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::When the video turns on, people get a view of Ed in the library. He's paler than normal and if people look closely at the books on the table, they'll see titles like 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' and others relating more specifically to the Holocaust. When he speaks, his voice isn't entirely steady.::

Well, now I know why Balthazar warned me to get the hell out of Germany. What the fuck is wrong with people?

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[Edward's explanation sounds about as complicated as the whole mess with SHIELD, and Steve doesn't find it very comforting to hear that this sort of thing takes place in other worlds, too.]

... That happens more often than it should. You think you're doing the right thing and working for the good guys. Then it turns out there was something under the surface the whole time.

[Just wait, though. He'll find that silver lining.]

At least he got exposed for what he really was, though.

::Ed snorts.::

More like I told Colonel Mustang and he decided to take care of Bradley himself. Only a tiny handful of people know what he really was and it's probably going to stay that way.

[And that's where Edward loses Steve, because he's particularly sensitive to the idea of keeping anything like that a secret, especially when it's tied in with an organization or military complex.]

... Why's that?

Come on. The guy in charge of the country not being human? Who's going to believe that. There's also where if people knew that making homunculii was really possible, I'm sure there would be people making some. Which, uh, not a good idea.

[This is the first time Edward's mentioned "not human." Still, it's something that people should be made aware of. If enough effort is put into it, they'll have no choice but to believe.

That second point sounds a little bit more valid, though.]

What are homunculi? [He's guessing this Bradley person is one. It looks like he only scratched the surface of what Edward's world was like in their first conversation.]

People made using alchemy. They're faster, stronger, have insane healing abilities, and some shiny ability specific to the individual like shape-shifting or whatever. They... don't get made often and usually not on purpose.

[A lot of those skills match the abilities that Steve himself has, and he had also been "made" in a sense. Steve gets the feeling that this process with the homunculi is completely different, though.

Besides, he definitely can't shapeshift.]

How does it happen, then? [Does he want the answer to this question? Probably not. But here goes.]

::Ed sighs.::

Human transmutation. Usually when an alchemist does so, it's because they're trying to bring a loved one back to life. A fiance, a son, their mom...

::Moving on!::

They're sometimes made on purpose though. For the record, doing human transmutation is kinda illegal.

[Trying to bring a loved one back to life? So using alchemy to make a human, in other words. That sort of thing shouldn't even be possible, and with the way that Edward's talking, Steve gets the feeling that it normally doesn't end well.]

You said trying. So I'm guessing it doesn't usually work the way people are hoping it will.

[Although then Steve considers Coulson, who was somehow revived from death without any use of alchemy or magic (as far as he knows).]

Looks like Wonderland's figured out how to pull it off, though.

No. It doesn't. The alchemist ends up with a twisted inside-out mess that looks like it could never be human that, which something else done, can finish forming into a homunculus.

::Please don't ask him how Ed knows that, although Ed has the feeling he will.::

[That's not the sort of description he'd ever wanted to hear, but Steve manages to prevent himself from pulling a face. He's seen people badly wounded in battle, with their guts scattered all around them, but he gets the feeling what Edward's describing is something else entirely.]

So what do they look like when it's all said and done? Anything like the original person, or...

::Hey man, you asked.::

They look like who they were meant to be. Exactly like.

But they're nothing like the actual person in how they behave, is that right?

[Steve has some idea of what that's like, unfortunately.]

::Ed's quiet for a moment.::

One of the ones I met... She had the memories of the person she was meant to be and the brainwashing of the person that got hold of her in competition. She might have been fine if she was left alone.

Unfortunately, she was unstable enough that I didn't really have a choice about how I dealt with her.

[It strikes a little too close for home, and Steve falls quiet for a moment as he relives his interactions with the Winter Soldier. That dead look in his eyes, that confused recognition that had only caused him to punch him harder, or to pull the trigger...

Yeah, if only Bucky had been left alone.]

And how was that? How did you deal with her?

[His mouth is dry. He thinks he already knows the answer, but he waits to hear it.]

I had to kill her. If I hadn't, she would have kept going after my brother and I.

::Sorry, Steve. You might be able to eventually get through to Bucky, but Ed didn't have the chance to try. Maybe if he had more time and she was less crazy and dangerous.::

[Steve is ready for that answer, which is the only reason that he's able to keep on looking at the screen instead of averting his gaze.

Sam had told him the same thing. Some people, you just have to stop. Steve hadn't taken that route, and Natasha tells him he got fished out of the water, that there were footprints.

So maybe there's another way. Maybe he has another recourse where Edward didn't.]

I'm sorry. Even if she was attacking you, it's never easy. [Especially for someone so young.]

Yeah. That--that was definitely something I could have done without.

::At least he's not likely to need to kill any other monsters with his mother's face.::

[Had Steve known it was the reborn image of his mother, he would have been even more apologetic.]

... Anyway, war is always ugly. I'm sorry you had to learn about that, too.

[But people can only be shielded from the darker parts of humanity for so long.]

::Maybe another time. Ed's not sharing what Sloth had been to him once today.::

There was a war when I was a kid but, uh, this kinda dwarfs it in scale. By a lot.

There's a reason it's called a World War. Or the Great War. Never really liked that second one, though.

[It seems to glorify something that was horrific, a use of propaganda that rubs him the wrong way.]

Yeah. And I hope my world never has anything like either of them.

So do I.

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Oh my god, random keeps giving me sexy/ing icons.

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