Well, this is.. horrible.

[reconstitution]

Who: SS Caprine & visitors
Broadcast: ???
Action: All aboard
When: 8/3


[Dread is probably not a good feeling to have in the face of actually having something resembling a 'team' now. Unfortunately, the way this place seems to love uprooting and depositing people out of nowhere into unfamiliar territory, and it sets him on edge.

His eyes narrow as he looks around yet another place he's unaccustomed, being bombarded by-- colorful shreds of paper and overly-cheerful music. And even more people. Once again, he longs for the familiar weight of a weapon in his hand, but this fleet just loves to suck the comfort out.

At least this is a more permanent residence? Time would tell on that one.]

Comments

[reconstitution]

[ Winter inclines his head minutely in invitation for her to go ahead and just try to shoot him. Something about her is familiar- and it's not the dossier that he'd been made to read before his current mission. Her technique is too similar and it grates along his nerves like nails upon a chalkboard.

Part of him is pleased that he managed to get a hit on her so easily- then again, his skill has never been anything but lethal and efficient. ]

If you intend to use it, try me..

[ His brow furrows as he recollects his mission, and he's positive he's never seen her before. Unless she was a part of a mission he's long forgotten about. ]

I must not have been trying enough. You are still alive.

[ Way to potentially exacerbate a problem, Winter. ]

[tothefly]

[It's hard to resist the dual impulses of instinct and challenge. She should just shoot him and be done with it. But one, she's not so sure the powers keeping them here would let a little thing like death stop them, and two, Barnes would never forgive her. And then there was Steve--even if he never knew, she'd never be able to look at him the same way again. She's done a lot of things in her life out of necessity, never blinked an eye at them. This might be one thing too many. So she waits, even as a muscle clenches in her jaw, only the slightest twitch betraying her general mood.]

[He doesn't look at her like he knows her, and she knows he knows her. This isn't the first time they've met, or even the second, but every time, he looks at her like he has no idea who she is. Like she's just one face among many, and while that's how she's supposed to be--to blend in, to fade away--it still irks her. Memory wipes. She knows what they've done to him, at least a little. She just doesn't know what remains below the blank-slate surface.]

Maybe I'm just better than you.

[She's not helping much here, either.]

[reconstitution]

You would have pulled the trigger already.

[ Were she smarter, she would shoot him and get it over with, given her advantage at the moment. If their positions were switched, he would do the same.

He drops the crate a few feet away, clenching that metal fist instead. He would be much faster this way, his makeshift weapon was cumbersome. Winter doesn't like the way she's looking at him- it sets his nerves on edge, a chill at the back of his neck. They've apparently met before, but he has no memory of that... He does try to pull it up again. She has a pretty face, and that red hair should be something he would remember, but there's nothing. Not even an inkling of the feeling, although he tries. ]

Scared? [ He knows what he's capable of. She should be. ]

[tothefly]

In another time and place, I did.

[Knowledge of a future he doesn't know, and wouldn't think about even if he did. All she has in return are the sharp sensations of remembered pain. Two bullets, she owes him. One through the stomach, one through the shoulder. His words have her looking at him sharply, the slightest motion of her head as she watches him. A tensing of her finger on the trigger.]

почему паука боятся зимой?

[Why should a spider fear the winter? Words carefully chosen, deliberately spoken in their shared tongue. Poking at the wiped slates of his mind, to see if anything remains below the surface. Does he remember her at all? Can she make him remember? Dangerous, maybe, but she's not afraid of a little risk.]

[reconstitution]

[ Another time and place, was it? He wonders what kind of woman she is, exactly. Someone that can not only stand up to what he is, but best him? She's dangerous. He knows that much, at least. Granted, it wasn't news to him with how she knew to take position before he entered the cargo bay..

His posture tenses, muscle in his jaw twitching. He mulls over the question, though his eyes never leave her. Unwise to take your eye off the weapon at hand. ]

Зимы беспощаден.

[ A lesson they both know- both of the training as well as their leaders. Nothing from Russia obliterated quite so efficiently as winter did. It did not discriminate and it did not relent. It is something he's not likely to forget anytime soon. It's how he was trained..

Although...

What did it matter right now? ]

[tothefly]

[She is a weapon, make no mistake about it. Whether or not there's a gun in her hand, she is dangerous. Born to it and bred to it just as much as he's been, if not more.

But if Winter is merciless, the Spider is patient. She can wait him out. Wait this out. And so she lowers her gun, taking a risk, trusting to bravado and a single name.]

Then remember that I wasn't, this once. And remember that the only reason I don't shoot you here and now is because I don't want to have to explain to Captain Barnes why I did it.

[reconstitution]

[ She lowers the gun, and for the briefest moment, he thinks he's being played. He's not really prepared for her to drop Jim's name, either, but it makes him start. Part of him accepts that, but the other? The fight was taken away from him and that adrenaline is still pumping.

Winter nods his head a fraction of an inch, though the whole situation still feels wrong. ]

Does that mean you answer to him?

[tothefly]

I don't answer to anyone here.

[The words are sharp enough to cut. She's no one's lackey, no one's second, not really. But him...well, she owes him this much, at least. Her fingers itch, nerves screaming at her that she's made a mistake. They want this fight over with.]

But I respect him enough to let him try his way, first.

[Much as she might not like it.]

[reconstitution]

[ He doesn't miss the way her words were edged like a sword- daring him to suggest otherwise. He believes her when she says she answers to no one- a woman like that would be hard to reign in.

His fist clenches a bit tighter, but he doesn't move otherwise. ]

That is your decision.

[tothefly]

It is.

I have friends on this ship. Friends I come to see fairly often. I don't plan on changing that.

[A way of telling him this isn't going to be the last time she's here. Maybe a way of establishing a level playing field between them here? She isn't sure. Just that she doesn't need to worry about the Winter Soldier coming at her back.]



[[I know this is way late, feel free to ignore it if you want!]]