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"I can see why this is preferred over a regular steering wheel or yoke." Bucky pushed, pulled and turned the ball into a fancy little semi drift. "It's intuitive."

"I like this a lot better than yokes and game controllers. Easier to break the jets with this."

"...Break the jets."

"Yeah, I usually end up tearing off the wings in testing."

"...Tearing off the wings...."

He did not approve of that. Not one bit if his massive frown was saying anything. But it's so much fun to break the jets.

The rover slowed to a stop. Blue eyes darted from the window to me to the ball, back to me, and then his hand slid to the bottom of the ball. Bucky pushed the ball up and we took flight.

It set off another bout of giddiness from within him.

The flying rover only made possible by Eve's rendering skills and her patience to humour the young man.

'I think... I'm going to keep quiet on the fact that we don't have flying cars....'

Even though Cupcakes threw a few billion dollars at that project, fueled by some conversation with the man currently flying a rendered car.

Another curious thought had Bucky sending us into a fucking aileron roll. "This is amazing!"

"How 'bout I send us off into deep space? A spin on the hologram fun from some weeks ago."

Once Bucky broke through the dusty clouds, we were surrounded by glowing orbs. Just for me, Eve added reflective 'dust' to fill the darkness of space with multicoloured clouds. Enough that I wouldn't fall into the past.

What's left of our weight disappeared. The only thing keeping us from floating was the seatbelts.

"Can I go outside?" were the first words out of Bucky's mouth. His hand already on the door's latch.

Instead of a worded answer, the rover up and turned into dust around us.

Laughter peeled out of me.

Bucky's limbs were flailing about gracefully with the breaststroke and going absolutely nowhere. He tried freestyle next. Still stayed in the exact same spot.

And then the little pink tip of his tongue poked out of the corner of his lips.

'Concentration mode: activate!!!'

"Space doesn't ha-hahaha-have anything to push on!" I giggled out, hoping to stop moving my aching ribs.

"I had my fun. I'll let you have the ability to swim through space."

And that was when Bucky stopped with the swimming.

"How do I feel weightless?" he asked, waving his cybernetic arm about, and with Eve's new adjustment, his body wiggled from side to side.

"There's no gravity in space or air pressing down on you."

"But how? We're not actually in space."

"No more believing in the magic, I guess. Pity."

"We're... uhh... underwater?" I answered.

That only brought out more adorable question marks on his face, and Eve, being the total ass that she was, had rendered actual question marks floating about behind his head. They were growing in numbers. Rapidly.

"I don't understand. The room was white. There wasn't any water." His lips set in a thoughtful pout.

"We've been underwater since Mars..." I admitted softly. "That white room? By now it's probably entirely made up of nanites. The walls, floor and ceiling are all made of nanites. Under the fake floor is water, a pool. I think...? It's the half of the actual room. Probably thirty percent is our claytronics tech now?"

"I use a combination of nanites and water to change a person's perceived weight. A similar concept to the Dead Sea and sensory deprivation chambers but without all the salt. I can also keep you dry if I so wish. Or not."

Bucky flinched. His right hand cradled to his chest. The white glove of the space suit gone. His eyes darted all around before settling on his hand. His fingers rubbed together in curiosity.

Eve likely had the water seep through the nanites for every other finger. Heated the water for a finger. Cooled the water for another. Would explain the absolute confusion on his face.

Or the horde of floating question marks behind him. They still multiplied. She probably only rendered it in my view with the lack of reaction from Bucky.

"Mr. Barnes, a person's reality is only made up of what their senses tell their brain and how the brain interprets the information. With the Game Floor, I can control most, if not all, of the input to a person's senses."

"I thought... I thought she wasn't allowed to...." Bucky waved his hand all over the place.

"Yeah... she no allowed robos... but we dumb and lazy... and nobody better with rendering? Uncanny valley be bleh."

"A for effort, Val. Good job on Englishing."

"...She's not allowed a lot of things, but there are very carefully coded exceptions. 'Cause if Eve got a hold of a bloody robot army? That be terrifying. She'd probably used them to chase me around with fucking doors and smack me silly."

"She could make an army with this

Guess the thought of this robo army helping him didn't cross his mind.

"An E.M.P. would probably do the trick?" I joked. "...The Game Floors all have a limited circle thing. Eve can't pass beyond that point with the nanites. Nor is she allowed to cause physical damage to a person with this except for when she has authorization. You're perfectly safe here. Don't even have to worry about falling on your face."

"You're the only one here who's dumb enough to do that."

Bucky watched in awe at the white glove reforming around his hand. The moment the process finished, he grabbed onto my wrist and swam off in a random direction.

Yup, the question marks were in my rendering. He didn't even notice them when they bounced off his bubble helmet. Pretty sure the little ping sound effects were also for my ears only.

I tried to keep up with my own limb-flailing disguised as swimming, but none of it mattered. Made no difference to Bucky.

He swam faster than I ever could. He even took a moment here and there to flick random mini stars off into the far distance.

All I managed to do was be slightly less of a dead weight. That was until I gave up straining my ribs and became a full dead weight. This was easier. Definitely easier.

Almost seemed like an afterthought, the way he placed my hand onto his shoulder, but then he tapped the spot to the right of it. He didn't flinch when I curled my fingers around his shoulder. I had both hands clinging onto him while he swam through the multicoloured clouds of dust and mini galaxies.

Bucky left me at his back.

'This is better than him running in circles around the clearing. Probably tire him out mo – Oh what the hell? She gave him fins?'

His feet were fucking flippers. He could swim without having to use his arms as much, which let him send every star within reach flying.

"I want flippies!" I yelled out.

"No."

"I could do this all day," Bucky cut in. A smile in his words.

"You could and probably get uber hungry," I laughed. "Just come here whenever you want. Ask Eve for... swimming with the... stars?"

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Author's Note:

If you enjoyed this part, please consider leaving a vote. They're very much appreciated. ^^

And a big thank you to TinselA/Bunny Carrot (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7591081/) and the Anonymous Fifth Beta for Beta-ing this chapter.