6960/Red Room Tech Support

Red Room Tech Support
Date of Scene:	15 July 2021
Location:	Avenger's Lab
Synopsis:	Continuation of A History of Violence: Bucky gets more than he bargained for when Steve takes him to Nadia to help with his busted arm. He gets a temporary solution to his biggest worry, HYDRA's programming. ...and one more friend that he now doesn't have to worry so much about murdering while under their control.
Cast of Characters:	Nadia Pym-van Dyne, James Barnes

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Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
To say it was an emotional first meeting would be an understatement. It is not every day you come face to face with one of the faces of your past. It is perhaps a testament to Nadia's time outside of the Red Room and her seeming eternal optimism that she is able to seperate the mind control from the individual and move on, though Bucky is hardly the first, and probably not the last, case of that she's run into.

At this point the arm has been completely detached from Bucky's shoulder and the armor plates opened up. The components are scattered about across the surface of a large table where Nadia works surrounded by bleeding edge looking tools of various sources ...is that a DoomTech plasma cutter?!

"So that high energy blast, it overloaded the servos and damaged the power supply. Honestly you're lucky you didn't wait much longer this is an electrocution waiting to happen, you'd have been cooked from the inside out." Nadia notes all of it absently as she works, like a mechanic might diagnose a busted engine block.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky? He's just mostly quiet now. It's not hard to tell that he's a bit uncomfortable being left alone with Nadia. Awkward, the dude is just plain awkward. He doesn't possess much in the way of social graces, if any at all. Seventy plus years of nothing but fighting and running have left him well out of practice. So, he defaults to his usual go to...

    "Sorry..." for? Who knows? Not bringing his arm into the shop sooner?

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia glances over in Bucky's direction when he utters yet another 'sorry' "Don't make me hug you again." She informs him with an impish grin. That seems to be her way of dealing with issues like Bucky's just hug them into submission.

"For 100 years ago," At least it might as well have been 100 years ago for someone Nadia's age, "Department X did a remarkable job putting this together. I can see where Shuri re-engineered a few things too. I can significantly boost your power output though by shrinking down a larger scale generator, that's one of the beauties of Pym Particles I don't have to find parts that fit, I can make them fit. We're definitely going to need more power for the laser anyway." Because the laser is a foregone conclusion at this point, Nadia has decided Bucky is getting one and so he is.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky lets out a sigh, not a dramatically loud one, just a little one. He rolls his eyes heavenward. Great, another pushy teenage girl, JUST what he needed in his life. But if he learned anything from the last one, it's that they're a whirlwind of stubbornness not to be denied. He's dwelling a little on fate's cruel joke that is Shuri, the little Princess that he both loves and wants to throttle on the daily, when his brain catches up with his ears.

    "Lasers?"

    Why does he sound terrified?

    "No, that's not... you shouldn't.... I ... if something... I mean..." Spit it the fuck out, man! Lord! "...that's dangerous, you shouldn't."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia straightens up again from where she had been bent over Bucky's half disassembled arm, "You agreed lasers were cool!" She almost looks betrayed, before cracking another grin.

"Don't worry! It will be fine. Unlike Department X /my/ hardware doesn't break from a little power surge. Besides just fixing it would be boring when we can UPGRADE!" There is a devilish enthusiasm in those eyes.

James Barnes has posed:
    "They are cool," Bucky reasserts. But his brow furrows and he looks away from Nadia, from the arm and down to the floor. "Just... don't okay? It won't be safe for other people." His voice is soft, words strained like he had a hard time getting them out.

    "Just fix it so it doesn't shock me anymore." Or leave the damned thing off, that'd be an option if it wasn't for fucking HYDRA.

    "...if they get me again, it could be used against the people I care about, kid. I can't live with that possibility floating around in my mind every day."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia turns towards Bucky, lifting the goggles from her eyes, and reaches out a finger to try and lift up his chin to make him look at her instead of the floor. "You seem to misunderstand something. You're Steve's friend, which means you're my friend. Which means I'm not going to let them have you back. I've helped destroy three Department X facilities already and I'd make it four or even ten to protect my friends." There is a fierce determination in those eyes of hers.

Nadia regards Bucky for what probably feels like eternity before finally hugging him, again. "Don't worry I won't let them have you. We're free now."

James Barnes has posed:
    OMG! Shuri's better, bring back SHURI! At least all she does is get on with her bossy self, not all this... hugging.

    Bucky tenses a little under that hug. This is a man with seven decades worth of regrets, torture, horror... shame... Hugs *hurt* if only because they always threaten to bring all that sorrow to the surface. He blinks a few times to keep those pale blues from betraying him and leaking *again*.

    With his right hand, he reaches to take Nadia and pull her gently back away from him.

    "No," his voice firm. "You don't get it, kid. I'm *not* free. It's till there, in my head. ... for them to reach in and grab whenever they want with just a few words. I can't have a fuc... a stinkin' laser in my arm, it's too dangerous."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia lets Bucky pull away, though she seems completely undaunted as she stands there nodding before finally snappointing at him in a mannerism she undoubtedly picked up from Tony, "You should have lead with that. Seriously burying the lead there. Okay, so we put off the awesome laser until after we deal with the Department X programming." Seriously, does anything phase this girl?

Nadia brings a hand up to her chin as she considers, "I think I have some files on Department X brainwashing and conditioning among the records I stole from the Red Room when I escaped, there might be something helpful in there. More immediately though, if words are the problem... we just need to make sure you can't hear those words. Personally I'd use a high info density light burst if it was me, but I guess we are talking like 100 years ago... Maybe like a hearing aid with linguistic detection that floods you with dissonant noise when those words are detected?"

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky, on the other hand, gets 'phased' pretty easily when it comes to this stuff. He makes a little... growl of a sound, but not so much a threatening thing. It's just not quite a groan either. Those pale blues of his do a little shift over Nadia's left shoulder and go all distant and million miles away.

    They clear and come back to reality before he speaks again but he doesn't look at her. "Can we not... talk about the Red Room, Department X... that... stuff... please?" The last thing he wants is this kid saying the wrong thing, something that sends him spiraling down a path in his mind that leads to a flashback complete with violent outburst. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened.

    ...what is new, is the fact that he's starting to recognize it in himself, some of the things that, for now, need to be avoided. That's all on Sam.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia's gaze returns to Bucky, that fierce look hasn't faded, if anything it has intensified as she studies this man that Steve spoke of so highly as if she's trying to see whatever it is that Steve is able to see.

"We don't have to talk about anything, do anything." She says echoing the various surrogate mother figures who have come into her life. "Let me rephrase the question," She makes it very simple and impossible to evade, "Do you want to be free? Or are you content to have their hooks in your mind because it hurts too much?"

She takes a deep breath, "I /can/ help you, but not if you don't want to be helped."

James Barnes has posed:
    "It's not that it hurts too much," Bucky almost snarls in reply. "It's that I'm not *safe* for you to be around if some topic you're going on about makes me..." He pauses, trying to find the right words. It's a struggle. The best he can come up with is, "...blip out. I've attacked my best friends in my sleep, I've gone after them when..."

    Finally he throws decorum or whatever, proper-ness in front of children out the window because he's just that frustrated. "Of course I want to be free, but my brain is *fucked* outside of that too. So, for now, I'd prefer to avoid topics of conversation that might trigger a..." Another pause, this time a painful one because the word is hard for him to say, hard to accept, hard to admit, "...flashback."

Maxima (342) has posed:
"Good!" Nadia smiles back at him, "That's more like it!" She seems quite please by the fierce outbursts, like that will to fight is what she had been searching for.

"Okay, first, don't worry about me." She smiles warmly at him. "I can take care of myself." She seems to be very confident of that.

"Second, point taken, I'll try to talk in vaguer terms but let's do something about those hooks in your brain. Now it's going to take some time and research and honestly pyschology isn't really my specialty, my own brain has its flaws, but my therapist is really helpful." She starts getting off on tangents before forcibly reining herself back in. Sometimes one could almost forget she is only 17, other times it is /painfully/ obvious.

"Anyway, you said the commands are verbal, until a more permanent solution can be found I could rig a cochlear implant to re-synthesize sound on a similar wavelength when those words are detected into something else that will probably sound a lot like Russian screamo death metal. It won't be pleasant, but it will keep those words from reaching your brain until something deeper and more permanent can be figured out. I could also probably make it able to selectively enhance your hearing in general for /other/ sound when its in use. How does that sound?"

James Barnes has posed:
    Blahblahblah... blahahahblalahallablah. That's mostly what Bucky hears. It's not that Nadia is Charlie Brown's teacher and Charlie isn't paying attention, but... well, what the hell's a cochlear implant? Screamo Death Metal? That sounds unpleasant for sure. It's just that most of it goes right over his head and it's evident in the way he just blank stares at Nadia for a moment after she's done babbling, but...

    "If it'll stop them from turning me against my friends ever again, just to what you have to do. I'd have jabbed ice picks in my ears already if didn't know Steve would have a cow over it."

    ...and he means it, he would have, in a heart beat. Why hasn't he anyway? Steve would blame himself for not being the friend Bucky needed to stop it from happening.

Maxima (342) has posed:
Nadia has seen this expression before, Steve makes it too when she gets lost in SCIENCE! babble. "Hearing aid." She says when she see's Bucky's blank stare. "Really fancy hearing aid that makes you not able to hear the words you don't want to and also gives you super hearing that you can turn on and off if you want."

When Bucky states his conviction about the ice picks Nadia doesn't seem any more a fan than Steve would be, though Natasha would probably approve. "Let's not do that." She says making a face. "High tech hearing aid it is!" Her expression turns thoughtful and one can almost see the design process occuring behind her eyes. "Okay, give me like ...5 minutes, I'll be right back." She says removing her crystal necklace for some reason and setting it on the table. "Don't, go anywhere, 5 minutes, okay?" And then she just seems to vanish from sight.

James Barnes has posed:
    "Sure..." Okay, five minutes.

    Bucky blinks a few times when Nadia is just *gone*, but he's not unfamiliar with the idea of teleportation and, since that's what it looks like to him, he's okay with it.

    Other than being alone in the room, or thinking that he is anyway.

    After a quick glance around, he averts his gaze to the floor and keeps it there. His hair falls over his face to hide it, but his expression is... all brow furrowed and pinched, nervous, anxious, creeping into fear territory. Labs make him nervous, for obvious reasons. It wasn't so bad when the babbling Nadia was there as a distraction. Now? Without the distraction, he can see some sort of torture implement in every damned tool in here.

Maxima (342) has posed:
A little less than five minutes later Nadia reappears, again seemingly from nowhere, but this time she is holding a few new items. "Okay. So, I made some implants, but like the name implant implies part of them needs to be literally implanted and affixed to your cochlear nerve. I could probably do it, but it is probably better to have one of my friends with more experience doing actual medical work do it. I'm sure Dr. McCoy would be willing to help, if that's okay with you?"

She sets the cochlear related devices down on a nearby table for the moment, "In the meantime, I also made these." She opens her other hand revealing what look almost like wireless earbuds or less invasive deep ear hearing aids. "All you have to do is shout 'nyet' and well you'll get the mother of all headaches but you won't lose control of yourself. It's a step down from the cochlear but a good stopgap until it can be implanted. The cochlear one will function automatically once its ready." This seems like an awful lot for /5 minutes/ even if she is a super genius.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky's eyes narrow slightly, but it's a pensive thing more than a suspicious thing, mostly. "That was fast..." So, she's either really fast or this is something Steve's already had her working on.

    "Implanted?" he asks as he picks up one of the cochlear devices to look it over first. He's perfectly willing to stab out his own eardrums, but... "And there's no chance anyone else can somehow take control of these things?" The trepidation is there, the fear of the possibility of them finding another way to control him. The way he's staring at the thing, it might be a snake that's ready to bite him. He's not saying 'no', he's just covering all the bases.

    "The other ones, can someone like Steve or Sam make'm go off if they have to? Would they wake me up if someone screamed nyet while I was sleeping?" ...and dreaming about murdering someone and that someone turned out to be his friend when he woke up.

Maxima (342) has posed:
Nadia leans against the edge of the table watching Bucky fiddle with the implants. She grins when he comments on the speed, "Yep, I'm pretty fast!" She just agrees with him.

She shakes her head when Bucky begins listing his concerns about the implants. "They're not sending or receiving any sort of actual commands, just reacting to specific audio input, so no. Their functions are pre-set. The entire idea with this is to prevent that. Also cochlear implants have an external part also, this one." She says pointing to one of the outer ear portions. "If you pull that off the whole thing will cease to function. So A you normally don't want that to happen. But B if somehow someone managed something crazy you could pull it off and stop whatever it was." Countermeasures within countermeasures, she's certainly thorough.

"As for the smaller ones, literally anyone yelling the command phrase above a certain decibel level will trigger them, so I'd be careful who you tell that to. That would be a horrible way to wake up, but yes scrambling your eardrums would wake up almost anyone."

James Barnes has posed:
    He turns the device over in hands a few more times and sets it aside. "So, even if we do the implants, I can still wear the other things at night?" That seems really important to Bucky. Right up there with the trigger word deal important. His gaze drops the the floor again, hair covering his face. The girl standing in front of him is just a kid, right?

    But not really, not like Shuri's just a kid.

    "I almost killed Sam when I was having a nightmare. Would that wake me up if it happened again?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia walks over and puts a hand on Bucky's shoulder sympathetically, the non-metal one since the arm is still half disassembled on the table. "You can wear both. The cochlear external bits don't involve your ear canal, so yes you could wear them together. I can also add a similar external command functionality into the cochlear implants if you want. It's not that much different than scrambling the command words when detected, sound is detected, effect happens. It would just mean adding an extra trigger."

She listens and nods when he talks about attacking Sam in a nightmare, "You'll either wake up or be rendered catatonic by continued activations." She doesn't quite give him another hug, but she does give his shoulder a squeeze.

James Barnes has posed:
    "Let's do it then." For the first time, those pale blues of his lock gazes with Nadia.

    It's clear from his tone, that he means NOW. As in, he doesn't care if she's only seventeen. He's ready. Right. This. Second.

    "So I don't have to feel like I'm still running anymore." That really is what his life feels like, the constant looking over his shoulder, wondering when they'll strike or always worried about just 'blipping out' as he calls it and hurting someone. "Can you just do it?"

    Now that he knows it's possible, right there, he's going to have a hard damned time waiting.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia hesitates for a moment when Bucky seems ready for immediate surgery. "I've never done a procedure like this before, I mean I think I might be able to with Jarvis' help and a holographic overlay assist, but what I mean is are you sure? I made the smaller ones to buy time for an actual doctor..." She closes her eyes for a moment and then opens them again as if ready to meet Bucky's conviction, "If you're sure. It can't be more difficult than removing a cortex bomb right?" Was that a joke? That was a joke right?

James Barnes has posed:
    There is zero hesitation, none at all. "I'm sure." Three years he's since Steve brought him in from the cold and three years he's felt the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head in the form of HYDRA and those trigger words.

    He doesn't want to wait another second if he doesn't have to.

    "Look ki - Nadia..." It's still a struggle to actually call her by her name, it makes it all less personal if he doesn't, less real... now that he's actually remembered her. "...If you get freaked out and feel like you need to stop, then stop."

    "...you mean in someone's head?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"From someone's head." Nadia confirms. "My friend Ying." Though the less she elaborates on that the better, probably.

There is another deep breath, but Nadia is not about to back down from this challenge. Not when it means helping someone who was a prisoner far longer than she was finally be free of Department X, finally able to perhaps sleep at night. "Come with me." She tells Bucky and leads him to the Avengers Mansion medical bays, state of the art cutting edge facilities. There may have been a quiet threat along the way to hack Jarvis into an Amazon Echo assistant if he didn't cooperate or maybe she was just talking to herself.

In the medical bay she motions Bucky over to one of the tables. "Please lie down." And begins calling up holographic displays outlining the procedure. "This shouldn't be too hard." She tells herself, "Only minimally invasive. I'm going to use a localized anasthetic, hopefully you won't feel much."

James Barnes has posed:
Bucky follows, ready, not a single second thought. He even steps into that medbay without trepidation, or at least without much.

    Labs and medical equipment will always manage to get his adrenaline flowing a little.

    When he lays down on the table, he focuses on a spot on the ceiling, looking at nothing else. But there's a reason for that other than not wanting to look at the equipment in the room.

    "It's okay, you won't hurt me Nadia..." Not worse than they did. See, if he stares long enough at that same spot, his eyes'll unfocus after a bit and... well, mentally he'll just check out, go somewhere else entirely in his head. Back then, even when they thought they'd taken everything away from him, his favorite place to go was the pier near Coney Island. He didn't remember the significance of it then, that it was his favorite place to swim with Steve when they were kids. But the place always brought him a little piece, a little relief from the agony of the tests they put him through.

    "...my pain tolerance is pretty high."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Bucky may be up for being cut up without even a local anasthetic but Nadia isn't. For someone who went through the Red Room, she still doesn't like inflicting unnessessary pain if it can be avoided. Thankfully for her, it is part of the automated part of the process.

The metal robotic arm comes down and first there is a pinching sensation as the local anasthetic is delivered. Once it begins to take affect, a laser apparatus makes a cut behind behind Bucky's ear and then opens the mastoid bone. Watching on the holographic displays, Nadia carefully identifies the facial nerves and instructs the equipment to create an opening between them to access Bucky's cochlea, which is then opened in turn. Carefully another mechanical arm reaches in and inserts the implant electrodes into Bucky's cochlea. Once that is done, the arm moves on taking a receiver from a nearby try and implanting it under the skin behind behind Bucky's ear, securing it to his skull. Finally, the laser apparatus reactivates, closing the incisions.

Not the shortest of procedures, all in all Bucky is on the table for over two hours before the robotic arm finally pulls away and Nadia steps back from the holographic displays. "That should do it, try to sit up slowly." She smiles down at him.

James Barnes has posed:
    She may not like inflicting pain unnecessarily, but after he slowly gets himself into the seated position, the first thing he asks is, "That's it? It's done?" Seriously, that's it? But the second thing he asks might be a little bit more difficult for her to abide.

    "Say the first one." Because he needs to know. Maybe no the best of ideas yet, but he *needs* to know.

    He's looking at her with those baby blues that were, just a little while ago, filled with so much freakin' pain. Now? There's maybe some hope there.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Again Nadia hesitates for a moment, she'd rather wait until he's recovered a bit more from the procedure, yet at the same time can understand that burning need to know. "Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak..." She begins in perfect Russian, it is her first language after all.

Nadia doesn't get past 'rusted' before the words start to scramble and twist and screamo death metal may have been an understatement the resulting cacophany of screeching, debilitating /noise/ bestows upon him the worst kind of headache, but none of the other words make it through. He can see her lips moving through the pain, she's still saying the words, all the way to the end, but Bucky cannot hear them. Bucky is in pain, but Bucky is free.

James Barnes has posed:
    When the first word isn't filtered, he looks dejected. It didn't work. When the thing kicks in? His right hand flies to the side of his head, his left would too if it was there. His eyes widen, he makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat because, well, he can't scream. Fuck that HURTS... He damned near falls off the table.

    But when Nadia stops speaking and the immediate pain stops, leaving behind only the lingering headache and he's ... still James Buchanan Barnes and NOT the Winter Soldier?

    He chokes back a fucking *sob*. He stands and wraps the one arm he has around her to actually pull her into a hug.

    The, "Thank you," he whispers is barely there around the lump in his throat.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia, of course, enthusiastically hugs Bucky back when he pulls her into that embrace. She is a hugger and hug she does. "I know what it is like to be trapped in a cage, I grew up in the cage. I know what it is like to escape and have them come for you. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Be free." The otherwise effervescent girl's voice is quiet. This isn't the first time she has helped break Department X's hold on someone, but it still feels good every time.

"So," She finally says breaking the long embrace, "I should probably finish reassembling your arm."

James Barnes has posed:
    It takes him a long few moments to actually speak after all of that. He doesn't trust his voice not to crack to pieces. He clears his throat a few times to be sure he's got it pulled together and says, "Yeah, that thing kinda comes in handy for slappin' Steve upside the head when he's stupid."

    Was that an actual smile? Even with the pounding headache still lingering, yes, that was an actual smile. A small one, maybe not as bright as it used to be when he was just a fresh faced, dumb kid going off to war, but it's a genuine one. He should do that more often, it's a good look on him.