Brigitte nods, thoughtfully. Doesn't argue with his assessment.
Because she's not afraid of him -- never has been -- but she knows that Maine knows his own capabilities better than she does, and she's painfully aware she's at risk of blurring the lines here. She knows war -- not as long-fought as the one he's come from, but she's familiar enough with the particular kind of numbness that sinks in, the hardwired fight-or-flight instincts which fall on fight more often than not. Don't wake up a soldier unexpectedly. Don't sneak up on them. She's not going to try twisting him into something that he's not, just because she's fucking homesick and searching for something that reminds her of where she came from.
"You've been pretty gentle with me so far," she points out, not arguing, just expressing an edge of gratitude in her voice for it. "But I understand."
A fleeting thought: not long before coming here, her father had sent her a letter about a Bastion unit programmed to kill, which he'd protected and taken in. Can something ever be more than its programming?
Because it is programming, of a sort. Lashing out not even because you want to attack, but because muscle memory is automatic and instinctive, and because your body's already reacted before your synapses have fired and before conscious thought has had time to process. She's similar, except instead of killing the threat, Brigitte been honing her reflexes to jump in front of bullets with her shield, shove her allies out of the way. It's like breathing, by this point.
"You said you'd been at war for... how many years was it again? Twenty-something?"
no subject
Because she's not afraid of him -- never has been -- but she knows that Maine knows his own capabilities better than she does, and she's painfully aware she's at risk of blurring the lines here. She knows war -- not as long-fought as the one he's come from, but she's familiar enough with the particular kind of numbness that sinks in, the hardwired fight-or-flight instincts which fall on fight more often than not. Don't wake up a soldier unexpectedly. Don't sneak up on them. She's not going to try twisting him into something that he's not, just because she's fucking homesick and searching for something that reminds her of where she came from.
"You've been pretty gentle with me so far," she points out, not arguing, just expressing an edge of gratitude in her voice for it. "But I understand."
A fleeting thought: not long before coming here, her father had sent her a letter about a Bastion unit programmed to kill, which he'd protected and taken in. Can something ever be more than its programming?
Because it is programming, of a sort. Lashing out not even because you want to attack, but because muscle memory is automatic and instinctive, and because your body's already reacted before your synapses have fired and before conscious thought has had time to process. She's similar, except instead of killing the threat, Brigitte been honing her reflexes to jump in front of bullets with her shield, shove her allies out of the way. It's like breathing, by this point.
"You said you'd been at war for... how many years was it again? Twenty-something?"