The "Man" in "Human"
(Special thanks to Tigerlily for the plot suggestion, and to the members of The Bionic Project for their continued input and support.)
Prologue
Steve stared in disgust at the hole in his leg. He'd already made the needed repairs himself and would be fine until he got a chance to see Rudy; that wasn't the problem. Strange as it sounded, Steve was longing for a leg injury that actually hurt, with a broken bone, bruising or bleeding to show for the trauma to his limb. Instead, the wires and circuits he'd eased back into place made him feel nothing short of robotic.
Now I know how Jaime felt, he thought to himself, and why she wanted to run away from it all. He felt like something that wasn't even human; a leg that had just endured what his had (a bullet fired at close range, just before he took his assailant down) should be causing physical agony. His leg was causing him no end of emotional distress as he stared at the hole in what should've been a totally decimated limb.
I'm not a machine, dammit – I'm a man! Even if the only person he needed to prove that to was himself, Steve searched his mind for a way to do exactly that, before he was tempted to make his own run for freedom from the OSI and the life his bionics had wrought upon him.
Fresh out of ideas and desperately needing help, he turned to the only other person on the planet he knew who would understand completely.
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