kid. So he just lets the rest of it drop. "Yeah..." But he flicks a little nervous glance in Steve's direction, "It won't go up far enough, I think the problem's closer to the shoulder," before he pulls off the leather driving glove and strips off the hoodie.

    At least he's wearing a t-shirt under. It hides the scars where the arm's attached that cause him a whole lot of self-consciousness. Truth be told, the whole thing does, it's too much a reminder of his past.

    It doesn't, however, hide the bottom half that that horrible - in his mind - red star plastered on the arm.

    "Look, she has a bag of holding." he tells Steve. Where he learned that reference is anyone's guess. Maybe he has a secret Sunday night D&D group where he plays a Kinder?

    Another *ZAP*, another growl. It's happening more frequently. ...and with the shirt gone, the *ZAP* can actually be seen in the form of live electrical current flashing between the segmented plates in the arm that allow for so much range of motion. He's right, the issue seems to start right around the star. Fate or happenstance?

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Zapped, that's never a good thing." Nadia agrees opening and rummaging through her toolbox before pulling out what look like some legit mad scientist goggles which she pulls on giving her access to various degrees of magnification and other sensors superimposed over her vision, and what appears to be some sort of really advanced drill with screwdriver attachments. Gotta get inside somehow.

When Nadia straightens up again and actually gets a good look at Bucky's arm though, she visibly freezes in place. "You have a red star on your metal arm. You're him. The Winter Soldier." She murmurs eyes a bit wide, taking a half step backwards. "Steve?" She asks, voice a bit hollow. "What's going on?"

James Barnes has posed:
    *DING*

    ...and there it is. If Steve's paying attention at all, he'd notice that look immediately. It's that thousand yard stare that tends to happen right before Bucky blips out. It's that look of impending doom that seems to be 2.2 second calm before the storm. It's the fragmented memory downloading from somewhere in the deepest recesses of his Swiss cheese brain to a place closer to the front where it can be accessed easily.

    When those pale blues refocus, his reaction is *extreme*. Probably one of the most extreme Steve's seen from him in a long time. Why? Because of all his fragmented memories of his time in the cold, of all the nightmares, the ones of the Red Room are the *worst*. All of those girls, all of that innocence gone... because of him. Taking little girls and turning them into killing machines is probably the absolute height of his shame and self-loathing. It even outshines nearly killing both Steve and Peggy, because they were *kids*.

    His system floods with adrenaline, flight or fight's kicking in and he's certainly not going to fight a kid so it's a safe bet that flight is on the menu.

    His voice doesn't sound like his own to him when he whispers, "I'm sorry," before scurrying back away from Nadia, hands out in front of himself. He actually trips over his own feet and falls on his ass. He'll be up in a beat of a heart, but it still might be enough time for Steve to get hands on him before this turns into a chase through the Avenger Mansion.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve's a half-beat behind the power curve, but a fast-working brain and great reflexes buy a guy a lot of credibility. Mentally he's smacking himself in the forehead for not anticipating this-- of /course/ the Winter Soldier worked with the Red Room. And he knew well that Nadia had been trained by them.

But the leap from 'Janet's daughter' to 'Bucky's former life' never quite manifested for him.

Steve's up and after Bucky and when he trips, he's there in a flash. One hand stabilizes Bucky with a firm grip on his flesh-and-blood arm; he jams a leg behind Bucky's shoulder to keep him upright and from retreating any furthur.

"/Was/. /Was/ the Winter Soldier." He projects as much levelness and calm in his voice as possible. Not an issue, folks, everyone just keep moving. Nothing to see here. "HYDRA did to him what the Red Room did to you. They just had him a lot longer," Steve tells Nadia, thinking fast. "And they spent more time scrambling his mental circuits. He didn't have a home and parents to come back to, either. You know how easy it is for Them--" Department X-- "to manipulate people in that situation," he reminds Nadia.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia just stands where she is. In the thrall of the ghosts of her past she seems almost like a different person. She nods slowly listening to what Steve says. It seems to help, she trusts Steve like she trusts few things other than Science. Other than Science is a pretty short list too, or had been until recently anyway.

Her gaze moves from Steve to Bucky, "Is that true?" She asks Bucky. There is huge importance behind that question, all the meaning someone who grew up in a place where everything was lies within lies might attach to the notion of 'Truth'. She doesn't wait for an answer though. "You're oldest memory I have. The very first." She tells him, "I don't even remember my Mom, my real mom, Janet adopted me. Just the man with the red star on his metal arm. You. Who brought me to the Red Room and taught the advanced combat classes."

James Barnes has posed:
    Steve's been privy to a lot of Bucky's emotional reactions to the horrors of his past. Fear, anger, violence, even complete catatonic staring into nothing. But what happens now isn't a common one - tears. They well in his blue eyes, already wild and wide, and make them too bright. They tumble freely down his scruffy cheeks, but at least he's not totally ugly crying.

    With Steve holding him steady, he's not trying to flee anymore and it's not because... he might not be able to - odds are about fifty fifty that he might be able to get away if he tried. He's not trying to. It's because *Steve* is holding him 'steady'. Sort of...

    His breaths are coming in ragged gasps, shallow and rasping. His chest heaves and hurts with each one.

    *ZAP*

    FUCKING ARM! He actually *yelps* that time because he doesn't have the emotional stamina to turn the yelp into something more 'manly'.

    "I'm sorry," whispered, barely there. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, kid."

    Remorse, regret, pain and sadness, it's raw and open, written all over his face.

    Every word Steve said is true, of course, but he still has a really hard time separating 'I' and 'The Winter Soldier'.

Steve Rogers has posed:
"Hey." Steve gives Bucky's good arm a hard clap and bears down with his grip enough to get Bucky's attention through the pain and emotional spikes. "On your feet, soldier." It's a firm command, no matter how low the voice is pitched. Steve puts his free hand in front of Bucky's face to lend him some additional support, unequivocally backing Bucky up despite the memories the two of them were grappling over.

"I told you, Buck, you can't keep apologizing for the things the Russians made you do," he tells his friend with a stern tone. The words, though, are as much for Nadia as they are for Bucky.

"Nadia-- listen, kiddo, you know I'd do anything for your mom. And that goes for you, too," he tells her with gentle emphasis. "And up until I met Janet, Bucky was the only other person I'd trust with that kind of carte blanche. If he handed me a loaded gun and told me I had to shoot myself, I'd do it. I trust him. Your mom's come to trust him, too. Mostly," Steve allows, with that bit of compulsive truth-telling.

"Now Bucky, if you want to make it up to Nadia--" he tilts his head at the girl-- "you might ask if she'll take a look at your arm and see if she can fix it somehow."

He hesitates, gives Nadia a sly, sidelong look. "Of course it's Russian tech, so she probably has ideas on how to improve it. Then again, Shuri worked on it earlier. And it's not like she missed something that you'd catch and can fix. Right?" he suggests to Nadia with a challenging glimmer in his eye.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia takes a deep breath taking it all in. She then begins walking towards Steve and Bucky. She looks at Steve one more time and then at Bucky and does the most Nadia thing possible wrapping Bucky in a big hug. "You don't have to apologize. It's not your fault." She tells him, waiting for those words to sink in. "Department X has done some really terrible things." Something about the way she says it, if the revelation of her time in the Red Room wasn't enough, this girl has seen some shit. And yet somehow, somehow she manages to look up at him with a bright smile all the same. "Maybe I can helpp you with that too."

When Bucky actually yelps though her gaze shoots back to his arm, right the arm. There is an arm and it needs fixing. It's strange the way she seems to come alive again at the revelation from someone she trusts that Bucky was brainwashed and controlled, there is acceptance and a sincere hug and she just accepts it.

The goggles are pulled back down again as she zooms in on the arm and begins unfastening the bindings that keep the armored exterior plates in place so she can get at the inner circuits and the power source. "Shuri's best tech all involves vibranium, she'd have to really like you to give you a vibranium arm though." She notes since this one clearly isn't. "I could probably improve it, do you want a laser? Lasers are cool. My friend Vic's arm has lasers!"

James Barnes has posed:
    It might take him a little bit longer than it normally would for him to actually get to his feet. This one? It felt more like a punch to the gut than being run through by Logan's claws. But he does take Steve's hand eventually and get his feet back underneath him.

    Just in time for that damned hug. It causes him to make a little strangled sound in the back of his throat that's the result of him choking back a little sob that almost made its way out. His right and falls to around Nadia's back, awkward. He doesn't know how to do this!

    When he's free of that mess, he reaches up with his flesh and bone hand to wipe a little angrily at one eye, then the other. Damned things betraying him and leaking all over the place like that. He sniffs back the snot nose crap that's threatening to happen. Then he's back under control, mostly. Steve would see it, the way he's still a little twitchy, a little bit of a flight risk should anything else smack him right in the emotional funny bone like a sledge hammer.

    He barks out a strange sounding little laugh and says, "Lasers are cool, kid."