|
  |
.~{:----------: features=+views :-:}~.
He's worried about her - clearly, that wasn't a clean and easy assimilation. But as much so for Genya - that one of them would just want to stay behind clearly had never even occurred to him. But he watches the other wolf mildly, «You really want to stay?»
Genya bristles at the best of times, a man with his fur brushed perpetually backward by fate's unkind hand. His thinned eyes show profound distrust even so, moving around the humble apartment representing some kind of windfall for the average Soviet. One bedroom and privacy to spare is well worth the consequence of living in a southern oblast close to the Caspian Sea, away from the hot spots at the centre of society. He sniffs, noise inelegant.
Under direct observation, Scarlett averts her gaze from the plundered soup pot and not quite meekly nudges the ladle with her elbow. Take as thou wilt, the gesture implies, while she backs away from the beta to the alpha.
«Genya, you remember who and what you were before. Do you think this is going to last? I haven't killed Zola….and they will use you to get to me, to get to us. You know that. You have to come, because if you don't come with us…..I don't know when we'll be able to get you. We're a pack, I know you feel the link.» He holds out his human hand to her, beckoning her close. Let her come shelter, if it pleases her….then he's looking around for some container, something to keep the heart in. A kettle, perhaps? A storage bowl?
Name a Russian household without a teapot and that is a sad household indeed, impoverished beyond the worst imagination. A pot, a bucket by the sink, these features betoken an immediate scan over the room. The cabinets probably contain a glass jar, bowl or a wooden block for flour, sussed out by Bucky raiding open doors and shelves. The dark-haired woman stalks behind him, sneaking into his shadow and remaining there. At least one half the link works well enough, his will leaking over to keep her near. Then again, when are they ever happy apart?
Genya grinds his teeth together, threatening to gnash words as short as they come. «Who?» Conscious of proximity, he edges back into the living room, grabbing his sweater, pulling it on over his head and arms.
The metal kettle will do. It has a handle, it's made of steel. Surely that should be enough to contain whatever trace of malevolent magic remains in that scrap of flesh. He pours out any standing water, plops the heart in there….and then licks his hand clean as best he can before rinsing it under the sink. «The doctor who created us. Little Swiss bastard, round glasses.» He kisses her temple, tenderly. "YOu're doing fine, sweetheart. Fight him. You're in control." Is she really? «If you want to come to America and lean to be a music teacher, that's fine. You know you won't get to, here. Not with your training. Not with what they've invested in you.»
Questions of control: who is whom? Winter dances around in his skull with the lupine spirit and other shades, no less strange than his own. Just look a little too deep into matte coal eyes and his own reflection stares out, cast in the light of a still, Siberian night. Hard not to be reaching out for his wrist, her fingers extended on reflex, when he starts cleaning off the blood by tongue and water. Scarlett may be deprived or there's something far older and primal at work.
Genya is probably disgusted at some level. «You'll keep bothering me.» A simple, bitter reality chewed over, he glares at the state of affairs and everything else. «Fine. Where?»
That gesture of want has him offering her that hand, before it's cleaned entirely. Like children sharing cake batter from a scraped out bowl. «I will,» he admits, easily. «We're looking for Volya and Orel. No one gets left behind. Then out, somehow. The rest are with Stepan, he's leading them back out. Take what you need.»
Bucky has his kettle to carry about, like the Pied Piper's flute. The hand coated in the last of the blood gets a long, measured look before the redhead's limited resistance crumples, tissue paper in a hurricane. Prepared for the strike of a pounce, she treats his fingers like an ice cream cone, a child offered a lick before the dessert is taken away. Static turmoil yields over the link in a spark-shock lightning storm.
Genya tugs down on the bottom of the sweater. It probably looks ridiculous given the state of disrepair most of his brethren were last found in, and here he resembles something of a mild academic with a violent soldier or thug's build and history. He turns his head away and stalks for his front door, stopping only to pull on his boots and snatch the coat. That much is pragmatic.
IT has its own twisted sensuality, doesn't it? Enough to send a shudder through him. "More later, sweetheart," he urges her, hugging her to him, for a moment. As if the heart in the kettle were a treat to be savored after. Assuming Strange doesn't take it from him. There's pity in his gaze, as he looks at Genya…..but it's a little distant. Time for trying to reassemble lives, later, as they follow him out into the hall.
The heart just might be. An unutterable contentment, she rubs her face into his shirt, and Bucky shall have violet and rusted stains to mark her passing still. Deprived, she tilts her head up and protests, the vocative hiss the best ransacked vocal chords can muster. Any need to chant or sing is hours, if not days off. They're a unit with one loose wolf on the loose, the other faint, pained burr somewhere in the vicinity. Vicinity being relative; footsteps away from a reunited couple, floors from the 'surface' of the underground city and its topside equivalent. Volya is more distant, wherever he is, customarily mute.
Back out into the hall….and now it's down that line of pain, a bitter taste on the back of the throat. Orel, where is poor Orel, broken-winged eaglet? An offering of comfort and affection for him, on the link. We're coming. We will help you. EVen with the fear at the back of his mind, the unease, there's a satisfaction at gathering them all in.
|ROLL| Bucky +rolls 1d20 for: 10
Genya scuttles any sense of comfort with a rumble, marching along in his loping, heavy-footed way. He barges through life rather than walks. Closed City 53 holds few fears for him, and the march follows rather than leads. Not his key concern. Bucky's, on the other hand, guide out to the hall and up through the only access point, the stairs. His broken-winged bird is somewhere due north, edging to the perimeter of apartments row on row. Hallways cut north-south through those orderly rows of doors, leading to landings and stairwells up. On the 'main' floor at amphitheatre-level, the corridors snaked on through common areas as they don't appear to do further down.
Let's hope no one's stupid enough to get in his way. He won't brook any interference. Not when the state of play is as it is. Following along - no longer carrying Scarlett, but leading her, as needed. Listening, as it were, playing the hot and cold game again.
Freed of one burden, added to another: Jack and Jill Frost go up the hill to fetch a missing wolf, their pail already thumping about with the heart. Sounds on the commons are more noteworthy than the lower levels, snatches of an argument behind closed doors or the tramp of guards weaving through the hallways. A glimpse of them might be caught with effort, two and three abreast, following well-worn rituals of looking 'round corners and giving cover. While the apartments are relatively quiet in lockdown mode, the soldiers from the snowy streets above — or barracked within the lower reaches, more than likely — fan out to clear passages and hunt their quarry.
Quarry smart enough to hide on its own, but composing of two men and an escapee of the labs. Chattering teeth could be a giveaway; Scarlett clamps her hands over her mouth, dulling the sound. Genya simply seems ready to approach those nice soldiers reasonably, helpfully snapping their necks if they intercede. Slim signs point out a plain cross, the unmistakable emblem of the infirmary or clinic or hospital, but it doesn't help there's at least two guards stationed outside the door.
Deception will work better than a direct approach. He's murmuring softly to them, "I'll go, pretend I'm hurt and in need of help. I don't want them opening up on either of you," But he does wait for feedback, rather than charging out to do the wounded bird impression.
Evgeniy, brutal and efficient, cocks his head to either side and loosens his shoulders by a languid roll under the sweater. Would-be music teacher is never far from the source material, the twitch in his cheek and cold blaze in his eyes promising hard blows and little tolerance.
Practicing the old routine of a hurt bird is easy enough, but Scarlett gestures at her blood-stained shift and say nothing of her bloodied arm, that questionably ragged star clotted but plain. Either way, she isn't going to stand in Bucky's way.
Buck first, since he's the one with something like built-in armor. Soem of it, anyhow. Steve carries his shield, Buck's is welded in. He comes around the corner exaggerating his limp, visibly dragging a foot. The soldiers get a pleading look. «Oh, there you are,» he says, with evident relief. «IT's awful. My wife, she's so badly hurt…» Like he has every right to be there.
|ROLL| Bucky +rolls 1d20 for: 1
Built-in armour immediately recognizable to half the Soviet Union, given that apparent popularity of the Champion of the Motherland series. Maybe Bucky has the unenviable luck of a man preserved on paper, propaganda designed to teach and inspire. Maybe the author is none other than Zola.
Where the wounded man goes, his near double refuses to come out from cover. The point is for a man suspiciously identical to the one in the infirmary to seek aid. Two guards on duty focus on the first sign of movement, surely not the last with the fleeing dozens on dozens from the theatre. A puzzled look passes over the one on the left's face, and the other? He scowls at them, skeptical to the last, taking in the disheveled black-haired, black-eyed monstress and assassin. Just Bucky's luck to pick the one guy who personally knows Volga — he's a guard from the main floor of the dacha hall in Voronezh who guarded the access upstairs, one of the four cardinal entry points.
«What the fuck,» he says while leveling the gun.
So much for that. Scarlett issues her own request for help by throwing the apparently wounded man at the guards. Bucky's big enough to probably take them both down.
|ROLL| Rogue +rolls 1d20 for: 14
«HELP,» Bucky yells, as if it weren't his fault at all. Going for the gun with the metal hand, all the better to break it, if he can - snap it like a piece of kindling. The tumble is ungraceful, but he manages to curl himself to balance in the process - a bowling ball heading for the last two pins.
Help, shouts the man tossed by Volga's twin sister. She throws hard even when seeking to do nearly no harm, at least by any mortal measure, and nothing quite like bowling with Bucky. Still, when he impacts the wall, she stands exactly where she is, a plain and obvious target.
Right guard has a chance to get his arm up, little more. The one from Voronezh is firing, for what good that does to a palm laced by vibranium and fingers crunching through the barrel. So much for good Soviet steel, as he goes down, the punch of the misfire a noise. The scuffle outside is enough to get a locked door vibrating, and how long before the super-soldier does what Zola intended of him, crashing through the defenses and kicking that open?
Bucky wrenches the broken gun away from him, and uses it to club both down as efficiently as he can. Programming and training takes over, smooth as oil, turning to make one a shield against the other. Only once they're down does he turn to the door. Can he pry it open, or must it be kicked in?
Down they go in a series of fast blows. Quick as they may be, neither man is going to have sufficient reflexes to outmove the Winter Soldier, no matter his situation. Close combat is his forte, and they aren't Steve.
Down goes the door by deliberate force, that deadbolt and metal core hardly any barrier to a fist. Through he might go easily enough.
Vault 9. Infirmary.
What he enters is a scene of minor chaos, an attempt at stabilizing patients and dealing with crush wounds of a stampede keeping the skeletal staff of nurses and physician in place. They struggle with order in every movement, applying medication and IVs. No immediate sign of Orel in the mix, but that might be because the operating theatre is occupied. A variety of cots set up for the less grievously injured show at least fifteen people being treated.
Good Evening, China Shop attendees, I will be your bull for tonight. He ransacks the subdued soldiers for other arms again - a pistol, perhaps? More knives. Never too many of those.
And then, in the infirmary proper, the pale eyes dart, looking for incipient threat first and foremost. Only when he's satisfied no one is foolish enough to come at him does he try to find the lost eaglet.
Pistol at best, not much more than that. The acquired weapon at least has a full cartridge, something useful for defending himself against the varied threats offered deep in Medveditsa, like wounded civilians with broken ribs and limbs or nurses rushing around, scurrying purposefully to try and locate additional space to stow another body. They startle when Bucky enters, not too much capable of handling another victim.
«Find a place near the — » The question fades out when one of those women finally realizes what or whom she speaks to. At that point she runs back to defend the most injured patients, moving with precision that age would suggest orients to the Great Patriotic War. The physician in the operating theatre with his two assistants is midway through pulling out bullets at the clattering noise, letting them land in a bowl, trusting in antiseptic to do its job and the nurse to stitch the lolling, half-dead man up again.
He's got to look like a monster - hair shorn short, pale and drawn and hollow-eyed, the arm on gleaming display - though at least most of the blood on face and lips has been cleaned away. «I'm not here to hurt anyone,» he assures her, tucking the pistol into his belt. «I just need some bandages and cleaning supplies for my wife, and I want to find my son.» Rather distorting those ties, but….close enough to government work. He's got to look far older than Orel, with the wear and strain in his face.
He's a monster, yes, but at least a somewhat human one. The physician playing at surgery goes rigid and still beside the operating table. Blood on the table and his gloves are enough to signal the gravity of the work done, though anyone with functional serum is perfectly capable of recovering from that kind of damage given time, luck, and a second lease on life. The two nurses assisting him stay frozen next to the table, and they watch with wide eyes.
Even with the strain, Bucky doesn't look that much older than the man shot multiple times through the chest. He is fully unconscious, no chance of sitting up and laugh. Mind, a swipe would take him off the table, and out.
He comes up on the form on the table, lips thinned out. Looks down at him. Then up at the doctor, eyes cool. «I'm not here to interfere, but he needs to be able to be moved as soon as possible.» And what, precisely, gives im the right to give the orders? Maybe it's being the Champion. That anda quarter'll get him a cup of coffee. Then he turns to call the others in. "C'mon, sweetheart. I'll get you cleaned up, while they work on Orel."
They were working on him, the stitches on his chest proof of that. Exit wounds are ugly things, especially from the impact of the Black Widow's pistols. Evening scores for an ice knife — she picked the wrong one, but nonetheless, the damage is there. If prompted, they return to their work, shaky but holding up as well as one can. Genya isn't coming any nearer, lurking without, in case one of the guards decides to return from his death or such. Scarlett's another matter, ghosting in, little interested in the injured; the operating theatre, on the other hand, has her backing up, flattened to a wall.
No threatening, no waving of guns or knives. Just Bucky seeking out equipment to clean and her wounds. His girl, his mistress of flight…..and he interposes himself between her and the operating theatre. "Widow shot him," he explains. "They're working on him. Let me get you cleaned up." He knows how - no distracting the nurses. Let them stare as if he were the elephant in the zoo.
Mute as the fabled swans, the white-faced young woman doesn't move. Her hands are clamped at her sides as balled fists, otherwise giving no threat. Genya outside would probably singlehandedly maul anyone looking his way, giving the occasional kick to a guard for good measure. Or because his musical career is going to lead to the musical Stomp in a few decades; it's a long life. Practice makes perfect.
The nurses and doctor work in coordination. Not being a totally trained surgeon has its limitations, but this was supposed to be the quiet shift. Give them ten minutes and they have done all they can, calling back Bucky to deal with his 'son.' His wife? A mess, though given how many times the water claimed her beforehand, the worst of the rusty mess is on her plain shift rather than her bloody arm.
Meanwhile, that pressure point stillness — a system of its own — moves off. Volya is on the move.
They'll stretcher him out, if need be, with Genya's help. The serum will take care of it, assuming he heals like Dad or Uncle Steve. «Help me with her,» But again, it's a request, not an order. These are healers, and their work is sacrosanct. "Sugar, they're doctors. Will you let them help me?" His tone is gentle, but not the tone of someone humoring a madwoman.
A rough shake of her head answers that. She points flat out to her bare skin, gesturing at the sleeveless stretch from cap of the shoulder down to her fingers. Her place in the link is a mess, the white noise of a misfired signal matched with a demented pulsar spinning into oblate ruin, throwing off collective drowning noise. A shake of her head follows; nothing they can do for the ripped out nails, the jagged marks in the skin, when their needles won't even pierce her skin. Bullets certainly don't.
Genya is bound to look in eventually, and carry out Orel. Last bird found, bird-wolf ready to leave.