708/Soldiers and Nurses and Cops, Oh My!

Soldiers and Nurses and Cops, Oh My!
Date of Scene:	31 May 2017
Location:	China Basin, Gotham City
Synopsis:	Sometimes Claire Temple has to trek out to Gotham to get supplies for her work as the Night Nurse. Interested in preserving his medical care asset, the Winter Soldier tails along. Things go sideways, but fortunately Karrin Murphy is also on hand.
Cast of Characters:	Winter Soldier, Karrin Murphy, Claire Temple

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Winter Soldier has posed:
Late night in Gotham is a terrible time for the average person to be out and about, and that means it's a great time for anyone interested in doing a little illicit business. China Basin, an insular and ethnic community, is particularly prone to this kind of activity, whether it's related to the actual Chinese mob or not.

The group of men huddled up waiting, amidst a cluster of warehouses, look like they're actual employees of the shipping company to which the warehouses belong, but they're definitely putting in some late hours if they're actually there working. It doesn't look like they are, however.

They look like they're waiting for some kind of appointment. They're impatient about it, too, judging from the coarse Mandarin one spits into the silence.

Unbeknownst to them, the contact coming to meet them tonight isn't totally alone. But her companion keeps to himself for the time being, watching from a distance.

Karrin Murphy has posed:
Now fully back on duty, Karrin has been pulling the worst of shifts and assignments lately. Mainly because she worked through most of the strike, not willing to allow Gotham to languish without a single good cop on duty. So, now she's considered a scab. A sell out. The lowest shit rung on the crappy totem pole -- as if being head of SI wasn't enough to indicate that. It means she's drawn vice duty tonight because 'there's some weird shit about the drugs the Chinese are pulling in.' AKA: I don't want to handle this, so put it on SI's desk. Karrin smiled, strapped into her blacks as an undercover uniform, and went to work.

Now, the short blonde is hugging against a wall, barely moving, barely breathing. She's not going to be able to take action until something actually illegal happens, so she needs to hold off on being seen until then. She's pretty excellent at being stealthy, her blonde hair tied up beneath a black wrap, body in the urban camoflague she's bought for these sorts of jobs alone. She's trying to manuever as close as physically possible without risking notice, her eyes eyes narrowed upon the docks below, looking out for any remarkable faces. Or, at least, what that huddled group of men have their hands into...

Claire Temple has posed:
The night is warm and ratty, sliding on like an old shoe. It's tight, it's ugly, and it stinks. There's no particular part of Gotham out to win any beauty contests, but even by that standard, this part of town's bad. On the port fingertips of China Basin, the back of the pawn shop leads to a small urban clearing, bordered by decrepit, slouching boarded-up condemned shacks, and on one side, a barbed wire-tipped fence that's falling down. With a gloomy moon squinting through smog as spotlight, a lone woman stands directly ahead, open hands at the pretense of a guard at her sides.

That's what brings Claire Temple here, a duffel bag looped over her shoulder, a baseball hat over her inky hair, its brim pushed down to cast her face in an extra layer of shadow. Just another Tuesday night: she needs naloxone, fentanyl, oxycontin, EpiPens, and just about every goddamn thing else, and she needs it right now and dirt cheap. Business and circumstance has forced her under the table, keeping Hell's Kitchen breathing by virtue of meds "disappearing" off trucks, but to the night nurse, the ends justify the means.

Tonight, however, is the first time it's brought her into the narrows of Gotham. Word says the local triad has too much merch and are bottoming prices.

They're expecting someone, considering the cash they were quoted, but it seems they weren't expecting this. A young woman, Claire, hard-eyed but all alone.

The group surveys her a moment, speaking amongst each other in suspicious Mandarin. One finally approaches. He wears a grey suit that looks a little ruffled, rumpled. His hair looks to have been slicked back previously, but is in somewhat sort of a disarray now. His wireframe glasses dangle a little off-kilter on his nose. Behind them, his eyes -- both brown and looking syrupy -- orient on Claire.

"Just you?" he asks the woman, suspicious. "Hands up. Turn." The pat-down is rote. Check for guns. Check for wires.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Claire had mentioned her intentions to her shadowy sometimes-visitor a day or two ago, while treating him for a few scrapes and bruises and a single gunshot wound that he would not tell her how he acquired. He'd snorted and said she was stupid if she was going to go to Gotham alone, and he might as well keep an eye because it was on his way anyway.

He didn't say that he'd prefer not to lose the only medical provider he has who doesn't /hurt/ him with her hands.

Such it is that Claire only seems alone. She's not at all. Not alone at all. Blue eyes are watching her, from the top of a warehouse overlooking the transaction. Steady hands and a loaded rifle provide overwatch. His attention is focused on Claire and the men she approaches. He does not yet see Karrin.

Unaware, as of yet, of either of their two extra guests, the men watch Claire come closer with hard eyes. She's not what they expect. "Shi ta ma?" one man says to another. The second man squints at Claire, grunts, nods. "Jiushi. Qu kan ta youshenme. Gankuai."

The first man approaches, and his instructions for Claire are in English. He does a quick pat-down, ensuring she's not packing heat or wearing a wire. Satisfied after a moment, he steps back. "Lot of pharms you want," he says cannily. His eyes rake her up and down. The group of men behind him shuffles with the restless quality of a waiting wolf-pack. "You that nurse they talk about?"

Karrin Murphy has posed:
Pharms. They were talking about drugs, but not the drugs Karrin expected from this shipment. What in the world did Rudolph MEAN that this thing smelled fishy? And part of her swears she recognizes the woman there, dimly, from rumors around the Kitchen. Karrin kept an ear to the street, almost always, even when it wasn't her city. Criminals travelled and good people were too few and far between. Maybe it wasn't the woman, but the cop couldn't get any good information this far out.

So, quiet as death, the highly trained martial artist shifts down against the wall and to an old fire escape. She spider crawls, in a way, hugging the underside of that fire escape and testing each rung as she goes. It means she's consistently, completely in darkness, but able to get far closer to the group so she can hear what is going on. She knows not to entirely trust the rusty stairs, so the toe of her boot very faintly presses to each rung she tries before she shifts her weight there. Should she get a creak or the rung giving too much, she skips to the next one. Every muscle taunt beneath her clothing, her breath forcibly controlled and slow, she gets within about ten feet of the little group.

This close, her blue eyes narrow. It really looked like that woman from the kitchen. The one who saved two of those idiot street kids lives. Karrin mentally curses, her mission rejigging in her head. Keep the woman safe, first priority, then get the dirt on these shipments. Vice wasn't her department anyway.

Claire Temple has posed:
It's dark, it's narrow, and nothing untoward gets noticed. Not yet.

Claire holds her breath just a moment too long, nips her molars annoyedly down on the tip of her tongue, as the pat-down nearly skirts the side of her personal bubble. But she comes up clear, no gun, no wire, no need, and already on edge, the woman steps back a half-step to regain some distance. She squares her shoulders and tries to look as mean as she can.

She doesn't quite capture it; closest Temple gets to looking is tired and rationing ot her last fuck of the day to give. Her eyes slant between the back-and-forth Mandarin, not fluent, not able to absorb a single word. Something to add to the bucket list, given she survives tonight first.

The first remark earns her exasperated sigh. "No shit," Claire answers diplomatically.

Her eyes don't miss something alleying between the body language of the rest of the group. Her alarm bells are ringing. Hell, her alarm bells were ringing before she even entered Gotham city limits. Her alarm bells were ringing before she even found that first headache dying in a dumpster /that started all of this martyring crap./ And then it comes out, ratifies all her paranoia, and tightens up Claire's jaw: the question whether she's the nurse.

It takes everything she has to keep the impatient irritation under control, letting it saturate her voice. "I don't know what in the hell you're talking about," she warns. "Actually, I'm done. I'm out."

The first man doesn't miss a beat. He draws his gun in a liquid-smooth, oft-repeated gesture, holding her in place by the pointed barrel. Behind his glasses, his eyes are genial. "Hold. You are worth more than you carry, you know? Much more."

Winter Soldier has posed:
The first man doesn't miss a beat. He draws his weapon, expression calm. He tells Claire she's worth more than she carries on her person.

He's only just finishing the sentence when his head evaporates in a shower of blood.

The sharp, cracking report of the rifle shot seems almost a secondary thing after that gory display, the sound bouncing back and forth between the high buildings until it's hard to tell from whence it came. The remaining men in the group certainly don't know. They pull their weapons, shouting, Claire temporarily forgotten. She won't stay forgotten for long, though.

And that's why the unseen attacker does not stay unseen for long.

The Winter Solder cushions his silent pounce off the rooftop by landing square on one of the men unfortunate enough to stand too close to his erstwhile perch. His weight shatters the spine instantly, body crumpling into an assortment of unnatural angles. His arrival certainly grabs attention, which is good -- it keeps said attention off Claire, for the time being.

Karrin Murphy has posed:
The moment chaos breaks out, Karrin is on the move. Hell, she had silently, but quickly, moved the second she heard that Asian tough comment about Claire being more valuable than drugs. It turned from a possibly illegal drug deal into a hostage situation at that point. But Karrin was still moving quiet then, not wanting to risk the hostage. Apparently, said hostage's friend doesn't have the same careful ways and suddenly a gangster's head is missing. Everything goes into triple time at that moment.

Karrin lets muscle memory take over, launching herself into action as she assess the threats to Claire which are quickly disappearing, but there's a LOT of gangsters and only one hostage. They weren't disappearing fast enough. She immediately inserts herself between the other closest standing gang member and Claire, her small frame bodily tackling Claire down to the ground, out of the range of fire. "GCPD! Just stay low!" SHe hisses to the woman, her female voice probably not expected from the brick shit house of a compact frame she carries, but the tone is all professional. She probably is actually a cop.

Keeping her frame over Claire's and trying to carefully urge them both to the side of the chaos. It's slow going, because Karrin is doing her VERY BEST to keep her body between Claire and other threats, so it's a bit awkward. While she didn't wish to use lethal force herself, sometimes it's necessary. Her free hand comes around, gun in her palm, and she takes a shot at the second nearest gang member. Meant to disable, not kill, but it's still a bullet. That's when she finds two more bullets coming her direction. She violently pushes Claire to the side, trying to get out of the way, but she is not faster than a bullet. Her body jerks hard as she's hit. But she's not down... Yet. She tries to keep them moving.

Claire Temple has posed:
It happens so fast.

Moments like these feel like the entire world's gone on fast-forward, and it's up to Claire Temple just to keep up. In a heartbeat, a man guns her down. One heartbeat later, a highway of blood pours down from what used to be his face. The body collapses and folds bonelessly into dead weight.

Shock registers on all the corners of the woman's face, but, even more strangely, the panic that should be there -- that would incite any sensible human being to run for their life -- never happens. Awareness holsters Claire Temple into place. She knows the source of the shot. She knows it's in her best interest to -- just -- not -- move.

Don't move, and let the Soldier do his work.

The nurse stays unsurprised, until she /is/, because there's no anticipating the way Karrin comes out of nowhere and tackles her straight down to the pavement. Claire cries out in shock, scraped up on the asphalt but otherwise unhurt, trying to focus her eyes in shock -- and going death-still at the too-close shout of 'GCPD.'

Then there's no longer time for thought, not when the Soldier takes his preferred route down via the severed-spine expressway, mulching a second man's vertebrae with a sickening snap-snap-snap like bones have been reduced to bubble wrap. He doesn't get back up.

The rest share one big, fat, incredulous look. It doesn't last long. They're Gotham.

Karrin Murphy trades bullets. It's a painful bargain, but her shot hits true, tagging one man in the chest. He loses his weapon and goes down, not dead, still breathing, but taut with pain. The rest react like cornered animals, weapons drawn as quickly as they can manage them, and they choose first the largest target: the Soldier.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier steps off the corpse and walks forward, unholstering a pistol. He seems aware of Karrin, but not immediately concerned about her; he's ascertained that she isn't an immediate threat to Claire, though it doesn't seem that he's quite recognized her yet. His focus is on the men, and their focus is on him.

Especially when, in passing, he shifts his weapon to the right and fires into the head of the man Karrin wounded without even sparing him a single glance.

The rest open fire at this provocation. He moves fluidly, his left arm moving faster than any arm should be able to move, deflecting gunfire in a shower of sparks as bullets ping off the steel. His own sidearm tracks from side to side as he blocks, firing on each man in turn. He has eighty-odd years of experience shooting. He does not miss.

He makes very short work of the group. There weren't many of them to begin with, and their shock makes them far too slow to deal with a creature like the Winter Soldier. But what the Soldier doesn't immediately see are the two men that come boiling out of a building about thirty feet behind him, attracted by the gunshots and presumably wildly underestimating the situation.

One fires at the Winter Soldier just as he starts to turn. The shot just barely wings past his face, sending his mask spinning off it. The other aims dead at Karrin and Claire.

Karrin Murphy has posed:
"...Dammit." Karrin hisses as she sees the man she TRIED not to immediately kill, well, be turned into so much meat. The cop genuinely seems to hold remorse over all of this, not one that easily fires her gun in the first place. She's still trying to keep the Latina woman down and out of the way, her motions protective, not that of someone who is trying to keep her hand on a prisoner. It seems that the blonde thinks Claire mostly innocent in this situation, even if she was here to buy the drugs in the first place. "...Soon as the gunfire dies down, we move for that alley. I've got a car, I can get you out of here." Karrin nods towards two alleys down, where she initially pulled up and a place that would provide them a lot of cover if shit goes down again.

She's about to say more, coach them to go, since the gunfire seems to have momentarily died, but her sharpened awareness pays off. For Claire, at least. Karrin's head turns straight towards the two men that are coming down building thirty feet behind. It's almost a sixth sense, some cops have, when danger is right there and civilians lives on the line. She catches sight of the arm coming up in JUST enough time to jerk her body around to the other side, pushing poor, bruised Claire back in a totally OPPOSITE direction, but it's out of the way of the bullet...

The bullet that finds it's way between shoulder and vest, somehow, in that little bit of an awkward gap that comes because vests weren't built for people her size. It's a low collarbone shot, probably not immediately deadly, but the first shot Karrin Murphy's actually ever taken to the chest before. That hurts like hell. It knocks the wind straight out of her, even as instinctively she brings her arm up and fires one last shot in return. This one isn't held back to non-lethal. She's just trying to put down a target. Then she's stumbling backwards. A heartbeat later she's staring up at the sky, blinking in drowsy shock. Probably not conscious much longer, but she's trying..."Here... keys. Run. Get... out of here..." She burbles up, something wet in the back of her throat, as she tries to palm car keys in Claire's direction. Blue eyes are quickly shutting.

Claire Temple has posed:
And as if it can't get any worse, the woman under Karrin starts spouting crazy talk.

"We stay put!" Claire orders amidst the volley of gunfire, dead serious. Because as much as she fears the bullet-happy triad going on, there's an apex predator prowling among their ranks: someone who might misconstrue something wrong and she is /not/ having a /cop/ dead on one of her pharm runs.

But there's no further time for argument; no further time for Claire to do anything but just grit her jaw and pray neither of them get hit by ricochet. Out of her periphery, she can witness the Winter Soldier dispatching of man after man, removing life from their bodies and trailing corpses efficiently and effortlessly in his wake. She's witnessed this before. It's nothing new. He still makes it look like a morbid art.

But Karrin seems intent on shuttling them off, and the nurse seems to have reserve against that plan. "Wait," she keeps trying to plead, something inflected into her voice like she wants but has no time to explain. "Please -- just --"

Too fast. Two men take the Soldier by surprise. The report of gunfire rips off his mask. Another bullet snarls through the dark and its slug eats into Karrin's body. It hits so hard it's like a punch to the lungs, at first leaving you weightless and breathless: before twisted steel, burning hot on impact, brings fresh, white-hot agony.

The cop trades fire and one man goes straight down, a deadeye shot nailing him to the pavement. His partner pauses, looks between the small group, the Soldier's metal arm, and takes off running.

Claire does something most people don't. They freeze. They panic. They hold. She goes entirely cerebellar, old, reflexive motions of a consummate nurse, not taking car keys, not listening to orders, only hiking up to one knee to immediately apply pressure down on Karrin's bullet wound. "Jesus Christ," she breathes urgently into the night.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Said apex predator methodically chews through the men present. Bodies drop in his wake as he moves through with the efficiency of a harvester carving through a wheatfield. Only one thing stops him: two men from a surprise angle, firing from his back. Even then he turns just fast enough to transform a shot in the back into a grazing hit that rips off his mask.

He looks in silence at the broken thing as it skitters across the ground. Then he turns his head and looks back at the man, left alone now that Karrin's shot has taken his compatriot down.

The man does the only sensible thing. He turns and starts running. The Winter Soldier lifts his pistol, sights, and fires.

Pity. Maybe he would have let him live if he hadn't seen his face.

His weapon lowers. He glances around, in an assessing look, walks over a few steps, and retrieves his mask. Turning back, he walks towards Claire and the downed Karrin with dispassion. He recognizes her now. He stands there, looking down quietly, his features inscrutable. He remembers... something, though the conditioning in his mind has already worked hard to try to cleanse it away. Some way she acted towards him, that people aren't supposed to act towards him.

"She said her name was Karrin," he says, apparently apropos of nothing, the comment not particular relevant to anything about the scenario. It sounds almost like a child proudly remembering some random fact.

Then he aims his pistol dead at her face. "Best make an end," he says, of the blood, the bullet wound, the suffering -- the woman that has seen both his and Claire's faces.

Karrin Murphy has posed:
Conscious a few more seconds, the cop's slightly panicked, completely in shock blue eyes flicker from the light polluted sky, over to the nurse above her, studying Claire's features. "Just... just get... Safe. You do good work..." Karrin breathes out. Yes, even the cops have noticed and some, the good ones at least, have decided to turn a blind eye to it. "Find Harry... Dresden. Just tell him..." But it's too much. Karrin's bleeding fast and shock is a bitch. The last thing she sees is the approach of that Winter Soldier. The whole cut of his face, ever so faintly ... recognizable? But her fading mind cannot pin down why.

Then blue eyes shut. She won't even put up a fight now. He could shoot her through the head and it'd be blamed on the dead gang members around. Another dead Gotham cop. No one would even blink, especially not these days.

Claire Temple has posed:
"Hey," Claire keeps insisting, her voice like a beacon in the dark. "Stay with me."

In a quick, deft movement, she shoulders off her cardigan sweater, applying the fabric in a thick, dry barrier against that fast, welling blood. She has few of her supplies and no promise of a sterile environment, and her mind runs a field treatment checklist: stop blood loss, assess symptoms of organ damage, prioritize risk of collapsing lung.

Leaned over the fallen cop, she slips her free hand beneath Karrin, not to turn her, but to check for an exit wound. Claire Temple sends a prayer to God above there isn't. Less a chance she's going to watch a cop who just tried to save her ass bleed out. Less a chance of dying.

As the Soldier sees to the cull of the group, Claire does not pay it either a turned eye or an apparent thought. Either it's a fatal case of tunnel vision or perhaps she trusts, in some strange, ridiculous way, she won't be hurt. Crouched over Karrin, the nurse's back is turned on the approach of the metal-armed assassin, and she's not /noticing/ or not /seeing/ or not /caring/.

Instead, Claire tilts her head, leaned close to try to absorb Karrin's whispers. She takes in a name of a man; she's just happy the woman's talking. "Tell him yourself, sister," she replies. "I'm not an answering machine. Just stay awake for me."

Then the Soldier speaks. Close. Just over her shoulder. Claire slants up a questioning look. He knows her name? He knows a cop? How -- even then, there's no time to --

Then he pulls a gun.

The night nurse does the only thing she can. She cries out in breathless shock and twists in to provide cover, blocking the Soldier's shot with her own body. "No no NO -- STOP!"

Winter Soldier has posed:
The funny thing is that the Winter Soldier has plenty of time, before Claire really registers what he's /doing/, to pull the trigger.

Yet he doesn't, for whatever reason. He doesn't long enough for Claire to cry out in shock and reproof, twisting to cover the felled cop with her own body. The Winter Soldier's eyes flicker with pique, but he presently puts up his weapon, decocking the hammer. It reholsters. His left arm hums to itself as his fingers curl briefly into a fist, then release.

"You're lucky I like your care enough to put up with your other shit," he grumbles. If there was anything else twisting in his head to stay his hand, he either does not remember it, or does not want to talk about it.

He walks over to the entire purpose of this run: the drugs Claire wanted. Picking up the lot of them in their packed containers, he turns a glance at her back over his shoulder. "She'll need more care than you can give in the field," he says, his voice flat. "Call it in and let's go."

Karrin Murphy has posed:
Whether Karrin Murphy will ever quite realize just how close she was to tasting one of the Winter Soldier's bullets -- and how he couldn't pull the trigger -- isn't clear. She's probably well and truly unconscious. But the blood isn't spurting from her, which probably means she's got a bit of time to play with. Long enough for some help to get here, if Claire is lucky.

Claire Temple has posed:
That pause is not entirely missed by Claire Temple.

But she balances a razor line between the hurt and the harmful, refusing to relinquish even one hand off the compress she's made of her own clothing over Karrin's wound. There's little she can immediately tell if an artery has been nicked, and she's going to err on the side of caution -- even as she stares down a Soviet assassin brandishing a gun and prepared to complete the neat work of protecting both their identities.

Identities are important, but Claire has her line. It burns in her dark eyes, severe and final. She looks nowhere but the Soldier's blue eyes in quiet stand-off, and he relents enough to turn his weapon away. His weapon he could have -- but did not -- fire. She'll remember this later.

Apparently trusting him to some degree of honour, Claire takes her eyes away and back to Karrin. She's too distracted that she doesn't even reply the man's sass with something biting of her own. She attends to the injury, instead, praising again whatever God above that the welling blood isn't enough to suggest a damaged artery. Lucky cop. Lucky. Ass. Cop.

"I know, I know," she says to the Soldier's brusque commands, scrambling one bloodied hand for her burner phone and hitting 911. Claire machine-guns instructions to the operator about the address, a shot officer, and get the hell here FAST. She hangs up.

Then Claire angles her eyes up at the Winter Soldier. "Just wait with me," is her plea. "Just for a minute." Minutes pass, and she doesn't seem inclined to leave Karrin alone -- unguarded on the street -- until paramedic sirens howl in the distance. Then the nurse rises, leaving her sweater-compress behind, backpedalling toward her errant, metal-armed protector.

She wears guilt to have to leave someone, but -- this is the life she leads.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Protection of his identity is paramount. Yet there's something else buried deep in the Winter Soldier's mind that is paramount too.

Never shoot someone when they're down, Buck.

Somehow, the two paradigms have to coexist, and sometimes they just can't. His expression twists briefly, like a stab of pain went through his head. His eyes screw shut, and he holsters his weapon and turns away.

He walks away, distracting himself by retrieving the hard-won supplies Claire needs. She refuses immediate departure; his eyes narrow, but he says nothing. He only waits in the shadow of one of the buildings, restless and impatient to be gone.

Evnetually, when the sound of sirens draw close, Claire finally rises and steps away. Said metal-armed protector, unlikely as hell but still there, waits for her at the terminus of her retreat, conveying her back out of the city. Unharmed -- for tonight.