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4 - standing by, locked message + spam
[Filtered away from all the residents of the barge, but open to any random fourth-wall people who might bother her.]
If you have any instructions for me, I'm here.
[Later, spam]
[She's just. Walking, when it hits her, descending the stairs to her room after another substitute kitchen shift. She wants to scream and bleed and set things on fire, and she barely understands why. She just - she did what she was supposed to do, she did, she didn't hide, and they - we love you, Mira, no one else will ever - they didn't -
She sits down in the middle of the stairwell, back to the wall, and draws her knees up tight so she can hide her face against them.]
If you have any instructions for me, I'm here.
[Later, spam]
[She's just. Walking, when it hits her, descending the stairs to her room after another substitute kitchen shift. She wants to scream and bleed and set things on fire, and she barely understands why. She just - she did what she was supposed to do, she did, she didn't hide, and they - we love you, Mira, no one else will ever - they didn't -
She sits down in the middle of the stairwell, back to the wall, and draws her knees up tight so she can hide her face against them.]
[ Filter ]
He's far more serious than most people would give him credit for, right now. And far more careful.]
At ease. What's your designation?
[ Filter ]
I am Mira Hidalgo.
[They never gave her any kind of code - what for? Just cover names, and this. The ethnicity of it matches her skin tone, the shape of the bones in her face. She wonders, sometimes, if it was hers before, or if they picked it for its generic suitability to her body.]
[ Filter ]
But even if she's not Manticore at all, at least on the surface it's close enough. She's waiting on orders. They make her feel safer.]
My designation is X5-494. My name is Alec. I'm transgenic, an officer from Manticore. Does any of this mean anything to you?
[ Filter ]
[Not no sir. Her keepers care little for the human trappings of discipline, only obedience. There's something faint and tremulous in her, as she understands that he must not be from them, sorrow and yearning and relief together. But she thinks - they understand each other, perhaps, even things she can't admit in words. So she remains at ease, and attentive.]
Transgenic is easy enough to parse.
[ Filter ]
[This slightly dry-toned; no one should ever be sorry for not recognizing Manticore's name. He will bury them however he can, as long as he can do so without danger to himself.
The instability in her, though, is achingly familiar. Something he was terrified of, even if he never admitted it. The reliance on Manticore, the kind of definition of one's self using them as a base that had resulted in his twin collapsing in on himself. He's afraid of it, he despises it in the X5 that caused him to reap the consequences, but he could never say he didn't understand it.]
Is it? Then you're ahead of the curve. Who are you waiting on instructions from, Mira Hidalgo?
[ Filter ]
[Fear, dappled in her eyes. Even that is a bit much, but he basically knows. And there's not so much skin between that and 'my employers insist on confidentiality,' which is a line she may use.]
[ Filter ]
[He can read that loud and clear, and he pauses to consider his next question carefully. Fear is dangerous. It makes people unpredictable, it hollows them out from the inside until they fold under the slightest pressure, it makes them someone other than who they are, if they ever knew in the first place.
The worst part about it is when the fear is well earned. So he chooses his words deliberately:]
Can you be helped? [Does she want it? Would it make things worse?]
[ Filter ]
[She isn't sure if she believes it yet. She wanted to get out, and it ended in disaster, and now - she doesn't hate where she is now, but she's still waiting for the curtain to drop. They had her, and she doesn't know what it would mean if they let her go again, or what she wants it to mean.]
[ Filter ]
He's one of the fortunate ones, and he knows he's fucked up beyond repair. Others...]
Can you be helped?
[ Filter ]
Things that were removed, again and again, whenever they reached sufficient mass to sway her; she never needed to know this.]
I tried to go. Once. It was a mistake.
[A little stricken, that, but quietly, keenly factual all the same. Reporting. Darling's betrayal hurt her worse than the reprimand she got for falling for it, because it was the ultimate confirmation. She wasn't fit for anything else.]
And now - this.
[ Filter ]
He does not think about a girl he loved, a girl who died because he loved her. Because he tried to go, once, and it was a mistake, and he has spent the rest of his life paying for it - and for hers.]
Is there someone you can trust, there?
[ Filter ]
[There's someone who seems it. Maybe two or three someones. But it hasn't been long, and she trusts less easily this time.]
[ Filter ]
No. Which is why he sighs, then shakes his head.]
You didn't ask for my advice, but what can I say? I just start talking and it all comes out.
Tell them. [Whatever it is, tell them.] But don't say it. Tell them until they hear it.
If they can be trusted, they will. Eventually.
[ Filter ]
It's good advice.
[She thinks. Which doesn't mean she'll take it, exactly. But she'll think about it. It's a better plan than she has so far.]
[ Filter ]
His voice and his eyes, both steady, are uncharacteristically earnest when he says the only other thing he knows to say.]
Good luck.
no subject
To the left. Take it back now, y'all. Cha cha real smooth.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
It's Mira. And you are...?
no subject
[ Not Agent Coulson. Though he can become Agent Coulson, if it looks like she needs it. ]
I'm guessing you weren't looking for me.
no subject
Maybe I should have been.
[A little flirty, mostly just friendly, wry and mild.]