pieced together like a bent and broken puzzle, he finds himself looking at his fingers. they moved without instinct, but with thought which was unlike everything else about him. new skin coated what he believed to be dna wrapped around his being like a blanket dressed for war, it was what he knew — all he was intended to know. to be the second coming was something that he’d not thought of, no, he was’t programmed that way. there’s an empty place in his chest but he doesn’t miss it, he knows nothing about the pain of a beating heart and the way it seeks restitution, this is something he’s glad for, he’d seen it during acclimation into civilian world —– not once did it end well. no. he spends more time trying to understand these emotions that threaten to crawl onto his skin like frenzied spiders, all he knows is what he’s been taught —- and what he’s witnessed from his handler. the soldier bares no resemblance to his clone on the inside – at least, this is what he imagines.
he doesn’t recognize the city they are in — it seems dark, almost dirty in a sense but in their given positions one, on the edge of the bed, the other leaning cautiously against the cheaply made desk, he can see out the window. beyond the curtain lay a life he’d never thought of, one that still was a struggle to bring to the front of his purview, and it seemed his handler struggled with it as well. he can feel it, feel the way the other’s entire being drifts into something else. a memory — perhaps?? yet one more item to add to the list of matters the clone will never understand. he wasn’t real, his flesh and bones may have been, but he’s been engineered for war and it’s all that he can think of. after all — they were on the run and yet all he can recognize is how numb he felt to all of it. just another thing that he’s sure that he’ll never understand, but he watches his handler carefully from the corner of narrowed eyes, he watches him, hoping that he’ll be able to show him the way to be just like him — maybe better.
it’s after long moments silence that words break the barrier of every thought process computing through his head. the words enter his mind almost stiff and along with them his whole body goes rigid. mention of diverting from the plan does that to him, again, it’s all he knows and it’s to the point where even the sensation of sheets feels foreign to him, his fingers still trying to adjust to the sensation of softness as it ripples over the pads of matched fingertips. something new, at least — but it’s after a moment’s thought that the clone looks up at his handler with a blank expression his gaze flickering over to the knife. strange — such a useless act for a man that he knew didn’t need to practice with the weapon. it was a tool and nothing more, just like them, or at least.. they were. ❛ why?? ❜ his communication skills are fine, he recalls the doctors speaking on this multiple times, we removed the problem areas with the primary. which implied he was the secondary. still, sweeping that off to the side was a foul sensation building in the empty spot in his chest he’d considered before. it beat, sure, enough focus he can hear a pair almost at the same tempo one…seemingly faster than the other as he moves with an unfounded, untouchable grace towards the window to close the blinds shut. the city he’d come to examine faded from view – and he felt nothing for it. ❛ why james?? ❜
the city is now a radio static. there’s a crackle that comes with the glitch, before it fades off the view entirely as his clone pulls the blind down, enclosing them in the darkness that’s only lit by the artificial lights flitting through the gaps. he’s hyper aware of the fact that there is a pair of himself right now, fitting like syllabus of missions into the emptied puzzle containers in their minds. there are spaces that feel too void now that there is no one to eliminate, no pest to exterminate. the only ones, perhaps, are hydra themselves. vigilant over that very fact, the core of its truth contained inside him along with the process that is hydra’s schematic blueprint. in order to catch up with them, hydra has to alter their plans. the endgame is a change. and he himself understands that in order to escape from hydra, he has to remain unpredictable, his movements rather jumbled to the point where the cacophonies distract hydra from their actual noises. this is a game where two can play... where two must play.
he cannot opt out. not even when he has a liability; there’s no way that he can leave his clone behind when he’s attached on the hip, in all its mess. there’s no logical explanation to this, a clusterfuck of impulsive decisions made on last minute calls, in a rapid succession. he hadn’t felt this reckless before... but then again, he hadn’t felt anything for a long until his clone came along, reviving his long-lost will to escape. realizing it, even. that was quite a leap, in retrospect. and now that the enigma moves about in front of him, he doesn’t know what to make out of it. there’s a myriad of inquiries posed at himself upon hearing the questions enunciated. why? that’s one hell of a question. a perfect one. perhaps it’s the fact that it’s been a while since the last wipe that he could recall some pieces of his identity, and he wants to give some of the shard to his clone, noticing what it means for him to have an actual company after a long period of thaw, wipe, kill.
he pilfered the name from the museum himself, staring at the ghost of the past in the eye, and now, he’s sharing it with his clone. so, that’s right — why? he doesn’t comprehend the motive behind that himself, it feels like a visceral response to something so... small, trivial. it doesn’t feel like atrophy anymore, the act of sharing a splinter of himself to someone who’s supposedly a stranger. but his clone has pledged loyalty to him, and that ought to mean towards something. he absentmindedly twirls the knife in his hand again as he settles, the bed creaking as his weight shifts onto it. he looks at his clone, now referred to as james officially, at least for his personal use. “it’s a part of me,” he says. “and so are you.” he knows that his clone understands what it means, even when it sounds way too sentimental for his own liking. “i can’t keep referring to you as a nameless clone,” he continues with a suppressed heave of sigh contained in his tone. “we’re going to stick with each other for a while too, i suppose, so might as well give you a name.” looks away for a moment before searching for the other soldier’s eyes. “we’re not tools anymore, you know.”
pixelskylines
annaxmalina
blakekathryn
jacobvanloon
kaledo-art
snowghoul
gummygunk
dededos
