[And Bucky's right on that point; the basic facts aren't wrong. But the framing is. The idea that they'd been friends was wrong. What they'd been had been contentious and a recurring game where no matter what step she picked it was always the wrong one.
It's a complicated question, and she doesn't answer yes or no because it would mean either confirming his fears or lying to him.]
I was alone practicing ballet when he showed up at the room in the studio I used. He tracked me down there and was- trying to pick me apart, I think. Get in my head. [There had been knives there; in the words between them, in her dance. Pierce was complicated for her in ways she didn't like to talk about. He was the villain, she knew this, couldn't forget it. But from the time she was nine until she was fourteen she'd been raised by STRIKE, and there were chinks in her armor, murky lines that Pierce was trying to get his hooks into, that he pushed at. She hadn't known what they were when she was a girl with a past she couldn't hold onto, instead clinging to the lies they told her about rescuing her from the Russian Mafia.
She's not angry that he believed Pierce because she knows how good he is at this. She knew that she'd given him more rope than she ever should have. But the idea that they were ever friends just isn't the truth, or at least not her truth.]
I was part of an experiment they called the OPUS project. There was a machine they used to link us, control us. The idea behind the project was to make distance irrelevant. It showed up here, and they handed it over to Prometheus Labs. I didn't-- I didn't know what to do. I was--
[There's a pause, she's trying to find the words, her eyes a little too bright, her breath coming fast.] --scared.
[These days, she hides her vulnerability deeper, that fear that if she touches it then every hurt she's suffered since will all come boiling out. But she manages to catch herself, to push it down.] I tried to stay away from people, from everyone. And the only person that reached out to me was Pierce. So yes, I took a chess board when I went to see if he was planning on ripping away who I am, and we played two games. We talked. And then I fried the machine. But he let me and I still don't understand why, and I'm still afraid there's something I missed.
[Her shoulders slump and she quiets, her gaze finally falling from him to the ground, blinking her eyes.] So, yes. It's true. And if you're mad at me for getting in over my head, letting him push me away from everyone, you're not wrong. But it wasn't like that.
no subject
It's a complicated question, and she doesn't answer yes or no because it would mean either confirming his fears or lying to him.]
I was alone practicing ballet when he showed up at the room in the studio I used. He tracked me down there and was- trying to pick me apart, I think. Get in my head. [There had been knives there; in the words between them, in her dance. Pierce was complicated for her in ways she didn't like to talk about. He was the villain, she knew this, couldn't forget it. But from the time she was nine until she was fourteen she'd been raised by STRIKE, and there were chinks in her armor, murky lines that Pierce was trying to get his hooks into, that he pushed at. She hadn't known what they were when she was a girl with a past she couldn't hold onto, instead clinging to the lies they told her about rescuing her from the Russian Mafia.
She's not angry that he believed Pierce because she knows how good he is at this. She knew that she'd given him more rope than she ever should have. But the idea that they were ever friends just isn't the truth, or at least not her truth.]
I was part of an experiment they called the OPUS project. There was a machine they used to link us, control us. The idea behind the project was to make distance irrelevant. It showed up here, and they handed it over to Prometheus Labs. I didn't-- I didn't know what to do. I was--
[There's a pause, she's trying to find the words, her eyes a little too bright, her breath coming fast.] --scared.
[These days, she hides her vulnerability deeper, that fear that if she touches it then every hurt she's suffered since will all come boiling out. But she manages to catch herself, to push it down.] I tried to stay away from people, from everyone. And the only person that reached out to me was Pierce. So yes, I took a chess board when I went to see if he was planning on ripping away who I am, and we played two games. We talked. And then I fried the machine. But he let me and I still don't understand why, and I'm still afraid there's something I missed.
[Her shoulders slump and she quiets, her gaze finally falling from him to the ground, blinking her eyes.] So, yes. It's true. And if you're mad at me for getting in over my head, letting him push me away from everyone, you're not wrong. But it wasn't like that.