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They're in her rooms at the Avengers Mansion. What rooms they have left, after housing the Bucklings. Adam's on a bed, made as comfortable as he can be. Buck's hit up one of his few remaining stashes - there are three rifles and sets of ammo in the room with them, knives for the others. Everyone's been fed and told to rest.
So now the last little while, before the descent. Of course they're on the bed… though it's chaste enough for the moment, with him in pj pants and t-shirt, her head cradled against him. He's still faintly damp from a shower, a last obsessive scrubbing as if he could scour away the bad memories that want to rise up.
*
Her room reflects those tastes her apartment does not. Split personality syndrome hardly applies. Their compatriots are not welcome to peer too deeply into her jealously-guarded private life. The risk is too high, especially not with that door locked behind a badly destabilized killer.
"I want crepes Suzette, draped in Montmorency cherries," she murmurs into Bucky's dark hair. Of course her fingertips slip through the loose tresses, straightening out any snarls probably created by weaving them around the long digits. "Indecent amounts of whipped cream, the fattening kind with far too much sugar and vanilla. After all the exertion, I'll need that much."
*
His face is weary, peaceful. "Sounds good," he says, with that ghostly little smile. Face nuzzled into her hair. "I do remember the food was amazing. Where-ever you want to go, when all this is done."
*
Peace and weariness coexist. He lies technically within Scarlett's arms and she rests against him, head nestled upon the rather hard metal curve of that arm so infused by unknown metal symmetries. Safe, should she swing a hand back to curl around his fingers. Bucky Barnes, best pillow. Who would have thought? "After that, finding a pastry place and not coming back for a weekend. Or a week." A musing thought deliberated over for a minute melts off into the abundance of speculation. "I suppose we have to consider babysitting and similar arrangements that could prevent us from jaunting off for extended periods of time unless we can convince Steve, Jean or someone else to watch over them."
Her laughter is rusted, disused for days.
*
"Steve, maybe, for a few days. We may have to put it off until we've got somewhere safe to stow them. Quebec almost worked - something like that, upstate? But we won't be able to really hide them. They need too much - the basics, food, water, shelter. Medical care. Deprogramming. And I don't trust SHIELD to do it anymore, and I can't do it all myself." The admission is grudging.
*
"Bad apples do not spoil the entire bunch," is an axiom applied somewhat liberally, accuracy variable depending on one's preferred language. Braids spun around her shoulders weave languidly like bloody rays of the sun onto Bucky and the bed in question. "Let me turn in another favour with the good doctor and exchange his oversight for obtaining something insidiously difficult for him to recover. Throw a grimoire full of forbidden spells at him, better if it has teeth, and consider the matter resolved. He won't look up for three days but neither will they escape him, either." Oh, poor Doctor Strange, reality's babysitter.
*
That makes him blink at her, for a moment, as if she'd piped up in a language he doesn't know. Then it filters through. "Did you just propose having the Doctor watch over them for a few days? I don't… what if he shoves them in the mirror box?" Bucky has bad, bad memories of the mirror dimension.
*
The redhead raises her wrist, a reminder caught in opal upon that narrowing of avian bones and pale, moon-cream skin. Light flashes through the intensely dark gem, hinting at the radiant spectrum of play through burning flames and flashes of watery blazes. "Considering my track record on proposals," she muses, "I prefer to think of it as an idea. A good one, and sequestering them in that mirror dimension seems considerably unlikely. Why not give them an illusory target to chase down?"
*
He peers at it for a moment, then raises his gaze to hers. "Do… do you think he could cure them?" he asks, with a new note of urgency in his voice. "Maybe we don't need to take them back to Russia at all. We could have him heal them, and then you and I and Steve could go deal with Zola and Volga…."
*
"Darling, the man is a top neurosurgeon. I imagine he could tell you whether the wiring was wrong and given what little we know about them, possibly explain whats and whys and hows." Scarlett turns her head and the breath of a sigh percolates over the cotton plain, brushing against his throat. His urgency does not rush her. "Whether he will is another matter, or has the capacity or time I know not. Magic obeys its own laws, however. Are you willing to chance breaking some unknown clause for the risk? It's also their right to consent and I am not sure how much they can. Magic is hard to grasp. It's not impossible, merely have a measured response, love."
*
"I don't figure he owes me or them or us anything," Buck says, more slowly, drawing back just enough to meet her gaze. "And I've got no way to bargain with him, so….but if it wouldn't make things worse to ask, I gotta ask. Anything I can do that doesn't risk throwing them into Zola and Volga's hands again." Made antsy by the idea, though he hasn't gotten up to pace. "I'm afraid of them," he says, simply. "Zola. Volga. Whomever else the Russians were there. If Volga is what we think he is, he's basically a demigod. Maybe an actual god, in the way Loki is or… Lucian is." Why hasn't he dared ask the Morningstar? He can't owe Lucian more than he already does. What could he offer that would induce the Lightbringer to get involved in such a squabble?
*
A low, amused laugh stricken by a dart of rue and a dashing of lavender lilts across the way, pooling under his ear. "James." His name invoked as a touchstone becomes a point they can dwell upon, hopefully. Rolling, Scarlett ends up briefly upon his chest, arms crossed along the line of his sternum to avoid too much pressure. "I have been bribing that man with pots of tea and morsels of information for well over a year. Let me do something to help instead of sitting here, pining or vexed or… or useless." There's the rub. Hard to fall into disuse, a tool that longs to be picked up. "We will make our way through this, no matter if we are reduced to dancing and throwing pine cones. I hope for considerably more resources, but failing that have faith in you and that pile of unbelievably similar young men following in your footsteps. Have faith in us. Stop calculating the costs." She smiles down at him. "You aren't alone, do you realize that?"
*
His eyes are wide, as he looks up at her, even as an arm comes around her. "I'm happy to have you help. You…I have a lot of…uh…old ideas about women and men. And they don't apply to you, not really. You don't need my protection. If anything, I need yours. I ….I usedta know the rules, whether it was something casual and quick, or something built to be for good. But they don't work, you know? Like….if I married you, what good would I actually be to you?" The words tumble out, then he stops himself. "I….it's hard, sometimes. I know they don't feel like a family. I don't know how much they understand, on a gut level, or how to reach them. But….I care. And….you and Steve and maybe the doctor….I know. I know. I mean, hell, we can be in bed together without me having the twitches because an angel took an interest, just because. It's hard to feel on a gut level, though."
*
"This, you boundlessly caring and noble soul, is why I love you." Scarlett does not tip her chin down, maintaining that even gaze while the molten emerald flames enshrined in her irises threaten to shed that surreal glow always there, sometimes blunted. Words that tumble from him meet with her somewhat serene shore, albeit serenity a scratch under that. "Never question your own deep well of compassion and loyalty. Nor that you harbour values worth honouring and loving and cherishing. Stars in the sky, what can I say to allay your doubts?" Her own cry of pain there, soul-deep, resonating to the plucked chord reflected back upon its metal-and-flesh source.
A small shake of her head baps him in the chin with a braid unless he catches the flame-licked plait. "What good are you? How about the charming, intense, sometimes too cautious side of us, like all good partnerships ought to have? I know you saved those children in Berlin and you never had to do that. You never once fail to accept me, my flaws and all. You love me." Her fingers are stilled, wide. "Bulletproof skin makes no one invulnerable to pain, bad decisions, loneliness. You protect me plenty more than you know, we have a purpose together. Building a life. Is that not something worth building your rules and certainty around?"
So many words, and she's terrible at halting them when they flow. Not that her tongue is willing to stopper up the long silence. "Considering the tattooed one tried to strangle me for walking near you, I would say they have a much better rapport with one another and you than you know."
*
That makes him grin his lopsided grin, pick up her hand, bring the knuckles to his lips. A kiss, then he rolls his cheek over them, closes his eyes. "I do love you. More than anyone. I'm honored and amazed you're with me. It's just some times, the ghosts are so damned noisy it's hard to remember, hard to hear." Another kiss, now to the turned palm. "We are a good partnership," he adds. Somehow that word is reassuring. Then he slides down to lay his head on her shoulder, for a moment, hair over his face.
*
The opal stirs for a moment, blue veins flaring alive in a dull indigo sizzle indicative of the spell embedded doing its proper work. Black hole stirred to nibble idly at the halo of his life, Bucky can blame himself for that kiss. Not that she protests, eyes closing. "Besides," she murmurs, "you're still and always the man of the house. I am not so progressive as all that to undermine your role. Though telling me those rules and old ideas would not hurt. My 'old ideas' mean women cannot rule and my proper job is a valkyrja." Right, because what anyone needs is a girl claiming souls and riding a winged horse to do it.
He's gone and set her to melting down a little into something terribly inconsistent, mercury and beeswax and pressed orange blossoms. Nestling together fits well, an intentional alignment to curl around the hard edges. "How about we start here? What do you want? Because you get free choice. America promises that, and the ghosts must be silent."
*
"Uh," he says, softly. "I want these kids to be free and healthy. I want them to be able to make their own choices and not do what someone else tells them, whether it's words locked in their heads or generals giving orders. I want them to be somewhere they don't have to be worried about being stolen or abused again." He drapes an arm across her. The one of flesh, of course. "That aside…..I guess I wanna keep working for SHIELD. I want to stop the Russians. But I want to live here in New York and be with you. I want to go to those clubs Kai likes so much, and see him keep painting. Maybe I could go back to art school. I still like tending bar at Lux, though. Just….kind of have at least some of a normal life? Or the good parts, anyway."
*
"Then we make it happen." O ye of such faith. Scarlett pushes away his dark hair by blowing out a breath, settling her cheek against that ridge of metal, cotton, and underlying heat above all. A bit of ferocious nuzzling could potentially sand down the ridge, but she settles into the relative safety afforded there. "The clubs are at your feet most days, I will note. If we can make the kids sleep early, maybe we can go…"
*
"At my feet?" he asks. "But yeah. Some night. We'll get someone towatch them. Probably Steve. I don't think he has a girlfriend, these days," he says, dreamily. There's the prospect of a hazy, golden future - a night out dancing with Rogue.