Ghost
Any way that pie was cut, the terminology for what they were sounded dirty. Conduit, bio-terrorist, none of them pleasant. Levi frowned gently and averted her gaze from the man before her, thinking what he said through. Would going with her own name be easier than the label that came with what she truly was? She blinked slowly, weighing the pros and cons of all her options. At least her name meant something more than those others. She figured that was her better way to go. Somewhere in the back of her head, Levi even felt her name was dirty by association with the abilities.
❝So maybe my name is only slightly better, for the time being. Before I go answering another question though, is that genuine curiosity as to what my name is, or something for me to think about to keep from being so childish about titles?❞ A facsimile of a smile formed on her lips as she looked at him, maybe more of her badly placed humor would lighten her back up and send her mind on a detour from its previous destination of bad thoughts and needs to run. ❝You’re a lucky one then, I guess. I can’t figure out how to control mine. If I get scared, they flare up. Angry? They flare up. I don’t get it, honestly. How did you manage to not be afraid of them?❞ Twenty questions with Levi Alexander, a girl who seemingly knew nothing about what kind of world she was apart of, or the person she had become.
Ah, and there he had mentioned not running. To quit doing so. Maybe that worked for him, as he had a handle on what he could do. He controlled it and no one else. He was miles ahead of her in that category. Clearing her throat, she shrugged her shoulders gently and let out the softest of sighs. ❝I guess if I stop running, I’ve gotta start fighting? It’s the only way I’m gonna survive, right?❞ If she was going to survive. There was no telling what sorts of hell lurked around the next bend and twist in the road.
Now she would slowly make her way back to his question—His question from before. About what she wanted. It wouldn’t be to change her history or the fate that she’d now found herself faced with, as that wasn’t something he could help her change. It wouldn’t be for help with understanding and utilizing her abilities—Really, he didn’t look like the type to help her out there. What did she want?. ❝What do I want?❞ Like a parrot, she repeated his question, another deep breath escaping her body as she looked to him, and then to her hands, which she had absentmindedly moved in front of her. She looked down at them, flexing her fingers, studying her palms. Then she looked back up at him. ❝I want to get out of here—I want to go somewhere I can catch my breath for just a little while, before I have to start running again. But I also want to know how the hell to use what I can do properly, if there’s even a way to do that.❞ Why had she said that? Hadn’t she just been telling herself that he didn’t look the type to help?
His question as to whether or not she wanted to be like everyone else weighed heavily in her mind. At one point in time, she would have given anything to stand out and be different. Now that she was, well, she wasn’t sure it was all it was cracked up to be. Then again, if it had happened before the blast and she hadn’t been bestowed such a ‘gift’, maybe she would have been alright. A good gift would have been something sensible like an affinity for languages or an ability to write and outdo the classics like Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe. ❝Honestly, I don’t know what I want anymore. Other than a way to get a grip on what I can do.❞
Their genes were the definition of the road to perdition, and he had no doubt that would always remain unchanged. And he saw the signs, she was heading in just that direction at impressive speed. His own path had been a long one, in hindsight, though in the past it felt endless. She was asking something of him, and he understood her motives, her drive and will. But it was always just black and white to him, it all ended in demise one way or another. ❝Don’t you have family? Friends you can run to? My advice is go home, lock your doors, and pretend you’re just like everybody else.❞ Her request was naive, and her wording childlike, it made his short-lived speech all the harder to give. His resistance was breaking down the more he thought and the more he let out of those thoughts, He was not typically one to give in so easily, but what had he to lose this time?
Lucky, her blindness was nearly alien to him, rarely did he come across even a normal human so oblivious. He itched to enlighten her to the shadows that came with their being, even with control. It made him pull a face less subtle than he believed it to be. ❝Curiosity, more or less. Anyone can get a title.❞ Easily, some people even gave them to themselves. Though the official labels had more variety, some harder to obtain than others, and many given to those undesiring of them. He for one carried many of those, and they were true to his flesh and bones. His own was the rare case when brand meant more than his honest name. With an internal and external sigh he took the few steps keeping her out of arms reach to offer her his hand. ❝James Barnes, most people call me Bucky.❞ He’d stepped over the final frontier and there was no going back now, in any case. He had committed and accepted her presence, if she used that to get what she desired was entirely up to her. ❝What exactly are your powers?❞
