1162/The Lineup

The Lineup
Date of Scene:	26 June 2017
Location:	Mercy General Hospital
Synopsis:	Claire Temple and Sam Winchester work together to put a human name to the near-mythical legend of The Winter Soldier. And then? Together, they come up with a plan.
Cast of Characters:	Sam Winchester, Claire Temple

---

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam Winchester is pretty good at being non-obvious when he wants to...but Yasha has also recognized him before. So he doesn't exactly show up at Claire's apartment, or suggest doing so. Instead, he very politely suggests that he might could show up in a little used breakroom at Metro General, and that he could 'blend.'

And he more or less does. He has on an orderly's uniform. A perfectly legitimate looking hospital ID informs the world that he's going by the name Doug Sampson today. He hasn't made any massive special efforts to mess with his hair or his face or anything. Sometimes that actually makes a person stand out more.

But here and there, for about two hours before they were supposed to meet? Claire would have caught him credibly going about the non-medical portion of an orderly's duties. He changed bedsheets like a champ, inserting himself into the normal routine of the place like he's done this sort of thing 100 times before. He did start making a very strange face as woman after woman started demanding various services. 19 of them asked for help peeing. One of those had tonsilitis. Twice that number coo'd that a sponge bath would be great. Quite a few of those were perfectly capable of taking their own showers, too. One of them just flat out told him she needed sexual healing. He's got this combination of irritation flattening his mouth and narrowing his eyes by the time he flees from each of these, and this very disturbed look. He has nearly been goosed 9 times, successful Samuel Winchester ass-squeeze count: 4.

The broken arm and the gigantic size aren't super helpful, but...assuming the Winter Soldier isn't watching every single entrance to the hospital and all the people coming in and out of it at all times, it probably did the trick.

Right now he is steadfastly sitting at a little formica table finishing off a salad and a bottled water from the cafeteria, a tablet near the plastic container that sits before him. He'd planned to sort of embed for awhile in case Claire, a real nurse, with real duties, couldn't get away right on time. He in fact slated the whole day for it if need be. But nobody has ever seen a man quite so glad to be hiding in a breakroom.

Claire Temple has posed:
It appears the entire emergency ward of Metro-Gen is aflutter over this Hot New Orderly.

Treading the deep waters of her shift, even Nurse Temple gets a few elbows and asides from her lovelorn co-workers, who are all dreadful eyedeep in so much blood and body fluid that this man is a blessing on the eyes --

-- all to which she answers with her brief, wry laugh and immediate dismissal a moment later, the thought in and out like a sieve through the synapses in her head. Tonight, Claire's mind is elsewhere. Many places, and certainly not here with her at work. She goes through her rounds and lets her hands take her through the motions, yet with eyes distant and faraway: reflecting a woman caught in a constant looping of her thoughts. She thinks of Yasha, standing in the darkness of her apartment, running with rainwater and lost. Lost and looking at her as if she could give him his answers. She thinks of that chair, the one that was breaking him, with its cuffs and braces and needles. She thinks of that corpse at her feet, the one bleeding out because she put the bullet into him.

Dead by her hands. Murderer.

Claire comes to, realizing she's shining a light into someone's poor, dilated pupils for fifteen seconds too long. It's time for a break.

Back with a coffee from the cafeteria, Temple wades through a knot of nursing interns giggling about Him, and finally remembering well enough to sate her own curiousity, she takes a look for herself. With a sip of her coffee, she decides she ought to get a glimpse of this supposed dreamboat for herself.

And does Claire ever see him. She chokes on her half-inhaled coffee.

He will see her, well and true, moving on a very distinct and severe beeline straight for his table, and just like that, Nurse Temple culls about a dozen intern fantasies as she invites herself right down. The look on her face is her indecision whether to laugh or be angry. "Are you serious?"

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam Winchester is a past master of the sheepish, boyish grin. He ducks his head. He smiles wide. His hazel eyes light up from beneath long, lowered lashes, and he pushes back some of his hair. "Well...yeah," he says. "I mean. It seems to have worked. Um. Sort of."

He grins at her, inviting her to share the joke at his expense. Because hey, she's probably having it kind of rough, whether because her job is rough or because the whole Yasha thing is rough, and if falling down on the side of /laughing at him/ brightens her day a little bit...he's game for that.

But after he's done with this performance, worthy of any 10 year-old who just stole some pie, he fires up the tablet and lowers his voice. "I used SHIELD's databanks and the information they gave me to narrow down about 40 faces that I think kind of matched what I saw. I figured you might go through them, match them up. All of them are attached to identities. They're all um...well they're all decades old, matching a window of possible time that I calculated based on his apparent age and also his weave in and out of history as, you know, ahem, a deadly assassin. I uh...there's someone else who wants to help, too, that you should know about."

Claire Temple has posed:
"Yeah, something sure worked," concedes Claire, lifting one hand to turn a thumb back on the gaggle of lovestruck women vulturing the perimeter of the break room.

In the end, between laughter or getting pissed off, she chooses laughter, and lets one of her own go. Because, seriously, her life is probably overdue for getting a little bit ridiculous. It's been far too serious far too long. "Worked a little too well, Dr. Beefcake."

The woman settles in place, her eyes hooding as she toasts him with a swig of her coffee coffee. Sam Winchester, you're a damn fool, seems to speak her gesture, long-suffering and amused and /relieved/, because -- well. Whatever this /disguise/ is, it seems to be working, seems to be doing the trick. She warned him last about being careful about tracking her down until things are sorted; the last thing Claire wants is something added to Sam's casted, broken arm, care of one Winter Soldier who doesn't like a could-be enemy lingering close around his territory. But since Sam's in one piece, and there's no surprise Yashas come in to intercept this...

Things seem good. So far.

He doesn't waste time getting down to business. She leans forward, closer into Sam's sotto voce, her dark eyes immediately turned on the tablet. She listens. He has a /lot/ to say.

"I can do that," she answers, with an uplift of her eyebrows that suggests she's impressed. "You did all that by yourself? With -- SHIELD -- that's that agency -- the guys who do the cover-ups? I've heard mention from a few of my, uh, patients." A thought stops her. Claire tenses at the edges, unsure, protective. "Wait, are they -- are they looking for him right now? Do they want him?"

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam snarfs a little at Dr. Beefcake. His cheeks color bright red. "It's a good thing I didn't wear cowboy boots," he says, but he leaves it at that. No need to bring his brother's disturbing obsession with television heart-throb Dr. Sexy into this conversation for long.

He holds up his good hand when Claire's impressed interest turns into concern. "They've been looking for him for decades," he says quietly. "And the embassy bombing didn't do him any favors on that front. But I'd say the effort right now is...token? I don't know how else to describe it. But um, I'm not actually SHIELD, so they could be passing all sorts of orders I don't know about."

He takes a bite of his salad, spearing the very last tomato, and pops it into his mouth so she can have a chance to absorb that one.

Claire Temple has posed:
That bright, virulent blush sunrising along Sam Winchester's face isn't missed by Claire. Hell, she's sure Murdock is probably feeling the change in the air fifteen blocks away. Her arched smile sharpens, though her eyes stay gentle. So he's one of those types.

It's cute. Good to know.

Yet as the conversation shifts into seriousness, so does Claire, letting her coffee down to curl her hands together. She plucks a little nervously on her long fingers -- especially at further detail into SHIELD. She weighs it.

Her lips press. The woman exhales. "Listen, I could pick out his face for you. His mask didn't come off for me like it did for you. He took it off. He did it to save my life. He's never put it back on since for me. I might not be sure of many things, but I'm certain he trusts me. Whatever that deadly assassin is on the outside, there's something else inside, and --"

She lets out a deep breath. "I'm just a damn nurse. I didn't sign up for bureaucratic spy bullshit." 'But,' seems to script across Claire's face. But she's in too deep, and she's not ready to let this Yasha go into the possible grip of some agency that will disappear him forever. "What can you promise me? Who were you talking about that's going to help?"

Sam Winchester has posed:
His face softens as she starts to speak. He looks at her with eyes that are full of nothing save for the deepest empathy and concern, eyes that make him look far older than his 21 years.

"Nurse Temple-- Claire."

He leans forward and says, "I can promise you that my brother and I are committed to helping him, and we're-- I mean this is what we do, okay? We aren't out to hurt Yasha. We both agree that there's something wrong with him. The other woman is Natasha. She says-- she says she's a graduate of a place called the Red Room, where she was tortured and brainwashed, forced to act as an assassin. She says the Winter Soldier trained her. At first...at first she thought there was no way he could be saved, but Dean and I convinced her that if she could be, he could be. She wants to help...and agreed to keep it from SHIELD for now. Because when a monolith like that gets involved a lot can change. I think-- I mean I think if we can prove he's a victim that the organization as a whole might turn into an asset, and she can help make that happen. She fought him too, saw him hesitate and stop just like I did."

He lowers his voice still more, and still sounding every bit as earnest...but also calm, and in control, like he sees a way forward. "I know you don't know who to trust right now. I'm sorry you're in this awful position."

Claire Temple has posed:
It takes one look at Claire Temple to see a woman well in over her head. And she knows it -- knows it well enough to have confessed it in whole to Sam Winchester. To give him means to contact her. To trust that he can /do/ something to fix this.

But even then, she tries to plant her feet and hold her ground even as she treads water in an endless sea. He leans in and his face goes sympathetic, and while some may be easily swayed, Claire stays shrewd. Whatever the Winter Soldier has done, be it murders or insults against their very country -- he's won her protection and her loyalty.

She cannot see him as anything but a victim. A man who screamed in unquestionable pain. A man who, even after it, still closed his eyes briefly for her in trust. She can't break that.

With her guard still up, at least Claire seems a woman of reason, and she gives Sam both time and opportunity to speak without interruption. She listens, and her eyes do not leave his. Perhaps a test of her own; measuring his honesty the one and only way she can. Gut feeling.

In the end, she exhales, one elbow leaned up on the table to dip her fingers to pinch the bridge of her nose. Everything's a headache. "The name he gave me is Yakov Aleksandrovich Morozov. Yasha for short, I guess. I remember you saying something about him being old. He remembers -- wars. Like the Gulf War. Vietnam, I think. He says he has memories of fighting both fronts of World War Two. He looks my age. But his eyes -- they're so old."

She bites briefly on her bottom lip. Then, just like that, Claire makes a decision. "I'm going to trust you, Sam Winchester. Don't make regret it. Show me the photos you got. My only terms is I stay a part of this, we take this slow so I don't lose him back to those assholes, and I want to meet that Natasha."

Sam Winchester has posed:
"She wants to meet you too. I can arrange it," Sam says quietly.

He taps on the tablet, puts his passcode in, and slides the gallery of faces over to her. He smiles apologetically.

"Just uh, like a real line-up, I guess," he says, the professional somewhat displaced again by the earnest boy who just wants to help. "So uh. Take your time."

They're all brown-haired men in their 20s and 30s, and most of them are from the 1920s to the 1940s. Historical photos. Which means they don't have color, most of them. They come from around the world; Sam got a glimpse of face while getting crap-kicked, and that tends to blur the memory. They are all, in general, pretty similar overall, though. He's also used to retaining vital details in the heat of battle, because sometimes, that's the only chance you get to get them.

Claire Temple has posed:
"Good," Claire says of this arrangement with Natasha. A woman he /trained/? Trained to become an assassin? In a place that tortured her? Did they do the same to him?

It feels like some story out of a spy novel. It feels unreal. And yet it is not: it's here, on her doorstep, sitting in her apartment, entrenched in her life. Every sensible, cowardly instinct in her head begs her to walk away, because that's what people do when they want to /survive/. And she's no assassin, no spy, no killer (but she is, she is one now) -- and yet --

In silent deference to that voice, Claire picks up the tablet. He closed his eyes for her. She won't turn her back on him.

It takes time, silence heavy between the hunter and the nurse as she peruses photo after photo. Her index finger slides the screen, a back-and-forth twitch of her eyes absorbing every face of long-ago, dead men. Dead men from a dead time.

Face after face after face. They bleed together, the details fading and yellowed, the scans of old, old prints. It hits her hard that Yasha, her Yasha, could be this old. But how?

"I don't see anything..." she murmurs as her finger slides the screen over and over. "How many of these again did y--"

Her finger stops at one photo.

A young man, dressed in the fatigues of the American boys drafted into the Second World War, takes a break among a camp embankment, his perch perimetered in a looming forest. In black-and-white, he stoops insouciantly in his chair, pinches his lips wryly around a smoking cigarette, but has his disassembled Springfield rifle arranged with a perfunctory, almost reverent neatness. His averted eyes do not notice the photographer stealing the shot.

He's smiling to himself.

Claire pales.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam gently draws the tablet away from her fingers with two of his own, turning it to look at it. He nods to himself, agreeing, but that's not really why he pulled it away. He did so to tap on the information attached to it.

"James Buchanan Barnes? Wow. I mean...just...wow."

He's caught between incredulity and awe. He certainly recognizes the name, his voice softening with some long ago memory. "James Barnes."

He shakes his head, and looks up at Claire.

He decides to share the memory, or at least the start of it. Because it provides more reason, to him, why this man ought to be saved. /Must/ be saved.

"When I was just starting to learn to read," he says, very softly, "My dad bought me all those old historical comics. Captain America, the Invaders. He encouraged them...felt I was too sensitive, wanted me to man up." A quick, bitter smile.

"Normally it would have backfired, but Dad wasn't much for presents, and Dean was into them too. He read them to me all the time, when I couldn't sound out the words myself. James Barnes...I just got really taken with him. You know? He had the best lines, and he was the younger fighter. Captain America reminded me of Dean, though like, on the surface Dean isn't much like that at all, the similarities are deeper-- but I saw myself in James Barnes. 'Bucky', which sounded about as dignified as 'Sammy' does, so I imagined he wasn't too fond of the nickname. Though of course I really have no idea."

He pushes the tablet back at her, his brow furrowing with the memory. "I got this sniper army man stuck in the door of our Impala, in the back seat..."

He suddenly chuffs a laugh. "I'm sorry. You don't want to hear all this. I think it's him too."

Claire Temple has posed:
Claire's dark eyes bore down into that image on the tablet.

One finger on her right hand twitches, her thumb, curling slightly as if to want to trace the line of his face --

But Sam, carefully so, turns the screen away, and that would-be gesture aborts. Claire does not fight the man's hands, silent, docile, and absolutely shellshocked. Because it's him, it's Yasha, it's his face, and it looks no different in this photo from two days ago. It means he is old, older than she realizes, older than she is, older than her parents are, older than her grandparents, older --

He taps the photo for information. And he speaks a single name.

Claire still holds her silence. Her lips part slightly. She stares down at the text as Sam Winchester speaks, and speaks, and speaks -- first of James Barnes and then of himself, his childhood, his little green army men.

She has not moved. It's hard to say if she's even breathed. And then --

"Sophomore year," she murmurs. "Sophomore history class. I learned about him. He was in my history book. No picture. Bucky Barnes who died in the war."

Claire stares into the screen. "James Barnes," she corrects, her voice gossamer-thin. Her fingers let the tablet go, one by one, every so carefully, so she can sink her face into her palms, rubbing wearily over her closed eyes. "It is him. That's him. What the hell happens now?"

Sam Winchester has posed:
For a moment, Sam has absolutely no idea.

But...strange situations...men back from the dead, or never dead at all, or never aging-- they can't phase him for very long.

"Now," he says at last, "we introduce you to Natasha, and tell her, and you, a nurse, and she, a survivor of the same sort of torture, work together to find a way to use this information to bring him back to himself. I go back to SHIELD's databases with this limited information, ask a few careful questions, and see if I can't figure out what the Hell happened to him way back then. And we all of us work together to try to keep him out of the hands of his torturers if we can, while gathering whatever evidence we can. We all work together to help him."

Claire Temple has posed:
"That's a good plan," Claire says, with that same breathless stupor. "Solid plan. It works for me."

She exhales noisily, out through her lips, before she paws a hand through her black hair. It seems to be all Nurse Temple needs, that moment, that gesture, to emotionally process this absolute shock -- to at least compartmentalize it enough for her to find her footing, regain her equilibrium. She's assuredly have time later to sit and overthink this -- overthink how she's had one of America's motherfucking heroes sitting in her apartment and getting stitched up by her very hands.

What the hell happened to him? What did they /do/ to him? How does that man in that photo become that ghost in her bedroom, rain shining his metal arm, and his blue eyes so haunted. Lost in a nightmare he never chose.

"Thank you, Sam," she says, after that pause. Not said for her sake -- for his. Yasha. James.

She leans back in her chair. "I should get you out of here, though, before it gets too dangerous. He keeps an eye on Metro-Gen from time to time. At least I know he does. Won't go over well if he sees you."

With that, an uneasy, but sincere smile takes brief, but sure perch along Claire's mouth. She reaches over the table, and her hand is warm as it lays over his, a brief, sincere squeeze of the knuckles. "Come on. I know an EMT who can sneak you a lift out of here."