1963-08-29 - Character Defect
Summary: David and X-23 have another opportunity to converse through cell bars following her run-in with the Winter Soldier.
Related: Missing Pieces plot
Theme Song: None
laura maverick 


It's late. At least, David assumes it's late — the cells adjoining his are quiet. Or empty. He honestly can't bring himself to check anymore.

David is not in his bunk. He's sitting in the corner of his cell furthest from Jean's, crosslegged on the floor. He has returned to driving his fist into the wall. As quietly as he can, in a steady rhythm, with his teeth grit together.

It hadn't been the right moment. David still had time.

*

X-23 enters in quite a bit different fashion than her last visit. The door opens and she skids, in an awkward and distinctly sodden fashion, to a halt on her side, and the door slams shut promptly. The smock is damp from contact with her skin, but… at least they let her have clothes after whatever they decided she deserved. She pushes herself upright without complaint, eyes closed as she settles into her usual seated position.

*

David stops as soon as the door opens, twisting in place to look back over his shoulder. He has just long enough to look confused by the lack of footsteps, booted or otherwise, before X-23 makes her entrance and his eyes go a bit wide in surprise.

He waits to hear the door close, remaining where he is, twisted around at the waist to look in her direction. David hesitates.

"Twenty-three? Are you alright?"

*

The girl opens her eyes, and… something is different. Something subtle. Very subtle. But different.

"I am undamaged," Laura replies disinterestedly, head tilting as her eyes roll briefly to a corner of the room. "And at full operational capacity."

*

There is a very slight furrow to David's brow at this response. Especially when paired with that glance. He forces himself not to follow her gaze and, instead, he keeps his eyes on her. "…glad to hear it."

David considers his options for a moment before he does what he would normally do. He picks himself up and cautiously crosses the cell, lowering himself back down to the floor as close to X-23 as he can get.

"It looks like you had a rough night." David pauses, his brow furrowing. "Or… day. What day is it?"

*

Laura simply shrugs her shoulders, hands staying in her lap. After a moment's thought, however… "Oh-three-forty-seven." Another pause, and she glances sidelong at him. "Yes. It was not pleasant."

*

David's eyebrows go up slightly, his mouth twisting to one side. Well. It isn't the date, but it's more than he had before. He'll take it.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Were you looking for the missing girls?" David asks, drawing his knees up to his chest and loosely winding his arms around them. He gestures slightly, inclining his head. "One, Four, and Five, I mean. I still owe Two and Three an apology, I wasn't trying to insult them."

*

Laura briefly looks to the ceiling in the most normal teenaged action David has ever seen her do, before looking back at him. "You talk to much. They will notice. Eventually." A pause. "No. Unexpected complication. Unrelated. They were not pleased."

*

"At this point, I think they'd be more likely to notice if I stopped talking," David tells her in a quiet, wry voice, watching her with a slightly quizzical smile on his face. This is… so strange. It can't be a trick, Stryker'd never even consider this as a tactic. "Still. I'm sorry. Glad you're okay," he adds, lightly rapping the back of his hand against one of the bars before he re-winds the arm around his legs.

*

Laura gives him a look like he just grew a second head. IE: he makes no sense. Given this peculiar statement and it's lack of sense, she decides the floor is apparently more interesting. Though this is not entirely uninteresting, since her expression slowly becomes more… perplexed. There's not much to it, just a creasing between her eyebrows while she sorts through whatever thoughts such a young lady has. And drips on the floor.

*

That's alright. David allows the room to fall quiet, watching her out of the corner of his eye. At least, for a while. He shifts his arms up to fold over his knees, dropping his forehead to rest against them. That should, he hopes, hide his mouth from the room's corners.

"I'd offer you my bunk's sheets to dry off with, but I think they would notice that," David murmurs quietly. "My offering and you accepting, if you did."

*

For a wonder, the girl does not repeat that he talks too much. But she clearly still thinks so. "It is just water," she notes, reopening one eye in his direction, the one away from the camera corner. "It will dry on its own."

*

David's arms are almost certainly blocking most of his face from view. "Oh, I know. Still," he replies, keeping his voice quiet. "It's bound to be uncomfortable. It's a shitty thing to do to somebody."

*

Laura shrugs one shoulder. "There are worse things," she notes. And truly, facing the hose after charging a heavy machine gun wearing no more than she is right now would seem rather underwhelming, but that's not really what she means, either.

*

"That's true. He's a rotten person." David lifts his head enough to peek at her over the top of his arm. "I just didn't realize how rotten. I'm a damned idiot," he says lowly, his eyes drifting towards the wall.

*

Another long silence. Eventually, she speaks again. Either she has worked out a way to do so without having to worry about the surveillance in the cell or she fails to care. "I was instructed to call you defective. It will happen again."

*

"I'm sure it will," David replies tiredly, his eyes returning to her. He's quiet for a long moment. "…there has to be something else I can call you. I hate calling you 'Twenty-three,'" he murmurs, and even though his frown cannot be seen, it's easy to hear. "You're a person, not a… do you have a name? A real name."

*

Another intense, thoughtful crese of her brow, another lengthy silence. Very langthy. He can practically see the wheels turning. Who knows what's going on in that close-cropped head of hers. Most people would probably have given up on it by the time she answers. "Perhaps."

*

David isn't most people. That's part of why the corners of his eyes crinkle in a smile at the response. He quietly hums an affirmative and drops his forehead back onto his knees. "Maybe you'll tell it to me one day. Once we get out of here."

*

The corner of her mouth twitches, ever so slightly, when she replies with a much less-delayed "Perhaps." Shortly afterward, she rises to her feet, and takes two precise steps from the wall, turns ninety degrees, and takes three more before a crisp about-face. And then she begins an extremely textbook practice kata full of crisp, precise, fast hand strikes and exacting, firmly-planted steps. Each strike is punctuated with the double SNKT-SNKT of a pair of claws flashing into view for a split-second.

*

This is all very heartening. Almost too heartening, frankly, but David's going to take what he can get at this point. False hope is better than none at all, and nothing he's said thus far is likely to get him into more trouble than he's already in. So. A win-win.

He lifts his head when she gets to her feet, blinking twice and watching her as she goes. David raises his eyebrows in appreciation but remains quiet. He knows a kata when he sees one, and interrupting one is Simply Not Done.

*

Especially one so obviously intended for intense lethality. X-23 spends precisely twenty minutes engaged in the exercise, after which she just as abruptly returns to her seat against the wall. She considers commenting on his silence, but that is too much like filling time with unecessary words, which she— very correctly— already berated him for doing.

*

She even gets a few minutes more of silence before David speaks again. "When you see them next," he begins slowly, not bothering to hide his face from the cameras' view. "The sisters. Tell them I apologize." He turns his head to look at her and raises his eyebrows slightly. "If it would make a difference. Maybe even if it wouldn't, I don't know."

*

Another long, drawn out silence, during which the girl closes her eyes. Eventually, one opens. "They will be upset until the others return," Laura murmurs with obvious reluctance. "Perhaps even then. It does not matter what you or anyone says except to call attention to yourselves." A pause. "You talk too much," she repeats. An observation, relevant to the topic, as it was the first time. The eye closes again. "You all do."

*

"Character defect," David replies with a very wry smile for the choice of word, lifting a shoulder in a shrug.

Still, once he's said that… he falls quiet. David remains where he is and just leans his head back against the wall of the cell, arms around his knees, and just… sits, in an oddly companionable silence.

*

"Unfortunate," comes the reply.

*

The corner of David's mouth twitches into a smile and he hums quietly in agreement.

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