1965-04-23 - Layers Within Layers
Summary: On a freighter adrift in the ocean, Bucky seeks truths and answers available to him in the worst of situations. But is it worth the cost of asking Scarlett to fall into the horror-show of her own absorbed psyches?
Related: None
Theme Song: None
rogue bucky 


.~{:----------: features=+views :-:}~.


None of their cabins are large. But they can manage to cram into the biggest, the stateroom that's been devoted to the wounded, all ten of them. Family meeting, the first time since….ever? It's Buck's first time being with the nearly-complete pack. He's sitting with Rogue curled within his arm, protective, letting everyone get settled.


Never far from the Winter Soldier, as is his wont, is Steve. He's on the man's other side, seated as well, the silver disk of a shield leaned up against the chair's legs. The wane light inside the stateroom shines from it in muted gold. He wears a frown, equal parts exhausted and relieved, concerned and intrigued. Here they all are…all of the clones — nearly all of them. He can count. His mind wanders back to the huge room, with its swarming of construction workers all hammering away at the insanely-huge ships…note to self, report this to SHIELD — and then he closes his eyes. The stabs of guilt coincides with each remembered gunshot.


Four small cabins suit perfectly well for boys used to nothing of their own, except the weapons they carry, or the cells SHIELD appointed for them. Those rooms included some larger than anything on the Finist — a forgettable, suggestive Volgo-Don Max cargo ship able to ply the Caspian as easily as any landlocked sea. Not that the wolves care, piling up and interchangeable with whom ends up where, though they remain ever alert. Sentry duty splits up normally with the variable watches hinting at their upbringing in the Soviet Union, whatever that amounts to.

Orel still hasn't regained consciousness, no surprise considering he took shots at point blank range from Natasha. By rights he shouldn't be even alive, and for that reason Adam — and at arm's reach, Kyr — stays within a few meters most of the time. Maybe it helps and maybe it doesn't, but they count as the protective bulwark while the others fidget or sit stone still or stare at the wall, their personalities at rest defined as odd. Untrusting of their whereabouts, all said and done. Evgeniy is probably the worst, Nikita a close second, the two of them vibrating in their confinement. They take it badly, whereas Volya acts like his typical ghostly corpse.

Scarlett stays wrapped up in a blanket of no particular provenance, tucked in place, and pointedly not looking at any liquid in the room. As long as the engine noise stays at an unholy thrum, the panic stays at a manageable volume. No open portholes, or any portholes, thank you. One slosh is all it takes to set three or four of them vibrating in unease.


There's a different weariness that comes with trying to be the one who maintains equilibrium. Thank God Steve is there - Steve may not be bound into the literal hivemind, but his steadiness is always a bulwark in turn, for the Soldier. So Buck's pleased to have him on one side, Rogue the other.

Once they're all arranged as comfortably as he can be, he says, simply, "We've a grace period of a few days, but we need to decide what we want to do when we get back to New York. We could, in theory, find our way back by other ports, but….I don't see the point. We're going to have to go back there, sooner or later. Well, Scarlett, Steve, and I, at the very least….and I don't know of anywhere else safer for you all." He takes a deep breath. "We need to make contact with SHIELD and relay what we can." A look to Steve there. "I'm afraid if I go in person they'll take me in to custody. I'm not going to try and dodge them forever, but there's stuff I want to have done before I'm jammed up with them."

Buck squares his shoulders, continues. "First of all, see all of you all settled somewhere physically safe, defensible. SHIELD's had its chances and they've muffed them, and I'm not willing to confide anyone save myself to their custody. Within that goal - healing as needed." A nod at Orel, at Scarlett. "I know someone on the occult end who *might* help, but I don't know. I already owe him big. He's called Doctor Strange, and he's both an actual medical doctor and apparently a sorcerer of great power. I plan to give Volga's body and heart to him - I don't know what kind of power or malevolence it can hold." He rubs at his face. "Lastly….I intend to find my way to the underworld, with or without his help, reclaim some of our dead. Fanya, at the very least. Yuriy, if he is. Maybe some of the other kids…."


Steve opens up his eyes again, turning his head a quarter-turn to listen to Bucky. As he listens, his attention travels to each of the Bucklings in turn. He marks the nuances of their behavior and in a very small place in his mind, tries to find differences of physiology in each. The reminder of names will have to come later, resupplied when his brain isn't off doing dizzy and denied circles of self-preservation.

Sorcerer. Yeah, okay. His brows lift the slightest at that particular bit of information, but he's trying hard not to be the Doubting Thomas here. After all, there are duplicates of his oldest friend sitting about the room itself.

In the heartbeat of hanging thought, he speaks up. "Leave SHIELD to me. I'll be enough trouble as is, needing to explain why I went dark for as many days as I did." Joy, facing off verses Director Carter, his favorite. "I can make sure they don't inquire too deeply. Whomever this…Doctor is, SHIELD might have files on him. I can check. As far as a safe place…" He shrugs, eyes roving over the group. "We have American safehouses, but you know they're only safe until someone gets suspicious. You all stand out a bit."


The conversation on Bucky's side boils down to a simple reality: four sets of eyes turn to Matvei and expectantly nail their likeness down until he finally takes a slow breath. He scratches his head — hair's getting longer and looser than normal — and then says in Russian, «They want to sleep in their bed. We need our own and supplies. We must be ready. The Americans will put him in a box again and we have to keep him out. The captain says he has safehouses. Not enough kompromat to help.»> Cue the chorus of curt nods, or a grunt in Evgeniy's case. «He wants to make a debt with a great eccentric, the bourgeosie Volga. Giving the body for Fanya's.>

The link about lights up in white lightning and black thunder, coiling around in a vocalized grumbling through the majority. Volya, as ever, is silent and arms crossed. They don't agree. It doesn't take much guessing their opinion. Nikita scrapes his nails over the floor. Teeth are bared aplenty.


Scarlett, for her part, is a terrible participant in any conversation when restricted to a lush variety of hand signs, expressivity, and posture lending her to the ninety percent of unspoken communication. A small chunk of scrap paper salvaged where safe and a yellow pencil balance on her knee, precarious enough. She huddles under the blanket slightly more, giving a short nod for that concept of letting Steve be a shield for SHIELD. How this girl ever got on the Avengers, who knows. Bribed the previous incumbents. Her black hair hangs limp in her face and she flicks it aside, frowning.


Bucky shakes his head, drops into Russian. «No. Not a trade. Asking for help. I still don't wholly understand what Volga was or is, or what repercussions could come, and I was thinking this sorcerer, this witch, could help. I'm not here to give you orders, I'm here to listen to what you want, too. But you do need somewhere safe to be, not just Stepan's house, like before,» He runs fingers through hair made long again - grown out of that brutal crop to the previous length, past his shoulders. «And I'm not talking about getting Fanya's body. I'm talking about bringing her back to life again. It can be done. There are different ways - I've died several times, and yet I still walk. Steve here's died at least once….but tell me what you want. I'm no king, you don't owe me loyalty if you think I'm going to make things worse.»


Steve has nothing to say about the body. Whatever disturbingly limp corpse is shoved away in a foot trunk is something he's less concerned about for the moment. La-la-la, not thinking about it is the only way to go.

«I have enough room for you all, at least for a short while,» he says, looking at all of the clones again. «You'll need to remain inside and I know that could be difficult, but no one's going to suspect me of harboring a handful of men there. If anything, they'll be more concerned about where I am. I can just…not go home for a while, if that's what it takes.»


Matvei may well be relieved not to translate, though the rather straightforward interpretation on his part is still embraced by those kinsmen lounging around the largest room. Still too many reflections in disarmingly similar attire, only Evgeniy in a condition to have something nicer than the rest. Sweater and trousers he's damn proud of, thank you, covering his extensive ink work. They still keep vibrating with displeasure about this sorcerer — almost as bad as a doctor, frankly — and to a man wear the brooding, glaring expressions about that. Even Mat, their bellwether.

«Why one place? Moving is safest.» Adam sounds almost reasonable. Almost. Mind the brusque growl.

Maybe casual resurrection talk lands funny on a pile of Communists. Maybe it doesn't at all. After all, in several of their cases they were last seen floating in blue capsules without an obvious lifeline. None of them have gills. Or don't talk about the one who could.

Scarlett isn't touching that pencil, curling up against Bucky's shoulder. Her coal-black hair falls over her face again and she makes no effort to brush it aside, ice-rimmed eyes heavy-lidded.


«We end up solo, we end up picked off one by one,» Buck's voice is firm. « And we can move around for a while, but eventually, we have to settle. You can't live forever as fugitives….If you don't want me to communicate with the sorcerer, talk to me. What do we do with Volga? What do we do with his heart and his body? Burn it in America? The river still runs in Russia, it was damn near trying to follow us past the sea. Speak up. Tell me what you want - what's the best case that comes out of this? Where do you all want us to end? I can't keep you - if you think I'm a moron that makes bad decisions, you can. You're not my prisoners, you're my kinsmen.» He's rubbing her shoulder…..and neglecting to mention that she'll speak to Strange, even if he doesn't. «But I agree, Steve will speak to SHIELD, run interference. He has pull there. His place is a good launching pad.»


What do they want? No one asks the door what it thinks, or the shield Steve keeps propped up there.

«Music.» Evgeniy dares anyone who doubts or argues with that to face flexed and curled fingers in a fist. He punches hard.
«Books. A room with books,» Matvei says without consideration.
«You can't live by yourself.» Kyr scratches the back of his neck.
Adam takes a while to even come up with a reply. «Grow something.»
«Doughnut,» Kyr adds.
Volya is noticeably silent, arms still crossed, about as friendly as a moai crowned in shark's teeth and obsidian points about to fall on someone.
Nika shakes his head. «Somewhere not a cell. Bigger.»
«Big enough for a chesterfield. Maybe two.» Thinking big there, Matvei, almost dreamy. Orel has nothing to offer but probably the choice of healing.
«We stick around.» Adam nods.


His lips tremble with the effort of not grinning at some of those responses….and better that than his eyes filling. They can feel the urges towards both. Hell, Steve probably can. The Captain excuses himself for a run - the sea air is bracing, and it's a few moments out from under Niki's adoring gaze. Buck takes a deep breath, lets it out. «None of that is unreasonable. All of it's manageable in the city, even, or the suburbs, if you don't mind growing things in pots, at least at first, Adam. So….safe housing. A way to get….get legal status. So you can use public resources. Schooling, towards what you want to be. Real work. And….good, sticking together seems smart.» He rubs at his temples. «We'll ask Lazar what he wants, when he shows up.» Then he fixes Volya with a look, arches a brow. «Nothing to add, Hunter? America has cold forests with plenty of prey.»


Public resources for a pile of those without any clear legal status may be enough to curl Peggy's hair and send her eyes flashing red before something detonates. Kyr looks pointedly at Adam, and the interruption turns into a squabble — three-way, Nikita wading in — about the relative details of doughnuts to hard bread and things made of purple fruit. Purple or blue. They cannot be sure, but the hubbub in rapid-fire Russian is hard to finish, such that Volya puts his hands over his ears to drown out the snapping.

«You are wrong, the dogs in buns are not the same as hard bread! That is soft bread and it tastes vile.» Kyr jabs a finger in the air, imperious.

Matvei wistfully looks to the paper and pencil.

Scarlett watches Steve slip away with those grave eyes, coal-black, eclipsing the wolves' own sea-ice glow. The green is gone, long live the green.

«Follow Lazar,» Genya pronounces, lucky not to have a shoe flung at him from the bickering ones about to pounce one another. Fists are always quick to fly in this group; they're too aggressive by half. Adam sits beside Orel and says, «The blue fruit is better than your doughnut. We can grow the pot of grain for your burnt bread.»


«There's a place in New York full of Russians. They bake Russian bread there. You can have both - Russian, American, whatever kind you like,» Buck assures them, laughing. «Calm down, kids, or take it out on deck if you want to wrestle more. Follow Lazar where?» he asks Genya.


The fight takes time to simmer down, a quibble flattened to a point where they can be entrusted to at least listen. Adam hovers over Orel and seems to have little issue scowling at anyone else, Kyr subdued only by a look and this prospect of Russians and bread.

«They know what we are. They will tell the department.» Nika's reckoning is sensible enough.

Genya shrugs. «Lazar says do, we do. He is smarter about it. He stays, stay.»


That makes Buck arch a brow. «What are you? And who is they? Department?» Sometimes the conversations are too terse for him to be sure of his footing. He's the one raised outfreyn, a real boy who never had to meet the Blue Fairy. «Laz gives orders, eh? He stays?»


«The Russians in America. They would tell the handlers. Someone official. They make the decisions, they would interfere. Right?» Answers come from across the spectrum, Adam and Nikita and Evgeniy all contributing their suggestions. Per usual, Volya just falls into doing a series of pushups because he can, and the incident in Connecticut had him in the thousands in a day because he could.

Scarlett watches all this through the hallowed restraint of a bystander, possibly ignorant of Russian. Possibly not, but one who bides her time.

«Lazar got us out. He gets you out.» Point per Genya. «What orders? We just listen. He thinks out the plans.»


«That's why I'm not proposing housing you in the part of New York. But I can have a friend get a bag of bread. Like Stepan. No risk of anyone thinking he's a Russian,» Buck says, easily. «And no, we're not going to be in anyone official's hands. Maybe me, for a little. But good. I look forward to hearing his plans.»


Kyr tucks in to lean against Adam's leg, wary. Matvei leans against a wall. Volya keeps dropping to the ground and rising, able to do that all day if nothing else other than be quiet. Eyes flutter shut for Evgeniy, the nearest thing he can do to signal 'taking a nap' or dealing with questions. Rude, yes, but to the point, especially what with the others being fully awake.

Nika grunts out. «You want what, huh?»


«What do I want? Peace, for us. A chance to do what we want, safe and unbothered by either government. The wounded healed, the dead restored,» He strokes her hair, softly. «The last will be another hard journey.»


Scarlett scribes a simple word on the paper: «Sleep.» Beside that, a pointy little picture of the Eiffel Tower is easy enough to make out. She has little difficulty etching stars among the white sky of the foolscap, languidly picking out constellations or random patterns on the whimsy of the mad, the tender-hearted, and the patient. Unto death he goes, and with that, the dreaming smile follows. Her fingers bandaged such can safely wrap around his metal hand.


* GET THE FULL LOG HERE *
He wants to know. Gods, does he want to. Exactly what the nature of that violation was, if it wasn't all needles and test tubes and scalpels. "You don't have to," he repeats, gently, but his voice is shaking. "Not ever, if you don't want to."


«Yes, I do. Can't live like this.» Horrible truth in a smile that holds no light, her eyes still black and iced over in the Arctic permafrost imparted by his worse half and better nature. That hasn't diminished at all. «They are like mine. I love them too. Not right to lie. They need to know. I am bad as Z or him to say no things. I need you to still love me after.»


A shaking breath, drawn in through flared nostrils. "Okay," he says, and hisvoice is leaden. "There's literally nothing you can do that'll make me stop loving you. I mean, c'mon, how much blood do I have on my hands, and you love me still?"


She holds up her own hand. Innocuous, innocent. No sign she could strangle anyone on that boat and they'd be unconscious well before she completed that. Not even that vibranium shield gives her adequate reason to be afraid, and it really should. Scarlett lowers it. «Always.» Sheepish duck of her chin, she's a dirty little liar to be completely bashful, but those ghosts in her psyche never let her sleep. They always bemoan their plights and damn hers. Such is a short road to psychosis, otherwise a party. «I would stay. You call that place home, I would be there.»


That tremulous smile. "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people…" he says, softly.


Her turn to cry. A quiet thing, not exactly overt, but the tears held back since falling into a river's bend and locating no such escape before air waned and thrashing children of the Volga screamed for succor — ah, they haven't been released. And she knows, as she was forced to bear witness, who they cried for. Each and every last one, breath extinguished, forced out, sought succor and protection that wasn't going to come.

If the tears start, they might never stop. Not a choice even.

«Am your people.» Tap blind, pretend not to be an ugly wreck. And when that fails, hide in your sleeve. Good strategy.


It used to work for him. Sort of. "Yes, you are, angel. Always. Forever." She's wrapped up, gathered into his lap, body curled around her. As if he'd protect her from even the blasphemy of sunlight or a stray breeze.


He wants to know. Gods, does he want to. Exactly what the nature of that violation was, if it wasn't all needles and test tubes and scalpels. "You don't have to," he repeats, gently, but his voice is shaking. "Not ever, if you don't want to."


«Yes, I do. Can't live like this.» Horrible truth in a smile that holds no light, her eyes still black and iced over in the Arctic permafrost imparted by his worse half and better nature. That hasn't diminished at all. «They are like mine. I love them too. Not right to lie. They need to know. I am bad as Z or him to say no things. I need you to still love me after.»
<Pose Order> It is your turn to pose.

A shaking breath, drawn in through flared nostrils. "Okay," he says, and hisvoice is leaden. "There's literally nothing you can do that'll make me stop loving you. I mean, c'mon, how much blood do I have on my hands, and you love me still?"

She holds up her own hand. Innocuous, innocent. No sign she could strangle anyone on that boat and they'd be unconscious well before she completed that. Not even that vibranium shield gives her adequate reason to be afraid, and it really should. Scarlett lowers it. «Always.» Sheepish duck of her chin, she's a dirty little liar to be completely bashful, but those ghosts in her psyche never let her sleep. They always bemoan their plights and damn hers. Such is a short road to psychosis, otherwise a party. «I would stay. You call that place home, I would be there.»
<Pose Order> It is your turn to pose.

That tremulous smile. "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people…" he says, softly.

Her turn to cry. A quiet thing, not exactly overt, but the tears held back since falling into a river's bend and locating no such escape before air waned and thrashing children of the Volga screamed for succor — ah, they haven't been released. And she knows, as she was forced to bear witness, who they cried for. Each and every last one, breath extinguished, forced out, sought succor and protection that wasn't going to come.

If the tears start, they might never stop. Not a choice even.

«Am your people.» Tap blind, pretend not to be an ugly wreck. And when that fails, hide in your sleeve. Good strategy.

"If you'd bought me earrings, I'd'a got my ears pierced and wore 'em," he says, staunchly. "Hell, I still will if you want me to. I left the ring at home, 'cause I was afraid they'd catch me and take it from me. It's at Kai and Loki's." He nudges himself against her forehead, that canine gesture. "And you keep me sane. You're a bulwark against all the stuff that's happened to me, when I want to die and disappear and….just be unmade."

«You are in me. Always. If they» a sussurus of sharp, tearing shapes of stars here «come, they can't take you away. Nothing gets out of my head. Someone we trust can put you back in yours.»

Implications, the things the Russians weren't supposed to know, laid out on paper for Bucky to read. At this point, maybe staying secret is moot; for there nonetheless lay someone willing to test what kind of intrigue they acquired by proxy. Pity the first ones.

He slew his unlikely handler after awakening. Imagine the rude upset taken by a startled, half-dead, half-living girl. «Bracelet at home. Have to get it.» The English slews out into another style of writing entirely, skidding off the rails into Cyrillic from an alphabet of Phoenician origin. «Mine. Never unmade. Something so important cannot be undone. The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is lossed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, the ceremony of innocence is drowned…»
Tilting her head, ice-on-black eyes upturned catch him: twin images of Bucky mirrored the solid onyx luster of her frost-rimmed irises. His reflection doubles again, a shard of something moving underneath and that languidity marks a time to strike. Those blackouts aren't exactly frequent, but they are entirely unpredictable. She goes under without a sound, not her way, but the air smells faintly of o

«How would I do that?» he asks, voice mild as dust. «Are you in control?» The most loaded of questions, that. But there is no recoil from her, no loosening of that embrace. «And you were going to tell me how the kids came to be.» If only the story involved storks. Or a cabbage patch.


Would she tell the truth if fain she was? Or would the wolf smile, wearing sheep's clothing? Tantamount to betrayal, faithless treachery wearing a familiar face, the better to jam the knife into the heart. The bond doesn't give Bucky perfect understanding of their thoughts, though at an emotional level, the connection sinks far truer to the core. After all, it was his order that turned the weapon on Volga. Can the same be done in return, by the aqueous hand from under the heart?

«You know more than me.» She scribbles an image of a knife, a head bouncing off a body, no more than a circle next to a stick figure, a gun pointed at the same. Her shoulders tighten and shudder, the bile rising up her throat. «Took him. Felt him die. Rode his death, rode with you. Hates us, hate you-me-our kids. He's trapped. Piece of him forever stuck in me. Still me.» She crumples up the paper once he reads it, wrapping her arms around her knees, and in that tantamount to oblivious embrace, almost physically winds herself around the reckoning of a dreadful presence. Blithe she is not. Fresh paper, eventually, if she's going to talk, such as her speech is turned only to written forms.


«It's not in him, though? That knowledge? And of course he hates us.» He sighs, softly. Strokes her hair. Nothing to do, but give what strength he can. «I'm sorry, angel. I wish to God you coulda stayed home. But he'd've gotten us all, if you had.»


A puzzled look follows over the bridge of her arms, crossed in whatever pattern they managed to imprint on the fabric, woven as it is. Her thinned gaze lingers after the wall, testing the careful guy wires holding together the whole house of cards that calls itself Autumn in private. Identity is a fractured mosaic, a mess of selves, and hurts so greatly to rearrange.

Paper where it must be, she tries to reach out for that, carefully seeking by touch alone. Not letting her head turn away from Bucky is important, reminder anchoring her. The pencil is still there, awaiting a response. He offers an apology, and she shakes her head, bumping up against his palm. Mouthing «No apology».


He reaches for it, brings it to her hand. Not impatient, but solicitous, careful. «All right,» he concedes, but reluctantly. His own eyes are weary, shadowed, but don't waver from hers. There's a temptation to invent some errand, send Volya to the galley to get tea or sugar or a sandwich….but he's too tired. Let them listen, offer their anger or their strength…


Volya is an iceberg. He is, after all, the man who sat cross-legged for hours in the snow — though never comparable to Kyr, the youngest, who might just march twenty miles through the Siberian taiga doing cartwheels and never falter in the process. He's the one who did hundreds of push-ups out of boredom before trying to rip Bucky's head off. At the moment he makes an excellent coatrack, a bit taller than the norm. If directly stared at, he gives Bucky one of those patented flat looks that at least holds a degree more warmth than Evgeniy, who has wolverine rage downpat; or Lazar, who can turn transparent in every way. He cocks his head.

Paper and explanations. Scarlett has the background in Columbia to aid her and the illicit teaching of classes, no less, wearing a face not her own. She presses her back up against the wall, tangling her legs with the sheet and in turn Bucky's, not really willing to look up. Cramped, small handwriting is still very much legible, notetaking being amongst the most significant skills any girl with a degree is expected to master. So must it begin. For all that, her arm squeezes to his, wringing out all the human touch she can. Going ever so still, her movements end for a solid ninety seconds, and in that time, the blackness totally overtakes her gaze, the lank tangles of her hair showing the same dull, shifting gradient of dying fire to charred wood not so much as stirring. Gone behind a wall, she delves into the oubliette, and perhaps that near fateful attempt to seize her body has Volga on the run because the surrender of knowledge and wit and lore deep, deep in the fathomless abyss of her soulless void crackles on the link. Nothing except that frosty stillness a caress on the mental link, right until she starts to point.

It's easier if you ask me questions. || Triple tap of the pencil.
Z was not the source of their making. He was.
Sagittarius and Sagittarius' master — the general — supplied the necessary resources. The information. You. You know the general.


The children exceed the father, raised in freedom and in doubt. «I can try yes or no questions. Would that help? Volga made them. Or had them made. The general…..how do I know him?» A hint of that wolfish intensity in his face, but he's still tryin to be a cradle to her. As much contact, as much comfort, as he can muster.


She tilts her head slightly, doodling down the margins. «He knows a lot, lovebug. Need direction. Any questions or else just me guessing. Surprise, Pyotr Velikiy was an ass. Ivan Vasilyevich.» Arrow pointing to ass. «Temujin.» Arrow pointing to ass. «Killed Temujin's /son/?»

She dashes down in English, not Cyrillic, shifting to the right side of the foolscap and scribbling her responses, leaving room on the left and every other which way.

1. Born.
2. Karpov, Vasily. Sagittarius A. Major general. Elevated liver function.
3. Seeded them and cultivated them. He took the stock already likely to have powers, added you rebecca steve (Z did the refinement of the blood and genetics, _inaccurate process_) and refined them

Her writing hastens there, expression blanched and mouth clamped down, ill.
by extracting the strong ones.
The failures were broken down to extract their … power… serum… genetics?? Then refined to remove the pollution
Fed to the others to strengthen their own concentrations. Kept them sane. His blood's in the fuel to stabilize it and stabilize them and they're always starving for it.
We're addicted. They're addicted.
4. He could make any child be what he wanted. volga is the flesh-sculptor


Relevant theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1I9kAgO4HQ


There's that one crucial name in the list, the word that stops him cold. Jolts him right out of Russian into English. "…….how did he get anything from *Rebecca*? He had me for years. Steve's samples….if you're a determined bastard, they aren't hard to get. His material's been replicated, stolen, traded, since he's the only one of his kind…." He's shaking at that, broken down from further following.


Death doesn't mean anything.
He sculpts the flesh.
A withered seed can bloom again. 3,500 year old seeds in Egyptian tombs make trees and flowers.

Her shaking starts at that response and doesn't stop, the building shudders starting to wrack the black-haired Soul-Thief as she bends over herself further in a futile effort not to absorb the implications. He only needs the conduit, not the woman. Not yet.

Made a list. Z and Karpov got material.
Units from all over E Bloc delivered to him. Not all yours. He experimented.
Some he grew straight from the source - you.
Most he was refining. Broke down, template, built up again. Like erasing a statue's face, using the marble to make a new face. Except all of it. Not just face. ALL them is new. Just… material to work with.


There's a frantic vanishing into a kind of cold remove. Not summoning up Winter, but….using that ability, that icy calm. He can't get stuck on that point, can't let it start to spiral into obsession. "Makes a kind of sense," he says, afater a moment. Musters his Russian. Let the kids understand. «So, if we're addicted to his blood, and he's gone….now what? Are we going to suffer from that further?»


A puzzled sort of request at that, and one Volya tracks very closely indeed. Bucky's impact on the rest has them lifting their proverbial noses, scenting the wind. Afraid, restless.

I don't know. Blood <-> land. They weakened away from the land. So I brought some.

Her expression is dark and uncertain, hollowed out the longer she looks at the page. Scared, so bloody scared. Her foot rubs against his calf as though somehow that might ease it all up.
Might be you and I are the addicts or the source. We ate him. He lost his body before.
Made a new one.
Never lost the rest.
Was going to make things out of me too.


«I was afraid of that,» he says, with a weary patience. «I figured. He was always obviously more than mortal. I know I felt better after I drank from him, and he didn't seem to mind that I did. I pray this isn't just some plan to carry him to AMerica, to spread him like some kind of infection. I wonder if ….if we have enough of his physical body, if Strange can do something with or to him. And I bet he was. Brought some land? Russian soil or water?» As if they were like Stoker's vampires, who must lie in their native soil.


Dirt.
You knew Adam was better here. I've read my Stoker.

Apology there, as cool and distant as a twilight settling over Karelia. A different kind of cold there, wet and dark forested chill, not at all like the Urals or the southern Volga. Scarlett keeps trying to write, her letters all over the place from the shaking of her hand.

America? No. No. No. Never wanted to go there. Only Russia.
I think he'd fly me out of here if he could.
Doesn't know I fly. Shackling me is smart.

Rueful smile there. Don't trust Volya with the knowledge, brittle and edgy by the door, holding his arm out against another of them creeping up the hallway.

He's old. Not bad as Asgardians. They're older. But he is bad enough.
So angry.
I don't want to think about his spells - don't ask - they're not all dark - sunsets are so beautiful and he loves the earth and the earth loves him. But they're bloody.
Could make your skin and bone flow to look like anything if you want scars to go away. He'd twist and shape them. Make them perfect. Warp them when they were bad. Broken. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.


«I….» His mouth twists, sour sardonicism, «Kind of find it hard to believe that he'd deem anything even remotely sourced in me perfect. I'm glad we killed him relatively swiftly. And yeah, bad enough. It's nothing you need to be sorry about. And I bet he's mad as hell. I wonder if anyone's really defied him before.»


He wanted out. Wants out. Lucky that you have a tighter hold on me than he does.

A grim little smirk at that, for all the moment lasts a second and she ducks her head again, the shaking hardly repressed. Some corners of thought do not belong to her and with them go horrible processions, painful and dire, enough to make her sick.
Have to be sorry. The kids are in me too. You. Them. Love you all and you hurt, you're used. It's wrong.


«Do you think Strange can help us? Keep him bound, give you strength?» he asks, brow furrowed. Brushing hair away from her face with his metal hand. A nod at that. «It is wrong. How many lives he's ruined and tormented? What's his goal? Why did he make them?»


Russia must be safe. All of them want that dominion.
Sagittarius. Aquarius. Scorpio. Maybe not Aries, but he is held by the collar.
A new world order. Order instead of chaos.
They want to spread an idea far, far and wide. For him the idea wasn't quite so important.
I don't know all the names. I know the people sitting at the table, I know their faces, his memories of their faces. Men, women. One's Chinese, another Indian? She looks Indian.

Her lashes flutter, blank emptiness in the blackness of her eyes, staring into the bombardment of memories pulled selectively from a borrowed library that won't hold. Faster, faster then.

He's not the only one. They had plans to undermine the US. UK. Everyone in their way.
How many lives. Everyone's lives. The plans are too much, too confusing. Everywhere. Don't know half these things. Sagittarius — Karpov and Sagittarius — they were at meetings. Moscow? The key's Moscow? He doesn't like Capricorn.
You were in Virgo.

A drumming of delicate fingers on her knees, convulsing, as though they'd tear into her own flesh. Tear away.

Karpov isn't a big boss. I don't know they have a boss. Tehy're trying to take down all our institutions from the inside out?


"HYDRA," he breathes, softly. «It's all tied to HYDRA, isn't it?» Buck's got that papery look again, clear distress. «Or….do I just want to fit everything in to that mold. But if Zola is part of Virgo….This is only one arm of a bigger conspiracy….»


HYDRA and aides.

Her eyes slowly blink, black on black, ink-dark. The urge to hurl the pencil and the paper are there, so there, but it's the only choice they have left. She sits on the knowledge, stripped of a voice.

Svartalfheim.
Skrull.
The Red Room.
A company, some big oil company. Volga keeps them out of Russia. Mostly. They're digging in the south China Sea. That's a hotspot. Kree place. Inhumans. Racial hatred goes deep.
?? Advanced Idea Mechanics. Who is that?
Some bitch from Hellfire. His thoughts. Claims to be so old, so old.
Cults in the dark. Assassins.
We're all compromised.
Z doesn't sit at the table. Another German experimented sometimes on the children, Libra. I don't know why.


That first location makes him pause again. "Svartalfheim?" He parrots back at her. "Those guys are involved?" There's a bone deep shudder of disgust. The idea of being passed around the table, as it were, from one dark set of hands to another…


A nod, grim, miserable. If hanging her head would stop her from knowing truth, Scarlett would manage.

nine realms - too valuable to forget the crossroads. Midgard is at the middle. Elves are opportunistic.
Next up, some eternal incarnation of time going to kick us over.
I think maybe the bracelet will shut him up a little. Keeps me in. Strange tried once when possessed by a dragon.
I had to dump the seraphim on him. Can't do that very often.


"…..seraphim," Of all the phrases he was clearly not in the least expecting. But Buck just shakes hishead. "And incarnation of time?"


With the right words - he taught them but it's hard - I can petition them. Sometimes they answer. Very powerful shield. Feels exhausting to call it. I stalled him and then flew out the window while he was thinking bad dragon thoughts. The dragon was terrible.

She hasn't got a shaky smile for that, only blanched white skin. She reaches out for him because what other choice do they have, Volya slipping outside to tackle one of the younger children too foolish to know to stay away.

Time was a joke. Just how bad we are, it can always be worse. Like, evil Mr. Peanut vs. Steve or something.


Bucky whistles at that, but not in disbelief. The image of Steve versus a terrible Peanut makes him snicker, helplessly. "Yeah. It can always be worse. We got away. We didn't have to kill Vanguard."


Or they want us to run back and you tell those who need to know.

Don't ask her to give away hope, because it leaks out the sides anyways. Exhaling through her teeth, she tries to release some of the dark memories lurking in the shadows. Scarlett's lack of confidence goes melting into the shadows and she throws the pencil onto the bed between them, rubbing her temples with both pale hands. Hair gripped in great hanks of dusken night, the sable locks sway around her clenched fists.


"Also possible," he says, with a sigh. "That's what I'm afraid of. That it's just one wheel in the big machine, and all we're doing is running around like mice in a maze."


Scarlett puts her hand down on the bed and pulls the sheet a little closer. Movements past that are subtle, restrained simply to curl herself up against the familiar lineaments of his body. Grateful for closeness, no more than that can she ask. Were she capable of reaching out and pulling him down into comforting, blood-warm release while conscious, it would be freely given. Not quite possible here, and so setting her head into the hollow of his shoulder is enough. Perhaps that indicates the level of exhaustion and freedom off her psyche from one kind of burden. Maybe another. Winding her arms around him ties a closer degree of comfort.


«Sleep,» he urges her, gently. «We'll get lunch, after you've had a nap.» Reverting to the simplest possible forms of comfort, nuzzling into her hair. Volya gets a wry look. You gonna stand there and guard the door, wolf?


He offers this benediction and Scarlett glances back up, already halfway to being a good substitute for blanket, and rather eager to do no more than that. At least for now. Bucky entices her in every sense but the emotional wringer is a reckless outcome for them both. After hazily drifting, she tries to extract that rather razor-sharp focus on a wild mind and eases into herself, whatever remains of that blithe, sunny girl. Her arms weave under his back and all that's best and bright in that ship lies right there against her. Here, security and safety wears his face. A nap. Nose to his shirt, the scent of his signature curls through. Wouldn't matter if they were both dirty and tired after a run through half a continent, good enough. Only a few transitional minutes needed at best before she passes out in his embrace again.

Volya looks back; there's a sharp glare after he has banished another of the pups too interested to find out what's going on.


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