On The Wall

I'm the fairest one of all{ Closed rp account for Stolen Hope }

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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Ari poked his chest. "Listen here. I ain't no damsel. I knew what I was getting into. Hell, I'm not exactly nunnery material either." She smirked. "So don't apologize. The only bad memories it brought up were from the Stormtrooper wannabe inside." She pointed out.

Bucky was fine. A little too cozy with the gun and sure, she did watch him kill more than enough people, but they were bad people. And she knew who he was from day one. It wasn't like it was a shock to her. She had her chance to leave.

At the compliment, she smiled softly yet nearly purred, almost catlike. "Mhm maybe. But I like hearing it."

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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Ari stood up and hip bumped him playfully. "I know, shouldn't have said home after that conservation." She grinned. Someone once told her that home wasn't a place but a person or people. So Ari had a couple of homes. But she was okay with that.

She touched her arm. "As hot as it would be to see you beat someone to death for me - " and there was only sincerity in her voice, "- leave them. They ain't a danger no more." They would have been caught again by now.

She went on her tippy toes to give his cheek a kiss. She didn't want to admit that she didn't want to kill anyone else, at least for today.

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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His heart set a nice rhythm, almost soothing. She traced circles on his body, listening to him as he spoke. But the cold started to set in.

"It was your home for a while, wasn't it? For a while I missed the South. I missed the colorfulness of it, in all sense of the word. The warmth and the sun always shining down. But Barbados, not too much." She admitted.

"Unfortunately I'm not as used to the cold." She chuckled. "We should be heading back though. We're too close to them. And both of us need a patch up." She sat up, giving a shiver. "We'll be safer home."

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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Once he laid down, Ari moved and curled against him. He was exactly soft or warm, but she liked how she fit against him, hand on his abdomen, face near his chest.

"My first winter up north I was on a heist with the king. I had to wear his coat on top of mine. Oh my god, I was swimming in it!" She giggled into his chest. She remembered that. She was eighteen and they were up in Canada. "I've gotten a little more used to it."

She smirked at the mental image. "Did you wear one? The Winter Soldier, big baddie in a fuzzy hat?" She teased, patting his chest.

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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Ari closer her eyes with a weak grin as he rubbed her back. She let out a small hum as he did. "Been better, but have had wilder dates." She joked. She finally sat up, the cold sinking in. She was from the Caribbean, she didn't do cold.

"Mhm, yea. It took me a while to get use to it, yanno? For fourteen years, I've never seen it back home." She remembered Marzia saying she looked like a puppy in the snow the first time.

She looked at him, noticing the arm on the fritz. "Looks like we both need maintenance." She hoped Fence could fix it. Apparently he could work any machine.

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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The run was wild. Ari kept about half her mind when shifting into animals. That, along with the energy and pain was reason enough to only use it in emergency. She heard Bucky somewhere ahead of her, but she was focused on running. Running and snapping at the heels of those in her way.

Cheetahs can only run for so long at top speed. But it was just enough for her to collapse on the snow when they got out. She shifted back, laying down and groaning. She was spent.

She watched him put the gun down, and nodded. "I'll need ... A minute. Just let me lay here a second ..." She panted.

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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Ari laughed and shook her head. "I guess I've seen weirder mami's." She teased. So that was that. She was glad he respected her enough not to argue. She was twenty-one, an adult. She already had a mom and honestly they knew how that worked out. Though she was expecting an earful from Remy and Marzia when she got home. When. Not if.

Always something to discriminate against. This was true. But she didn't want to discuss anymore about it.

"Deal! But let's make it quick." She grinned.

She took a step back bracing herself. Animals always hurt. With a small cry that turned into a meow, she shook off herself. A cheetah stood in place.

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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Bucky let out a sigh of frustration. In the short time he’d known Ari, he’d learnt that there were few things she valued more than her morals, the codes of conduct she shaped her life around. She was loyal, in many ways, even if she didn’t care to admit that to herself.

“Sometimes it’s better to leave when things are going to shit,” he said, but then something triggered in him, some memory. A burning building; a bridge? A man with a red face. Tightness in his chest. “I wouldn’t judge you if you did, but we don’t have much time, so if you want to bail, do it now.” He was pretty sure that she wouldn’t, but if she got hurt or worse, he wanted to look back and say he had tried.

“We never heard much about mutants when I was a kid,” Bucky said. “Pretty sure I woulda seen one and didn’t know about it. That would come in handy though, right about now.” He glanced down at the grande. Soviet made, thankfully, although he felt a little anger on the Russian’s part for Hydra pawning off their designs. “This is a Russian grenade, so probably around thirteen seconds,” he said. “American grenades are around three to four.” He loaded up the launcher. “How fast can you run?” he asked.

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She waited a few seconds as if to show him she wasn't leaving. "Looks like I'm not bailing." This could be worse.

She laughed. "I promise you, you've seen one. You e seen one, worked with one, served with one. Hell, look at you, already kissed one. Mutants been around a long time. We're just now not afraid to be out anymore." She shrugged. It was true.

"Well I comes in handy for me. I got one good animal in me before I'm crashing. So I say I can run pretty quick. Cheetah maybe. Or horse you can hop on." She suggested. "How fast can you go?"

They were running out of time. "We got an escape route already?"

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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It was amazing the amount of weapons and ammo Hydra had stockpiled over the years, yet had so far been unable to carry out their master plan. Of course, there were Hydra operatives in every branch of government, which meant it made it particularly difficult to find out what disasters were accidental and which ones had been planned. 

It wasn’t Bucky’s problem, though. He wasn’t an Avenger; he wasn’t anything, come to think of it.

“I’m taking the Glock too,” he said, hooking the pistol onto his belt. “And these knives.” They weren’t particularly intricate or detailed like the ones he’d found in Japan in ‘89, but they were well balanced. “Why do such bad people have such good weapons, fuck’s sake. I don’t wanna respect them.” 

Last time he used a launcher it had been in the S.H.I.E.L.D. base at D.C. (no, it wasn’t, he’d used it on another Hydra base sixteen weeks ago). “If you don’t want blood on your hands,” he said, stopping briefly, “I could do it. You could focus on gettin’ outta here.” He reloaded his rifle. “You’ve got enough damage done to you already.”

Him being nervous about the kill count was absurd; after all, some of the best times in his life had involved looking over at Dum-Dum and comparing kills, and taking the piss out of Gabe for avoiding death if at all possible. He understood where Gabe was coming from now, though, more than he ever could before.

“If we sent a grenade in there,” he said, motioning towards the control room, just adjacent to a chemistry lab, “and another one into the lab, the whole place would flattened.” A man on the floor beside him stirred, and Bucky knocked him out again with a quick kick. “If that’s something we want to do, of course.” 

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Despite it all, his giddy nerd-gasm around the weapons was adorable to Ari. Like a kids finding a room full of Pokemon cards - finding that charizard - in his bully's basement. So she let out a small laugh and too the time to lean on the desk.

"Seriously? And what? Leave you here? I can help. It's not like it's someone who wouldn't waste a chance wasting me." The idea did unease her though, but she couldn't let him know. Thieves weren't gods, she couldn't decide others' fate. But she swallowed that down. They were in this together. She knew the possibility of this when she first planned the heist.

She watched him take out the other with a kick before nodded. "Yea. Let's level it. Yanno, I know I mutant who could do that. A walking earthquake." Two grenades and a few rockets. That's all it would take. "How long we got after we drop the grenades?"

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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She rolled her eyes at the professional comment. But she said no more as they ran to the weapons room. Time to argue about doctors when they were out of the base.

The weapons room was huge. Even an amateur like herself could be impressed. But as usual, Bucky slipped into adorable fan boy. "Awe, you can keep the gun." She teased. She found a small semi that fit perfectly in her hand. "Huh?" She looked up. "One each?" She asked. She handed her new toy to Bucky before climbing up to get two launchers. They were heavy (duh, rocket launchers) and handed one to him before taking her own.

"Now you run. You'll be able to help me aim?" She asked. This was something she never even touched.

She understood his worry. This would bring her old kill count from zero to almost three digits in a heartbeat. But get attacked her. They hurt Bucky for over seventy years. "Yea, just like being back in the Howlies." She smiled at him.

They ran through the maze, dodging what they could and stopping who they couldn't.

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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"I'll be fine. My arm still kills me, but I can walk. I might be slow but I can walk. Plus you can't get us out and carry me." She pointed out. She made a face at the the prospects of a doctor. "I'll be fine." She repeated.

"I'll need some muscle. Let's be quick. Get something to send this place soaring. Let's act like we have less than ten minutes." She told this more to herself than anyone else.

Well setting this place in flames only gave the scientist a bit of a timed escape. "Well to be fair, they faced off a good half of the Avengers. There was bound to be some collateral damage." She shrugged.

Ten minutes at worse. Always prepare for the worse. "We move now. Leave them for now."

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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She was right, but that didn’t make it hurt less. He’d outlived his usefulness; he wasn’t sure what Hydra would use the Winter Soldier for, but he’s sure it wouldn’t be good. “Yeah, I know,” he said, frowning. “Only thing is, he would be more help to you gettin’ out of here than I would be. It’s a lot easier to kill everyone here than just knock ‘em out, especially when they all come around again.”

A strange smile crossed Bucky’s face at that suggestion, something almost close to excitement. “Ma always said I was a bit of a pyromaniac,” he said. “And it would be a bit like old times, blowing up a Hydra base. Yeah, let’s do it, sweetheart.” He had a few grenades on him, but they might need bigger.

“The experiments wrecked their throats,” Bucky explained. Raina winced at his words; yet more proof she wasn’t deaf. “I didn’t know much about it, but I think it was some kinda botched version of the serum.” He would probably regret what he was about to do, but he did it anyway. He threw Raina a small pistol. “Get outta here,” he told her. She stared at the both of them with wide eyes. “But if you try callin’ for help, I ain’t afraid to kill you right this time.”

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She reached up and kissed his cheek. "I'm good with any of you trying to help me." She pulled away slightly, testing her legs. She sighed and stood up now. "I'll be more useful now."

She was happy he agreed. They'll need something strong though. "Is there an armory in this base?" A launcher would be nice.

She felt pity for Raina, even more so after she was free she watched her go. "You think that was smart?" Probably not. But it was merciful. But now they needed to get out. "How long before back up comes?"

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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An extraction mission. He’d done plenty of those before, back when Vasily overestimated the KGB’s strength in relation to their enemies. Bucky put his head around the door to look, seeing no sign of reinforcements yet, though it was only a matter of time. “Gives me something to look forward to,” he said. Her correction made his smile waver. He briefly brushed their hands together. “Hey,” he said. “If push comes to shove, Hydra wants me alive.” He kept the fact that Pierce had said assassinating Captain America was to be his last mission. “They don’t have the same sentiments about you. They’ll experiment on you, or worse, they’ll make you like me.”

Ari was injured, though she was trying hard to conceal it. First stop after here would be a hospital; no, first it would be her boss. What had she told the king about Bucky? Had she told him anything at all?

“Might be a stray head that no one’s cut off yet,” he murmured. “D.C. worried them. I don’t think they expected Rogers and the Widow to survive, or me. Kind of put a dent in their plans.” He glanced over at Raina, who might’ve been giving him cheek, he couldn’t tell, in which case he felt some kind of respect for her, despite the whole Nazi thing. “Nah,” he said. “She can hear me perfectly fine, can’t you sweetheart?” Raina didn’t flip him off, but she looked like she wanted to.

“If I’m guessin’ correctly, she was with Leviathan.” Raina did not reply, even when he signed. “They probably removed her larynx, though they only did that in the forties after the experiments went wrong.”

Bucky felt a wave of guilt - quickly becoming his most common emotion - and immediately put his arm around Ari’s waist. “Hey, you okay?” he asked. “Don’t be fainting on me or nothin’, I need both hands for the rifle.” Still holding onto Ari, he glanced over at Raina, who was making a move towards the door. “Don’t think about it,” he told her. “You know anythin’ bout my arm?”

She shook her head. Bucky looked over at Ari, an eyebrow raised as if to say, ‘Any ideas?’

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Ari shook her head. Thieves that went in together left together. Sure, a simple house hit might be ready man for theirselves, but on big time runs they tended to stick together. “And what they’ll do to you? Turn you back into Soldat? No offense but that won’t make me safe.” She realized that sounded very harsh, so she put a hand on his arm.

“You know how you kill the Hydra? After you chop off a head, you burn the neck. We should light this place up after.” Ari suggested.

She looked at Raina with pity. “That’s horrible. Why would they do that?” Was it to keep scientists quiet? But did she volunteer for this?

She gritted her teeth after the shock and shook her head. "I'm alright. I got like, two more of those in me before I faint." The collar fell off, leaving burnt skin underneath. She'd deal with that later.

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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“Tell you the truth, I have no idea what I’m into,” he said. “Last person I was with, I was in between cyro, and my head was all over the place. Before that, everything just gets kinda fuzzy when it comes to that sort of thing.” He shook his head. “But we need to be focusing on getting you out of here. And I’m definitely gettin’ riled up about it.”

He tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear, allowing his hand to linger just a little. “They hurt you because of me.” If he hadn’t been determined to take Hydra down, one head at a time, before, he definitely was now. He glanced down at where she had stashed the vibranium with a smirk, but then he grew concerned. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said. “Hydra’s not usually this … lacking. Maybe they’ve just gone to shit since I’ve left, who knows.”

Another groan came from behind them. It was Raina The Scientist, her head bleeding, reaching out for the red distress button on the wall. She was so weak that Bucky could just walk over to her and grab her hand to stop her, and she didn’t even fight back. 

“Thought you were dead,” he said to her, in a tone he didn’t quite recognise. Her breathing was so shallow he must’ve missed it. 

He hadn’t killed her. Sometimes good things did happen, if not killing a Hydra scientist who probably deserved it was a good thing.

“How do we get her out of the collar?” he asked Raina. She did not reply. He sighed and signed it to her, just in case she was deaf as well, though he knew she wasn’t. “Seriously. Cut me a break here,” he said. “You don’t think you fuckers did enough to me?”

Raina glanced over at Ari, and then back at Bucky with fire in her eyes. He wasn’t quite sure if she was reluctant when she went over to the collar, but she was somewhere in that zone.

“Can’t get the staff these days,” Bucky teased to Ari. 

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"Right. Escape first, deviant sexual talk later." It was her defense mechanism, mostly. Ari bit off a little more than she could chew, that she realized. But it was too late now. "On getting us out of here." She corrected him. "Don't you go pulling hero on me."

She actually rolled her eyes at that. "They hurt me because I was stealing from them. You didn't exactly twist my arm to do this." But he did give her food for thought. "It was too easy. Maybe this isn't Hydra? Maybe like a copycat."

The groaning scientist made Ari jump a little, but she composed herself quickly. "She deaf?" She knew Spanish, English, creole, French, and Japanese - in that order - but not sign language.

Ari let out a nervous laugh. "Eh, let's hope she don't spit in my coffee." She joked back. Raina saw the dented collar and gave a look at Bucky, indicating his arm. She touched around the collar for a flap to put up. She started pressing button.

"Jesus!" Another shock went through her, smaller this time. Quickly, to Bucky, Raina signed "you short circuited it." She tried again and the collar made a pop and fell off.

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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“You say that as if you wouldn’t be willing to do that with me,” he said, perhaps a bit more daring than Bucky would’ve been, but less so than the Soldier. “I want that Chewbacca mask too. Either for Stella or me.”

Ari indulged him, probably more than she should. He knew himself that his jokes were fucking awful, but they were the best he had in a bad situation. He’d make up for it with worse puns later. Ari usually laughed at puns.

A muscle in Bucky’s jaw twitched. “You know something?” he said. “I fuckin’ hate Hydra. Not sure if I’ve said that before-” He’d definitely said it before, many times, in the trenches, but not this century, “-but Hydra are a bunch of…” He didn’t want to kill them, he did. Did it matter?

“Hey, don’t blame yourself,” he said. “I have a feeling something else is going on. They had the biggest dumbasses on the door, looked for the sniper like some kind of amateur. And there were more scientists than soldiers too. It’s kind of like the places they used to keep me. Not sure why they had the vibranium here, but if they made smart decisions, they woulda won the war.”

“Not sure if that terrifies or excites me,” he admitted. A lot like most of the things about Ari, if he was being honest. “Do you not know me at all?” he teased, his voice raised in mock shock. “No, but seriously. I didn’t want to kill anyone today. Pretty sure I got them all before reinforcements came.”

It was a lie. They had about ten minutes before Hydra realised one of their bases had gone off the grid. It would be touch and go, but hopefully they’d get out, and Ari wouldn’t need to know the difference.

“Can you come with me, or are you attached?” he asked, surveying the collar.

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“A boy doesn’t need everything spelled out for him.” She winked. He was getting good at that, she figured. “Any other time, I’d totally turn into Chewbacca. Maybe when we get home. Didn’t think you’d be into that.” She poked his side.

“A bunch of a bag of dildos? You can say it.” But she shook her head. “Don’t get riled up on my account. I’m sure it was all very mechanical. Doubt that guy does any action at all.” She reached a good hand up and touched his jaw.

“Speaking of smart decisions, they’re not exactly thorough in their searches.” She smirked. “I got it." She patted her boob. "Cut out the padding in this bra, stuffed the plate in there." Ari was suddenly a little worried. "I don't know. Worth a shot, eh?" She swallowed thickly.

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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“As long as I’m not Force Awakens Han, it’s all good,” he said. “I’ve died enough times in my life already. Stella could double as Chewbacca.” He’d left Stella with his elderly (blind) neighbour, who never needed to know who he really was or where he was going.

“Anything past Nazis though, I’m fucked,” Bucky laughed. “Soviets, too. I might need to top up, but NYU wasn’t taking applicants for classes from people who were ninety-eight years old last March.”

He really needed to stop. He needed to be serious. He couldn’t just retreat into who he thought his old self was. The Soldier was needed more.

“What did they do to you?” he asked lowly. Cause he only killed two of them, and both accidentally. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. To tell you the truth, I thought you’d hand my ass to me on a plate if I interrupted you at work.”

The king. Bucky swallowed. He wasn’t quite sure what Ari had told her boss, or even what her boss was like; the Winter Soldier dealt with assassins, but they had other agents to work with the thieves.

“Well,” Bucky said with a sigh. He tried another time to break the collar to no avail. His arm gave a sad whir. He almost said ‘same’ to it (another one of those Internet things). “I guess I better go for him then. What do you want me to do with the agents out there?” He motioned towards the door. “There’s about thirty of them. They’ll all wake up pretty soon.”

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"I mean you can be Poe. I'm all for sitting on Poe's face like an X-Wing cockpit." Ari grinned. "I do like Stella as Chewbaca though. I can get her the leash and collar at Petco."

She closed her eyes briefly - just a bit longer than a blink. "I can teach you. Lesson one - microwaves." She nodded. "Cooking made easy." She decided on date two, she liked both James and the Soldier. Or as she put it, she liked Bucky. So she smiled at his stupid jokes.

"Um, shot me, knocked me out, apparently enjoyed the show." She gestured to get changed of clothes. "When I came through, he sent a few electric jolts through me. But don't. I would have totally kicked your butt and laughed at you if you interrupted me. I shouldn't have gotten caught."

She gave an apologetic shrug, agitating her arm. "Sorry. But look on the bright side, you'll see technology newer that the soviets." The agents outside. "Leave them. Can we get out without being seen? Or did you Rambo you're way in?"

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Burning the Necks || Ari&&Bucky

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“You’ve discovered my secret,” he said. “I am the Winter Soldier. I am also a nerd.” Nerd was a new term, one that Bucky found quite fitting. Ari said it like it was a compliment, anyway, so that was a good thing. “Oh yeah, Han and Leia,” he said with a smile. “The princess and the scoundrel. You think we’d fit in that category, darlin’?”

He laughed, mostly because it was true. “To be fair, the SSR. had quite a bit of advanced technology for their time,” he said. “And Hydra had more. Someone showed me how to hack in 1989.” It had been a girl. Someone young. “I don’t even know why I just said that. I guess it’s true?”

Bucky moved over to her and helped her up with his human arm. His metal one was slightly shorting out. “Doesn’t make it any easier,” he said. “I killed a lotta men who needed to die. Doesn’t mean I liked doin’ it.” He swallowed. “Though sometimes I did. Here, let me get that off.”

He tried to crush the collar under his metal hand, but it made nothing but a dent in it. Frowning in concentration, he tried a few more times, but it became clear very quickly that the damaged arm couldn’t do it.

“Well, darling,” he said. “Any bright ideas?”

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"Sweetheart Star Wars only the beginning." She laughed softly. Yeah, it did fit them. Or maybe they were both scoundrels. "Only if I can BD The Force Awakens' Leia though. Talk about a boss ass bitch."

Of course he knew how to hack. It was helpful and even Ari was rusty. Sure, security systems were easy. But a database? Shit. She couldn't do that just yet without at least a few hours. "Alright, I'll give you nazi tech," she teased.

She leaned on his arm, tightening her legs. "Gimme a bit, I'll be fine." It was just the shocks. Her arm had a dull burning to it, but it was fine. "I liked it. And I'd do it again if I had too." That was more true than anything.

She thought about it and sighed. Fence would know. But Fence's lab was on a need to know basis - and she never needed to know. Remy kept him under wraps to protect him. "I do. But it requires talking to the king."