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[Ivar waited until his ribs were more healed up after his fight with Dodger to seek out Bucky again. He was getting better, but he still had a lot to learn. His brush with death had shown him that. Not that Ivar was especially afraid of dying, at least not in battle. He'd go to Valhalla in that case and be reunited with his father.

But he was still here for now and he recalled Bucky had told him he would teach him how to shoot a gun. So he decided to track the ex-wife assassin down. Ivar's great talent lay in his ability to get inside the minds of others and know what they were going to do. He'd seen Bucky enough to know some of his thought patterns.

A man that paranoid wouldn't be found just walking down the street, not if he was going so far as to steal food. So Ivar went for the most remote and abandoned buildings in town, the ones no one would think of going to. The first two held nothing but broken glass and rats, but the third held signs of someone recently being there. He looked around, but saw no one. That was no guarantee with someone as silent as Bucky.]

Come on out. I know you're in here.

[Bucky's impressed.

He saw Ivar coming and, though he could have slipped away, he didn't. It is a feat in and of itself that Ivar has managed to track him down this closely, and he semi-trusts the Viking not to be looking for him for the wrong reasons. He's up in the rafters of the building when Ivar enters, watching and waiting silently.

He almost stays silent.

A few seconds pass, but then he drops to the floor on silent feet right next to Ivar.]

How'd you find me?

[Ivar's half-expecting Bucky to do something like that, but it still gives him a jolt when he lands silently on his feet next to him like some giant wildcat. His hand's halfway to his axe before he realizes that there's no danger.

He grins, for he's quite proud of the fact it only took him three tries to find Bucky.]

I'm good at knowing how people think. You learn a lot by watching when you can't move as fast as everyone else.

[It's what made him such a brilliant military strategist even with his youth. Ivar could predict how people would react even before they knew what they were going to do.]

[That makes sense, but it's still unnerving to be so easily routed out. He will have to be more cautious from here on out and change his habits to make himself much harder to find, it's different when someone like Clark searches him out because the cheat can hear his metal arm with his super ears.

This is just tactics.]

You've come for another lesson.

[It's half question and half statement, glossing past how much he doesn't like that he's been tracked down.]

[Don't feel too paranoid, Bucky. Ivar is just that good. The Ragnarssons were all good trackers, pretty much human bloodhounds when they put their minds to it. Ivar just used his mind to put his natural talents to good use.]

Don't know if you heard about what happened, but I got into a fight. [Ivar wasn't sure how much a murderous homeless ex-assassin kept pulse on the gossip of Riverview.] Bastard got the upper hand on me after I stabbed out his eye. [He'll just leave out the part where he nearly died.] I need to train more. You said you'd teach me how to shoot a gun.

I did.

[That doesn't mean he's going to. His expression shifts ever so slightly into disapproval, though his tone is still the quietly neutral it usually is.]

Why did you get into a fight? What happened?

[He's not going to teach some volatile idiot how to use a firearm.]

[Don't give him that look, Bucky. He had good reason for why he'd wanted to murder Dodger.]

I didn't go looking for one.

[Actually, that's exactly what he did. But he's been sticking to the lie he told the police at the hospital.]

He was the one who decided to start something with me. He thinks I'm weak just because I can't walk. [He doesn't have to fake the anger in his tone. Dodger had become his enemy from the moment he decided Ivar was an easy target because he was in a wheelchair.] He just kept pushing for a fight until I had to defend myself.

[He's not going to accept that sort of lie that easily. It could be true, Steve had come up against enough bullies who got in his face because of his size, but usually it was Steve that threw the first punch or got the fight going.]

Pushing for a fight, how? Did he attack you?

[Because just proving that he wasn't weak, isn't a good enough reason to gouge someone's eye out.]

Tossed me out of my chair and put a foot on my chest. I wasn't going to wait to see if he just wanted a nice chat after that.

[It was half-truth, half-lie that he was telling now. While he had started things, Dodger had been all too keen to continue them. Ivar knew he wouldn't have stopped once things were going. Once he was in, he was all in until the fight was done.]

You're a good fighter, why did you take his eye out?

[A good fighter should be able to subdue an opponent without resorting to such extremes, that seems like a deliberate act of torture or cruelty.]

I got pissed off.

[The flippant understatement was his first, automatic response. The look on Bucky's face told him that wasn't going to fly. Ivar sighed and told him the real reason.]

I've spent my entire life putting up with men like him. People who thought I was useless, that not having my legs made me less than nothing. I thought coming here might change that, but nothing ever really changes. [He laughs, but there's not the slightest bit of humor in the sound.] I wanted to hurt him because he represented every frustration, every humiliation, every person who has ever laughed at me all rolled into one.

Edited (Typo...) 2017-05-28 20:29 (UTC)

[He finally feels as if he has the truth, and he nods. He understands that, maybe better than he could be expected to considering that nobody has ever looked down on him for his body.]

I'm not teaching you to use a gun.

[Blunt.]

Not until you can control your temper. Defend yourself, sure, but I'm not putting a firearm in the hands of someone that'll shoot the first person that insults his disabilities.

[He's half-expecting Bucky to say something like that, but it still doesn't help with his temper. He gets that stubborn look to his face again, the same one Ivar had when he was first trying to convince the man to train him.]

It's not going to happen again. You think I want to be locked up like a dog?

[The only way psychopaths learned anything about how to properly behave was by learning that there were rules to society and consequences for their actions. Ivar had made a rash, angry decision and it had cost him. He'd learned not to do that again, or rather, learned to do it in a better way so the cost wasn't as high the next time.]

[Ivar might look stubborn, but Bucky looks simply immovable. Eyes hard, expression blank, and body language utterly rigid.]

I said no.

[He shakes his head, disappointment filtering through.]

Your only deterrent is not being locked up? That's not acceptable, I'm not teaching you.

You make it sound like I'm just supposed to know this.

[He'd come from a killed or be killed society, where insults were something worth killing for. Trying to learn a new pattern of thinking after a lifetime didn't happen just overnight. He knows arguing with Bucky isn't going get him anywhere, so he decides to take a different tactic, and try to explain himself.]

I don't see people the way others do. They're like-- like-- [He grasps for a proper analogy. Finally, one comes.] --like a game of chess. Not really people, just pieces there to be moved around.

[Ivar knows this isn't normal thinking, having heard other people describe what they feel like inside. That there's compassion and empathy that goes into how they view others, making them real. He's never had that. He's different.]

[That's a frightening way of thinking. That's how the Soldier thought, that's how his handlers had thought... it's how he still thought sometimes when he didn't have his thoughts properly in place.

He just watches Ivar for a moment, before something softens in him just a little.]

Is there anyone you care about? Father? Brothers? Sisters? Mother? Partner?

I care about my family. [There's a pause. He might as well be honest, if he's been thus far. He adds on.] Most of the time. But my parents are dead and my brothers aren't here.

[Which meant he was without an anchor to help him get beyond his usual cold, single-minded thinking. He thinks about mentioning Letha, but while he does care for her, there's also part of him that still wonders sometimes what her head would look like on a stick.]

I don't care if they're here.

[He hesitates a moment, teetering between sharing with Ivar in the hope of helping him, or just turning away and washing his hands of the whole situation. It was probably more sensible to do the latter, he has too many issues of his own to take on someone else's, but--]

I've killed a lot of people, more than you ever will; and I used to think that way, still do sometimes. It helps me to picture the person I want to hurt as someone I care about, your brothers in your case. Remember that they're that person for someone else, they're brothers and friends and sons.

It sounds difficult. I've never thought about thinking that way before.

[Being in a culture where fighting and killing were not only the norm but encouraged meant that Ivar's problems had gone unnoticed and untreated for his entire life. Only his brothers really knew the true extent of how unstable the youngest Ragnarsson really was.]

When I want something, I tend to get very single-minded about it. I only look at how to get to it in a single line, from one point to another. People who are in the way of that, I just remove them.

[Usually through vicious and brutal ends. He sighs and slump a bit back in his wheelchair, looking up at Bucky with an expression that isn't nearly as closed off and angry as he usually is.]

But I will keep what you have said in mind.

[He's been reassessing Ivar as the young man speaks, and has upgraded him in his mental directory of people here to be extremely dangerous. Skills aside, it's the lack of empathy that makes him one to watch.]

I'm not teaching you any more.

[It doesn't matter if he's trying, that's too much of a risk for Bucky.]

I've helped kill enough people, I have enough blood on my hands, I'm not giving you the tools to do it more efficiently.

[Ivar's eyes have the ability to go ice cold or blazing with fury at a moment's notice. They seem to be doing a combination of both right now as she stares at Bucky. But he already knows getting angry won't get him anywhere. He needs to approach this a different way if he wants to regain what he's close to losing.]

What happened to you before you came here? What made you into such a good killer?

[For all that he's trained with the man, Ivar knows very little about Bucky. He wouldn't even know his name if he hadn't made the connection between him and his roommate.]

[He should have seen the question coming, but for some reason it still hits him hard when it comes.]

Some things shouldn't be talked about.

[It's stated low and level, with a finality about it that suggests he's even less likely to talk about his past than he is to relent on his decision to teach Ivar.]

I'm leaving, don't follow me.

[As Bucky will recall from their first encounter, Ivar never knows when to quit. That's not just when he's fighting, but in all aspects of his life. He just has to keep pushing and testing his limits.]

No. I want to know why. Your vague bullshit may cut it with everyone else, but not with me.

[And against Bucky's explicit orders, he wheels after him.]

I don't owe you an explanation.

[He hesitates at the street corner and then just takes a running jump up about fifteen feet to grab a window ledge on the second floor. Follow him now, Ivar.]

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