needlebearer | [Consignment] IC Inbox

[Arya cocks her head to one side, repeating the words and staring at the sword, trying to make them fit. She looks back at him with a satisfied nod.]

What does it mean?

Winter wolf.

[Russia is mostly covered in snow, he's the Winter Soldier and wolves in Russia are sturdy survivors and even in the modern world manage to terrorize men in the rural areas of the country. They're known for attacking in large groups and are respected for their intelligence and ferocity and even when alone they are formidable. But they are also hunted. It felt appropriate from what he knows of her, though he knows nothing of where she comes from. Though they come from both vastly different and yet incredibly similar places, and for that reason he just accidentally named it something more significant to her than he realized. It also helps that he gave it to her on an ice planet, that influenced the name too.]

[She stares at him in surprise, swallowing down the emotion that threatens to overwhelm her at hearing those words. It's the last name she expected him to say - although she's not at all sure what she would have expected - but it's so fitting to who she is and what she's been through, that for a second she's not sure if he knows far more about her than is even in her file.]

That's perfect. That's me.

[A blink and a look of confusion and then after a short pause, he asks:]

You are a wolf?

[That's what she's saying if he's understanding correctly...]

Yes.

[She replies unhesitatingly, meaning it as literally as he does. A lone wolf whose pack has died one by one, struggling to keep padding on forward through the snow.]

My family's sigil is the direwolf. And we come from a place as cold as this one. It fits perfectly.

[His brows twitch up slightly at that explanation because that is... not what he expected. For what he decided to be that accurate. He's silent for a moment and then another thing that hasn't happened in a long long time occurs. His expression relaxes a bit and the corner of one side of his lips curves up the slightest bit.

You couldn't really call it a smile and he's not fully aware of it, but it's something closer to positive than what is normal for him.]

... Russia is also cold. [He wouldn't call it "where he comes from" though that's how he thought of it before he learned who he was (though he still sometimes thinks of it that way, he knows it's not true).] There are wolves. But they're not sigils.

[Choosing the wolf part of the name was mostly coincidence, he thinks. His features settle back to something more neutral after he explains the similarities that resulted in the choice of name.]

[She sheathes the sword, attaching the scabbard to her belt, but in only a few seconds she's taken it back out and is turning it over in her hands, proud to hold her own blade again, proud that he trusts her with it.]

Do you miss it?

[A brief pause as he looks up around at the snowy landscape around and beyond the rovers. It's not a question that requires a lot of thought for him like a lot of questions tend to.]

No.

[The reason why might be a bit more difficult to explain, though.]

[She's a little surprised. She'd assumed that all of the recruits would miss the places they were brought from, that they'd rather be anywhere than here. But given Bucky's general demeanour, she guesses that he must have come from circumstances even worse off than her own.]

I do. There's a lot that I'm glad to get away from, but winter is home. [And she knows she'll never see home or family again; that she has to make a new one now if she's to have one at all. She suddenly wishes very strongly that Bucky would be her family, but she's not sure that he'd even understand what she meant.]

[He looks back down at her, watching her face as she talks and then nods, not really in a way that says he understands missing "home" but he understands the concept of belonging to something and then having it torn away. His understanding of it comes from twisted circumstances, of course, but at least he understands the concept in some way. It's a fragment of humanity.

She and Steve can bond on the point of wanting him as family. His understanding of family is warped much like his understanding of belonging, but there's deeper, buried parts of him that know what it truly is. For him, that is expressed in actions even though he hardly understands in the forefront of his mind and she'll likely find that she won't need to ask him.]

What about here? [She asks it rather tentatively, knowing that Ajna and the CDC were the last things she could ever call home. Still, there was a lot here she would miss, not least the man standing in front of her.] When we go back to our own worlds, will you miss it?

[The look on his face when his gaze is directed back at her makes it obvious that he hadn't really considered that idea before. His eyes flicker with some kind of conflict and unsureness and he almost says that there is no going back. But something stops him.]

... I don't know. [He says instead. His tone and the slightly conflicted and lost look on his face shows that that's genuine.]

I will. [She feels like it's a weakness admitting it.] Some of the people here, I don't want to lose them. I'm scared that I'll forget everything here when I go back, too.

[Consignment] IC Inbox

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couldn't think of anything better and conjugating russian is hard pff

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