Hero
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Post by James Barnes Jr on Feb 5, 2016 22:46:01 GMT -6
The scientist told James that he didn't need to worry. That was usually the number one cause of James' worry. He sighed. With Phil away, James was in charge of Helicarrier security. Against his better judgement, the super soldier tapped a few buttons and opened the cell. "Please don't make me regret this, Mr. Gerring. I haven't got the salary to cover the repairs."
Captain America stood outside the cell, watching carefully. He tapped a few buttons on his datapad and quietly armed the ejection mechanism in the cell. He liked Ben well enough, but if either of them Hulked out, then he was ejecting them from his ship. The lives of the crew took precedence over them. He was ready for it, but in the meantime, he'd stay and watch over them.
"Ha. I've seen the good cop/bad cop routine trick before. Why should I help you people? Superheroes. Ugh." Pagglici sighed and rolled over. "Even if I help you people, I'm going away for a long time. Oh, sure. You get what you want, but what's in it for me?"
Cap bit back a response. He didn't like it, but this was Ben's show and James decided he was going to have to trust him. He sighed and decided to leave it alone and continue monitoring. Maybe the scientist was going to have a better approach. James closed his eyes and counted to five mentally.
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Post by Ben Gerring on Feb 6, 2016 1:22:57 GMT -6
"What's in it for you?" Ben repeated the question with sincere befuddlement. "Maybe you don't understand. I mean, how could you? You're pretty new at this." Ben shifted forward in his chair slowly, continuing in a conspiratorial tone, and a pleading one.
"But when you change, it isn't always simple. You don't always come back the way you were. And while you're under, you don't always choose what you do." Ben silently considered how much farther to go. His next words were very candid.
"If there is anyone in this world that you love, you must know this. You at least deserve to know what you're against. This drug that you've taken... it isn't done with you. Not if you're demons are like mine, and I have reason to believe they are. So humor me, here. Maybe you break your way out. You turn into that," Ben made a helpless gesture along with a grimace, "Thing, and you fight your way out of here. It doesn't stop there." Now Ben's tone was daunting, his pace nervous, and his face ashen. "In my experience, you wake up somewhere you've never been, sometimes with blood on your hands, almost certainly dirt, in the rags of whatever you were wearing before, or sometimes in nothing. You're scared, you've got nothing to work with, and you can never remember what you did. That's usually the worst of it. But you can always assume that there are people coming after you. There always are." Then Ben finally slowed down. He adopted a calmer, kinder tone.
"But this time, those people have you already. And you are very, very lucky. Because they're trying to help."
Ben released a sigh, glancing down, and then immediately looking back up to meet Pagglici's eyes.
"But they still know what you did. It boils down to this: you either live as a monster, as a man, or they kill you. And you only get the happy option with our help."
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Hero
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Post by James Barnes Jr on Feb 29, 2016 13:38:30 GMT -6
Pagglici listened to the things that Ben said and then looked at his hands. "I didn't..." His voice was shaky and wavered. "I didn't know that when I took it that it would be permanent. They told me that it wasn't done. It was unstable and temporary." James raised an eyebrow. The method was unconventional, but it was working. He'd seen many approaches to information extraction.
"You're a monster, like me?" The man asked quizzically. James tapped his pad and looked at it. There was nothing in his tests so far that showed the drugs were long-term. But Ben made a point. If the man had a Hulk condition, James wanted to know about it. This whole project was going to be an interesting bit of research.
Pagglici looked Ben in the eye. "I'll help you. Just... Can you cure me? I don't want to live as that thing. It was good for a bit. I was strong enough to stop them, but I can't do it long term. It hurt. It felt like a part of me was gone after I transformed. I just need to stop this thing."
James was very impressed with the results that Ben was getting. He just got a hardened criminal to agree to assist them. This was going to help them make progress in tracking and countering the drugs. Captain America gave Ben a grin and waved. "Well, this has been interesting. Mr. Gerring, what can I do to help?"
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Post by Ben Gerring on Mar 6, 2016 0:09:00 GMT -6
Ben held out his hand.
"You have my word."
Pagglici grabbed Ben's hand and grasped it firmly, staring Ben in the eyes with a hard expression of gratitude. He nodded at the scientist once, and Ben stood and left the room after receiving James's signal, leaving the man on the cot to lie back and stare thoughtfully at the ceiling.
Standing with the Captain, Ben smiled kindly. In response to James's question, Ben looked pointedly at the captive inside the cell.
"Well, you heard him. We've got his promise to help us, and he has mine that we'll find him a cure. So we'll need his blood. We should get him to the lab so some of your people can set in on comparing his blood to mine. I don't imagine you'd consider letting him work with the science team without an armed guard present, but I don't think he'll pose any further threat. I think a lot of these people... all they really want is help. Some of them don't want to be monsters."
Ben's smile was sadder now, but he looked at Cap with a good-natured grimace.
"What we need now is more subjects. The more mutations we can document and study, the better our chances of identifying the mutagenic elements in the drug. From then, we might be able to synthesize a batch, or we could try to rob one from the field. Either way, I believe that I could synthesize a cure. We should also try to round up as many people like Pagglici as we can. Whoever needs help after taking a dose of this drug- we're the only people that can give it to them."
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