[closed]

[krasnaya_vdova]

who: Ava and Bucky
what: Late-night meetings at a gun range. You know, the usual.
when: After the failed attempts at first aid
where: The gun range
warnings: I'll add if needed!

[Ava doesn't particularly sleep well, as a rule. Too many nightmares, too scared of her nightmares, of what they could mean for the people around her. So she sleeps fitfully, steals it when she can find it. And there are too many nights like tonight, where all that darkness gets bottled up in her throat and she has to do something. Sometimes it's sparring against shadows and dead ghosts, other times she ends up at the firing range.

She hangs the paper and then pulls the guns out of her duffle bag, checking them all carefully, setting them in front of her. She can't literally shoot the things that haunt her, but this is easy. One of the things that's all half-remembered muscle-memory and a link she'd never asked for. Finger on the trigger, that sudden break as she pulls, and her aim is deadly. There's hardly any variation in the groupings as she shoots, letting the gun drop at five shots, catching with her left hand, and her aim is still right on target.

She is a lot of things, but she isn't normal.]

Comments

[advanced]

[He doesn't know what to do with that, but for some reason it loosens a tiny knot inside his chest. He doesn't smile, he rarely does that any more, yet his expression does soften slightly.]

I don't want to be scary.

[So that's good.]

I'm not what they made me any more, sounds like you're not either. Maybe one day we can figure out what we are, as well as what we're not.

[krasnaya_vdova]

[He might not smile, but his expression softens, and she's sharp enough to catch it. She smiles in response, nods to his words.]

I only thought you were scary when I thought they might send you after me. Mostly I wanted you to get away.

[After Hydra had taken the Academy and the hellicarriers had come down and she hadn't known what side he'd ended up on, just the news reports.

She nods in quiet agreement.]

I hope so. Do you- know what you want to be?

[She doesn't, not really. She used to think she wanted to be a hero. Save people. Now she's not sure it's that clear-cut.]

[advanced]

[He doesn't say the obvious, that if he'd been sent after her then she would already be dead. The other people that HYDRA had made to be Soldiers were good, but he had always been the best at what he did. It's why he was their main asset.

The question is one he's been asking himself for a long time, what he wants to be, and so he nods.]

I want to be James Barnes.

[krasnaya_vdova]

[She knows. She understood what he was, and knew that if he found her the odds would have been stacked against her; he'd have made sure of it. Because she remembers Odessa and the nuclear engineer, even if they aren't her memories, remembers a scar she doesn't have.

But she smiles at his response. That's good, she thinks.]

The man in the museum? Or.. someone else? What does the name mean to you?

[He asked his questions, so she asks hers, although hers are softer they're still important: maybe he can't show her not to be dangerous. But she has questions about identity, about who she is, and what she's supposed to be. Things she hasn't told him because they're harder to explain.]

[advanced]

[It's not a good thing to meet someone else who understands what these issues are; what had been done to him should never have been done to someone else, these are experiences that should never have been shared. But here she is, and he can't deny that she's earned her questions in return.]

I'm not sure, I'm still working that out.

[He shrugs, at least attempting to be honest.]

I think it just means being free.

[krasnaya_vdova]

[She nods, listens as he speaks, and she empathizes with the fact of still working it out; she is too. They'd made her something less than human, and then tried to make her someone else, because she wasn't a person at all. Moving forward past that in the last couple years on the heels of tragedy has been hard.

She'd realized, once she'd started running, that at the Academy she'd been more or less just letting different people tell her who she was. People that hadn't ended up being very different at all.]

I like that. Being free, it's.. good.

[Her tone is a little wistful. She misses Brooklyn, but it's something she doesn't feel she can really ever have back.]

[advanced]

Yeah.

[He hesitates a moment, but perhaps she stands more of a chance of understanding than anyone else would.]

Scary, though. Knowing that the choices you make are on you, that anyone who gets hurt really is on your shoulders.

[krasnaya_vdova]

--yeah. [The sentiment hits her hard and she pauses, quiets for a moment. The words aren't always easy, and this is something she hasn't talked about to anyone. Not even the other Bucky, or Tony, or Steve.]

I've made mistakes. I got someone killed. [Her voice is small for a moment, unable to even say his name outloud.]

Then I misjudged my ability to stay in control, and they're both-- my fault.

[advanced]

That happens.

[She's not the only one, he's made those sorts of mistakes as well. Mostly when he had first been on the run, when his sense of Bucky and the Soldier were far more blurred than they are now.]

You have to make amends however you can, even if it feels futile.

[krasnaya_vdova]

I'm trying.

[There's a slight shrug of her shoulders. She's started working out in the Abandoned City, trying to build something instead of tear it all down. It's a bit out of her league, but it's something. Effort.]

I'm just not sure, how to make it so it makes a difference.

[It feels like there's a difference. Between doing good things, and finding something that could possibly amend the mistakes. Even here, with the people she hurt? It gets under her skin. It doesn't stop her from trying, but it's a little too much, sometimes.]

[advanced]

[He watches her for a moment, brows drawn together.]

You're trying to make a difference to the wrong people. You're never going to make a difference for the people you hurt or killed, they're gone, you can't change that. The difference is for other people.

[It's how he manages to keep going.]

I stop some kid getting mugged, maybe it doesn't erase that I murdered ten other kids like him, but it makes a difference to that kid.

[krasnaya_vdova]

[She's quiet for a moment, but she nods, because it's honestly an answer to the question she's been wrestling with. How do you make a difference when you can't take things back, can't change what's happened? James gives her at least part of an answer for that.]

Yeah. I.. think you're right. I guess the only people you can make a difference to are the living, in the end.

[There's a touch of a slightly awkward smile, but she's genuine as she looks up at him.]

Thank you.

[advanced]

[It's a bit uncomfortable to be thanked by her, when she seems to be the one that has her shit together so much more than he does.]

You don't need to thank me.

[Aka, please don't.]

Just don't tell anyone that you've seen me, and we're even.

[krasnaya_vdova]

[It's a piece she hadn't quite put together just yet, and she's glad for it. But she nods anyway, understands the words there.]

I won't tell anyone.

[A pause, an awkward shrug of her shoulders.]

And my username's redwidow. You can just ask me, if you want to track me down.

[Not that she thinks he will, figures part of the point was watching her as much as it was getting the drop on her with a gun in her hands. But it's permission, anyway. And there's meaning to the monicker, something she still holds onto.]

[advanced]

[Red Widow? Interesting, so they made her to be some sort of counterpart to Black Widow? Or they modelled her off the exceptional spy herself? He hadn't known that she had any connection to HYDRA beyond fighting them with the Avengers.]

Username.

[It was the most anonymous thing he could think of for his handle when he arrived.]

Don't use it unless it's an emergency.

[krasnaya_vdova]

[She smiles at that, and nods. It's about as anonymous as you can get, she understands the urge. She'd kept hers as what it was because it had been the only real piece of identity she had left and she didn't want to give that up. So she owned it.]

Alright. Only in emergencies.

[Which probably means she wont call him first, considering Ava's definition of an emergency is pretty high, but he offered it, and that matters.

She nods quietly and starts putting the gun and the clips in her bag, taking out her sketchbook instead. Her only real hobby, and she liked sketching the buildings at night without people around. Helped her get out of her head, made it easier to get to sleep, sometimes.]

I'll see you around.

[advanced]

[The sketchbook makes his heart ache a bit, art always makes him think of Steve, but at least he has implicit permission to escape this situation now that they've talked and it went... not bad.

He doesn't say anything else, there's nothing else to say, he just turns and walks away.]