#his partners terrorize him with more compliments than he can handle and he just melts

[angelxd-3303]

Pov: someone (probably either Peach or DK) told him he looks cute/handsome today

[cbspams]

Log 14: The final one

“Here.”

The entire group stopped, silhouetted by light. It was silent there, not even a trace of energy or sound except for what was coming from the stone fountain. It was rather unassuming, simple in nature. The water poured from the top and burbled as it flowed down through two bowl like structures before ending in a wide, shallow dish. And yet for all its simplicity, all the group could do for a moment was stare in awe.

“The fountain of eternity,” Chan whispered.

“I thought it’d be grander,” Seungmin said. He hissed when someone pinched his arm. “What!”

“Shhh!” Cupid’s eyes were wide as saucers as they stepped forward, hair melting into a shade of midnight black with silver strands interspersed. They didn’t seem to notice it at all though, as they gulped and stared at the ever flowing water.

“Losing your nerve angel?” Though Hyunjin’s statement was light, teasing even, no one missed the underlying anxiety. Incubi weren’t meant to be in this space and they could all feel it trying to repell them, despite the shielding from Cupid’s feathers. In fact, it was likely that the shielding was the only thing preventing them from being torn to pieces by the protective wards strewn around the walls and the floor. Seungmin had taken one look and paled, so that’s how they knew it was serious.

“I...” They all froze as Cupid spoke. All this time, their voice had been distinctly human. But now it was starting to sound more and more like a true angel, inhumanly beautiful and yet also inhumanly terrifying. It crackled with power, every word sounded more and more like an echo. “I’m okay. I can do this.” And yet they watched as Cupid stepped forward into the dim light of the moon and raised a hand to touch the water flow.

Suddenly, Felix lunged forward and grabbed Cupid’s outstretched hand. “Don’t!” Then the blond hissed and recoiled as though burned. Cupid seemed confused, but not by why he’d just happened. Rather, they seemed confused that the boys were there at all, brows furrowed and hand still outstretched over the water.

“It’s going to erase them,” Changbin murmured, realization dawning. “The fountain. The water. Eternity wasn’t meant for one person.”

“Shit,” Jeongin cursed, reaching out similarly only to be stopped by Changbin who shook his head, features twisted in a way the younger man couldn’t understand. “Wha- what are you...?”

“You don’t understand. It wasn’t meant for one person but maybe... maybe I can help. We’re already shouldering one burden together, maybe I can help with the other.” Changbin shrugged, lowering his arm and staring at the fountain, at cupid who seemed to be lost in its call. “It’s worth a shot.”

“You can’t,” Minho said in a tight voice. “You can’t, you’ll be dragged out. We’re not- we aren’t made to handle eternity either. You know how we are. How we’re born and made.”

“A sacrifice then. I’ve lived long enough.”

“No!” Jisung grabbed the elder’s sleeve and to everyone’s surprise, pulled him back into a hug. “You can’t go, don’t leave. We can, we can figure it out together!”

“There’s no time,” Hyunjin hisses, glancing back nervously at the trail behind them. “We have to do this now!”

“Together.” Eight heads turned to face Cupid, hand straining against the pull of the water. Their voice bled between the echoed call and raw humanity. “I know why they told me to ask for your help. If we do it together, we’ll be okay.”

“How do you know?” Jeongin hated the way fear lived in his words but he couldn’t help it. He really was that kind of coward, wasn’t he.

“I’ve been watching you guys, all this time. I keep saying it but you guys are something else. Really, I’ve never even heard of a group as rambunctious as you are.” A nervous ripple of laughter. “But that’s what going to make this work. The fact that you’re different.”

“That you,” they said with a nod to Chan, “are so kind and patient and respectful. You’re always worrying about other people, spending time on their needs more than your own. Seems to me like you could afford to be a little more selfish.” They continued on before Chan had a chance to sputter a counter argument. “And you, you’re so easy going but I know that’s because you know responsibility. You know when it’s your fault and when you need to apologize. You take everything seriously, and treat things delicately when you need to.” Minho looked a bit sour faced, as if offended he was being complimented.

“I can honestly say I understand how you feel,” they murmured to Changbin. “That your love, or his love, is so strong it feels too heavy to carry. And yet you do. You push yourself because you know there’s good in everyone and everything deserves a chance.” A laugh broke out from the Cupid as they rounded on Hyunjin. “Don’t look so scared! You were one of the most annoying but I know.” Their voice softened. “I know you cared so much. And you still do. You’re a protector, even if you try to pick fights. You shuffled girls away at parties so they wouldn’t get into trouble. You broke up a bar fight because it almost hit someone uninvolved. You’re kind too.” Hyunjin pressed his lips together but said nothing.

“And you, gosh you’re just so full of joy and fun. You love playing around but you’re so attentive to everyone around you, always making sure they’re involved. And you want to learn so badly don’t you? That’s amazing. I hope you get to.” Jisung’s grin was too wide for the situation but he was glowing under the attention and praise. How often did he get to hear it after all? Felix twitched as he was spoken to. “You were so in control of yourself somehow. You never overstepped and you always knew how much was enough. And where to get help. You’re warm and attentive and I know whatever desire brought you to life, it was one filled with a sweet love.”

“You, gods, you’re one of the smartest beings I know, angels, demons, humans and all. But not just that, you’re funny and involved, always ready to share your information for anyone who cares to learn. I admire that about you, that enthusiasm for knowledge. It makes you powerful.” The words made Seungmin look down at his hands, twist them in front of his stomach. “And finally, you. You think you’re a coward—” Jeongin flinched. “But you’re not. You’re young but you have so much potential. You’re still growing and even as I watched you, you grew so much. You were curious about humans right? I was too. I think...” Cupid swallows thickly, fingers a mere flick away from the water now. “I think you’ll get to learn more now. All of you. You’re different and that’s why this will work.”

And then they plunged their hand into the water and gasped, teetering like they were going to collapse. Felix surged forward again, followed closely by the others, but Cupid didn’t need to be caught. They didn’t fall, instead rooted in place, eyes glossed over as if seeing too far. Cupid didn’t tell the boys what to do but the logical move was to try and touch them. Felix whimpered as Chan reached out first, grasping Cupid’s shoulder.

Immediately he stiffened, unable to even gasp though it was clear something was running through his body and it was causing him so much pain. Jisung grabbed next, Cupid’s free hand, squeezing his eyes shut. It didn’t take long for the others to touch, each feeling immeasurable terror and warmth and loss and comfort. Love, eternity. Built into the lives of those who chose to live every day.

Slowly, the burden eased on them. It felt less like being drowned in a storm or rattled by an earthquake, and more like an enveloping. Cupid shuddered as the fountain seemed to flow through them to the incubi. Forever was a foreign concept for incubi. Ever changing bodies, partners, never knowing home. Even their births and deaths weren’t dictated by their own will. So to feel eternity coursing through them, was just. Indescribable.

Cupid shuddered again. The nectar. They had to get the nectar and put it into the fountain. It was in a small flask hanging from the belt they wore around their dress, but with one hand in the water and the other clasped in Jisung’s, how were they supposed to get it? As if on cue, Changbin reached forward and grabbed it, and Jeongin helped uncap it. Then it was passed into Chan’s hands and he, with great effort, managed to tip it into the water.

Gold. The water flared gold and the room was flooded with light. Distantly, there sounded some kind of shrill shriek. As the light faded, the top of the fountain stopped burbling. They all watched as the top opens like a flower, layers of stone peeling away to reveal a pearl. A pretty thing, pale pink like the sunrise.

With a symphony of cries, the group stumbles back, Cupid’s hand coming out of the water with a wrench. They pant for a moment, Hyunjin and Changbin collapsing not soon after into a crumpled heap on the ground. The rest looked shocked but Cupid suspected those two had tried to control the flow of energy, take more into themselves so the others would be okay. It was stupid but Cupid was grateful for it, because now that their head wasn’t clouded by the fountain, they could sense the other Cupid’s coming. Sprinting down the trail, screaming bloody murder.

Quickly, Cupid snatched the peak from the altar. But it was like the crystal before. It whispered to them, warming their fingers. Put me back, it said, honey words dipped in poison. Put me back and let me be and one day you too will join us, join in our ranks and you will be so powerful. Your words will raise cities, your hands will mold the damned.

“No,” Seungmin croaked, wobbling forward to grab Cupid’s wrist. “No we need... we need to smash it.”

“I can’t,” Cupid whispered, hands shaking around it. “I can’t.”

“You can,” Jeongin said, grabbing Cupid’s other wrist.t “You can. You’re not a coward. You’re stronger than you think you are. You can do this.”

“And you’re not alone.” Jisung cupped his hands around Cupid’s, giving a smile though it’s more an exhausted grimace. Behind him, facing the doorway, were Chan and Felix and Minho, preparing to fight. Jisung shifted to block Cupid’s view. “We’re here. You brought us together and we’re finishing it. For everyone who came before us and everyone who will come after. C’mon angel, let’s do it.”

Cupid heaved a breath. “Together.” For a moment, Jisung’s face contorted in confusion but then he nodded. One of Seungmin’s hands came up just as Jeongin’s did to add a third layer around the pearl.

The pearl still sang but it was getting weaker. With every pair of hands that joined, it faded. Hyunjin’s, then Changbin’s. Minho, Felix, Chan. Standing together, huddled around this pearl that was the size of a baseball. They each looked at each other before turning their gazes to Cupid. Together.

Cupid took a breath, clenching their hands around the pearl. When they had broken the crystal, they had tools to use. But they didn’t have anything now, nothing but themselves and the incubi and a hoard of very angry angels coming to tear them all to pieces. So honestly, Cupid had no clue how they were supposed to shatter the pearl. But as the squeezed, slowly but surely, they could feel the pearl start to crack and ooze. Shrieking came from the doorway, horrible and loud and so close and for a moment, Cupid thought that maybe they hadn’t made it in time. But just as their hands loosened, Jisung’s hands tightened. As did everyone else’s. They kept pushing, sweat beading on their foreheads like this was harder than just crushing.

The pearl continued to crackle and ooze, translucent liquid pooling on the ground below. Cupid felt sharp spikes of pain in their back, just where their wings would be. Sobs burst from their throat, unbidden and they were unable to hold them back because it just hurt so much. They knew this would happen, one way or another. The wings were shrivelling, feathers fluttering to the ground and then disintegrating into ash. This was it. They were really doing this.

“One more,” Cupid heard murmured, though by who they couldn’t tell. “C’mon, one more hard push.”

Everyone seemed to take a collective inhale and then pressed their hands as hard as possible. With a loud crack, the pearl broke into pieces, covering everyone’s hands in fluid.

It’s like the birth of a star. Sudden, explosive and bright. The first few angels that reached the doorway scream, their feathers rapidly greying as they aged. Cupid couldn’t exactly see everything, white spots dancing around in their vision, but what they did see they never wanted to again. It was worse than even the stories of the first demons, the tactics they used in war. Cupid looked down at their hands. The silvery liquid shined, like blood. Blood on the hands of a fallen angel.

Then they looked around at the incubi, who were... fuzzy? It was hard to tell what was a result of falling from grace and what was actually happening. Were they being rejected by the hosts? If so, they had to get out of there fast. But how? The path was blocked by dying angels.

Cupid shivered as the moon reached its peak. The fountain of eternity bubbled to life again, slow and quiet at first then gushing like an open wound. Water fell from the fountain into the floor, starting to fill the room. Cupid could only watch in horror as the water lapped first at their feet, stealing their energy, taking it. One by one the incubi fell, starting with the weakest in Hyunjin and Changbin and ending in the strongest in Minho and Jeongin. And Cupid too, could feel unconsciousness threaten to take them. But what could they do? They couldn’t just grab the incubi and try to run. They weren’t an angel anymore. Hell they weren’t even a cupid anymore. Before long, they too were crumpling into the water and letting it wash over them.

[mst3kproject]

The Strange World of Planet X

The Strange World of Planet X, also known as Cosmic Monsters, was released on a double bill with The Crawling Eye and stars Forrest Tucker of the same.  It’s got a giant spider and a deep-voiced 50’s narrator droning about the terrors of the atomic age, in a film so dry all my plants shriveled up and my contact lenses adhered to my eyeballs.

Mad Dr. Laird, with the help of his assistants Gil and Michele, is baking things in intense magnetic fields in order to rearrange the molecules and turn metal into putty – the general idea is that someday this will allow them to melt enemy planes right out from under their pilots. Would that melt the pilots, too? Gross.  At the same time and perhaps related, flying saucers are being sighted over Britain and a mysterious man named Mr. Smith is wandering around in the woods and getting worryingly chummy with local children.  After a lot of standing around and talking, Smith reveals that he is from outer space and has come to warn us that Laird’s magnetic fields are tearing apart the Earth’s ionosphere, letting in cosmic rays that will mutate humans into murderers and insects into giants!

Since my last ETNW was fairly well-paced and entertaining, the law of averages tells us that this one’s gonna be a real turd, and sure enough… remember all my griping about how Radar Secret Service was literally unwatchable, as in I could not force myself to keep looking at it?  The Strange World of Planet X is like that but with a British accent.  Most of it is just ugly gray people in ugly gray rooms, droning on about whatever at far greater length than necessary.  Everybody sounds like they’re reading their lines off cue cards, the photography was awful to begin with and the degraded print makes it really hard to tell what the hell is going on. Fuck this movie.

The film’s general insufferability is made all the worse because normally giant bug movies are among my favourite types of crappy old sci fi.  What could possibly be more fun than giant grasshoppers crawling all over postcards of Chicago?  If the bug bits were fun, that would go a long way towards saving this one, but of course, they’re terrible.  It’s mostly too dark to even see the giant insects, and when we do see them, they’re nothing but close-ups of live (and sometimes dead) roaches and grasshoppers.  Only a couple of shots even attempt to composite them in with live actors and those are so dark and blurry that it frankly wasn’t worth the effort.

The other main ‘effect’ in the movie is a couple of flying saucers.  These are unidentifiable white blobs when far away, and ridiculous tinfoil models dangling from strings up close.  The pie pans in Plan 9 from Outer Space are worse… but not by much.

What should be the most exciting part of the film is the battle in the woods between the soldiers and the giant bugs, but it’s mishandled in the same sort of way as the supposedly climactic fight in Invasion of the Neptune Men.  There’s no narrative or any characters we care about – just soldiers running around shooting at things.  Where are they?  How close are they to the town?  Are there civilians in peril?  We don’t know.  To be effective on screen, a battle needs a story.  The battle in Army of Darkness is about the need to protect the Necronomicon.  We can see the Deadites getting closer to the tower, as Ash pulls out more and more ridiculous secret weapons to keep them back.  The Strange World of Planet X is just random people and bugs, not even in the same shot.

There is some half-decent magnetosphere science in the movie, I guess.  The Earth’s magnetic field does protect us from the harsh radiation of outer space, although all the most harmful components of that come from the sun rather than from further afield, and such radiation can damage DNA.  This is why the ozone layer was such a big deal in the 80’s. This space radiation is much more likely to give bugs cancer than to make them grow huge, but in a movie I can handle that.  The really weird thing here is that, because they say it screens out the heaviest of the cosmic rays, they call the ionosphere the ‘heavyside layer’.  I would not have thought it possible that Cats could make less sense and yet here we are.

If you want some proper Crap Movie Science, there’s their explanation of how the monsters grew so big – mutations for size were able to pile up quickly because insects breed fast and therefore evolve fast.  I guess this makes more sense than individuals growing out of control as a result of whatever… but they appear to have applied it to a whole range of creatures regardless of their actual life cycles. Some insects do breed quickly, but quite a few of them have specific seasons and conditions for it.  This feels like a nitpick, though… I mean, by watching a giant bug movie I’ve already accepted that they can become huge so I should probably just shut up.

As an interesting note, Smith mentions that on his home planet there are giant dragonflies.  He doesn’t say how giant, though he implies they’re big enough to ride on. Firstly, man, I wanna ride a giant dragonfly!  Second, this tells us that Smith’s home planet has more oxygen in its atmosphere than Earth, because the reason insects can’t get bigger than they do is because they don’t actively breathe, but have to let oxygen diffuse into their tissues on its own (this is why there were six foot millipedes during the Carboniferous era — more oxygen in the air). The writers, sadly, do not seem to have known or cared about this, since Smith himself shows no signs of having to adjust to our atmosphere.  Missed opportunity there.

Since this is me, of course I’m gonna talk about how the movie treats women. Click the back button now. There are several female characters in The Strange World of Planet X, and while they're pretty bland they do manage to have conversations with each other about things besides men, and the honest impression I get is that the writers are trying really hard not to be assholes.  The first woman we meet is Michele, who has been assigned as Dr. Laird’s new computer operator after the previous one was electrocuted in a lab accident.  When he learns that the replacement is a woman, Laird complains about it loudly, protesting that ‘this is skilled work!’, and Gil gripes that female scientists are dour and unattractive.  Michele, of course, proves them both wrong – she is both brilliant and pretty, the latter mostly so that she can be Gil’s love interest but also at least in part to shatter the stereotype. It's thanks to movies like this setting the precedent that modern films are up to their eyeballs in hot but useless science women… but like I said, they tried.

The script is actually at great pains to emphasize that Michele is intelligent, educated, and the equal of any of the men, at least where science is concerned. Unfortunately, its way of going about it is to have them praise her for every little thing she says and does, to the point where it starts to sound awfully patronizing.  They call her ‘clever girl’ like she’s six years old and it frequently comes across as their complimenting her intelligence in order to deflect when she asks awkward questions.

Naturally there’s a love triangle in this movie.  It appears only to be immediately and peacefully resolved, and Gil’s rival for Michele’s affections is dead shortly thereafter. Why fucking bother?

A tad better-treated is Jane, the little girl fascinated by arthropods (she describes them as ‘bugs’, saying all insects are bugs, but not all bugs are insects.  While entomologically incorrect, this same definition of bug was used by David Attenborough in Micro Monsters, so I’m okay with it).  One of the reasons I think the writers were earnestly trying to be feminist is because they place a girl in this role rather than a boy.  Susan Redway isn’t any better than any of the other actors, but the character was definitely written by somebody who knew what appeals to children.  I love the bit where Jane promises to show her new teacher her favourite type of beetle, delightedly informing her, “they’re horrid-looking!”

The teacher, Miss Forsyth, is another attempt to buck a stereotype. Jane complains that she hated her previous teacher, who was appalled by her interest in crawly things.  Miss Forsythe makes a good first impression by encouraging her instead.  Again, this feels like the writers really were trying.  They want to say that the right thing to do here is to support Jane’s interests and ambitions, and someday perhaps she’ll be a talented entomologist, just as Michele is a computer whiz.

From a twenty-first century point of view, this makes for an odd contrast with one of the other notable features of how women are portrayed in this movie – they don’t come alone.  Adult women in The Strange World of Planet X must have a male partner, and if they don’t start out with one they will be assigned one! Michele pairs up with Gil, and Miss Forsythe accepts a date with the man who saved her from one of the mutants.  This second budding relationship has no effect on the story and indeed is never referenced again, it’s just there.  All the other women we meet are either dating or married… although now that I think of it this may be less sexist than it is a way to make a point of Dr. Laird’s single-minded obsession with his work. Everybody else, even scientists, has time to be a human being – but not him.

I should also discuss one more interesting tidbit offered by Smith. He says his people have been watching humanity and studying us basically since we invented ourselves, and they have never interfered before now.  Why now? Out of ‘enlightened self-interest’, he says – this is the closest humans have yet come to destroying ourselves, but it’s also the closest we’ve come to being a threat to our extraterrestrial observers.  One of Dr. Laird’s experiments, intended to destroy enemy planes, brought down a flying saucer instead!  The fact that Smith is willing to admit this suggests that he is extremely confident about the aliens’ ability to strike back if humanity should decided to start shooting down saucers on purpose.  The finale then bears this out… although it also left me thinking that the film could have ended very differently if only hacking had been a thing in the fifties!

So yet another instance of good ideas, unexplored and badly executed.  Also yet another black and white movie… what is that, six in a row?  Yikes.  See you in ten days, when I promise I will have something for you in colour.  It’ll be like slogging through the beginning of Season Eight and then finally arriving at The Giant Spider Invasion!

[storiesofwildfire]

Nothing More than Assets

{ @colddisobedience -- continued from (x) }

⚔️ - “I couldn’t appear so easy, could I?”

Despite the deadpan nature of his tone Winter is smiling, just a faint thing on his lips that grows as Wildfire almost bashfully inclines his head. Assessing eyes note the change, just the hint of a flush on cheeks, genuine in his reaction though Winter knows well enough that Wildfire can play even the most cynical if the other ex-asset chose. Yet, they’d never felt inclined to lie to him. Perhaps because it would only do more damage than good, or because Winter had always been inclined to take hard truths rather than pretty illusions.

It’s a shame to have shattered it with the knife but they had to be quick. Efficient. Though Wildfire does not scream the sharp inhale is just as guilt ridden for the other and Winter looks to him in quiet sympathy, knowing well enough how digging these from his skin feels.

It had been an order, long past, that should he feel he was going to be beaten Winter was to rid of any trace of Hydra from himself. Allow his arm to be shattered beyond use, cut the tracker from his throat. Self disposal to avoid replication, a last resort, but one they’d trained him for all the same.

What good is a unique asset if every side had one? He was to be there’s or no ones.

Well, he had been. Now Winter finds himself with no handler and his priorities laying on chance, a risky manoeuvre but he trusts his partners orders, his partners instinct. Loki always seemed to know who spoke wrongly and he always seemed to know just where they needed to be. Call it magic, tactic or talent he didn’t care. All Winter cared about was them both making it out of this alive.

Still the lingering question remained of just what they would do after. After they had run, after they had escaped. He was not trained for civilian living and despite it all Winter liked the fight. It kept him busy, kept him strong. What would he do without the war and without battle?

The sound of his partners voice pulls him from the thought, tilting his head as Winters gaze fell to the small stain of red across pale skin. Gone with a wave of a hand, just like that. Without Hydra’s command, their control, the soldier had to question just how far Wildfire’s magic could extend, develop and flourish.

It was going to be unlike anything they could hope to weaponise and whilst Winter may wonder on his tomorrow he was Russian. Today was all that mattered now and a day with Wildfire would never be uninteresting.

“I wouldn’t hurt you without good reason, and even then I would make it quick. навредить своему доверенному значит навредить себе.”

The compliment has him raising both eyebrows, frowning down at himself for a moment. He’d liked the reds and silvers, though now they’d be too recognisable. Too much of a link to who he was and who he had been.

The blue is nice, a change the same way he’d change in the choice to defect. Wildfire liking it brings a small sort of smugness to his chest, jutting up his chin and offering a wink before Winter gives them both a final look, no more chances to take another path.

“Thank you.”

There’s a moment of eye contact before Winter is moving again, no time now for sentimentality. It would have to come later, as it often must, because there and then their countdown had ended and just as his feet hit the floor. Tucked easily beneath him to roll from the impact, moving to stand and tug Wildfire from the eruption of flames - their life was gone.

It’s an odd thing to see change happen before your eyes. Even as his expression falls into one of horror and he links his fingers with the others, melting back quickly into a screaming, hectic crowd his gaze settles on burning pillars and crumbling rubble. An echo of sound in his ears as the blast settles into only human sounds.

He thinks he should feel some sort of fear, regret, sadness. Hydra had been his creation, his second chance. Winter doesn’t feel any of that, what he feels is strange. A quickening heart and tightening of fingers against the ones in his. Maybe it’s hopeful but he’d ponder on that later, stepping back in a way that may be mistaken for a stumble and turning sharply. Ducking his head to push through already flailing bodies, clearing a tight path towards the alleyway they needed.

“I am with you, let’s go.”

There are tears and there is chaos, there always is when something like this came so violently. Hydra was clean typically. Bloody, brutal, but clean. The likelihood of civilian injury is minimal without his intervention and Winter side steps emergency personnel, pressing himself and Wildfire to the wall. First responders couldn’t be trusted, none of them could. They would be looking for remains or a trail it was better to be gone.

Winter is silent as they move, not wanting for any surrounding technology to be searching for voices. Instead he keeps his goal on their corner, ducking amongst the survivors and the curious, finally catching sight of the darker quiet.

He motions back, pushes forward and steps around the corner of brick. Breathing slowly so that his heartbeat remains even, letting the look of panic collapse into something colder, calmer. Letting Wildfire move closer to the back for the space he’d need to work his magic with Winter as the shield between them. Old habits die hard.

Winter goes to speak for a second before the sound of footsteps has him mentioning for silence, drawing back further and watching as a small family hurries past. The mother clutching her child whilst the father calls for aid. He has a hand on the knife as his thigh as he waits for their voices to fade, the quiet sound of turning gears their only companion - it’s done simply enough, no threat yet.

“Are you alright?”

Wildfire had been the cause of this. Of the crowds, the fire, everything he knew gone and dead. Laying in a burning street mere steps from them yet he can’t help but grin, manic maybe, shock from everything going on but there’s excitement as well. Relief to know they’d gotten their first success.

Now to survive the rest of the way, find a safe home, enough to get them stable as they began to search for information. Searching for themselves.

It’s something he never cared to do, really. Still, it would be better to know.  

“We need a plan from here. I have no contacts that are not Hydra, unless you do we have to be cautious. We’ll need to scout for a place to lay down low for a few days. Somewhere away from here.”

♔—- His feet hit the ground and absorbed the impact in a way even a super soldier would not be able to handle. Wildfire’s body had been built to handle so much damage, the ground gave way to him rather than the other way around. Small cracks and a decent sized pothole were left behind in the pavement, though Winter’s hand grasping at his own, pulling him away from the building as it erupted into flames, kept him from lingering in the ruined concrete for more than a few seconds.

Even still, the damage he’d done to the road was remarkable, and really, something Wildfire often wondered... Did that strength and durability belong to him? Or had it somehow been given to him somehow? 

Hydra prided itself on Winter, on creating the perfect asset that stood above the rest, indicating that he had, at one point, been a more average human as far as abilities went. Hydra molded him to be something they deemed better, but that... did not seem accurate when it came to Wildfire. They were often so perplexed by him, so unable to maintain their hold on him, and so desperate to duplicate the results of something Loki could do with little more than willing it into existence...

If the magic was his, surely everything else was as well? He’d been found, taken, and weaponized in their favor but not altered in any way other than what they attempted to do to his mind.

Emerald eyes lingered on the building for a moment, as the sound of the explosion gave way to the panicked screams of the civilians and crumbling rubble as the building collapsed in on itself. Loki’s tracker had been atop that building, still on the rooftop when flames engulfed the entire structure. While he did not believe for a second that Hydra would be fooled into believing they were dead for long, there was still a chance that, for a little while, they would have to disprove the theory that Winter and Wildfire had gone up in the explosion. 

It wasn’t much, but it was enough time to give them a headstart, time to teleport away, put distance between this place and them, and find shelter where they could lie low for a while in attempts to get their bearings. 

Unsettling, though, that the sounds of terror and chaos that ran rampant through the streets did nothing to the former asset. It did not instill a feeling of guilt or panic or even disruption. He would have blocked it out in its entirety had it not been so loud. Eardrums pounding, Loki winced at the piercing cacophony, but otherwise held tightly to Winter’s hand, refusing to allow a single thing to separate them.

Multiple people tried, not on purpose, but out of sheer desperation to get as far away from the source of the panic as possible, but every time someone attempted to shove between them, Wildfire only pressed closer to his partner, refusing to give way for anyone or any reason. 

They moved quickly and efficiently as possible through the panicked crowd, though as emergency vehicles arrived, Wildfire found himself pressed firmly against the wall of a still-standing building, the entrance to their needed alleyway not too far to their left. Ducking his head, Wildfire pressed his forehead into Winter’s shoulder, his free hand gripping tightly at the newly gifted clothing that clung to the other asset’s torso. A look that, to anyone passing by who actually paid them any mind, would appear as a couple moving as far out of the way of both the first responders and the flailing crowds as possible. Fear radiated off of the image, one half of the couple desperately burying themselves against the other while their other half attempted to shield them from further danger while offering them as much comfort as possible.

There was no fear to hide, but Wildfire knew as well as Winter, first responders could not be trusted. They very well could have been Hydra agents in disguise, hoping to get to the scene of their assets before the general public could.

Hiding in plain sight had become one of Wildfires best abilities, after all. 

Only once the emergency vehicles passed and no one paid them any mind did they dare push their way to the entrance of that tiny alley. Winter ushered him in first, blocking the crowds behind them from getting to him as he slipped between the two buildings, making his way as far back in the dimmed lighting of the alleyway as he could.

He turned back to speak, but Winter’s signaling for silence, and he’s taken a protective stance that very much indicates he’s willing to use his own body as a barricade between Wildfire and anyone who might enter.

A little family rushed by the entrance of the alleyway, a mother and her child, followed by a man the ex-asset assumed to be the father. For some reason, that image stirred something inside of him, a longing that he couldn’t hope to understand, a gaping hole that was missing in his heart--a child, perhaps? Did he have one? 

The sight of a family desperately trying to remove themselves from the chaos, calling for help as they rushed along, was the first thing to make Loki feel anything at all outside of understanding the importance of Winter and his escape. The urge to push past Winter and assist them came with surprising intensity and for a moment, he stared after them, even as their images faded from view and their voices could no longer be heard. Discipline kept him rooted in place, but something begged for him to go after them.

“Yes...” he murmured, though his mouth ran dry. He had to lick his lips before he could continue and even that hadn’t seemed to help much. “Yes, of course, I’m all right. And you?”

Forcing his gaze to focus on Winter again, Loki’s brief lapse of getting lost in... something... faded, replaced with an easy smile. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been proud or even all right with the destruction and chaos that lingered in the streets behind them, but if it meant getting away from Hydra? It was worth it.

“I don’t have any contacts, at least... none that I can remember, but it never takes long for some of my memories to resurface. Without Hydra’s interference, I hope I can remember something that will give us an edge. I think--” A little frown tugged at his lips. Images of that family came back to him, followed by brief flashes of a massive expanse of water. A sea or an ocean, though Loki could not identify where the image came from or why it’d been triggered by the young family. Gods, he didn’t even really know where the image was located, but it was better than nothing.

“I think we should get as close as we can to the coast,” he finally said, reaching forward to take Winter’s hand again. “We’ll discuss everything once we’re far away from here, all right? Just close your eyes. This will be a bit disorienting, but it’ll be even worse if you keep your eyes open.”

Even as he spoke, energy poured out of his fingertips, brushing past Winter in an almost gentle caress, as if Loki’s magic wanted to place a gentle kiss against Winter’s aura that would result in an all-over tingling sensation. It didn’t linger on the soldier, though, instead of moving to fill the empty space around them both, cocooning them in a cyclone of power that pulsated and slowly began to spin around them, blurring their surroundings until nothing was distinguishable from one another.