libertybled

[libertybled]

paint

[libertybled]

sorry for not being here. death in the family.

[libertybled]

so uh.  please understand i’m not purposefully ignoring anyone here, but i’m under a lot of stress right now ( my dad’s gone from the care home to the hospital because he’s not eating and drinking. among various other things) and my activity is likely to decline even further than the practically nonexistent it is now. 

i’m really sorry.

[libertybled]

SHORT STORIES, my favorite kind of poetry ( meme ).

SIX WORDS .

❝ i heard you were doing good. ❞ ❝ you don’t grow your horns overnight. ❞ ❝ i promise, it gets better eventually. ❞ ❝ & we never talked after that. ❞ ❝ am i really, truly, that unlovable? ❞ ❝ don’t talk like you’re coming back. ❞ ❝ my most dangerous habit is trusting. ❞ ❝ we’re made of stars & stories. ❞ ❝ you didn’t have to do that. ❞ ❝ everything is poetry when you’re drunk. ❞ ❝ did i mean anything to you? ❞ ❝ real feelings don’t just go away. ❞ ❝ you came & changed the weather. ❞ ❝ when can you just be mine? ❞ ❝ there was no love, only lust. ❞ ❝ darling, stop wishing on dead stars. ❞ ❝ art is another form of screaming. ❞ ❝ silence is the most painful goodbye. ❞ ❝ what the fuck did you do? ❞ ❝ i’m drunk, dizzy & missing you. ❞ ❝ kiss me like you’re losing me. ❞ ❝ i don’t feel like smiling today. ❞ ❝ not all good people are innocent. ❞ ❝ we’re a disaster in the making. ❞ ❝ some things are better left unsaid. ❞ ❝ we really should’ve talked about it. ❞ ❝ i’m so glad i met you. ❞ ❝ i wish i knew you earlier. ❞ ❝ i fucked (pronoun/name) to our song. ❞ ❝ i dreamed of you this night. ❞

TEN WORDS .

❝ you saw the messed up parts of me, & stayed. ❞ ❝ all i’ve ever wanted was for someone to save me. ❞ ❝ since you left, i have no one to talk to. ❞ ❝ i apologize for the nights in which i cannot breathe. ❞ ❝ everytime i look at you, i want to kiss you. ❞ ❝ we said no strings attached but now we’re in knots. ❞ ❝ there’s a difference between missing someone & missing having someone. ❞ ❝ for which f are you drinking? fuck, forget, or fun? ❞ ❝ my biggest mistake was thinking i could live without (pronoun/name). ❞ ❝ whenever (name/pronoun) rose to kiss me, i fell even more. ❞ ❝ i wish that ‘goodnight’ was followed by ‘i love you’. ❞ ❝ let’s smoke a pack of mentholds & talk about love. ❞ ❝ your deep, sleepy voice makes me feel like i’m okay. ❞ ❝ i read both of our horoscopes looking for an answer ❞ ❝ reality is the absolute last place i want to be. ❞ ❝ i didn’t expect that drunk kiss could mean this much. ❞ ❝ all i need is a late night drive with you. ❞ ❝ feeling pain is nowhere near as terrifying as feeling nothing. ❞ ❝ your eyes are the color of summer fading into autumn. ❞ ❝ you are the warmest home i will ever, ever find. ❞ ❝ the world is less scary when i am with you. ❞ ❝ i still can’t tell which of us was the victim. ❞ ❝ i just need an excuse to hang out with you. ❞ ❝ your expectations for me have been set way too high. ❞ ❝ i don’t want to feel this way about anyone else. ❞

[libertybled]

★| stephanie.

      Stephanie knew more than one unpleasant person in her life. Hell, her childhood could easily be the foundation of an encyclopedia-length memoir of all the shit people she’s come into contact with. But meeting an alternative version of her friends? Even herself? It was an interesting and outwardly perspective she had never once had. The way they flowed together in sync, following cues without language, and harmony that seems built on respect and trust. God, she missed it somedays. 

        Sam’s comment did pull a half smile to her lips, even if it wasn’t intentional – he’d always had that talent. But it’s the following interjection by her doppelganger returned her features back to passive. Well, Stark was right about the little things being different. Yellow had always been her favorite color. Pale yellow, brick red, and dusty dirt brown. A palette worth painting with forever. Still, this world was different clearly. And this version of herself?

                          Well, the jury was still out… 

       Sam’s interference thankfully distracted her from further analyzation of the other Cap’s discomfort. Her brow furrows, nose crinkling at the title bequeathed to Bucky. “Ice Man? Please tell me that’s his ACTUAL covert name in his world,” Her grin catching up to her playfulness, clearly amused by the thought of the Winter Soldier being called something as ridiculous as the Ice Man. Wherever he was in this world, how could she ever let him live that one down? 

      The sigh of the other Captain dampens Sam’s possible response, but in Steph’s defense, they’d asked, hadn’t they? Was there something amiss between Bucky and Stephanie in this universe? He was spoken of with such familiarity, Steph couldn’t imagine he wasn’t around. “Yes, I married him, thank you. You were the best man, actually.” Her eyes playfully shift over to Natasha, adding on in a hushed voice, “He cried, Clint got it on video.”  

       But, the other her made her point, which made perfect sense, gathering what Steph likely interrupted. Steph throws her hands up in a gesture of consent and conformity. It wasn’t as if she was looking to step on any toes, not even an hour ago she was hoping to have dinner with Bucky and a nice LONG weekend. She would never be free of the insanity of the gig, even in civvies. “I’m more than happy to help as I too would like to go home where I belong,” Glancing at her doppelganger directly before looking back over to Natasha again. Appeal to reason where reason appears. “Where are you at, timewise? What’s the last thing you’ve been through?” Stephanie did not want to screw up their timeframe any further than she had. 

BEING IN CRYO was, right now, looking like the preferable option as Stevie was slowly losing the will to live the longer the conversation went on. If anything she was seriously considering just getting in the jet and leaving them behind to gossip, seeing as that was obviously more important than actually addressing the situation in hand. If anything she feels like she’s the only one taking it seriously -- and she wasn’t even the one out of place here. The question about Bucky only rankles further and it’s greeted with a heavy eye roll. She’s not entirely sure where their timelines diverged, but there’s a good chance it was a fair while back. It’s something that’s going to have to be figured out later. Later as in not while in potentially hostile territory that could see them all carted off to the Raft if they weren’t careful. 

“No, it’s not.” Stevie’s expression is deadpan, voice monotone, clearly unimpressed with the way the conversation is heading. “Sam just calls him that because he thinks it’s funny, and because Bucky can’t correct him.” Though correcting him would likely be done through a fist to the face, if she was being honest.

“Barnes is in cryo back in Wakanda.” Natasha clarifies, sensing the tension in her squad leader and finally holstering the pistol that had remained drawn and ready to fire at a moment’s notice. “Has been since a few weeks after the events in Siberia.” 

Which must be getting close to eighteen months, give or take a few weeks. Though if asked Stevie would say it feels easily double that. Hell, this conversation alone feels like it’s aged her at least a decade - what with her team mates succumbing so easily to idle gossip that she had absolutely zero interest in. And, just as she didn’t think her levels of unimpressed could drop any lower, the chatter turns back to a wedding and Sam being the best man. Though the idle part of her brain decided that the sight of Sam crying is something she’d have to see to believe. 

“Fascinating.” The comment comes out colder than planned. “If we’ve all finished with our water cooler gossip, I believe I gave you an order, Wilson.” Sam, to his credit, sobers instantly and shoots Stevie an apologetic look before he heads back towards the double doors towards the front of the factory complex. She watches him go with a tired sigh before focusing on the two remaining women. “Nat, I’m gonna have to drop you off in Poland on the way back, we need your contact to take a look over those maps that Sam found and work out the route they’ve taken.” A pause as her attention drifts to the machine sat innocuously in the background. 

“Understood.” Nat merely observes as Rogers wanders past her alternate self, a brief look of concern flashing over her features the moment her Captain’s back was turned. “A word of advice?” She lowers her voice, even though she knows Stevie could hear her  from across the other side of the factory as if she was shouting. “Try to keep your talk about Barnes to a minimum; wounds are still raw and it’s wise not to pick at them.”

Stevie merely pretends she doesn’t hear the exchange, instead she squats to inspect the mangled wreck, calloused fingertips running over the scorched edge of what looked like a laser burn even though she knows it was the energy discharge from whatever had brought Stephanie here. “Sokovia Accords, fight at Berlin airport, fight in Siberia were all eighteen months ago. Radio silence from Stark, no word on Banner or Thor - though if rumours are to believed both Thor and Loki were seen in New York not long back. No further world altering events since.”

[libertybled]

Brooke Ence

[libertybled]

★| stephanie

      Wow, do we actually always talk over people like that? How annoying. Her eyes bounce between the three again, although she gives Sam a particularly pointed look at the mention of crazy. Steph could rattle off far worse about him, or even about his partner prior to teaming up, but she’s got boundaries even if her Sam is a world away. What does become painfully apparent is the identity of the third woman, familiarity be damned, the moment the honorific left Sam’s lips. She has to wonder where on the family tree someone made THAT change. Another mystery she might throw at one of the many quandry driven minds amongst the team. At least, one she might hope to make when she got home. 

       “It was Buck’s sixteenth birthday party,” Stephanie answers without a beat. She remembered it clear as day. The winter had been harsh and unforgiving to her that year. The time indoors, cooped up in her bed, far outweighing her time with her best friend. Stephanie had missed so much at school, but, thankfully, not nearly as much as she might have if Bucky hadn’t made a rigorous habit of stopping by like clockwork. Her work in hand, and sometimes, without notice, he’d bring her other goodies he’d gotten a hold of. Used comics, pieces of chocolate she could only take a bite of before feeling sick again, but nothing had been more important than the first sighting of flowers. Grown in a hothouse in New Jersey, both Stephanie and her mother had been surprised when he walked in with a handful wrapped in a newspaper smack dab in the middle of February. ‘Just you wait until summer, I’ll bring you your favorite every day if I have to.’ 

      “Her name was Mrs. Smith, she got you the job at the Henrikson’s paper company when you were seventeen, and it was yellow.” Because she was always going to hold Bucky to his promise, Steph had gotten better despite everyone’s worry she wouldn’t last the winter. That didn’t mean she would aim to keep those promised sunflowers fresh in his mind. Not that he remembered afterwards, but if the woman was asking about that day, well there’s her answer. 

      But Stephanie’s done HER share of answering questions. The others hadn’t seemed to be exactly forthcoming. Understandable, of course, but annoying. She was the one head first in ice water. She takes a couple of steps towards the mirror of herself, eyes not unabashed as they run over the differences that were instinctually apparent. The build, obviously. The suit, now noted in better lighting, much darker and tightly fitted. Steph can’t help but wonder what Bucky must look like in this universe. Maybe she could ask… “Look, I can answer any of the twenty thousand questions you want me to answer to prove I’m ME. But I am, without a doubt, Stephanie Grace Barnes. I haven’t been Cap in quite a while, but I remember the gig. So why don’t you tell me who you’re pitching for right now? Since time might also be a factor.”  

WELL THAT WAS the answer Stevie had been after, only now she has it she’s not sure what to do with the information. She barely remembered the winter that preceded Bucky’s sixteeth beyond what she had been told. She remembers Barnes by her bedside, the lead weight she couldn’t shake from her chest, the priest hovering like a bad smell. Beyond that, it’s hazy. But she remembers the party and that stupid boy dragging her out from the corner she’d found by a paraffin heater to dance to his father’s piano playing. She remembers the coughing fit he’d caused afterwards too because she wasn’t completely better from whatever illness had almost killed her (that winter’s version, at least). 

The gun lowers slowly, the safety clicked back on before it’s slipped back into it’s holster on her thigh; while her team mirrors this, she notices Nat doesn’t quite go so far as disarming herself. In all honesty, coming face to face with an alternate version of herself wasn’t even in the top five things that Stevie has encountered - to the point that her initial reaction is to sigh and roll her eyes at the fact while lamenting the fact that she now wishes she’d never been defrosted. Bucky’s situation right now certainly seemed appealing. 

“Somehow I can’t picture you in a dress. Let alone a yellow one.”

Sam pulls Stevie’s focus and she raises an eyebrow at him, feigning insult to which he holds up his hands. “It was the last time I ever wore one,” she concedes, “the dress got splashed on the way home and the stains never came out. Just as well, it made me look like I had jaundice.” From then on she’d gone back to wearing slacks made for teenage boys, or the uncomfortable past-knee skirts she was forced to wear for work. She doesn’t count the god awful Lady Liberty outfit as anything other than torture. 

Instinctively, Stevie squares her shoulders and stands that little bit straighter when the woman -- that other her -- steps forward and doesn’t make the any effort to hide the way she looked over the differences. Her jaw works, hands finding her belt buckle in an outward display of confidence -- if not out and out defiance --  despite her brain running on overdrive to the point where it glosses over the surname and goes straight in for the fact the woman was already looking to step in on territory that was nowhere near her own. And in civilian clothes too.

“With all due respect, as far as I’m concerned you’re a civilian in this --” “Yo hold on a second here, Cap,” Sam interjects, that familiar humour in his voice that tells her she’s going to be unhappy with whatever comes out of his mouth next. “She introduced herself as Barnes. Did you marry the ice man?”

Stevie lets out a slow exhale through her nostrils, eyes squeezing shut as she lifts a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose at the question her teammate had thrown back at the other her. “I can’t see what difference it ma--”

“Actually...” Another interruption, Natasha this time. “If she’s another you, knowing the differences between our world and hers could help get us back where she belongs.”

“Normally I’d agree with you, but right now we’re illegally parked in a restricted nuclear town in a country that’s pretty unfriendly to Americans -- and Russians.” She shoots the Widow a poignant glance which the woman acknowledges. “Sam, head back to the jet and get it as close as possible, we’re gonna need to bring that thing --” she jerks her chin towards the mangled tech behind her double, “ -- back to Shuri’s lab.” Then her attention returns to the woman that had come with the wreck, expression carefully neutral. “Because you don’t belong here, and we need to get you home.”

[libertybled]

steve rogers and a series of unfortunate events (3/3)

BONUS:

[libertybled]

“Ignorance isn’t bliss.” [ // from jean grey! ]

@multimentium | late nights

IT’S SUCH A loaded statement. Ignorance is bliss. It hangs on so many variables, so many caveats to make it true. That doesn’t make it false, it just means it’s a crass catch-all used by those with more knowledge to make the uneducated look plebeian. Stevie’s heard the term used by everyone from politicians to mutant rights activists and it’s annoyed her every time, but never to the point where she’s bothered speaking out against it – it’s not worth the effort and it’s not how you change opinions.

And yet at the same time she can easily say that the opposite statement is just as loaded as the first. 

She hums thoughtfully, bottom lip dragged between her teeth as she considers for a moment before nodding her head. “I believe you might be right.” She states it neutrally, eyes never straying from the scene in front of them, hands clasped around her belt buckle. “People confuse innocence with ignorance in that statement when there is no correlation to the two. Innocence is bliss, but ignorance?” She sucks her teeth, a frown clouding her features. “That soft bigotry of being aware you should know better, but refusing to acknowledge it? There’s no bliss to be found there. Unfortunately, it happens all too often.” A pause then, brief, and a rueful smile tugs at one side of her lips. “But then it’s easier to brand even innocence as ignorance when you’re not willing to educate anyone. I think everyone’s guilty of that at some point. So maybe being willfully ignorant is bliss and we’re all looking at it the wrong way.”

[libertybled]

“I wish it could always be like this.”

“You’re always there for me.”

“The stars are the only thing that makes sense.”

“There’s more out there, you just have to be patient.”

“It doesn’t all have to be existential dread.” 

“You’re so much different when we’re alone.”

“I like it when the worlds quiet.” 

“There’s a place for us somewhere.”

“They’ll name constellations after you one day.”

“Your hearts beating so fast.”

“They don’t know what they want.”

“You don’t know what you want.”

“That’s what they’re supposed to say.”

“We really don’t know what we’re doing.”

“I miss the old you.”

“Nostalgias a trap.”

“Aliens are out there.”

“Did you hear that?”

“I really want pizza right now, think it’s open?” 

“What time is it?”

“But why would they abduct cows?”

“We’ll all be dead soon enough anyways.” 

“I wish we didn’t have to sleep.”

“What do you believe in?”

“What happens after we die?”

“Seems like a silly thing to say, don’t you think?” 

“And what’s your excuse?”

“You’ll get it together soon.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’ll never have it together.”

“It’d be better if people weren’t so afraid of their feelings.”

“You keep quiet and we both lose.”

“I wish I could save this forever.”

“When did you realize you were in love with me?”

“The rooms spinning.”

“I loved you long before you knew.”

“I’m not afraid of death, I think it’ll be peaceful.”

“The Universe is too big for that.”

“Do you think we’ve met in other lives?” 

“I’d come back to haunt you.” 

“Would you come back to haunt me?”

“What’s alternate universe you doing right now?”

“Tell me a secret.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” 

“I wish we knew each other sooner.”

“You’re a game changer.” 

“I’m a game changer.”

“Don’t ignore fate.” 

“Ignorance isn’t bliss.”

“What, is that a conspiracy theory?”

“It’s probably the Illuminati anyways.” 

[libertybled]

     i’m not looking for forgiveness                          and i’m way past asking for permission

[libertybled]

★| ???

       Sam doesn’t know her. The words are an anomaly to her ears. He’d been one of her closest friends for years now, best man at the wedding, and the whole shebang. Now he doesn’t know her? Natasha, by the looks of it, haven’t the slightest idea who she was either. God, Shuri, what the hell did you do? Steph hasn’t the slightest idea where she is, when she is, or hell – if this was even her world. Oh god, where’s Bucky? Her chest clenches, head dropping as her chin brushes the chain of their tags, her hand hits her pocket slowly as she’s gauging if her phone was still there. Nothing, damn it. She must have left it on the counter.

      “Your name is Samuel Thomas Wilson, former Airforce and National Guard, and you’ve been working with me since 2014 after HYDRA’s discovery.” Give or take a few vague trips that Bucky and she had taken to get away from all the madness. “I use to annoy the shit out of you every morning by running laps around the reflection pool in D.C. Met her that way too,” Steph explains carefully before jerking her head towards Natasha as to elaborate. It’s painfully apparent that whatever Shuri or the tech did, Steph wasn’t in Wakanda or even her world anymore. She’d heard enough yabbering between Stark and Shuri over the years to know multiple universes were a believable reality. Just her luck.

      “Natalia Alianovna Romanoff,” Steph continues, turning her eyes over to the Russian with a careful expression on her face. Natasha’s clever enough in any world to know when somethings wrong. She also knows when someone’s bullshitting her. Steph hopes that’s the case here. “Former KGB and operated under the elite branch of the Red Room. You also awkwardly made out with me in the middle of a mall in New Jersey, to which Clint has never let me live it down.” Or Sam, or Bucky, or anyone, really. 

      The other woman, however, Steph hasn’t the slightest clue. She’s vaguely familiar, but in the way, one might look through a dusty photo album full of antique portraits. There are small features that seem ghostly reminiscent of that sepia colored childhood of hers, but the overall make couldn’t be voiced. She’s demanding and blunt, Steph will give her that much. “I have the tech because five minutes ago I was lugging it around in Wakanda helping out the head of their Science and Information Exchange. There was a long burst of sonic emission, bunch of blue light, I turned around and there you three idiots are.” As for who she was, Steph wasn’t exactly vague beforehand. Still, if they didn’t know her, perhaps it might be better to keep her mouth shut and pray whatever chucked her here would pull her back. God, Bucky was gonna kill her.  

WHOEVER SHE IS, she obviously likes the sound of her own voice. Beyond that, what she has to say is disturbing; she’s busy rattling off the full names of people who aren’t public figures beyond their code names and are fugitives to boot -- and what’s more unsettling is the way she’s wording it. A shadow crosses Stevie’s features, brows drawing down as her expression turns grim; beside her, Sam shifts uncomfortably - it’s only Natasha that barely reacts, though from the glance that Stevie shoots her way she can see the confusion threatening to crack that perfectly disciplined facade, especially at the mention of the Red Room - which barely anyone knew even within her personal circle, if the woman could be said to have one.

“We got a crazy one here, Cap.”

It’s Sam that speaks first, voice low. He’s obviously as unsettled as Stevie is. She’s had imitators before; lookalikes and wannabes, even had a few creeps go so far as having plastic surgery to look like her -- but the woman before them didn’t look anything like her, even though there was something vaguely familiar about her, an itch at the back of her brain that she chooses to ignore simply because with an eidetic memory, everyone she’s ever passed in the street could be vaguely familiar. 

“I’m surprised at how many people want to be you, Rogers,” says Nat, finally, “though I will say this one takes stalking to the next level. I made out with her in a D.C. mall, actually, but nice try.” 

“Natasha, don’t.” It’s a soft warning; Stevie doesn’t want her goading the woman when they still don’t know who she is and what she’s capable of yet. She’s dressed like a civilian, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t hiding any weapons. Still, the explanation of the machine made sense as to why it looked familiar -- Stevie had seen it before on those visits where she passed through Shuri’s lab. It still didn’t explain why it was here and why the deluded woman was ‘lugging it around’. Or how she knew about Shuri to begin with.

She’d heard of the multiverse theory before, Stark had used to babble about it when he was hopped up on too much coffee when they’d got onto the question of how exactly the Chitauri had managed to summon that portal over NYC. About how Loki was able to walk through whatever gate the tesseract opened. Thor had mentioned something about the cube holding an infinity stone that controlled space, but then he’d gone on to explain what had happened during the alignment that had seen space elves invade London. There were portals there too. And that flickering blue light that had almost blinded everyone present certainly looked similar to what Loki’s army had used. 

“I’m not going to ask you who you are again because I know you’re just gonna parrot off my full name and date of birth. I just need to know if what’s going on here is what I think it is.” Stevie’s patience was running thin -- this was the exact opposite of what they had come here to do and now they were forced to deal with...whatever this is. “When I was fifteen, my mother made me a sundress from material the woman from the downstairs apartment had given her. Who was that woman, what colour was the material, and why did I need that dress.” Only two people knew the answer to that beyond Stevie herself, one was dead and one was in cryo. If the woman answered correct, then at least she’d know what the hell she was dealing with, even if she didn’t know how to fix it.

[libertybled]

★| ???

      They’d been working for days. Trying to help Shuri sort out one of the numerous alien tech pieces recovered. It wasn’t as if they could bring it to Stark, and, after a lengthy stay in Wakanda, Steph found plenty of reasons not to leave if she could help it. The first year had been the hardest away from the States, but her home had never been just a place. Now, for the first time in years, Steph had a chance at a future. Maybe imperfect and messy, but it would be hers. God, she could practically hear Bucky calling her a cheeseball from another country. 

      Every few hours, Steph would glance over to the digital clock projected on the far wall. A quick run he’d said. Sam would come with him, so of course, there’s no way he’d get into trouble. Despite being married for nearly six months, he still left Natasha with her. When they’d started that agreement, she wasn’t even sure to this day. Likely after Steph accompanied one too many of Bucky’s missions after Siberia. It wasn’t as if they could blame her. It still didn’t stop her from getting stuck on bench duty either. Although Shuri was always pleasant company. Wanda too, but often the two younger women ran at very different speeds. Which left her with Clint today, and Steph with Natasha. Who’d disappeared all of twenty minutes after Shuri began begging Steph to help her with her new project. Russians.

       It was above her pay grade and education level what all Shuri went on about. Steph happily played along, after all – the young woman had done so much for her and Bucky. What she hadn’t had in mind, however, was getting involved in the beyond abnormal. One second she’s resetting a large conductor onto a build with her back turned, the next, a deafening screech of static erupted in the room. Blue light flashed, bouncing off the chrome, and even as Natasha ran back into the room from god knows where, Steph heard nothing but eery silence after she’d hit the ground with her hands over her ears. 

      A few moments passed, eyes tightly shut, although dust seemed to kick up from the ground she landed in. Coughing, the electric ripple that made the very hairs on her arms stand on edge dampens, and she picks her head back up in immediate concern. Her vision momentarily fuzzy, but she expects to see Shuri and Natasha or perhaps the lab in chaos. And while she does see Natasha, her brow creases at the gleaming blonde hair. It looked like an ugly wig… 

       The rest, as symptoms subsided, filled in all too quickly. She’s not in the lab. That’s apparent. Natasha is holding a gun towards her, and the sharp barking of orders alerts her to Sam standing only a few feet away. Eyes track over the perimeter, Steph notices the third woman, similarly posed as Nat. What on Earth? “Identify myself?” She questions with a deep sense of uncertainty. “Sam, what the hell?” Eyes bounce between the three, well – between them and the guns. Her hands don’t go up, not really, but she’s played this game long enough to know when to have the common sense enough to stand very still. “I thought YOU were in Russia? Why the hell – or where the hell…” Steph starts again before her head turns to look behind her, a familiar looking machine, even partly broken and dilapidated, posed behind her. Fucking aliens. “Look, I don’t wanna start a fuss. But I think someone’s forked up royally, and by someone, I think it was certainly royalty.” 

FROM HER OUTWARD appearance, the woman looks human -- at least she has all the markers that identify her as as human, though Stevie knows better than anyone that looks are deceiving and that she could be hiding all manner of abilities. The voice that comes out has an American accent, so that rules out her being a local or a leftover from the group they’re looking for. Or any part of the groups they’d previously come across, if she’s honest. Women in those organisations were rare -- trophy wives usually, or highly skilled specialists -- and the one in front of them doesn’t quite fit the stamp. She actually looks like she has a brain, for one. But none of that answered the question of what that energy as and where she came from. Or who she actually was.

Stevie’s eyes narrow as the woman identifies Sam,  muddying the waters further, and acts as if they should know her. And that Sam should be in Russia, which only confuses the matter, as he has no reason to go to Russia on his own. “Sam, you know her?” Stevie asks without taking her eyes off the stranger, never letting the muzzle of her ICER stray from where it’s pointed at the blonde’s chest. 

“Never seen her before in my life.”

“Well she seems to know you.” Which is disconcerting, considering they were supposed to be off the grid and trying to avoid being recognised by anyone that might be able to report their activities to any authority looking for anyone who willingly breaks the Accords. Stevie was secretly hoping that maybe Sam did know the woman and that this was all a bit misunderstanding. Maybe she was a scientists that accidentally managed to transport herself into a highly restricted nuclear city in literally the middle of nowhere. Some hope that was.

Stevie follows the woman’s attention when she turns back to the wreck of a machine behind her, leaning slightly to get a better look at it. It doesn’t look like any of the other machinery in the factory, nor does it look old. If anything, it looked more than modern -- it looked familiar. “I’m guessin’ that wasn’t here before the anomaly began?” She asks as an aside to Romanoff, voice low, and getting a shake of the head in response -- confirmation that the machine was with the stranger. 

Moreover, the more Stevie looks at it, the more she remembers of it. She’s seen that machine before, only split second glimpses but enough to give her pause. The half-burned off warning label in a familiar script is the last piece of that particular puzzle, even if it’s one of the smaller ones in the bigger picture. Stevie stiffens, readopting the guarded position she’d let drop as she was distracted, the muzzle of her ICER pistol raising from where it’d lowered slightly. “None of that explains why you have Wakandan tech. Who the hell are you?”

[libertybled]

@cnuasach

THE DAY HAD been a bust. It wasn’t overly surprising, given the sketchy details that she’d received and they’d gone in with low expectations. Kurchartov was a ghost town and while there was no doubt there had been alien tech present at some point in the recent past -- the readings coming off the little scope she’d been sent from a former SHIELD insider had told them that much -- both it and it’s handlers were long gone. Now it was a matter of piecing together where they’d gone from the information they had left over. It was why they were spread out over the abandoned industrial complex, rifling through what had been left behind after what seemed to be a hasty exit. 

“I’ve got a map marked with scribbles in here, Cap,” came the voice of Sam over the comm in her ear and Stevie looked up towards the stained and broken glass of what was probably the overseer’s office that looked out across what was a factory floor. “I can’t read what’s written but they’ve circled a few places up by Volgograd.” She hums thoughtfully, pausing by a run-down machine used to punch holes in metal as she remembers the map in the local train station. Anyone coming in and out of the city would’ve had to have gone through Semey and she doubts there are many connecting trains that run into Russia from there anymore. Either way, there was going to be a lot of stopovers for anyone trying to get from this remote Kazakh city and somewhere as populous as Volgograd.

“Noted, Sam,” she says, depressing the button on her earpiece, “fold it up if you can and keep looking.” The machinery she was passing by was old, once used to make parts for the nuclear machinations of Russia -- by rights it should’ve been rusted and broken down, yet some of the machines were recently oiled and showed signs of being used. “Status, Natasha?” 

Silence.

“Natasha?”

Silence is followed by audible static, a crackle on the end that sounds like someone crunching plastic wrapping  with some very notable pops - as if the air was on fire. “Rogers get back here, we have a situation.” That’s all it takes and Stevie bolts towards the large, empty warehouse space behind the manufacturing floor, weaving between the machines and crashing through the rusted doors to find the shocking blonde hair of Nat, gun drawn, in front of a swirling black and blue anomaly that was kicking up all the dust and debris in the vast space. Instinct causes her to mirror Romanoff, pulling the pistol from it’s holster on her thigh as the noise from the anomaly becomes too loud to even call Sam - though it’s impossible for him not to hear. 

There’s a sound like a thunderclap and a blinding light that forces the women to shied their eyes and makes her wonder for a split second if this wasn’t something to do with Thor -- then there’s silence again, deafening after the cacophony a second before. In the dust and detritus there’s a figure; blonde, yes, but absolutely not the Asgardian. Stevie takes a step forward, followed by Nat, both pistols still raised. “Hands where we can see ‘em.” It’s a barked order that’s reinforced by the sound of Sam stepping through the doors and drawing one of those SMG’s of his. “Identify yourself.”

[libertybled]

caetratus → libertybled

new theme too ^-^

[libertybled]

wait. give me liberty or give YOU death. how about that?

[libertybled]

katherynwinnick : Ohhh.. what a day! 😉