2717/Rise Up While You Can

Rise Up While You Can
Date of Scene:	06 October 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Captain America, Winter Soldier, Mercy Thompson, Sam Winchester, Claire Temple

---

Captain America has posed:
SHIELD quarantine has layers of security that rival the rest of the building. There'd certainly been flack for bringing a bit child into the facility, yet Steve Rogers held his ground. But thus far, there have been no breaches or problems associated with that choice.

The quarantine section itself is surrounded by two way glass, giving relatively easy access to the patient, and the ability to always assess her while leaving a barrier around themselves. The six year old looks incredibly small on her bed. Her arm is hooked to an IV giving her fluids and painkiller to help manage her fever. Since arriving, she's actually improved. The fever has dropped some, but undoubtedly, she's fighting a bug.

A large lab bench outside, complete with various instruments has several scientists already going about their work.

Steve frowns. "She's just a kid," he murmurs to no one in particular. He cringes slightly and just rolls his eyes. "Is all of this really necessary?" the layers of protection. He understands the precautions, but compassion demands fewer barriers.

Winter Soldier has posed:
It was difficult for Bucky to be in these parts of SHIELD: quarantines, labs, medical facilities. Shatter-proof glass, hospital beds, IVs, the quiet beep of monitors, and the smell of antiseptic... to him, these sights, sounds, and smells are the sights, sounds, and smells of waking up from freeze. Of struggling up from long, dreamless sleeps to find himself in another decade, frost on his lashes and ice crystallized in his hair, woken to a wholly new world yet expected to do the exact same thing. Kill.

He's as far away from the lab bench, and all its gleaming instruments, as he can get. He avoids looking at it as much as possible, his posture defensive and drawn in, his arms folded tightly across his chest.

He's obviously here for a very good reason, if this place is making him that uncomfortable, and that reason is the little girl in the bed. He watches her with inscrutable attentiveness. Steve's question draws his eyes; he frowns, shaking his head, his gaze returning to the girl. "Has she even been awake since she came in?" he wonders.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Layers of security. Likely that causes Mercy's arrival to be a touch slower than she'd currently like, but eventually after some confirmation and clarification, the mechanic is allowed through. "Thanks." The coyote says to the final guard that's processed her past the last check-point, "Appreciate it." Which is the truth, she does appreciate it. That appreciation, however, doesn't mean Mercy isn't feeling some frustration with the whole process. It's enough that Mercy gives herself a little shake to try and dispell such feelings.

Once inside, Mercy can't quite stop the look she turns toward the room at large, before her gaze lands upon the actual quarantine portion of the room. Several familiar figures are immediately seen by Mercy, which automatically causes the coyote to stride towards them.

When close enough, Mercy will give the assembled a quick nod in greeting. "Hey." Mercy says quietly, perhaps in deference to the medical ward around them, and the young girl behind that two-way glass. "Got here as quick as I could."

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam isn't entirely sure he's got anything in his very particular skillset to help this girl. But he wants to. He has largely ignored all the crap and flack, finding his opinion of people who though 'shoot girl in head or leave her to die' was the answer plummeting to sub-basement levels. Ditto the 'just bomb the place' crowd. It smacks of people who have gotten their priorities mixed up, who have forgotten, in his opinion, what all the damned high tech equipment, research facilities, and legal authority ought to be //about//.

It makes him wonder, yet again, if scoundrels and thieves aren't somehow actually the right people for the job he does, capable of addressing things that go bump in the night in a way G-men never will be.

He is leaning up against the wall with a SHIELD-issued tablet (it's easy to tell, because the damned logo is on the back of the thing), in his crisp white dress shirt and slacks. His tie and jacket are //somewhere//, he knows not where, and his sleeves are rolled up, though only to the three-quarters mark. He always comes in wearing a suit, and when he has to interview people he gets his stuff put back in place, but eventually he manages to migrate back to 'giant Kansas farmboy just out of church.' His first several buttons are unbuttoned.

He hasn't tried to get in past the quarantine, and he lifts his fingers in greeting to Mercy, hip resting against the wall. But his hazel eyes are fixated on his screen. His mouth is set into a thin line of frustration. If there's //any// lore which might help here he's determined to find it, but the lore hasn't been super useful so far past what he's already postulated. And if this in fact has nothing at all to do with anything supernatural? He doesn't even have anything to add to the girl's fate except well wishes and moral support.

Claire Temple has posed:
One of those many scientists and technicians, scrubbed and gloved and masked, lingers a little too long at the little girl's bedside.

Between her dark skin, familiar eyes, and the TEMP tag clipped to her sleeve, it looks undoubtedly Claire Temple, whom -- despite her non-agent status with SHIELD -- has won a place behind the glass due to her position in the rescue, the backing of Steve Rogers, and her own merits as the covertly-known night nurse.

The woman hunkers her height down a little, apparently speaking to the child, and those the mask hides the movement of her lips, her eyes are soft. Only at the last moment, they cut away -- seeing for herself the growing congregation of familiar faces.

Claire pulls away and notifies to the others her intent to take a break.

It is not long for her to move through quarantine -- thanks to some intermediary room that blasts a cloud of /something/ to kill all foreign agents -- and the woman emerges, demasked and degloved, her lips pressing in quiet greeting. "Hey, guys. She seems to be doing a lot better."

Captain America has posed:
Steve's hands drop to his sides. His eyes trail towards Bucky, lingering there several beats. Statuesque stillness meets unquestionable tension. His head turns towards the door separating them from the little girl on the bed. Steve certainly hasn't been here the whole time. He's come back and forth, but the personnel have given him updates.

"She's in and out from what I understand," he replies to Bucky's question. "But the out isn't peaceful." It's been fitful and stirring and altogether unsettled.

His jaw tightens some, but Mercy receives a tired smile when she joins the others. "Sorry. I should've met you at the entrance," he might've been able to make the process easier. Maybe. Probably not. Accessing this child has proven challenging. Probably because the public would be angry if they knew she was taken out of the quarantine zone.

Putting scientists into the quarantine zone to deal with the problem and help treat the illness seemed like a terrible idea. Especially when these facilities exist in this location. When she appears. Claire earns a warmer smile and a small nod. "Thank you for helping with this. I know we don't have a lot of leads, but I'm hoping that just by being /here/ she can help push things forward."

"Sam, you find anything about an illness like this? You said a lot of things in there about... " his lips quirk "...magic? And that something could be controlling them. What would be involved in that process?"

Winter Soldier has posed:
Bucky absorbs Steve's answer in silence. His jaw tightens, and he glances back towards the girl in the bed. His blue eyes are dim with some distant memory, as he stands in what almost seems a quiet sentinel. He's seeing something in this little girl, something that digs deep into his own past.

Besides, she saw him as a hero. It has been years since he was seen that way, and ninety percent of the time he does not think he can ever be seen that way again, but sometimes he has a small hope he can someday deserve to be.

His eyes turn towards Mercy as she arrives, a brief inclination of his head offered, but his attention returns back to the girl soon enough. It doesn't deviate again until Claire breaks away from the knot of labcoats, and then his blue gaze follows her up until she emerges and delivers that update.

He holds his silence for now, but his narrowed eyes and tense stance speak plainly of his mood.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
That finger wave from Sam earns a flash of a smile in return from the coyote, but the mood being what it is, soon pulls the coyote's attention away. As does the activity within the glass enclosed room.

While Mercedes Thomspon can't quite say she was necessarily given the full scoop over the phone, she's been told enough to be concerned. Especially for those within the room.

"Hey, Claire." Mercy says simply, before her attention shifts over to Bucky and then Steve, when the Captain speaks. His apology over not meeting her at the door is waved aside. "No worries, I got through just fine. It's all good." Comes her quick acknowledgement, then Mercy's expression turns thoughtful at the Captain's next words.

Magic.

That's enough to pull the coyote's gaze away from the group and back to the girl held within that quarantined area. While the glass and its various hazmat-like seals block the majority of her sense of smell, when Claire exits there's enough of an air current to bring forth some of the scent held within. The scent alone causes a flare of nostrils from Mercy, but before she can remark upon whatever it is she caught, her attention shifts further away. The mechanic's brown-eyes now narrow slightly as she stretches out her more other-worldly senses. The kind that can pick up things not seen, or smelled, by more human means. And while it may take a moment, eventually, Mercy can feel the smallest mote of something within the young girl. Upon sensing that, Mercy shifts her eyes back to the group at large.

A grimness can be seen reflected upon Mercy's features, "There's something there. Something that's magic." She confirms, "Not a lot, but enough for me to sense."

Sam Winchester has posed:
Mercy's confirmation causes Sam to nod thoughtfully. "I'm glad you could confirm that, Mercy--I was worried that theory was wasting everyone's time."

Now that he's basically in a world where it's not //always// magic.

He looks up from his tablet, scanning each face. He finally lands on Steve's, since he asked a direct question.

"Here's the thing: the possibility of magic only explains why the resurrected dead are wandering around, Cap. So far I can't find jack on why they're all getting dead in the first place," Sam says in frustration. "If it was the magic that was killing them, I think Mercy would have sensed a lot more just now. If there is a mambo or a bokun or someone similar in the city somewhere it could be as simple as them taking a bad situation and opportunistically making it worse by raising everyone who dies of-- I don't know, anthrax in the water or whatever kills entire towns in the modern age."

This doesn't stop him from continuing to dig and look; thorough research is pretty much the name of his game. "At this point I'm scouring news instead of lore, looking for similar cases or smaller cases which might point to part of the answer. I've taken it back a good five decades or so, just to see if anything interesting comes up. If that doesn't dig anything up I'm going to see what I can learn about Raccoon in particular..."

He shakes his head. It's how he works, but he already suspects it's not going to net the whole answer. Won't stop him from doing it though.

Claire Temple has posed:
It's Bucky who earns Claire's attention first -- that steely tension to him, that of someone who very much doesn't want to be here in many way, while honour and other far more powerful things dictate he stay.

She says nothing, but her hand finds his right shoulder, a light touch that tries to soothe.

"Merce," Claire replies fondly to the coyote's greeting, before her eyes linger over to Steve. His thank-you is met with a gentling of her face. "Hey, whatever I can do. I'll stick with this to the end if they'll let me. I think, at least on the medical side of things, it looks viral. Nothing in the medical textbooks either. Not that I'm being told much either, and I'm no virologist. I just want to get an eye on what symptoms crop up, if any. Maybe with aggressive treatment, it just takes the body's interferon to fight it off. Maybe it goes dormant. Maybe something else."

But with what Mercy now smells --

"Who the hell knows with magic in the picture," adds Claire, pulling a hand through the heavy waves of her hair.

Much more Sam's wheelhouse, she listens -- a little bemused that she's even starting to recognize some of those words he says. Reading those notes are paying off.

"We might need to go back," she proposes, voice low. "With Mercy -- see if we can't follow her nose to the source of something."

Captain America has posed:
While Bucky maintains silence, Steve reads his brother; his chin drops into a small nod, a kind of honorific acknowledgment. And then, as if needing to defend the decision to bring her back to a whole new crowd, he reasserts, "The staff is good. It's a world class medical facility. She's in good hands." Even if she's behind glass--a fact that continues to bother Steve's sensibilities--at least she's here. His hands clench at his sides. There's no question, he won't be able to rationalize away this level of quarantine.

His jaw tenses and his eyes sweep back towards Mercy when she mentions something magic. He considers something and then glances towards the glass door. There's a thought there--one that he doesn't speak aloud, but he can't help but wonder. He still doesn't say it.

Instead, he nods at Sam, "That makes some sense. I don't know much about Raccoon. It certainly wasn't on my radar until, well," he frowns. "And if it's a combination of a virus," he glances towards Claire, "and magic... I guess we need to know if it's opportunistic. Or something else entirely." The latter certainly bodes worse.

He looks back to Claire, "And we're definitely going in again. The sisters," the ones that weren't bit, "in interview they talked about a school not far from the mall. It went into lockdown but last the eldest knew, there were a lot of survivors there. Apparently when things began going south, before the communications shut down, the school... safety... app(???)" this is something he doesn't understand "gave an alert of some kind and had students and teachers lock up and stay in."

On the other side of the glass, blonde ringlets begin to move. The girl has begun to stir. She visibly trembles. Pale fingers grasp the edge of the bed and she sits up. The whites of her eyes have reddened from the stress as blood vessels push to the surface. And the monitors inside buzz and whir with various alerts. Her blood pressure is up--no question. And as she views the room, she blinks hard, eyes welling with tears. "Mommy," she whimpers. She pulls the blankets around her tighter.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Bucky can feel Steve's wordless regard, though he doesn't look up to try to meet it. He only glances at the other man when he catches Steve's movement from his periphery. He absorbs the nod, the corner of his mouth quirks wryly, and then he turns back away and drops his gaze to the floor.

"If she weren't here," Bucky finally breaks his silence, as always backing Steve, "where else?" His left arm grits its steel plates, the shuffle and whine of metal as sure a sign of discontent as the ruffling of a wolf's hackles. "Certainly not dying out where we found her."

His attention tracks immediately to Claire as the woman starts moving, and stays on her until she draws in close enough to rest a hand on his right shoulder. His hackles lower, Bucky gentling visibly out of his taut tension, though his blue eyes remain watchful. Not all the Winter Soldier died when Bucky Barnes came back.

As far as things that wipe out whole towns? "Could be a lotta things," he shrugs. "Disease. Toxins, via any number of delivery systems. Magic." Me.

"...Yeah, need to go back," he concludes presently, shaking off the ugly past that briefly reared in his thoughts. He doesn't say anything about Steve's app confusion, partially out of tact and partially because he's handily distracted when the girl starts to stir. Tension bleeds back into him as he moves towards the glass.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
"Glad to help." Is Mercy's prompt response to Sam's thanks to the confirmation of magic. "There's also something about her scent - something familiar, I just can't place it." Mercy tacks on hastily, that last part mostly muttered, before she quiets when Sam continues to speak. His words are listened to and at several points Mercy nods in agreement with what he says. There might also might be a shake or two of her head at the mention of the walking dead.

Sure, Mercy has seen many magical things recently, but the walking dead? Hardly that.

It's only with the noise of the Winter Soldier's metallic arm that Mercy's gaze turns away from Sam and back to the former Assassin. She looks between Barnes and Claire for a silent second, before she says more to Claire, "Yes, I can likely track it now that I have a sense of it." Her gaze pivots to Steve once more, as he speaks again, "Why doesn't SHIELD send in a relief force?" Mercedes Thompson finally asks, voicing a question that's been in her mind since she received the call to come in. "I get that we have to be careful with the unknown of this sickness, but -"

Something needs to be done. That's what she was about to say, but her words trail off when the girl awakens. While she doesn't step up to the glass, Mercy's expression turns sympathetic, sad.

Sam Winchester has posed:
"Ok, I may have something," Sam says, frowning down at his pad. "Raccoon was an industrial center with a bunch of major corporate offices. One of them was Tychon, a phrmacetical company. Largest in the world. They have a massive R&D department devoted to drugs and vaccines. Could mean they were storing copies of all kinds of viruses in Raccoon. I'm going to make a phone call."

He steps out into the hallway so he doesn't disturb the others, though anyone who wants to hear him can certainly probably do so by virtue of turning their attention in his direction. He's not going far. A quick LinkedIn search to get the Vice President of R&D here in the NYC Office...he dials the number and then uses the dial-by-name directory to get to the right person.

"Hi, this is Agent Winchester, SHIELD," he says, calmly, politely, and with nothing confrontational. "Listen, you are probably aware there's a situation down in Raccoon we're trying to resolve, and I notice your company had an office there. We're thinking terrorist threat at this point--" Because a) there's no way a major corporation doesn't know one of its field offices is full of dead employees and b) he doesn't want to spook them by making them think of liability issues, "For the safety of our field teams on site could you please provide me with a list of any viral or bacterial agents your teams might have been working with prior to the attack? It's just SOP at this point, but our hazmat guys get nervous when they see pharmaceutical...anything."

If he can get Claire a list, maybe she can make an ID.

Claire Temple has posed:
Talk of the school mirrors worry across Claire's face.

"Then it has to happen fast. If there's room for me when you go back," she requests, "I'm in. Maybe we'll have something figured out enough to give us more a direction in that place. That, and hopefully back-up." Get to the school. Look for any signs of the magic Mercy can sense -- sounds like a full-on mission. And just a few months ago, she was a simple street nurse.

The uneasy shifting of those metal plates on Bucky's left arm earns her eyes too, and her hand stays on his opposite shoulder, its light weight not so much a restraint, but a reminder. Nothing bad is going to happen in the here and now.

Mercy asks an awfully good question of Steve, and it warrants a glance of Claire's eyes, curious for the answer. SHIELD protocol is not exactly in her expertise; it feels odd, in a way, too, to have the famous face of Captain America answering for it in a way too. Answering for Big Brother.

And Sam offers up additional information; Claire remembers the corporate name. Not known to her before, but she'll try to get her feelers out among some HMOs she knows to see if she can learn more. She watches along as he makes that phone call.

At least until the girl stirs behind glass. Bucky sees it, and Claire animates against his forward movement. She follows his eyes, where they're looking, and her own tighten. No child that young should call for a parent who -- more than likely isn't here anymore.

"I should go back in. Sit with her," she says lightly. "Maybe SHIELD can see about a way her sisters can visit. Maybe you too, James. She sure took a shine to you."

Captain America has posed:
The mention of a relief force causes Steve's expression to sober. "I think there's concerns of spreading this thing far and wide. And sending in more agents without knowing what's even going on? Not the best move. And believe me, we don't want the concentrated strategy that's been suggested." He tenses when the girl sits up. "Can't we get that kid a teddy bear or something?" he turns to one of the junior agents who shrugs.

"Sir, we don't know what she's sick with and introducing her to more potentially harmful substances--" the medic begins.

"It could be new. Never used. She's a kid. You see that right?" Because nothing about the six year old girl looks anything but child. Steve's eyebrows draw together as the medics go back to their work. His fingers rake through his hair.

The girl whimpers again. "Mommy," she sniffles. And then she looks up, eyes honing in on Bucky. Her blue eyes blink owlishly at him. And her her fingers lift to weakly wave in his direction. She remembers him and the memory alone seems to satisfy something. She nods at him. She's still cold, but even with her chill and her discomfort, something shifts. She leans back into her bed.

And the door opens for several of the SHIELD medical staff to enter the room. This time, thanks to it being held a few moments, Mercy gets a good whiff of whatever is inside.

Sam waits a few moments before managing to actually get a person on the phone. The woman that answers has a low voice, polite way about her, and a clearly guarded nature that most would expect from a VP of a major corporation. There's a pause that follows--long and laboured, likely because she's trying to figure out what she can say. "Unfortunately, Agent Winchester, I'm not at liberty to discuss such things over the phone. That said, if you bring a warrant or can prove this to be imperative to your case, I'd be happy to hand over a list. A lot of what we're currently working on involves large-scale patents that our competitors would do some vastly unethical things to examine, so we need to keep the contagens we're testing under wraps." There's another pause. "Our investors could lose confidence in our business practice if we handed such information over too easily." She clears her throat, "I'm sure you understand," when she says it, it almost reads as a too-polite fuck off.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Bucky has the grace to look abashed at Mercy's direct glance -- at the light quelling pressure of Claire's hand. His arm quiets, and he lapses into silence, save to watch Sam as he leaves the room for his call. Tychon, he says. Phone calls are well and good, but Bucky has his own ideas how to get stuff out of big pharma companies.

The girl stirs, then. Claire offers to go back in and sit with her, and she'd feel the shoulder under her touch tighten in mute concern. It only tenses more when Claire remarks that the girl 'took a shine to him.' "God knows why," he says with a roll of his eyes, his voice more rough than he probably feels. "With the way I look."

He moves to the glass, nonetheless. Watching through it as he is, Bucky can't fail to miss the way the child seems comforted at seeing him. He hasn't seen a child be comforted at seeing him in decades. His memories are of children terrified of him, children crying in shock as he tears their parents apart. His recollections are of the way he has to use more of a tearing motion to break their still-soft bones, rather than the straight force he uses to shatter fully-ossified adult ones.

No. No use thinking about that. It might show in his eyes, and she might see. He places his right hand on the glass in answer to her, leaning tiredly against it. He hopes he doesn't fuck this up. He hopes he isn't so far gone he can no longer do anything but cause her harm.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Sam steps out and while others with less sensitive hearing might need to turn in his direction, Mercy doesn't. Her coyote ears easily pick up his words well enough. Idly, the coyote listens to his conversation, up until Claire speaks, and that look from Bucky is seen. Her expression turns slightly dour, but Mercy still adds in-between Claire and Steve speaking, "I'm in too." Just in case it wasn't clear on where she stood to help out with the possibility of a rescue mission and also magical source finder.

And while the Captain outlines all the logical reasons why a relief force shouldn't, or can't, be sent in, Mercy's expression twitches to something that shows she's about to argue with him. That argument never comes, not when Claire mentions going back inside. "Be careful, Claire." Mercy says, as the coyote switches her attention away from Steve for the moment.

Then it's back to the group as a whole, as well as the girl within the glass box, and while the Captain now fights for the girl's right to have a comforting toy on hand, Mercy's attention shifts again. This time to the door that opens and stays open longer than it previously did. That longer stretch of time affords a plethora of scents to waft outward and in an automatic gesture, Mercy scents the air. Once again she picks up that edge of something known and it's enough to cause Mercy to thoughtfully frown. Her eyes narrow slightly as she tries to tease out the different scents -

Blood, yes. Magic, yes. Blood magic - yes, wait, no. No, it's not that.

Blood then.

The coyote's eyebrows furrow tightly downward as she tries to chase down the elusive familiarity held within that scent. It's nagging at her, the knowledge on the tip of her tongue, if you will, but it remains just out of reach. After a second, the coyote closes her eyes, shutting out all other stimuli as best she can so she can focus upon what her nose is telling her.

Even with that, it still takes a few more minutes before a realization hits Mercedes Thompson. It's nudged along by another familiar scent that's close to her. Almost next to her, in fact. That realization is enough to cause Mercy's brown-eyes to immediately open and then, the coyote looks straight at Steve. "You." She says with shocked-surprise, "It's you I'm smelling."

Sam Winchester has posed:
This brush-off tells Sam two things.

Number one. He is now going to have to figure out how Feds go about getting warrants.

Number two? He's totally breaking into her office if he can't get a warrant.

"Of course," he tells her, just as if he's not contemplating high felony and corporate espionage in the pursuit of saved lives. //And I hope that helps you sleep at night,// he mentally adds, but he is well used to holding his tongue. The face he makes is broadly irritated in the way only he can do it; it settles into its well-worn 'there are so many things I want to say right now but won't' lines. He gives his contact information, because he actually at least has an extension of his own now, and his voicemail sure doesn't say //Trainee// Winchester.

Briefly he considers pulling the Captain America card, but decides it won't work with her. "Thanks, I'll be in touch later."

And then sure enough, he's padding back to Steve. "Steve? How do I get a warra...nt?"

The trailing off uncertainty is, of course, because Mercy is suddenly saying she's smelling him, and he has no idea what that's about. A swing of his hazel eyed gaze between coyote and super soldier. He glances at Claire, just in case she knows what's going on; Bucky's looking at the girl. Ultimately he clacks his teeth shut, figuring that's the surest way to find out.

Claire Temple has posed:
That self-deprecation out of Bucky Barnes comes with no surprise to Claire; she looks on tiredly, but as the glance of the little girl proves her right, she says nothing. No surprise from that either -- world usually proves her right and right again.

As he draws forward to the glass, her hand slips away from his shoulder, allowing the soldier his moment. Her attention swerves back, with a tight, appreciative smile to Mercy when the coyote gives her confirmation as a part of this. She didn't expect any other way out of her.

But then as Mercy goes tellingly silent, so does Claire, her own movements stopped, curious. And then the announcement of how things smell --

Her eyebrows raise with surprise and unasked questions.

Captain America has posed:
The child flicks a small smile at Bucky. She doesn't feel good, but she really did take a shine to him, and, apparently continues to do so. She lays back into the bed, settling against it with some semblance of comfort. Her eyes lid lightly. The heroic strawberry is watching. That's enough for now, it seems.

"Well, what if we had the bear disinfected or something beforehand?" Steve continues his line of questioning to the medic-agent who seems to be getting increasingly annoyed. The agent gets a brief reprieve when he glances towards Sam, but the questions only stop when Mercy addresses him directly. Steve's eyes narrow and then flit towards the others momentarily before returning to Mercy. His lips part and a twinkle of mischief reflects in his eyes. They part again and he aims to say /something/ in response, but the words can't be found. Instead, he tucks his chin towards his shirt and takes a long whiff.

Nope. Smells fine to him.

An awkward ghost of a smile pulls his features further. "Uh.... sorry?" he finally manages.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Bucky waits until the child is settled before he turns away and back towards the rest of the group, gravitating towards Claire. He stays in line of sight of the glass, though, where she can still see him should she wake back up.

His keen eyes rest on Mercy as she parses the various scents and flows of magic she can detect. Her ultimate realization, though... it's both nothing he expected, and everything he expected. It's Steve she's smelling.

Steve doesn't parse at first. Bucky, the first victim of the quest to make more Captain Americas, and awake continuously enough to see the byproducts of many more attempts -- each worse than the last -- pales. His gaze locks immediately on Steve.

"They tried to make more of us," he says.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
While Steve offers that glint of humor to what she had to say, Mercy can't quite match it, instead she momentarily shakes her head. "Wait, sorry, let me try to explain." Mercy manages to get out, even as her attention shifts first to Sam and then Claire. Almost there's a grimace of apology from the mechanic, as she realizes the confusion she just created.

Still, she can explain and will, and so the coyote begins to speak, "The girl's scent - there's magic within it, I thought blood magic, but it's not. It's -"

And here is where Bucky steps closer to Claire and with that movement of his, Mercy can't stop the sharp jerk of her head, as his scent flares toward her with that movement of his. The rest of what Mercy was about to say stalls, instead she says, "You too. It's you too." Even as Bucky offers that terrible explanation of what's going on.