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[girlcorrupted]

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[girlcorrupted]

[ It's good that Steve chose green because Angel goes right for the blue, placing the piece at the starting place on the board.

She makes a small noise at the back of her throat in acknowledgement of his joke- and she knows, knows him well enough at this point that he is easing the mood. She'll take it. ]


I don't think comfort was at the top of his priority list at the time.


[ Still, it takes her another long moment to answer his next question. Eventually she nods.

Minus the foliage, yes. It was my home, for the better part of my life. The control core. ]

[hairday]

[ Steve just shakes his head. Unless the explanation is that Jack is some kind of crazy, he doesn't understand. To shut your own kid away in a place like that? In his mind, there's nothing else that makes the least bit of sense.

It's just evil. ]

How could he do that to you?

[ Even if a mystery illness is still a part of the story—even if she was contagious, that room was the equivalent of a metal cage you wouldn't keep the worst behaved dog in if you had half a heart. And he wasn't some random scientist, he was her father. ]

[girlcorrupted]

[ Unfortunately that is a part of the explanation. She most abridged version. But he deserves more than that, more from her. She thinks about a conversation from a long time ago with Harley, about how if those she considered close truly knew the details of her past, they would offer comfort.

Steve has been such a steady rock so far, despite everything he just...hadn't given up on her, gone so far as to open his home to her. She hopes this isn't one thing to many, but won't blame him if it is. ]

I was dangerous. You saw some of it, the power I wielded in the dream, but in reality I lacked that amount of control.

[ Instinctively she brings a hand up to her left arm, giving her bicep a squeeze. ]

....I ended up killing someone important. And while the situation evolved far past them, Jack's initial intentions were to keep people safe from me and visa versa.

[ Her whole face is tense, eyebrows knit and jaw set, her mouth in a fine line. ]

Sorry, I'm kind of killing the board game night mood, aren't I?

[hairday]

That really doesn't matter right now, Ange.

[ "Initial intentions" his ass.

If he gave a shit about people, then he wouldn't have locked the person he was supposed to love more than anything in the world inside a room with a metal ceiling, metal walls, metal floor, metal everything, completely tossing out the idea of comfort. And he could have looked for a way to help her control her ability instead of leaving her there for her entire life.

He wouldn't have dragged her around screaming, because if there was truth to the rest of the dream then there must have been some truth to that, too.

Steve is shaking his head, appalled.]

You don't actually think you deserved any of that, do you?

[ It just sounds like there was an accident... and she got the short end of the stick. ]

[girlcorrupted]

[ That's a question that's plagued Angel since she first entered the core. It took some grinding down on Jack's part, but for a long time she believed it was what was best for her, that it was deserved. Jack would be quick to bring up the accident at any sign of protest and she'd be hit with a fresh wave of guilt and responsibility each time until she stopped protesting all together.

But then she'd made connections, gotten a taste of something new and exciting and...when he'd stripped even that away from her she was left feeling indignant for the first time in years. When she finally remembered her final months of life, the anger she felt about it all had been scorching, she felt like she could finally see again and all around her was the destruction she'd been forced to do at Jack's bidding.

But even after all that, after all her time here, when that heat cooled she was still left with all the guilt that had stacked up over the years. ]


I don't know anymore. For a long time I thought I did, even at my angriest some of his decisions seemed justified.

[ Her face pinches even further, like she's trying really hard to hold herself together. ]

But then I met Elsa and Riley and you and- you mean so much to me, I didn't want to believe I deserved less than this anymore. Maybe that's selfish of me.