Ben Emerson

[handler-benjamin]

HYDRA FILE (CLASSIFIED)

BASIC INFORMATION: Name: Benjamin (Ben) Emerson, Agent 325 Status: Alive, Released from captivity on contracted terms (as stated below) Occupation: HYDRA Handler (Asset: @hydra-asset-a175 ) Gender: Male (He/Him) Sexuality: Gay PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Hair: Black (Fairly Short) Eyes: Bright Green Height: 5’11” Age: Unknown (Appears 24) Birthday: July 19th NOTABLE FEATURES: Right Wrist: Tattoo with the words “You were loved” and a heart followed by the initials NS Face: Scar over his right temple ending at cheekbone Powers: Advanced Healing/Practically Immortal (Limits inconclusive testing) Presumed Weaknesses: Head or heart wound, injury overload CONTRACTED TERMS AS FOLLOWS: Agent will work and train for HYDRA. He will be given responsibilities he must follow through with to the best of his ability. Contract terms end if the Agent is to die in service of HYDRA and/or all witnesses to this event and their descendants are dead. Witness Signatures: [Redacted] Agent Signature:

B. Emerson

More expansive lore: Here

Mod: @playingwithwater

Mod Notes: I am a minor so please no NSFW. I am okay with suggestive flirting towards the character, gore, violence, and angst (this is my most angsty character)

Disclaimer: This blog will contain mentions of suicide ideation. If you are suicidal please talk to someone. Suicide is not a good route to go. There are people who care for you. Ben is an angsty immortal and ALL things unless within //[text]// are rp and therefore fictional.

[handler-benjamin]

“Master? Something might have occurred.”

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben grimaces slightly at the title but doesn’t say anything about it before asking, “Yes?”

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex’s system has grown up in these walls. They don’t know any other life. There’s no windows, and most their missions are at night, they don’t know the feeling of the sun on bare skin or the luxury of vulnerability.

“I don’t appreciate your look of pity.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Must it be for you?” Ben asks slight teasing in his tone. He’s trying to break some of the tension in the air. Finally, he closes his computer after shutting it down and looks back at Alex.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Pardon?” He asked, a little thrown off by your tone and how easily you moved past the tension.

@handler-benjamin

[handler-benjamin]

“It’s nothing,” Ben says brushing it off and trying to move past quickly.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“What did you mean by that? Who else would it be for?” He pressed

[handler-benjamin]

”Perhaps it’s for the things I miss the most.” He muses, leaning back.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Why want to leave at all? What is there to miss?”

[handler-benjamin]

He sighs, lost in thought for a few seconds. “Having someone to go home to at the end of each day. The feeling of the sun beating on your skin on a warm day or a grass under your feet in a field. The scent of wildflowers or the sight of stars high in the sky. The ability to live and love and laugh.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“It’s uncertain. And messy. A little bit of good doesn’t counter that.”

“How did you know what to do everyday? Or what tasks needed to be done?”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben shrugs. “Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. And you can write everything down make a list or schedule for the day of things you need to do to help you remember. Messy and chaotic doesn’t mean bad.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“It sounds horrid. I don’t understand you or anyone outside these walls.” Alex said, crossing his arms

[handler-benjamin]

”Lots of people have a strict routine they follow everyday and have to make plans for new things weeks in advanced. Everyone has some type of system out there. We just have to slowly figure our own out.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want to figure it out on my own!” He snapped “I want to be told what to do. I don’t want to leave. I don’t care what the others want, I’m keeping us here.” He said, now getting a little irritated, not particularly with you but with your words.

[handler-benjamin]

“You wouldn’t have to figure it out by yourself. But I’m not forcing you to do anything.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“You’re contradicting yourself.”

[handler-benjamin]

“The world is contradictory sometimes.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

He scoffed and turned away, opening the door to leave. He was done with this conversation and anything else you had to say. Unless he was getting another mission he didn’t want to hear anything else.

[handler-benjamin]

Ben let’s him leave without saying anything.

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex’s system has grown up in these walls. They don’t know any other life. There’s no windows, and most their missions are at night, they don’t know the feeling of the sun on bare skin or the luxury of vulnerability.

“I don’t appreciate your look of pity.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Must it be for you?” Ben asks slight teasing in his tone. He’s trying to break some of the tension in the air. Finally, he closes his computer after shutting it down and looks back at Alex.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Pardon?” He asked, a little thrown off by your tone and how easily you moved past the tension.

@handler-benjamin

[handler-benjamin]

“It’s nothing,” Ben says brushing it off and trying to move past quickly.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“What did you mean by that? Who else would it be for?” He pressed

[handler-benjamin]

”Perhaps it’s for the things I miss the most.” He muses, leaning back.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Why want to leave at all? What is there to miss?”

[handler-benjamin]

He sighs, lost in thought for a few seconds. “Having someone to go home to at the end of each day. The feeling of the sun beating on your skin on a warm day or a grass under your feet in a field. The scent of wildflowers or the sight of stars high in the sky. The ability to live and love and laugh.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“It’s uncertain. And messy. A little bit of good doesn’t counter that.”

“How did you know what to do everyday? Or what tasks needed to be done?”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben shrugs. “Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. And you can write everything down make a list or schedule for the day of things you need to do to help you remember. Messy and chaotic doesn’t mean bad.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“It sounds horrid. I don’t understand you or anyone outside these walls.” Alex said, crossing his arms

[handler-benjamin]

”Lots of people have a strict routine they follow everyday and have to make plans for new things weeks in advanced. Everyone has some type of system out there. We just have to slowly figure our own out.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want to figure it out on my own!” He snapped “I want to be told what to do. I don’t want to leave. I don’t care what the others want, I’m keeping us here.” He said, now getting a little irritated, not particularly with you but with your words.

[handler-benjamin]

“You wouldn’t have to figure it out by yourself. But I’m not forcing you to do anything.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“You’re contradicting yourself.”

[handler-benjamin]

“The world is contradictory sometimes.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex’s system has grown up in these walls. They don’t know any other life. There’s no windows, and most their missions are at night, they don’t know the feeling of the sun on bare skin or the luxury of vulnerability.

“I don’t appreciate your look of pity.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Must it be for you?” Ben asks slight teasing in his tone. He’s trying to break some of the tension in the air. Finally, he closes his computer after shutting it down and looks back at Alex.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Pardon?” He asked, a little thrown off by your tone and how easily you moved past the tension.

@handler-benjamin

[handler-benjamin]

“It’s nothing,” Ben says brushing it off and trying to move past quickly.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“What did you mean by that? Who else would it be for?” He pressed

[handler-benjamin]

”Perhaps it’s for the things I miss the most.” He muses, leaning back.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Why want to leave at all? What is there to miss?”

[handler-benjamin]

He sighs, lost in thought for a few seconds. “Having someone to go home to at the end of each day. The feeling of the sun beating on your skin on a warm day or a grass under your feet in a field. The scent of wildflowers or the sight of stars high in the sky. The ability to live and love and laugh.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“It’s uncertain. And messy. A little bit of good doesn’t counter that.”

“How did you know what to do everyday? Or what tasks needed to be done?”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben shrugs. “Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. And you can write everything down make a list or schedule for the day of things you need to do to help you remember. Messy and chaotic doesn’t mean bad.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“It sounds horrid. I don’t understand you or anyone outside these walls.” Alex said, crossing his arms

[handler-benjamin]

”Lots of people have a strict routine they follow everyday and have to make plans for new things weeks in advanced. Everyone has some type of system out there. We just have to slowly figure our own out.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want to figure it out on my own!” He snapped “I want to be told what to do. I don’t want to leave. I don’t care what the others want, I’m keeping us here.” He said, now getting a little irritated, not particularly with you but with your words.

[handler-benjamin]

“You wouldn’t have to figure it out by yourself. But I’m not forcing you to do anything.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex’s system has grown up in these walls. They don’t know any other life. There’s no windows, and most their missions are at night, they don’t know the feeling of the sun on bare skin or the luxury of vulnerability.

“I don’t appreciate your look of pity.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Must it be for you?” Ben asks slight teasing in his tone. He’s trying to break some of the tension in the air. Finally, he closes his computer after shutting it down and looks back at Alex.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Pardon?” He asked, a little thrown off by your tone and how easily you moved past the tension.

@handler-benjamin

[handler-benjamin]

“It’s nothing,” Ben says brushing it off and trying to move past quickly.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“What did you mean by that? Who else would it be for?” He pressed

[handler-benjamin]

”Perhaps it’s for the things I miss the most.” He muses, leaning back.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Why want to leave at all? What is there to miss?”

[handler-benjamin]

He sighs, lost in thought for a few seconds. “Having someone to go home to at the end of each day. The feeling of the sun beating on your skin on a warm day or a grass under your feet in a field. The scent of wildflowers or the sight of stars high in the sky. The ability to live and love and laugh.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“It’s uncertain. And messy. A little bit of good doesn’t counter that.”

“How did you know what to do everyday? Or what tasks needed to be done?”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben shrugs. “Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. And you can write everything down make a list or schedule for the day of things you need to do to help you remember. Messy and chaotic doesn’t mean bad.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“It sounds horrid. I don’t understand you or anyone outside these walls.” Alex said, crossing his arms

[handler-benjamin]

”Lots of people have a strict routine they follow everyday and have to make plans for new things weeks in advanced. Everyone has some type of system out there. We just have to slowly figure our own out.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex’s system has grown up in these walls. They don’t know any other life. There’s no windows, and most their missions are at night, they don’t know the feeling of the sun on bare skin or the luxury of vulnerability.

“I don’t appreciate your look of pity.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Must it be for you?” Ben asks slight teasing in his tone. He’s trying to break some of the tension in the air. Finally, he closes his computer after shutting it down and looks back at Alex.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Pardon?” He asked, a little thrown off by your tone and how easily you moved past the tension.

@handler-benjamin

[handler-benjamin]

“It’s nothing,” Ben says brushing it off and trying to move past quickly.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“What did you mean by that? Who else would it be for?” He pressed

[handler-benjamin]

”Perhaps it’s for the things I miss the most.” He muses, leaning back.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Why want to leave at all? What is there to miss?”

[handler-benjamin]

He sighs, lost in thought for a few seconds. “Having someone to go home to at the end of each day. The feeling of the sun beating on your skin on a warm day or a grass under your feet in a field. The scent of wildflowers or the sight of stars high in the sky. The ability to live and love and laugh.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“It’s uncertain. And messy. A little bit of good doesn’t counter that.”

“How did you know what to do everyday? Or what tasks needed to be done?”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben shrugs. “Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. And you can write everything down make a list or schedule for the day of things you need to do to help you remember. Messy and chaotic doesn’t mean bad.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex’s system has grown up in these walls. They don’t know any other life. There’s no windows, and most their missions are at night, they don’t know the feeling of the sun on bare skin or the luxury of vulnerability.

“I don’t appreciate your look of pity.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Must it be for you?” Ben asks slight teasing in his tone. He’s trying to break some of the tension in the air. Finally, he closes his computer after shutting it down and looks back at Alex.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Pardon?” He asked, a little thrown off by your tone and how easily you moved past the tension.

@handler-benjamin

[handler-benjamin]

“It’s nothing,” Ben says brushing it off and trying to move past quickly.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“What did you mean by that? Who else would it be for?” He pressed

[handler-benjamin]

”Perhaps it’s for the things I miss the most.” He muses, leaning back.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Why want to leave at all? What is there to miss?”

[handler-benjamin]

He sighs, lost in thought for a few seconds. “Having someone to go home to at the end of each day. The feeling of the sun beating on your skin on a warm day or a grass under your feet in a field. The scent of wildflowers or the sight of stars high in the sky. The ability to live and love and laugh.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex’s system has grown up in these walls. They don’t know any other life. There’s no windows, and most their missions are at night, they don’t know the feeling of the sun on bare skin or the luxury of vulnerability.

“I don’t appreciate your look of pity.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Must it be for you?” Ben asks slight teasing in his tone. He’s trying to break some of the tension in the air. Finally, he closes his computer after shutting it down and looks back at Alex.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Pardon?” He asked, a little thrown off by your tone and how easily you moved past the tension.

@handler-benjamin

[handler-benjamin]

“It’s nothing,” Ben says brushing it off and trying to move past quickly.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“What did you mean by that? Who else would it be for?” He pressed

[handler-benjamin]

”Perhaps it’s for the things I miss the most.” He muses, leaning back.

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex’s system has grown up in these walls. They don’t know any other life. There’s no windows, and most their missions are at night, they don’t know the feeling of the sun on bare skin or the luxury of vulnerability.

“I don’t appreciate your look of pity.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Must it be for you?” Ben asks slight teasing in his tone. He’s trying to break some of the tension in the air. Finally, he closes his computer after shutting it down and looks back at Alex.

[hydra-asset-a175]

“Pardon?” He asked, a little thrown off by your tone and how easily you moved past the tension.

@handler-benjamin

[handler-benjamin]

“It’s nothing,” Ben says brushing it off and trying to move past quickly.

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex’s system has grown up in these walls. They don’t know any other life. There’s no windows, and most their missions are at night, they don’t know the feeling of the sun on bare skin or the luxury of vulnerability.

“I don’t appreciate your look of pity.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Must it be for you?” Ben asks slight teasing in his tone. He’s trying to break some of the tension in the air. Finally, he closes his computer after shutting it down and looks back at Alex.

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[hydra-asset-a175]

Alex frowned, hes loosing his temper, which rarely ever happens. He doesn’t understand why this topic is making him act so unreasonably. “My job is to protect you.” He said, repeating the same reasoning he’s told himself for why he intervened with Star that day. And he’s not lying — protocol wouldn’t allow him to — part of his job as an asset is to keep you alive because you’re his handler.

“I don’t understand why you would want to leave. Hydra provides more than enough. There’s no reason to consider it.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben smiles sadly but doesn’t say anything for the moment, allowing Alex to work through his own emotions. Just as Ben knew he wouldn’t Alex didn’t understand the freedom Ben craved. The open airs and seas. The sweet smell of wild flowers or the feel of grass under bare feet. Something different from the concrete jungle of New York that has been his home for the past few years. At least for a little bit.

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t care for anyone. My feelings whatever they may be have no place here. They don’t matter. Attachments only make everything else worse.” He said, angry, maybe bitter, but he knows better than to let that control him. He’s a weapon, a soldier before anything else. Feelings are secondary and so is he. His mission— Hydra, is put above his own life.

“Hydra has given me purpose. You’re more than welcome to risk your own life leaving to see the ‘wonders of the world’ but we have no reason to leave. I won’t let us.” He snapped, angry, bitter, maybe annoyed or maybe even envious… he didn’t know. He didn’t bother to find out.

[handler-benjamin]

He hums softly. Mostly to himself before he says, “I think you’re repressing any attachments you may have. You think it will make you stronger. Not emotions no attachments, right? But I don’t think you’ve succeeded. You care about the others, I know the others care about Star at least, and at least some of y’all care about me or you wouldn’t have tried to kill Star after our misunderstanding.”

He lets the words linger in the air between them and returns to his seat right now he isn’t sure what else could be said so he doesn’t say anything. Slowly his typing resumes followed with soft clicks of the mouse.

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[hydra-asset-a175]

“I don’t want uncertainty. I’m fine here. I’m fine with my missions and routine and uniform.” He said, not very keen on leaving anything up to chance. “I don’t care what you or the others want. Leaving is suicide. The world seems ugly and messy. I’ve never been a part of it I don’t plan on starting either.” Alex said, a bitterness tone in his words as he spoke, though he’d deny it if it was brought up.

Alex’s whole system has spent their entire lives in Hydra. They’ve known nothing outside these walls past what has been told to them. They know nothing of what the world could offer nor do they seem to care. Hydra has made them into something useful, deadly, and apathetic. And Alex doesn’t care.

[handler-benjamin]

“A child is not a weapon,” Ben says simply. Because that is what Alex is. A weapon. Not a child. None of them had ever truly been children Onlg weapons. Occasionally one or two came through who had some childhood before HYDRA and got to see the beauty but not many. “HYDRA has made you a weapon. You know but you don’t understand my way of thinking and so you don’t care. Yet your tone is different from what your words say.”

Ben cocks his head studying Alex’s tense figure. Tense. Uncertain of his own feelings. Anger with something else mixed in. “There are risks we take for the people we care about precisely because we care about them. Sometimes those risks include death.”

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He’s angry, but there’s something else he feels he can’t pin. He hates feelings like these, it’s so much easier to not feel anything, to not remember anything. To let Hydra fix him.

“There was no ‘before Hydra’” they snapped “not for me. And we’re not trapped. We can leave at any time, we’ve proven as much.” He said. “You’re too soft. I don’t understand why you’d leave, I’ve heard about the world outside, I’ve seen it occasionally. It’s uncertain and filthy. Hydra keeps us fed and clothed and close”

[handler-benjamin]

He was expecting it. Braced for it even but it hits different this time for some reason. Ben looks down to gather himself once more. He doesn’t know how to explain the beauty of the world. Of humanity to someone who has only seen some of the worst parts. The death and the destruction. Where Ben has seen death, destruction, creation, community, love, hope, war, and a million other emotions that run through humans veins. The things that make them human.

“Uncertain? Yes. Filthy? Sometimes but I’ve seen other things too. Good things. Beautiful things that keep me believing in humanity and what one day they can hopefully accomplish. There’s beauty in chaos and destruction in beauty. The best of humans wouldn’t exist without the worst of humans. The world is complicated and messy but beautiful and loving at the same time.” He cuts himself off before he continues rambling too much.

He inhales deeply this time fully turning around. He wonders how he could make Alex see that Ben could provide the things he listed outside of HYDRA. Give him food and water and comfort and clothes and all the things a teenager should want and need. But the HYDRA control runs deep.

“I only speak like this because I care about you. Call me soft and a fool all you want but it’s true.”

[handler-benjamin]

I kinda want a love interest for Ben or at least a plot of one. There was someone a while ago but their account was deleted. Idk could be fun. Mod is a minor rn so please take that into account. For a romance rp story I would kinda prefer between ages 15-18 (I’m 17 rn) for the other mod as well.

[handler-benjamin]

“Sir?” Alex asked as he hovered in Emerson’s Doorway. “Why are you encouraging us to leave?” He asked, a grim expression on his face. Alex was one of the tougher alters to get alone with. He kept everyone at an arms length, didnt trust anyone as far as he could throw em, didn’t get attached, his loyalties were engraved into him. Ideal for a weapon, ideal for what they made him to be.

@hydra-asset-a175

Ben pauses almost imperceptibly and tries to keep looking at his computer. He had finished most of his required work hours ago and was now doing something mindless but semi productive. He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts and looks up at Alex.

“Why do I encourage you to leave?” He repeats in a whisper. He stands up in the calm, precise manner. His face doesn’t give many of his thoughts away. Ben walks to the front of the desk and gestures Alex in with a silent command to close the door as he does.

He doesn’t seem to know exactly where to start. Ben has never tried to talk down to Alex or any of his alters and he bites at his bottom for a second aa he finds the starting point.

[hydra-asset-a175]

He does so without question, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. His body is ridged. Tense. Then again Alex isn’t one for relaxation. If he isn’t given a task to complete he just lets someone else take over.

“Yes. Why encourage us to leave? That’s practically treason against Hydra. I’m obligated to report this if that’s your intention.”

[handler-benjamin]

Ben laughs softly, only somewhat hysterically. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an old soul. And a soft soul.”

He sighs, placing his head in one hand. Everything is complicated with HYDRA. His contract binds him, but if Alex or Star or anyone he cares about asked him to leave. He would say Damn the consequences and the possible death and cut in run. He had enough money to do so. Find somewhere off the grid enough no one could find him unless he wants to be found.

“I wandered a long time before HYDRA found me. I don’t think I ever told you that story, it isn’t a pleasant one.” Ben’s stalling he knows he is but for some reason he can’t fully bring himself to answer the question.

He smacks his lips, takes a sip of his water and finally forces the answer out. “I encourage you to go out and see the world because I don’t like seeing you trapped. Routine can be helpful and methodic or sometimes repetitive and boring. As I said I’m old and perhaps age has not hardened my heart like it does some. I want you to be able to learn about the world on your own, not just what I tell you, or Star tells you, or what HYDRA tells you but what the world tells you. And if one day you change your mind about what you want to do I can help. I just want to care. I seldom get to these days.”

Ben turns away, looking back at his desk. He organizes something that truly doesn’t need to be organized in an attempt to let Alex process his words. Analyze them if he must but he doesn’t want to see the emotions until Alex has decided on one. Anger. Hate. He’ll take it.