milliways_bar | (no subject)

"I kinda put that together, yeah."

What with the way he'd sort of tripped up after mentioning her that one time, and the fact that he hasn't mentioned a single other girl by name, aside from her aunt, the one he worked with in the war. "What happened? She change her mind and come runnin'?"

He nods. "I just didn't want you to think I'd gone stepping out behind her back," he says - and then looks suddenly very, very wryly amused.

"Not exactly. She tracked me down to tell me she'd thought it over and that it wasn't what I thought."

"Sugar, if you'd tried a thing like that with a woman like her, I think havin' only one arm would be the least of your worries," Zinda tells him, amused. "I know you weren't."

She tips her beer up, listening, and makes a smug sort of told you so face.

"See?" she says, triumphant. "Didn't I say you're the easy choice? Good girl," she adds, approvingly, to an absent Sharon Carter.

He shakes his head at that. "I still say I'm a mess, and not a good bet, but it's the one she wants to make," he tells her. "So I'll do the best I can to see she doesn't regret it."

"Good," Zinda says, firmly, then asks the only really important question:

"She make you happy?"

Edited 2021-10-12 02:24 (UTC)

His smile's immediate and as warm and bright as sunrise breaking through the trees.

"Yes."

She beams right back at him and pats that new metal hand with her own warm one. "Good. That's all that matters."

Her bottle's getting low; she taps on the bar for another and finishes off the first, "Now – you said you had some medical stuff goin' on last time? You meant the arm, or somethin' else?"

"Something else," he says. "Something big. Something good."

He taps - carefully - at the bartop again and murmurs a quiet requests, and the coffee gets a double shot of whiskey added in a glass right beside it.

"Remember I mentioned those controls I had stuck in my brain?"

But he's smiling, and there's a light in his eyes that wasn't there the last time they talked about it.

Zinda looks blank, then gasps and – forgetting his new metal arm – smacks at his shoulder. "You – ow – "

She shakes out her knuckles and punches him lightly in the arm, more carefully this time. "You never! Y'got 'em fixed?"

"Careful!" he cautions, as she shakes her hand, but he can't stop smiling.

"Yeah. The Princess Shuri, the woman who put this arm together? She's brilliant. Smartest person I ever met. She figured out how they put them in, and then invented a way to rebuild my mind without them."

He shakes his head, very slightly, still lost in the wonder of it the way he always is when he thinks too hard about everything Shuri had done.

"I'm free, Zinda. They can't use me like they did before, not ever again."

"Oh, honey," she says, beside herself, and leans forward to quickly and warmly embrace him, her arms firm around his neck.

Just for a second; she squeezes him fondly and lets go to gaze at him instead. "I'm so happy to hear it. That must be just the best feeling in the world, huh?"

He hugs her back but doesn't try to hold on when she pulls back. "It is," he says, deep and sure. "It really is. It was such a relief -- and I know, I know it's the real thing, because we tested it."

Her smile crooks as she thinks back to waking up from those misty, lost months and years. "I'm glad," she tells him.

"I'm so glad for you. Congratulations, sugar, that's really somethin' to celebrate."

"It really was. Is." He lifts the double shot of whiskey to her and downs half of it, then goes back to studying the way her smile's shifted.

"You okay there, Zinda?"

"Right as rain, sugar," she assures him, and lifts her own bottle to him before taking a sip.

"Just rememberin' how I felt when... well, when I got snapped outta it, myself. It was like seein' the sun for for the first time after years stuck in a closed-off room."

"Sounds about right," he murmurs. "I remember you said you knew something about what it was like."

He doesn't push, but the steady look in his eyes, the way he waits and gives her all the room she needs, makes it clear that he wants to listen, if she wants to talk.

A half-smile tucks itself into the corner of her mouth, and she takes a last drink before setting her bottle down. "I imagine you 'n your pals caught quite a bit of attention from the wrong sort of folks, back in the day," she comments.

"Well, we did, too. One of them was a fella who went by the name Killer Shark – he hated Blackhawk and the others and we had more than one dust up with him while he was runnin' free."

"We did," he agrees, and leaves it at that for now. "Killer Shark? Hell of a name."

"One thing those rogues had in common was a flair for the dramatic," she tells him. "Anyhow, like I said, he hated the Blackhawks, but he couldn't find a good way to get to 'em. I don't know how he found it – if he told me I don't remember, all my memories from that time are kinda fuzzy – but he got a hold of some, I guess you'd call it a potion, of some kind? It basically flipped a person's personality; turned a good one bad."

She shrugs. "Anyhow, the long and short of it was he showed up while I was on a goodwill tour, knowin' I'd chase him. I did, more fool me, and got caught in a trap. He gave me the potion after that."

He shifts position so that he can lay his right hand over one of hers, and squeezes gently. He can imagine all too well the horror of being trapped, and then poisoned and lost.

"How long?" Very quietly.

"Not long, that time." She squeezes his hand back and smiles warmly at him.

"And I don't remember most of it." That's a blessing: she doesn't have to live with the memories of fighting her friends or living with Killer Shark and his depraved love for her. "Bits and pieces here and there. I guess he realized he got more than a weapon the Blackhawks wouldn't hurt; in his own twisted way he fell in love with me and got the Queen he wanted at his side. He and Queen Killer Shark tormented them until Bart shot my plane down – the shock brought me back to myself."

That time. Dread uncoils in the pit of his stomach, and he hopes she’s only meant that particular conflict, not that she’s had her self stolen more than once.

“I’m glad they brought you back,” he murmurs. “Even if you had to lose a perfectly good plane in the process.”

"It was Killer Shark's plane," she tells him. "I'm not too broken up about it."

She uncurls her fingers to pat his hand, comfortingly. "You sure you don't mind hearin' this, sugar? I can see how it might hit too close to home for you."

"I'm sure," he promises. "Unless you don't want to talk about it. But I don't mind."

"Okay, then."

In for a penny... "The doctors, they told Blackhawk and the others I needed rest and quiet, so the boys took me to Blackhawk Island and kept watch every hour of the day and night, all out of sight, so I wouldn't worry."

Her smile flashes, a little wistful and a lot warm. "Those were sweet days. I lay out on the beach and walked the jungles with Bart; we swam in the water and played games like kids. And every day I got a little better and a little stronger."

Edited 2021-10-12 17:41 (UTC)