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Afternoon, Quebec: Site I
Blood runs out from a wounded young man being bound in the dark. Without an aid from a lighter, there's no way to see deep in the barracks of Facility E, an outbuilding probably serving as a barracks and observation rooms. From the exterior it looks like the kind of place someone stores agricultural equipment.
Orel, the browner-haired and slightly slimmer version of Bucky, convulses in pain only the once. He tries to not cry out. It's easier for his likenesses strapped into reclining, padded chairs with headphones on. No music comes out but they're large, comfortably situated things wired to the ceiling via an overhead arm. Neither man is injured, and neither man shows any signs of rising from their apparent catatonia. They're out cold, restrained somewhat. But there aren't signs of a struggle much.
Not so the two dead SHIELD personnel on the ground, point blank head-shots making quick work of them. Their bodies aren't so cold, but this was not done in a few moments while the Four Tops or Dusty Springfield played. Outside are Adam and Kyr, concealed, and no signs of devastation or imminent running at all audible, visible, tangible. The agent and the chopper with its two crew wait.
*
Yo. Adam. That doesn't get an immediate response. Call it a curse of a name. Having a name is instinctive for most people. They respond the instant a sound drops, right? Not really so for the pair of men looking for their fastest way out of harm's way. Wherever that goes… and in daylight, you know, Hellboy doesn't look any better. Kyr shrinks back, and Adam, bloodied from a gashed headwound, has a frown on his face. "It's not ours," he says slowly. "We don't take it."
*
Hellboy gives a snort and grumbles. "Swear to shit this is Bucky paying me back for trying to teeth on Cap's shield when I was a baby." he offers disgruntingly as he pushes himself to his full height. "Bucky! Get up here!" he calls down the tunnel. "Those two nu-yous we found earlier are being about as cooperative as you usually are!"
*
At least it wasn't the time Hellboy urinated on the shield. What happens during babysitting time stays in babysitting time. Things Cap doesn't need to know? Plenty.
*
Karma is a wheel, and time a flat circle. "I gotta wounded man down here, Red," he says. "Here, c'mon and carry him, we gotta get 'im to the bird. I'll ride herd on the other guys." And then he's apologizing to ORel for the noise, and bellowing a summons to Kyr and Adam, in his flawless Russian. «Adam, Kyr, please come here. I need your help, I've got a man down.»
*
"I'm coming, I'm coming." Hellboy grouses. "If I find out that you made these clones the old-fashioned way, I'm gonna smack him in the head so hard." he grumbles as he makes his way down towards the wounded man. Lifting him up easily, the demon tucks him under an arm like a sack of potatoes. "You got anymore we need to find, or we done?"
*
Karma is a wheel, and great for crushing its victims one by one. Time is a spiral loop, just ask any temporal synesthete. The rotational design of all casts high the victors and low the unfortunate, then blends them together with all the gracious mercy of a drunken black hole.
Nu-you doesn't mean anything to the pair outside, basking in the sunshine deprived for who knows how long. They're a big pair, all the same. For his injuries, Adam is the more coherent. Kyr still has hands clapped over his ears, as if the shot speakers and pulled wires will betray him in the end. They don't comprehend Hellboy's blathering. They do understand the Russian, alert, eyes sharper. Orel is not a happy person being carried, snarling and spitting curses like tacks when lifted. The abdominal shots were precise, after all. Behind the big red man go the other soldiers.
*
"No, we're missing one. We got the two guys napping downstairs for now, the one guy I knocked out." Worry. Once upon a time he didn't worry. He had no responsibilities, beyond a rickety Rogers. And then the war. "Let's get these guys to the bird," He'd better not be the only Russian speaker present. "We'd better hurry, or the guy I knocked out's gonna wake up, and I don't want to fight him again." Bucky's already limping from that blow to his leg. To Adam and Kyr, he says, «We're gonna get out of here. What's the last guy's name? And do you know the names of the others back there? The man I fought, the ones lying down?»
*
"Come on, little Bucks." Hellboy says as he starts to lead the line of Buckys towards the copter. "Stay close." he warns, glancing towards Bucky. "If the last one's armed, out here in the open, he's bound to take a pot shot, if he thinks we're trying to kidnap these people. Damn shame we can't use these loudspeakers to call out tio him."
*
And then the war. Everything changed after the war. Balance of power and beliefs. Soldiers never go civilian fully. The two Russians support one another, arm around the waist or shoulder as needed. Together they're almost a full person.
«Can't leave the ones down there. You gonna take them?» asks Kyr, plainly concerned by this turn of events.
*
«We're going to go get them,» Bucky promises, giving Kyr a look. «No man left behind.» Like he was. «But I want you guys to get to our transit out. This place clearly isn't safe. All this damage? Was it guys like us, when the words were used on us? Or did enemies come?» His suspicion is for the former, all the little Faithful Ruslans unleashed to savage those trying to tame them. But it's not beyond the realm of possibility that there are Widows and Wolf Spiders in the woods. It's enough to make the skin on his back crawl, as if feeling the weight of gazes through scopes on him. "Whoever did this'd've used it to fuck us over," he says, sadly. "I'm still a fucking maniac when they do that."
*
Kyr grimaces and Adam's eyes glass, thinned by a bitter drink of truth. No one likes to think those thoughts. They don't want to do those things. Adam's hand spontaneously forms a fist, biceps and triceps bulging under the thin shirt he wears. «We weren't downstairs. The agents are here to help. They keep us in though. Could be one. But we were trying to get away. We knew what the sounds meant.»
«Death,» mutters Kyr, staring flatly at the ground. «I'm not good enough. Not enough. Not…»
«Stop it.» Adam sucks in a brutal breath, his lungs a bellows catching all the oxygen he can't possibly use. «The others are not as far. Not as good. That's what they say.»
*
Carrying his Bucklone under his arm, Hellboy loads him out the helicopter. "Alright. You ain't going alone. So. Any idea on asking these guys on where your last you is holed up?" he asks as he frowns. This shit's weird enough without all the other Buckies.
*
«You're fine, Kyr. You're doing great. YOu have a name and you're living up to it, and I'm your older brother. You have family now, and I'm it.» His tone is stubborn, insistent. What a spectacle they have to make, approaching the helicopter. When they're in shouting range, he's beckoning to the agents still stationed there. Teddy's still off wrecking things, like you do, when you're a Hulk. He informs them of the situation in brief, jaw tense, gaze flat. It makes him look that much more like the clones. He's got his back to the guys from SHIELD, keeping an eye on the field n front of them. Instinct says something worse is going to happen - some part of his hearing tuned for the rattle of small arms fire, or the ophidian hiss of an oncoming rocket. «I hear you,» he says, wearily. «But we gotta bring 'em in. No one gets left. Where could the last man be?»
*
One down by violence, check. Two downed by headphones, check. Two up there, clutching one another, check. Numbers are adding up mostly right.
The helicopter off the property is a fair hike, the rotors still spinning and the navigator keeping a keen eye out. Binoculars help with that. Kess, the SHIELD agent who brought them out, has already retracted the launch lines, sitting with a pistol in hand and no doubt of her willingness to use it. She points it straight at Hellboy as he marches up. "You tell me the status of that guy or else I shoot first, and question later." Hi, nice to meet you too.
Bucky and the two Bucklings quacking their way afterwards have that odd, distant look in their eyes. They've seen helicopters, all right. Hell, Orel can probably make a run for Ontario in that bird, if he knocked everyone out. Minus the whole dying by inches bit. He's not really in a condition to protest. Adam and Kyr might be the best of a bad lot, all said and done.
Adam murmurs, «He can be anywhere. Melts into nothing.»
*
"Go ahead, sweetheart. Shoot me. All you're going to do is piss me and my new friends here off." Hellboy snaps back. The demon gives a grunt and towers over the girl. "They're fine. And with me. Now we're gonna see about finding the missing Buck so we can unass this AO and you and Spook Team Six or whatever can burn it to the ground."
*
"The two guys walking….the smaller one is named Kyr, he's still bothered by the attempt at using the loudspeakers to revive their programming. The bigger one is Adam, he speaks English, and he's not under programming," Buck's rattling it off as quickly as he can, and remain coherent. "The wounded man is Orel, no English, seems emotionally stable. Bad shape physically, if you've got contact with base, let 'em know we will need a medical team ASAP on landing," A breath, and he goes on. "We've got two sedated and one I knocked out back in the building we came out of. Programming status unknown, but hte guy I was fighting with didn't seem real happy to see me." Then his gaze snaps back to Adam, and his eyes widen. «….Adam, do you mean that literally? Does he have some kind of superhuman ability?» That idea throws him. James the default has about as many actual superpowers as a pan of dirty dishes. But apparently the Russians have gotten very baroque indeed in the variants.
*
"Sure. You keep thinking that." Kess doesn't blink twice. No abominable snowman yelling at her, she can handle this as much as anything else. Her smile has a sharpness given to glaciers and teeth that should really be serrated for the force they deliver. "We're not burning Site I down unless the Director authorizes that. I guarantee that won't happen until we get eyes on everyone and land stateside."
Her glare intensifies slightly at seeing the masses. Well, it's not as though they were unprepared for coming back with birds. A nod follows and the radio in the navigator's hand crackles to life. "We're going to have to cuff the conscious ones as a precaution. It's not sedation. You get to keep them under control or else we take additional measures. Especially given that." Kess speaks Russian. Surprise! Not. Half the intel community probably does.
Adam twitches a nod. «It's Nikita who knows best. They trained. Countermeasures.»
*
"What's the plan, Bucky? We leave the wildcard out there for someone else? Because, sounds to me, someone's a bit of a nosy Nancy." Hellboy gives a snort towards Kess. "By the way.. you're kinda hot when you're angry." he says to the woman, before waiting to see what Bucky has to offer.
*
«Fuck me sideways,» says Bucky on a breath. «Which one was Nikita? One of the sleepers? Or the guy I knocked out?» He pushes his hands through his hair, loosening the binding - it's only a low, loose ponytail now. No wonder he keeps it long, it helps them distinguish him when the arm's covered. Idly, he rolls up his left sleeve to expose as much of it as possible, an even better signifier. «Adam, Kyr, they're going to cuff you, in case the programming tries to bite back. It's going to be okay.» As if his mere insistence will bring them to trust by sheer force of will.
Kess's last comment makes his eyes go cold and flat, and it's very nearly Winter (Prime?) himself staring at her. "Understood. But I consider them a very personal responsibility. I dunno if you're getting all this clearly, but Adam's telling me the guy we haven't found has some kind of supernormal ability."
A shake of his head to the half-demon. "No. We find him. Even if I have to play bait. God only knows how far he'll get and what kind of trouble he'll cause if we leave him now. We've also got the other three to deal with. Gimme some cuffs amd restraints - I'd rather subdue them while they're all out."
*
"Sure it did, Barnes. Take it up when you get back and it gets added to the files. Both of you have full debriefs," Kess says quite flatly. Protocol goes hard in the grand old agency. See, Hellboy, you got them in trouble. Nothing like spending hours recounting movements in triplicate, filling out forms, and playing with sand tables. That goes about as warm as she gets with a Soviet assassin and a demon. The babysitting gig is thrilling, really.
«Niko's the guy in a chair,» Kyr chatters. He is already girding himself for the thing Bucky reasonably asks, a flystung horse on a fraying lead. Adam can't help with this, especially given Kess is the one who has to get the cuffs and tosses them to the big red half-demon. Hey, he's the nearest at hand. Neither of them is particularly happy. Orel is simply too hurt to care, clinging brutally to consciousness and biting his white mouth.
«You don't get it.» He tries to wheeze it out, blood around his mouth mixed with phlegm. Hurts, badly. «Nikita keeps him. Don't know how. We didn't get too close. Different missions. No Nikita? No him. Nikita keeps him around. Stable. Not a ghost.»
*
"Aww, honey, can't I buy you some pliers to pull the stick out your ass so you do the paperwork for me?" Hellboy asks. Really, do you want to see a demon do paperwork? He's lazy when it comes to that.
There's a glance towards Bucky. "So. You're saying someone mixed up a you with some what - mutant DNA or some shit to make a super you? Could be worse, I guess. Could have used her." he gestures back at Kess.
*
Kess smirks. "No one wants me to take over the world."
*
"Shit fire and save matches, as my DI used to say," Buck's expression veers ever closer to 'Kick Me' levels of despair. «All right, Orel, I read you. Nikita's the key. Lean back, rest.»
"Our boy here," He jerks a thumb at Orel, "Says that one of the sleepers, Nikita, was tied to the one with powers somehow. And…sounds like it, doesn't it." HE wipes his face with his hand. "So, we go back in and restrain the three guys. They're pretty heavily still under the programming, from what I hear. And you're right, keep an eye out, this kid could be literally anywhere." To Kess, he says, "I don't know what your ultimate directive is on this one, but my suggestion is that you guys wait here, tend him, and let me see if I can summon up Ghost #7. But if you need to, leave. We can survive here on our own while you get backup, if need be."
*
"What did they feed you to shit fire?" comes Hellboy's question.
*
"Gasoline and vodka, interchangeably. Depended where he was stationed," Kess mutters, waiting for the cuffs to be adminsitered. She doesn't like it, that much is simple. "You have two more? Great. Get them tethered in and we'll keep these two under advisement. Anyone seen heads or tails of handlers, support staff? We should have a complement of ten here."
No one needs to answer the question, but they do. Orel isn't going anywhere but death quick, and the other two may be considering how fucking insane Winter Zero is, all things being fair. Kyr's close to going down to his knees, barring being stuffed on the chopper. That means being lashed in with the netted buckles to a jump seat. Good enough.
*
He sees them all restrained, and turns back. "Three more," Buck specifies. "One loose fighter, two under some kind of sedative effect. We've only found SHIELD bodies so far. Two, I think?" He looks to Hellboy for confirmation. And then grins humorlessly at the question. "Old saying, hada redneck DI from Tennessee when I was in boot camp." He hooks the restraints to his belt and turns back. "C'mon, Red. Once more into the breach, right? Let's go get the Sleeping Beauties."
*
Hellboy gives a grunt and glances towards Kess. "Keep frosty." he offers to her. "Especially the vodka." And with that, he's following after Bucky to head back towards the station.
*
|ROLL| Wanda +rolls 1d100 for: 36
*
Three accounted for at the helicopter. Two unconscious. One downed for fighting stealthily. And apparently a ghost. How those odds stack up for Hellboy and Bucky won't be terribly difficult. Two sedated men unconscious on reclining chairs in the warren's heart will not be the most difficult action. No one questions their right to be there. No shots in the dark erupt with a staggered bark, Chinese fireworks spraying out. There's simply the smell of death, growing by the minute. Blood is a thick taste.
*
The problem is that one of the sleepers is the key to the last, the seventh, the obdurate little mystery. Buck helps with the restraining - hands behind, and feet, too. He knows know to wreak havoc even with bound wrists. Just ask the techs with the broken jaws and the crushed throats, the first casualties of Winter's terrible infancies. His first kills were the careless among his handlers.
The room's illuminated by a flashlight cum lantern. "We gotta wake up the sleepers," Buck's lack of enthusiasm can be cut like a knife. "One of these guys is Nikita. Watch my back, and I'll try?" he tells Hellboy. He's a mess - sweat, blood from Orel, hair coming undone from the tie and straggling around his face.
*
"Alright, but I think Kess is gonna get pissed we take too long." Hellboy shrugs. "Eh, fuck her. I mean, you can. Though she is kinda hot." There's a cough at that as he moves to watch over Bucky for now, taking out his pistol.
*
Left or right? Telling the men apart from himself, other than by blood, is difficult enough. Same shirts, same trousers, same socks. Those shoes are hardly exciting. Whatever happened to the dead agents barely splattered them with blood thanks to Man Down, which is probably a mercy or a proof he was interrupted by the wall ripping open upstairs. Strobed flashlights reveal the degree of clinical precision used even against Hellboy when they entered.
Mind the tattoos if one looks too close, at any rate, pushing up sleeves. Never wake up these sorts without warning, it seems, given the physical development is closer to Steve and beyond levels instead of the typical assassin of Soviet make. Of which now there are six to gauge between. They're not easily coming round, however.
*
"Not even with your dick," retorts Buck. "I've got a wonderful girl back home, I don't need a harpy instead." He taps the nearest one experimentally on the arm, just above the elbow. Shakes it, like a mom trying to rouse a dozing child. Only then does he reaches for the headphones that are apparently keeping them under, and lifts them gently from the somnolent soldier's ears, before tapping him on the shoulder.
*
"Yeah, well, lucky you." Hellboy offers with a snort. "Met a hot little number with snake hair, but she didn't seem all that interested." he shrugs, but when he notices Bucky starting to rouse the soldier, his hand tightens on the butt of the Good Samaritan, ready to draw it at a moment's notice.
*
Hellboy tried the headphones. Dead. Whatever put them under made certain to not to wake them up again. They're as tuned out as someone pumped full of drugs, or driven into a comatose high. Could be worse, could be much worse. But they aren't awakening for all the shaking. Not to mention the one on the ground with the long, dark hair. He's a near double for Bucky, minus the darker skin. Helps him no doubt blend into the dark.
Tick tick. Time goes on. There's no hint of action elsewhere.
*
The kids already in the van, so to speak, said that these guys are still within the conditioning. So, hating the feel of the words in his mouth, Bucky tries speaking into the soldier's ear, that litany. «Longing. Rusted. Seventeen..» Maybe that will rouse someone, even if it's a reflex of sheer hatred. He remembers those moments of almost hatred, the seconds between beginning and ending where some shard of himself could assert its presence.
*
|ROLL| Wanda +rolls 1d20 for: 8
*
While Bucky is dealing with one of them, Hellboy is going around collecting the others, stacking them in his arms like cordwood. After all, this is all above his paygrade as he lets Bucky try to wake sleeping Soldat.
*
Nothing to read the pulse, nothing to ascertain the minute changes in brainwave activity or breath. It's a pleasure perhaps to unleash the horrors of psychological torment on another, no? The hateful phrase stirs something in the black abyss but the ignition doesn't fully turn, the outcome of murder in wide, staring eyes yet to be achieved. Poor Hellboy, he's got the sleeping ones who don't answer at all. But in time…
*
The name probably won't work. But he tries it anyhow. "Nikita!" Assuming Nik isn't the guy asleep in Hellboy's arms. Then he's scowling for a moment, and trying again with a different set of words. Like a prayer in Russian.
*
No, Nikita does not rise to the magic touch of Prince Vladimir in the flesh. He is not the beguiled bogatyr needing the correct blessing to rouse from an enchanted slumber, caused by some wicked offspring of Baba Yaga and a pricklebush.
It's the last, when stitching over bitter and other words cast into Russian, that the blindest spasm runs through his body.
*
"Bucky. Look. I get it. You want to save them all. But shit, we can't stand here, waiting. We get facilities back at SHIELD that can help out. I mean, with you watching them. But standing here yelling at them, this ain't getting us… anywhere. Well fuck." Hellboy grunts and looks at Bucky. "What. Want to get Kess down here to kiss them awake?" he asks before he shakes the two in his arms. "They ain't responding."
*
He turns that despairing look on Hellboy. Big blue puppy eyes deployed for effect. "No," he says. "He just did. I heard the words they used here. They aren't the same as mine. Watch him." Then, «Soldier. Can you hear me?»
*
The dark stirring of those blank eyes cracks. Gummy, maybe, but the soldier doesn't even move. The intake of breath is painfully slow compared to the others. He comes out of that deep, miserable abyss. «Yes.»