verb.
To fall back under pressure. To shrink back physically or emotionally.
noun.
The kickback of a gun upon firing.
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It takes a stubborn mind to cling to their humanity when the world seeks to strip it away.
It takes a desperate soul to reach f...
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"Oh..."
It was all she could say, for a moment. Her hands had stilled over the arm again, her throat tightening as she was forcibly thrust back to that day. To the day she had tried to run.
"How did you know I wouldn't do it?"
You have to bring me back, you have to finish your mission Barnes - but the next time you see me, you kill me. Break my neck, shoot me, it doesn't matter, but you have to be fast. Stage Two dies with me. Do you understand?
Tearful words whispered so urgently in the snow, in the desperate seconds before the others arrived. Those words had been her only way out, the only way she could protect them both. She'd had no way of knowing what they were actually going to do with her, she hadn't known she would never need that escape.
"I didn't." Katie whispered in response to his question; "I didn't know what you would do."
"But you still came."
She nodded, laying down the tools in her hands; "I did."
"Why?"
"I..." She frowned, trying to grasp the words she needed. She could talk about things that had happened - the serum trials, trying to run, being put on ice - she could report on those facts, she could be objective about those, but her thoughts, her feelings and reasoning... Those were a different matter. "I don't know. I've been asking myself that for... What, two months?" She bit her lip, sitting back on her stool as those steely blue eyes locked her in place with his stare. "I didn't lie that day, I did come to warn you that you were being looked for, and because I wanted to help... And then after I left, I wondered if I was being selfish, if I'd come because of the guilt... Then I felt even worse because I shouldn't be chasing you around Europe trying to redeem myself... And then I think..." She trailed off, hesitating to voice the other reason, but she had come this far, he might as well know. "I think I just wanted to see you." She frowned a little as she said it out loud, but she knew it was true. That much had been apparent in the wave of relief she had felt, laying eyes on him once more. She had felt it again when she had opened the door to him that evening. "I... It's stupid, but... I thought of you as a friend, in that place. It sounds ridiculous, saying it out loud but... Besides my father, you were all I had."
She couldn't help but grimace at the way that sounded, scrubbing one hand over her jaw and sighing; "God, that sounds so sad, doesn't it? My only friend in the world was a brainwashed assassin that didn't even know my name."
"Kat."
She looked back to him at the soft murmur, a frown creasing her forehead at the name. She hadn't introduced herself to him as Kat. No one had called her that, not since the day her father died.
"You got called Kat... That's... I knew your name."
Her chest tightened at his words, an unsteady breath leaving her as she nodded.
