Chapter 16-Control and Memories

Third Person;

It had been two days since Beni woke up with scales and fangs and other pointy things attached to her body that no normal person should have, and she still hasn't found a way to reverse it. Or at the very least get back to looking human. She knows she said normal was boring but this was ridiculous.

Beni had mostly been preoccupied by learning to control her knew powers. The main ones were hearing, smelling, an not taking the bathroom door off its hinges, which she almost did on the day she woke up with a tail. She had also been busy with her blood. Nothing she tried on it seemed to reverse the process. She even had Lacy e-mail her Levi's old notes and the formula he used, which took hours deciphering. Half the stuff that was in there was either illegal or couldn't be found anywhere in the state. Or both. Which was worse.

But what threw Bucky off was not her powers or appearance. It was her sleep schedule. She didn't sleep at all the first night, and he had found her looking under the damned microscope again. Then she fell asleep for a few hours around noon, woke up, readjusted the thermostat for the billionth time that day, and went back to working. If she worked anymore than Bucky was sure she was going to work herself into the ground. That was not something either of them needed. But she still seemed to be going strong, so he hadn't said anything about it just yet. He kind if wanted to see how long she could last, which, considering she had been a Marine for ten years, was quite a while.

Bucky had also been learning control. He learned to control his patience a bit more, and he stopped visibly shivering whenever he saw any kind of needle. Of course, he had avoided the kitchen as much as he could so he didn't have to look at them in the first place. Beni had barely left the kitchen. She had made her own little fort of papers, equipment, and her laptop.

More of Bucky's memories had popped up as well. Most of them weren't so nice, but the ones that were always made him smile. And he would take all the smiles he could get. Especially since most of them were pretty fucking thin. He remembered going to an expo thing with a smaller version of the man he fought on the Helicarrier. There was a man whom he vaguely remembered killing, and he was standing in front of a flying car. There was one where he was a kid, and he was meeting the blonde. There was one where the blonde was having an asthma attack and flipped his shit. There was one where he was tackled by two girls-Rikki and Rebecca. How he knew the names, he didn't know, but he assumed they were relatives. Sisters, maybe. He liked the idea of having sisters. Or at least at one time. He was sure they were dead now, but he hadn't exactly had time to look them up, so that was a little bit of a maybe.

"Hey, Bucky! Come in here a sec!" Beni called from the kitchen. Bucky internally groaned but got up anyway.

"What's up?" He asked, sticking his head in. Thankfully she didn't have any kind of equipment out. It was all put up in special container so nothing broke, and was sitting in the chair next to hers. Her notes that had been covering almost every inch of the table were put into neat piles. She was looking happier than she had for the past couple of days, which made Bucky internally cheer, but he didn't show it on the outside.

"So," she started, "The effects aren't reversible. I can never be 100% human ever again. But-"

"-I can't tell if that's good news or bad news-"

"-I might be able to go between forms," She continued as if Bucky had never said anything. "Like, going between lizard and human on will."

"So like a shape shifter. How?"

"I'm not quite sure yet. Maybe if I just think hard enough...? I feel like I'm in a bad movie plot. Anyways, I've been studying this for non-stop and some of the green blood cells turned red after a while. Then the same cells went back to green. So all I have to do is control it. Right? That seems logical. Right?"

"More or less, yeah."

Beni sighed and leaned forward, rubbing her face with her hands, not even realizing what was happening. But Bucky was. He watched as she slowly went back to about as normal as Beni was before. Her leathery Mohawk turned back into actual hair, her claws went back to normal nails. The scales and tail disappeared, and when she looked at him again, her eyes were their normal green color, and they were as vibrant as ever. But she didn't seem to notice.

"Beni," Bucky said when she started mumbling under her breath about how to turn back to normal. She was to far gone, until he shoved her. She nearly fell out of her chair, but she caught herself quickly.

"Sorry, lost in thought. What were you saying?"

Bucky sighed and turned slightly so she could see her reflection in his metal arm. She gasped and grabbed at her face.

"So it is all about will and focus and junk," She said, her old grin coming back to her. "The more you know."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"So...What do we do now?" She asked, relaxing in her chair. Bucky only shrugged, not really caring what they did at this point. He was just glad Beni was okay.

"I don't know. What do you want to do?"

"Hmm...Wanna go play Mario Kart?"

"Fuck yes."