Title: Her Hands are Bare
Rating: K+ (10+)
Summary: When she got angry, it wasn't a pair of gloves that Françoise took off.
Warnings: lack of bodily autonomy, anger issues, gender inequality, implied brief lack of morality
A/N: For axl-fox (and, peripherally, tabbywilder, since they are the one who gave axl the ask that led to the headcanon in question).
When Françoise saw fit to get angry with any of her boys – because, by time she was comfortable enough to get well and truly pissed at any of them, they had become close enough to all be 'her boys' – they learned to fear her. Not because she was anything extraordinary, but because she was a point of ordinary. When their one female teammate pulled off the role of concerned mother/sister/daughter (depending on who and when) she was a force to be reckoned with, because her love and concern and devotion for them knew as few bounds as theirs for her… That, and she was a person who knew how to wield her biggest weapon: emotions.
When she got angry at them, it was because they'd done something stupid – likely nearly killed themselves doing it, too. And it was as good as it was frightening.
When she got mad at outsiders… When Françoise got angry for her team, it was no longer good. And frankly, it was so much more than 'frightening'.
-HHB-
The first time Françoise woke up after being kidnapped, she almost instantly began twitching. The scientists didn't think it meant anything other than 003 getting used to the new in-put.
When she began to whimper, and then to scream, clawing at eyes and ears and face, they had to sedate her. Her body was rejecting her systems, via the most expedient method: overload. Every second of consciousness led to a higher level of in-put in all of her registered senses.
It was a full two months before they could stabilize her enough to let her out of the main lab, and another three weeks before they trusted her control enough to send her to meet 002. Even then, because of the current state of cybernetics and scientific advancement, it was common for her systems to overwhelm her without warning. It got so wearisome that the scientists simply gave even 002 and 004 her shut down and reboot codes, do deal out a reboot in the field as needed. It was worse than blacking out, and she wasn't even the one who had control of it. The other two understood (somewhat; they didn't have public shut-down codes) did what they could to avoid triggering her reboot, but sometimes they didn't have a choice.
While 002 was getting used to being a poorly-treated guinea-pig for the acceleration and flight mechanisms, and 004 was learning to maneuver around the constant pain of a body unfit for housing heavy weaponry, and 001 was consigned to being treated like a particularly interesting zoo specimen or particularly smart animal… 003 was getting used to being treated like a glitchy computer: shut down and rebooted as needed (if whacking her upside the head didn't set it right, first).
-HHB-
Over the years, the things that Françoise learned how to use when her temper got the better of her were wide and varied.
Jean Paul said that as a toddler, she generally used whatever was at hand. He had many the humorous tale of being beaned with anything from her dolls to the pots in the kitchen to once (memorably) the neighbor's tiny mutt. After that incident, her parents began to do everything they could to instill in her the proper temperament of a woman.
As she grew, with their lessons ringing in her head, she repressed her violent side. Violence wasn't for women; blood and gore weren't proper to be seen by feminine eyes; females dealt with fabrics and dance and food and children. Young girls were supposed to be kind, quiet, and demure – there was no place for a fiery temper. Nobody understood that she acted out because she didn't want to be treated like a delicate thing, or looked down on; she was just as good as any boy! But they kept preaching and punishing. So she stopped throwing things, and bottled it up.
When she was shipped off to boarding school, with the war growing more fierce, the pressure became too much. Between fear for her parents, still at home and so close to danger; fear for her older brother, actually in the combat; the stress of trying to please her family and society as the perfect girl; and repressing a core part of her expression, she broke down. When the other girls from her dorm found her screaming into her pillow and beating her fists against her headboard, they ran for the nearest teacher. Françoise was lucky: this woman, Mme. Moret, understood what it was to be a confrontational, out-spoken woman who didn't want to be walked over. And Mme. Moret taught her how to be sneaky about it. There was no need to scream or throw things – that outward outburst was fit for boys. What she needed to do was get something to be an outlet for the emotions that she'd released with screaming and throwing. Something that she loved, and could turn all her energy toward. Before she found a suitable something, she was recalled home.
The war had come to an end. Her parents had died, but Jean Paul came home. To honor their memory, and their desire for a feminine child, she enrolled in dance. Unexpectedly, it turned into a passion instead of just a tribute. She remembered Mme. Moret's advice, and put it to the test. It was such hard work – and rewarding, too – that she no longer had the time, or energy, to fight (or want it). She set her fits of rage at the door, and spent all she was on pulling absolute perfection out of her own limbs.
-HHB-
When things got bad enough that Françoise had to step in and fight, she grew hard and cold.
Most of the time, it was because the others were failing and falling – she'd been taught that there was no place in war for a woman first, and then no place on the frontlines for a sensor second. And it was usually a last resort, because she still remembered what a 'proper' young woman was supposed to do, and had learned how to be reluctant to pull the lid off of her anger.
But she was a force to be reckoned when she'd been backed into a corner. She was a surprisingly deadly shot when her arms weren't full of Ivan. She was coldly calculating, able to understand what would best disable or destroy her opponent, augmented by her cyborg skills. She was tiny and coordinated to an amazing degree – a throwback to her ballerina days – and that made her great at close combat, as well as nearly impossible to hit.
But it wasn't her skills that made her effective, when she got it in her to be.
It was the way she dropped all emotion. The way she focused completely and totally on her goal. The way that things like compassion, fear, and even hate were checked at the door. Those she went after knew – knew – at their end that she wasn't going after them for any other reason than that she had to, and she could. Even more than Albert – the weaponized one, the one that everyone would expect to leave humanity behind – she became an emotionless, unaffected demon in human skin.
And it was that surety about this demon-woman that was terrifying and paralyzing.
-HHB-
When she woke for the second time in the hands of Black Ghost – years and years gone by in one cold blink – a new weight was settled on her head.
Like they had hoped, science had caught up with the 00-Cyborg project while the first four slept. They spent two weeks testing her privately before they let her see the others, to be sure her new updates keep her from collapsing in a helpless mess again.
The headband was a modifier. It helped her to manually modulate her own input, so that she could slow down or stop individual processes before the whole overwhelmed her. She could be her own shutdown, on a minor enough level that she didn't reboot completely. She had autonomy back (or, as much as she had while still under Black Ghosts' thumb).
They warned her to never take it off.
They said the sudden removal of the control it afforded her would be akin to punching a hole in a dam. They warned that such an overload would require much more than just a standard reboot; might even fry her systems completely.
Then Ivan told her about their escape plans, and what he'd gathered from the scientists' minds in preparation. He assured her he could teach her to control her minor systems' operations; she had more power in her than the scientists ever wanted her to know, because of the adjustments they made, and the team could use that to escape.
She learned; it was hard, but she learned.
-HHB-
When she got angry, it wasn't a pair of gloves that Françoise took off.
She took off her control. Her self-control, mental control, emotional control… Her cybernetic control.
She took off her headband.