6065/Falling Frost: Debriefing

Falling Frost: Debriefing
Date of Scene:	29 December 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	May sits Skye down to talk about her visit with Bucky. Skye drops some bombshells without realizing it.
Cast of Characters:	Melinda May, Quake, Darcy Lewis
Tinyplot:	Falling Frost

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Melinda May has posed:
Skye has been in to talk with Barnes. Yes, May is very much aware of this. No, she didn't stop the former hacker from going to talk to the former assassin. She knew they need to sort things between just them. But that does not mean she wasn't prepared to corner the woman and question her the moment she leaves Barnes' quarters.

Which is exactly what she does.

She's nice about it, at least. She catches Skye leaving the room and tells her to follow, leading them to the break room that they all most frequently visit and having her sit. Not two minutes later a junior agent arrives with what looks like Asian takeout and smells like ...

Potstickers.

Quake has posed:
Skye isn't surprised she's being called out, or that she was caught out. She had waved to the surveillance monitors after all. It wasn't like she'd tried to sneak about or hide what she was doing. She just hadn't expected to be confronted so very quickly afterwards.

Then again, this was May. Which explained all sorts of things.

Dutifully, and silently, Skye follows her former SO to the break room.

She is surprised when potstickers arrive. That, she had to admit, was a nice touch.

Melinda May has posed:
May takes the food and thanks the agent, then goes to sit with Skye. The first few moments are just situating the food -- and it's more than just the potstickers, though those are definitely there -- and then she asks seemingly idly over her first bite of noodles, "So how was your talk with Barnes?"

She already knows how it went, as she listened to a little of it over her comm unit. But, she still wants to hear it from Skye herself, and to hear any thoughts or impressions she has about the recovered former assassin. After all, she has an unusually good ability to read and suss out things about people. Especially considering her chosen speciality was computer hacking.

Quake has posed:
Skye sits quietly, waiting for the food to be arranged. It's not like she'd normally be hugely talkative at this point, but there's a greater quality to her silence right now - less waiting, than a contemplation of the fact she knows things are coming, and that there is a lot of uncertainty on her plate. No pun intended.

"I think he's still in there," Skye says without looking at the senior agent. "His mission is to kill Steve. I think it's not just because it would be a blow to us, but it would kill anything that's left of Bucky inside him." It was a brilliant move as far as Skye could see, and would eliminate several problems at once.

Melinda May has posed:
May takes a slow, deep breath at that. That is insidious, and honestly a bit brilliant if completely and utterly evil. "I need to talk with R&D and see if the way we defeated his programming last time is a viable option again." She truly hopes it is, and not just for Rogers' sake.

"What's your take on this? Is there enough left of Barnes right now for him to understand why we're trying to protect him and Rogers both?"

Quake has posed:
Her talk with Bucky is considered, leaving Skye to give a slow nod.

"He was all disinterested and staring at the ceiling until I started talking about how it was. How we worked together - in this break room even - when Hydra attacked. How he was the first person who showed me how it might be to be part of this team here. And he got pissed. Flew to the glass and slammed it. Bit out at me that he was Hydra."

Skye shakes her head, remember.

"He's in there. He's conflicted. And he knows it. Told me I talked to much. Wanted me to shut up. Too much interest in things - not just what I could do, but all of it. Even if he tried to pretend there wasn't. Too much emotion if Bucky isn't in there."

Darcy Lewis has posed:
They say that bacon is the siren of foods. For Darcy, that siren has a sister. Her name is Potsticker.

"Oh my fucking god. Tell me I can put that in my mouth," Darcy says without preamble, without looking to see who's there or who isn't. She seems to drift, a cartoon character held aloft by the nose on an undulating ribbon of visible aroma, into the room and straight for the foodthings.

Melinda May has posed:
May nods. "Good. Then there's enough left of him that we can't let the WSC to decide to just terminate him." She really didn't want to have to explain that to Rogers. She can already guess that the super soldier would take that decision from the WSC as a personal attack, and the only thing worse than Rogers' expression of disappointment is his outright hostility.

And that's when Darcy appears, having followed the lure of the potstickers. And May is completely not surprised by this. She simply uses one foot to push out a chair slightly, knowing that Darcy is going to claim it anyway.

Quake has posed:
Wordlessly, Skye just pushes her plate over to Darcy, even as May pushes a chair out.

"He's in there," Skye says, adamantly. "I was there, May. Back at the base, I was there. They tried. Karl tried to make me one of theirs. I know what they did to him. Or some, at least. He's in there. I know he is, you don't act like he did if there's nothing left. If there's no conflict."

She frowns - only now looking up to regard the senior agent. "They made me relive all the worst moment of my childhood. Made me see everything for how horrible it was. Stripped away everything I'd tried to hold onto that might have been okay from then. The few things I had left. And then he tried to make SHIELD my enemy."

Skye looks down at her palms, as if expecting to see marks there. Scars from her experience. "It would have been so easy to just accept it. You know? To let everything he promised wash over me and fall in with those feelings. Only I still had you. And Clint. And everyone here. Bucky has Steve. They took everything else away, and they gave him Steve. They make him kill Steve, and we've lost him forever. If its there, it's in his past."

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Two potstickers in and Darcy seems to suddenly realize the depth of the conversation happening. She slows her eating, eyes flicking from May to Skye, but stays silent.

Melinda May has posed:
"All the more reason to get R&D involved." It's that, or May will resort to some of her ... less official resources to help Barnes. She could get a message out to Westchester and see if they have someone who could help, or she can try to get the attention of a particularly rumpled individual with unique capabilities. But, she really hopes she doesn't have to resort to either of those things.

'In the past'. May looks at Skye consideringly. "Would you be willing to work alongside R&D with him? You have a perspective that I think might make the whole process easier on Barnes."

Quake has posed:
There's a small blink from Skye as though she's been drawn back from deep thought - which is really what's happened. You don't find yourself bound into one of Hydra's mind-warping machines without hte experience having some lasting effects.

"Uh, yeah. Sure. If it will help him." She's not sure entirely what she can do to help, but May would be right, Skye had a fairly unique perspective on this one. Or, at least a fresh one. "He didn't know it was me who flattened that clearing. He thought it was an earthquake." Which in and of itself was rather terrifying to the girl. "You know something? He protected me that day. When Hydra attacked. He held the door to this break room while I hacked into Fury's systems. He didn't even know who I was or if I could do it - I was just the girl you dragged in to do his security check. And he put his life on the line for me, believing that I could do what I said."

Melinda May has posed:
May nods. "Good. I think it will." She glances over as Darcy decides to leave them to their discussion, but absconds with the remaining potstickers in exchange. She figures that's fair enough.

And then Skye goes on to recount how Barnes protected her during the Hydra attack when he had never met her before and again, May nods. "And that's your motivation for keeping with this. Because I can tell you now, it's not going to be easy. Not for anyone, especially not for Barnes. And I would not be at all surprised if Hydra programmed him to take that out on everyone around him." She pushes a container of seasoned chicken toward Skye.

Quake has posed:
The container of chicken is reached for almsot automatically, the reaction rote rather than aware. "Yeah. I know. I know Karl.. he hates us. If he had anything to do with Bucky, then he'll have done that. And if not, I still think that's what makes sense. Worse, he's one of ours, and they know it. They know we'll go the wall for him before we do anything like take him out permanently. They're counting on it. Killing Steve might not be the worst thing they've planted in his mind."

She exhales long and slow. "They don't care if he's a ticking timb bomb they lose. They take out enough of us, they don't care if he goes too. If they did, they wouldn't have let us keep him. He'd be dead in that cell right now. I don't believev they're counting on him escaping. I think they're counting on us keeping him."

Melinda May has posed:
"Then maybe we should kill him." May immediately holds up a hand to stop Skye's inevitable protests. "Hear me out. Do you think any triggers they programmed into him would remain after being clinically dead for, say, thirty seconds?"

Because if they SHIELD won't kill the man, maybe they can make it look like they totally can, and will, and HAVE. She knows even the thought is a huge gamble, but if it pans out to free the man from Hydra's programming (again), it might be worth the risk.

Quake has posed:
Skye is SOOOOO about to protest, but she has faith in May, and when that hand goes up, she bites her tongue and listens. And what May says makes a morbid sort of sense. "So, what you're saying is let him die, check his head out and undo whatever they did, and then bring him back like he should have been?"

Her frown marks with a hint of consideration. "We do know some telepaths, right? From that fungus thing? They could do that, right? Look into his head and undo what was done?"

Because she has to believe there's a way.

Melinda May has posed:
The telepaths. "That is one possibility, and a good one. Especially as I don't see Barnes consciously letting a telepath anywhere near him. But if they can get someone in there to see what needs shoring up or whatever when he's ... no. That's a tactic Hydra would use. We need to be as honest and transparent with him as is safely possible, or he may never trust SHIELD again even if we do free him of the programming."

Now she's getting lost in contemplation, trying to figure out a way to help Barnes that doesn't smack of Hydra-like behavior. That's a VERY narrow tightrope to walk. But she is determined to recover Barnes from this, for his sake if no one else's. He's had enough damage.

Quake has posed:
"We're not really going to have to kill him, are we?" Knowing even as she asks that it's a distinct possibility, for all the reasons she herself has offered, and, ultimately, the one May has given: if nothing else can be done, Bucky has been put through enough.

Melinda May has posed:
"I really hope not," May says, "but it's a possibility that I have to keep in mind." If for no other reason than to make sure that that does not happen.

"We've tossed around a few ideas of ways to go about getting Barnes his autonomy back. When you're ready, you should take those ideas to R&D and see what you and the scientists there can come up with." She mentally resolves to do the same, but with Logistics to find out if there's a truly secure way to perhaps relocate Barnes to someplace that doesn't look or feel like a cage.

And that's a very tall order.