Static: Get, Set, Glitch

A sharp pain across her cheek pulls her out of the gloomy sleep she’d been falling in and out of.

“Mornin’ sunshine,” the woman, nay the bitch chirps out, with a smile on her face. “Nice of you to join the land of the living.”

The slap rings out in Y/n’s ear. She shakes her head in an effort to make it stop, only to flinch at the throbbing pain in her head. She tsks.

Slowly opening her eyes, she begins taking account of her situation. She’s tied to a chair, that’s obvious. She can spot a table behind the bitch but besides that they’re in a fairly empty warehouse; how awfully cliche. There’s sunlight filtering in from the skylight above. And while the entire place seems fairly empty except for the bitch and her, she feels like she’s being watched.

There’s a searing ache running through her chest, her shoulder seems stiff and fairly useless. The bullet had pierced her lungs as per Malcolm’s assessment, so, alien or no, she should be fairly dead by now. Especially seeing as the sun is up higher than it was when they began fighting, meaning a whole day has passed. She can’t see her wounds but she’s sure these people must have patched her up. They need her alive. Of course, they do.

A torture session? Really?

Motherfucker.

She looks up at the bitch in front of her and says, “If you’re gonna cut me up seven ways to Sunday, the least you could do is tell me your name.”

“Knowing my name wouldn’t change anything. I don’t technically exist,” the bitch replies with a cunning smile.

“Yeah, but I keep referring to you as ‘the bitch’ in my inner monologue and I’m trying to cut down on my swearing,” she says. And when the bitch just cocks her brow, she explains, “My niece. She has a tendency of picking up bad words quicker than the good ones.”

The bitch lets out a laugh, walking back to the table and taking a seat facing her. “Inara,” she answers.

“Ah, Inara,” Y/n sounds out, trying it on her tongue. She likes the sound of it. “I like it, it suits you.”

She shrugs, “I thought so too.”

Y/n looks around once again, there are equidistant columns stretching out in two rows parallel to each other. She’s sitting in the middle of them, and so is Inara. She agitates her hands in a half-hearted attempt to free them only to realize they are locked fairly tightly in steel cuffs, each attached to either of the hind legs of the steel chair.

The sound of the alloys clashing makes Inara laugh. “Come on, this is far from my first rodeo.” She crosses her legs. “And far from yours either.”

Y/n shakes her from side to side in annoyed assent.

“I could glitch away,” Y/n tries, knowing it’s a lie. But she needs to understand the woman in front of her. She needs to know why she seems so confident in her ability to keep Y/n confined.

“Come on, Y/n,” she scolds her like a child who’s been caught in a lie about not stealing the ice cream, while her tongue is still orange. “You really thought you’d stop using your powers for over a year and no one would catch up to the fact that you just can’t, anymore?” She shakes her head. “I will admit the display at the factory caught me off guard. But that—and I’m guessing here—was a result of extenuating circumstances.”

Motherfucker, she’s got her there.

“I don’t think I would’ve been able to capture you, let alone keep you here if you could use your powers freely,” Inara continues. When Y/n straightens up, knowing full well that she’s fucked, Inara smugly adds, “Like I said, been at this a while.”

“Yeah yeah, no one likes a show-off,” Y/n chastises.

“So, seeing as we’ve both been through this whole shindig about one too many times, could I interest you in cutting the bullshit and skipping to the part where you tell me where Malcolm Brekker currently is?” She leans back with her palms on the table. She’s carefully seated herself amongst the table laden with torture devices ranging from knives to a fucking blow torch. And Y/n might not know Inara, but she doesn’t seem like the type who’d even a little hesitant to use them.

“Ah,” Y/n sighs, feigning disappointment. “All this is about Brekker? And here I thought this was Hera’s long-promised revenge.”

She smiles. “That was the old Hera. The new commander-in-chief doesn’t give a damn about the one that got away.” She leans forward, “But you already knew that.”

“Fine,” Y/n relents. “I’m trying to avoid getting tortured, can you blame me?”

“Not really,” Inara replies. “I’m fairly good at this.”

Y/n hums. “Any way I could buy you over to our side? Kylo Ren you, maybe?”

“Never really liked him. Sorry,” not sounding sorry at all. Y/n can’t blame her though. Adam Driver’s hot and all, but that plotline wasn’t really all that. Inara gets to her feet. “Besides, I believe in what we do. I think the ends justify the means, as cruel as they might be.” She turns her back to Y/n and begins looking through the line of torture devices from hell. “This is a gruesome little world…” You don’t say, “what we do is pretty depraved but change doesn’t come without sacrifice.” She settles on the fucking blow torch. Turning around she adds, “So, to answer your question; no. I’m fairly happy with the dark side.” She lights the torch up, with a devious smile, “Red’s always been my color.”

Motherfucker.

After what feels like hours of being burned, bruised, and cut; Y/n feels like she’s coming apart at the seams. She’s not sure how long Inara has been at it, because she stopped keeping time after she picked up the pliers to pull out her tooth. She took a tooth! Bitch fucking pulled it out, smiled at it, and proceeded to pocket it in her red trousers—and yeah fine, it does seem like it’s her color.

“You know, it’s pretty stupid of you to rip me apart after you guys patched me up,” Y/n chokes out.

“Hm?” Inara asks, distracted, too busy carving a smiley face on her non-injured shoulder with a knife. She’s sitting on Y/n’s lap, straddling her, with legs on either side. She looks up, “Oh? The bullet wound? Yeah, we had to keep you alive for me to have some fun, right?” She pulls back, assessing her work. “You’re pretty human on the inside… For an alien I mean. Most of the things are in the same place as they should be.”

Y/n hums, distracted by the pain. “So I’ve been told.”

“You like it?” Inara asks, pointing her knife at the carving.

Y/n looks at it sideways and shrugs, “No early Picasso but, I’ll take it.”

She smiles. “You’re enjoying this a little bit, aren’t you?”

“It’s a disadvantage of being attracted to women with knives,” Y/n throws her head back to recalibrate. Every inch of her body hurts enough to be numb enough to be considered somewhat calming. “Self-preservation goes out the fucking window,” she adds.

Inara smiles, cupping Y/n’s jaw and pulling her head down so they’re face to face. “Well, if it’s any consolation, you aren’t the only one.” She rubs her thumb over her cheek for a moment. It’s supposed to be a soft gesture of care but the way she does it comes off as nothing but condescending. And Y/n hates it cause all it does is remind her of how much gentler Bucky always is. “They aren’t going to stop coming after Brekker, you know that, right? He stole from The Orphanage.”

“I’m not gonna give up the kids.”

She shakes her head in disapproval. “Hera doesn’t care about the damn kids. If they’ve seen freedom, breaking them again is not worth the hassle for her… She wants Malcolm. He was one of us and he betrayed us. He betrayed her. He has to pay.”

This pisses Y/n the fuck off. She’s taken the torture, she’s taken the being tied up and she’s taken the disrespect, but this is just some utter bullshit. She head-butts Inara’s nose hard enough that she falls off her lap and onto the ground. “He was never one of you,” she spits out. “And I will burn the whole Orphanage to the ground before I let you take him.”

Inara gets up, fury burning in her eyes. Her nose is bleeding, probably broken. Blood splatters onto her white silk blouse—which sidenote, who the fuck wears white to torture sessions? Sociopaths with no care for dry cleaning, that’s who. Anyway, blood splatters and she looks like she’s ready to return the favor tenfold.

And well, what the fuck is she gonna do? Hurt her? The bitch already has her tooth.

But before she can actually do something wild, like pull out Y/n’s eyeball or whatever, a man in uniform comes running from behind. The same man that was heading the negotiations with Brekker at the factory.

“What?” Inara snaps, getting to her feet.

“They’re here.”

Bucky.

The moment that thought strikes, she can hear guns going off in the distance.

Inara looks in the direction of the sound and then back at Y/n and her eyes narrow before she says, “Kill her.”

“And Brekker?” He asks, as a couple more men fall in and join him.

“He’s not stupid enough to hand himself over to us on a silver platter. They wouldn’t let him,” she says as she cleans the blood running down her nose with the back of her hand. “He’s gone.”

Ah, she really is a sociopath.

“What? I’m not special enough for you to kill?” Y/n asks in mock offense.

“Now when did I ever say that, darling?” She leans down, putting a hand on Y/n’s injured shoulder. “I just really like these shoes,” she says, pushing her thumb into Y/n’s wound. It hurts like a fucking bitch.

“SON OF A WHORING MOTHER FUCKER!”

Inara just clicks her tongue feigning disappointment, “What would your niece say?” She finally lets go, looking back at the squad of four men that have gathered in front of her. “Kill her, kill them or die trying.” And with that, she walks away.

“The least you could do is give me my damn tooth back, you bitch!” Y/n shouts out only to hear a fading chortle thrown her way.

The sounds of explosion and gunfire are getting closer by the minute.

Bucky’s coming for her, all she’s gotta do is hold on.

She can do that.

She has to.

The confession of her all-consuming, ardent devotion to the man cannot just be ‘I am in love with a dumbass Super Soldier, and he sure as shit ain’t blond’, it can’t. It’s not poetic enough. It’s not deep enough or smart enough or charming enough. Bucky can’t write sonnets about it. And she needs Bucky to write sonnets about her.

But more than all that, she needs Bucky to know that he’s loved. That he will always be loved. She needs him to know—no she needs him to understand that he’s good enough to be loved so profoundly that it’s etched onto her bones. It’s seared onto her soul and coursing through her veins. She needs him to understand that despite all the shit he’s been through, he’s not so broken that he can’t be loved. In fact, to her, he’s not broken at all. She needs him to understand that no matter what, he will always be worthy of burning passion that would make even Apollo shy away.

Oh, that’s good. She should use that.

He does look a bit like Apollo.

No. He looks better.

Y/n! Focus.

Shaking her head, she tries to get her thoughts straight. The burns on her skin are smelly, the blood dripping down both her shoulders is sticky. With the pain subsiding slowly, she’s leaving the sweet bliss of numbness behind and it’s overwhelming her enough to make it hard for her to focus.

The men in front of her line up, cocking their guns.

She’s gotta get out.

“Any way I could interest you gentlemen, in the opposite of a brutal hand-to-hand combat scene, seeing as I’m all butchered up and such?” Y/n asks jovially as she begins to dislocate the joints of the thumbs on each hand, by pushing on the legs of the chair. She’s literally too old for this shit.

The men snicker.

“I think you’re forgetting the part where you’re tied to a chair, sweet cheeks,” the main man snickers.

“Famous last words, my guy,” she throws back, ridding herself of the cuffs. She gets up to her feet, picks up the chair, and bashes the man nearest to her with it.

They begin shooting at her as she skates past them and jumps over the table, pulling it down with her to use as cover. All the weapons that were lying atop fall next to her. Picking up a knife, she pushes herself on her knees turning to them, and throws it at one of them.

She misses.

Fuck!

Her hand-eye coordination is lacking, what with all the torture and the gunshot wound.

She picks another, places a kiss on it for good luck, and throws again. This one lands straight in the eye of the main guy. She doesn’t have time to celebrate though, she picks up a couple more knives, throwing them as best she can, through a hail of bullets. She aims for their hands and manages to disarm two of the three men standing.

She pushes her dislocated joints back in place, wincing.

Then picking up the blow torch, she gets up and jumps over the table. She kicks the first guy to her right and then aims the torch at the other’s shoulder, burning him. As he screams, she runs over punching him in the face and kneeing him in the gut. The moment he falls to the ground she rushes the third guy. Lunging at him, she wraps her thighs around his throat, swinging around and choking him. She torches his hands when they come to stop her. When the first guy she’d dropped begins getting up, she kicks him in the face again. And as the man with the knife in his eye starts to squirm, reaching for his gun, she drops the blow torch on his face.

There’s a commotion behind her and she turns instantly, ready to fight, only to see—

“We’re here to sa—” Malcolm’s announcement falters as he looks around,”—ve you,” he finishes half-heartedly.

Remember how she said Inara was a sociopath? Yeah, she wasn’t insulting her. She was assessing her. If Inara hadn’t been a sociopath, she would have noticed Y/n’s rage and defensive stance over Malcolm. She would’ve realized that that kind of kinship is usually reciprocal in nature. And that would have made her realize; come hell or high water Malcolm Brekker would always, always come to save his friends.

“I was going for a ‘Come with me if you want to live’ kind of a rescue,” Malcolm says with hands on his hips as his eyes follow Y/n’s slow movements. She places her hand on a pillar to her left, leaning against it.

“Oh,” Y/n says, “well, I feel very recused.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Malcolm bites back.

“Don’t be petulant then,” Y/n throws back. She sighs, “You really shouldn’t be here.”

“Makes two of us.”

He’s not wearing a suit, she notices. He was worried.

She smiles.

“What?” He asks, brows furrowing.

She waves her free hand dismissively, “Nothing.” She winces at the gesture, shoulder aching. “Is he—”

She is cut off by Torres, Steve, and Sam running in. Taking in the scene, they look up at Malcolm.

“You did that?” Sam asks him, in complete disbelief.

Malcolm’s face contorts in affront. “No, obviously not.” He points at her. “She did.”

Y/n throws out a mock salute as the former and current Captain America look at her with their eyes wide in shock. “Now, is Buck—”

She’s cut off again by Steve, “How?”

“I’m crafty little shit, deal with it,” she answers, annoyed. “Now, that out of the way, can someone please tell me where the fuck is one James Buchanan Barnes?” She shouts.

“Right here, sweetheart.”

And there he stands, pushing Steve and Sam aside, as he makes his way over to her. He looks a little scared. His eyes are filled with nothing but worry and his steps are unsure. He looks like he’s afraid she’s not real.

“I had to tell you something,” she says.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“I think you look like Apollo,” she answers honestly as he finally stands just inches away from her. “But prettier,” she adds. And the man fucking blushes.

Her mission fulfilled, she loses her resilience and her legs give out.

But Bucky’s there to pick her up. With a hand under her knees and the other under her shoulder, placed gently so as to not agitate her wound, he carries her bridal style. She instinctively curls one hand around his neck, the other situates itself on his chest.

“Jamie?” Her tough cookie act is crumbling in his warmth, she can’t help it. The smell of the woods in the summer sun, mixed with leather had become her favorite weakness since the first moment she smelled it.

“Yeah, baby?” He urges her softly.

“The bitch took my tooth.” She pushes herself closer into his chest.

Bucky’s jaw clenches, his face which was painfully soft before, now hardens. “I’m gonna kill her,” he states with finality.

Y/n hums as her head falls onto his broad chest and then she’s lost to the world.

When she comes back to the world, it’s because electricity charges through her body. She bolts upright. Sitting up straight, her hand comes to rest over her chest.

“What in the name of fuck was that for?” She shouts out.

“You barely had a heartbeat, I thought you were in v-fib,” Malcolm explains from next to her.

She takes note of her surroundings, realizing they are in her safe house. She presumes this is where the boys must have run to when they fled the ambush.

She clenches and unclenches her hands, trying her best not to let her powers unleash. “That’s ‘cause I’m not fucking human, Mal,” she chides.

“Oh.” He makes an ‘oops’ face. “I forgot about that,” Malcolm answers innocently.

Forgot? What the fu—