Bucky closes the door and slides two of the bolt locks back into position. His back is tense, ramrod straight, and he remains facing away as if to look at this insensitive asshole would be to give into the desire to beat him into the ground.
"What you're asking to do to yourself, would you do it to other people too?"
Not knowing anything about the actual characteristics of these sorts of birds, or any birds really, Bucky just thinks that a vulture is an appropriate sort of Heart for this man based solely on what it represents. Cold, impersonal, greedy death.
"Why would anyone ask that?"
He finally turns and walks towards man and bird, bending as if to touch the vulture and stopping just short.
Bacall blinks, her wings extending, ready to fly in that small space if he got any closer. Even when he stopped, Mycroft's nervousness was evident in her body language. He didn't like enclosed spaces, and neither did she.
"...it depends. Not to an innocent person. To someone particularly wicked that's endangering Sherlock? Perhaps. To someone who asked? Perhaps. But he doesn't understand what it means. You must tell him how terrible it is," she said, her red-and-yellow eyes staring straight at his.
He's not sure if that's a good reasoning path, someone who wants to sever their Heart might not care about anyone, but wanting to stop someone who might endanger him is a fairly good sign.
"If you sever your Heart, you won't. You might not even remember him, you might even kill him if you were told to."
"You're not a person any more if you don't have a Heart."
His eyes are hard and intense. It makes his shoulderblades prickle with danger to talk about this stuff even with people he trusts, but he's not about to let someone potentially this dangerous just walk away without knowing what he's doing.
"The Nazis took mine over months of torture, conditioning, and brainwashing. You want to start now, or later?"
Bacall suddenly flaps her wings and squawks in alarm. Brainwashing, conditioning, torturing. Mycroft freezes and turns a ghastly shade. His mouth opens and closes, his words failing him.
Half of it was shock and disappointment, not that he was expecting James Barnes to actually do anything to him, and the memory of only a few days of that, which this man clearly had to endure.
That's what he had to say, that's the strongest reaction to possible torture and to being no longer able to recognise his own kin? This man is evil, soulless, and Bucky can't hold himself back any longer.
Mycroft might be able to notice, just before it flies towards his face in a fist, that one of the hands sticking out of the bottom of his hoodie sleeves is shiny and metal.
He's not used to putting himself in situations where he himself is vulnerable to attack, even after Norfinbury, and only a panicked cry of alarm from Bacall at the last millisecond was his only warning as she tried to take flight, but it was too late. He manages to register something shiny and metal before pain, then nothing at all.
He's knocked clean out, crumpling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, a terrific, swollen bruise beginning to form on one eye. Blood trickles from cuts on his eyebrow and face. Bacall flops over in a similar fashion, her wings splayed out.
For all that Bucky knows he can be overly cautious, some would say paranoid, he's not wrong here. This is someone who talks about having a Heart or losing one as an inconvenience, and even a part of him would consider that he might do this to someone else if the circumstances were right.
He should kill him.
He almost does.
He bends down and even gets his hands on Mycroft's head preparatory to snapping his neck before he stops himself, this... this isn't him, he's not going to be a killer. Instead he pulls Mycroft up and over his shoulder into a fireman's carry, and picks up the vulture by the feet in his other hand.
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"What you're asking to do to yourself, would you do it to other people too?"
Just how evil is he?
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"Well, no. Why would I? I mean, unless they asked, of course."
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"Why would anyone ask that?"
He finally turns and walks towards man and bird, bending as if to touch the vulture and stopping just short.
"You tell me, would he do it to other people?"
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"...it depends. Not to an innocent person. To someone particularly wicked that's endangering Sherlock? Perhaps. To someone who asked? Perhaps. But he doesn't understand what it means. You must tell him how terrible it is," she said, her red-and-yellow eyes staring straight at his.
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He's not sure if that's a good reasoning path, someone who wants to sever their Heart might not care about anyone, but wanting to stop someone who might endanger him is a fairly good sign.
"If you sever your Heart, you won't. You might not even remember him, you might even kill him if you were told to."
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"Surely, it's not...that severe."
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His eyes are hard and intense. It makes his shoulderblades prickle with danger to talk about this stuff even with people he trusts, but he's not about to let someone potentially this dangerous just walk away without knowing what he's doing.
"The Nazis took mine over months of torture, conditioning, and brainwashing. You want to start now, or later?"
no subject
Half of it was shock and disappointment, not that he was expecting James Barnes to actually do anything to him, and the memory of only a few days of that, which this man clearly had to endure.
"I..."
He swallowed. "I'm admittedly disappointed."
no subject
That's what he had to say, that's the strongest reaction to possible torture and to being no longer able to recognise his own kin? This man is evil, soulless, and Bucky can't hold himself back any longer.
Mycroft might be able to notice, just before it flies towards his face in a fist, that one of the hands sticking out of the bottom of his hoodie sleeves is shiny and metal.
no subject
He's not used to putting himself in situations where he himself is vulnerable to attack, even after Norfinbury, and only a panicked cry of alarm from Bacall at the last millisecond was his only warning as she tried to take flight, but it was too late.
He manages to register something shiny and metal before pain, then nothing at all.
He's knocked clean out, crumpling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, a terrific, swollen bruise beginning to form on one eye. Blood trickles from cuts on his eyebrow and face. Bacall flops over in a similar fashion, her wings splayed out.
no subject
For all that Bucky knows he can be overly cautious, some would say paranoid, he's not wrong here. This is someone who talks about having a Heart or losing one as an inconvenience, and even a part of him would consider that he might do this to someone else if the circumstances were right.
He should kill him.
He almost does.
He bends down and even gets his hands on Mycroft's head preparatory to snapping his neck before he stops himself, this... this isn't him, he's not going to be a killer. Instead he pulls Mycroft up and over his shoulder into a fireman's carry, and picks up the vulture by the feet in his other hand.