He flinches, half expecting a memory to hit them or something else to rattle noisily, but doesn't actually pull away, and nothing happens. His breathing is shaky, but just that. "No. No, no, no, no, I don't want to do it at all," is what he says, even though he knows it can't possibly work that way. If it did, Valentina would have done that. These people would have done that, locked his powers down so he could never hurt anyone ever.

It still spills out of his mouth, childish and scared: "Can I do that? Find a way to make it not work anymore?"