8031/Sick Leave

Sick Leave
Date of Scene:	24 June 2019
Location:	Food Court, The Triskelion
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Winter Soldier, Crimson Dynamo

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Winter Soldier has posed:
They kept him under for a couple days - the problem with Bucky in anything like a hospital situation is that it runs afoul of decades' worth of terrible memories, and he's likely to kill some unfortunate medical technician or destroy the bed he's secured to. But he was out of enough danger to be released to his own room.....and then this evening, he's had enough of being prone.

So, even though his left leg is braced within an inch of its life, he's crutched his way out to the cafeteria. He's got the bad leg propped up on a spare chair, eating his dinner with a kind of grim resignation Galina's seen on so many faces, back in Mother Russia. The look that says he's ignoring the hell out of something unpleasant because there's literally nothing he can do about it. Lili the loyal is there by his feet, idly licking an empty bowl - looks like she's finished her own dinner.

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    Some would have you believe she's forever heralded by explosions and gunfire, but well she slips into the joint quietly enough. Sure she smells like explosives, gunpowder and fresh earth but there's no gunfire at least. Paratrooper boots cynched up almost to the knee, and a totally rad grey on grey gorka like deal. Messenger bag slung over one shoulder, and a cigarette tucked behind her good ear. "Privet, Tovarish. I heard you had been all but killed, but didn't find you in your room."

    She slumps into a seat across the table from Bucky without waiting for an invitation, and making no effort to hide her interest in Bucky's leg. One hand offered towards Lili if she wants to give a sniff. <<Fuck you look like shit soldier, what the fuck happened to your god damned leg?>>Thats mat, the filthy language of Russian soldiers since the first world war. As vulgar as it is insular, there aren't books on Mat of course. In Galina's own filthy academy drawl, it's likely all the more low class. <<You want me to cut the bastard off, got a spare leg if you ask me sweetly.>>And a wry little smile offered finally.

Winter Soldier has posed:
"HYDRA," he says, looking up from his nearly-finished meal with a little smile. Lili thumps her tail, leans over to sniff and then lick - she's got her vest off, so she's off-duty, so to speak. <<We had to destroy an old base, and I got taken down by falling rebar. Nothing glorious.>> He pulls a face. <<Boy scout got me out, same as ever.>> He grins down at the leg. <<It'll heal. Just might take a while, even for me. Though the offer is flattering.>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<Well I brought presents, though it might be awhile before you can make use of them tovarish.>>And well she unslungs that messenger bag and slides it across the table. <<I wish I could have been there, but I had family to smuggle out of Russia. My father was planning to assasinate Putin, by himself.>>She just lets that drop wherever it falls. <<Anyway whilst I was back home, I visited some fans of mine who have access to things. They've been making bootleg shirts, FSB loves it.>>

    Whats in the bag? Well theres a muted green Gorka set, a short sharpened spade, some indeed bootleg Dynamo shirts and the big one? Thats a FSB officer's rolex, it's face emblazoned with the FSB logo and everything. Not the sort've thing they sell in tourist shops, obviously.>>

Winter Soldier has posed:
<<It's like New Year's Day, thank you,>> he says, clearly impressed. <<Well, maybe they celebrate actual Christmas now, but....>> Buck's going through the gifts. <<Man, I haven't seen one of these in ages...>>

HE holds up the shovel. Then the watch, which has him whistling. "Damn," he says, in English. <<I'm kind of sorry you got your father out before he could succeed. Got 'em all somewhere safe here?>> He shifts on his chair. <<I'll be okay in a week or so.>> ......what?

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<Living with some contacts in Warsaw, He's still not a fan of America.>>Theres a little shrug at that. <<Putin is on a deadman switch most definitely, ever since they shut down UVB-76. I was hearing rumors of some sort of implant all the way back in my VDV days, the 93rd Guards were on stand by to protect him if he ever had to evacuate Moscow.>> And a pause to light her cigarette, before sliding the pack and lighter over towards Buck.

    <<When you're back on your feet, I have proposal to run past you in detail. Maybe end up joining SHIELD full time if things go my way, yeah? I feel like It'd be healthy for me to stop being on my own, you know? Just got so used to it, but no need to do so anymore. Feels selfish.>>And a pause to snag an empty coffee cup from another table, so she can ash her cigarette. <<I have not had much time to speak with the Captain, but he seemed a good and honorable man. It's hard for cold warriors like us sometimes, it's good to have a reminder that we don't need to be so gloomy.>>

Winter Soldier has posed:
Buck gives her an upnod at the mention of her father in Warsaw, that little curling hint of a smile. He accepts lighter and cigarette with gratitude, ignoring the looks from some of the others present. World War II relics get some forbearance - he fought that war on a neverending stream of terrible percolator coffee and unfiltered Luckies. Lights it up in turn, before handing them back. Only once he's blown a perfect smoke ring does he look down again.

<<I was hoping you'd come to see the light when it comes to SHIELD,>> he says, slowly. <<Figured you might, given enough time to consider and evidence worth considering. It's good to have a team. Most especially for those of us who need a good mechanic.>> The mention of Steve brings that smile into full, fond bloom - it takes years off his face. <<HE's the best man I ever met, even if I sometimes want to bash his face into a doorframe when he's being stubborn. He's kept me alive so many times, in so many ways....>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<Well I'm a soldier, not spy. Eighty five hundred pounds, ten Venko Generators and a jet engine from a cruise missile does not lend itself to covert action. Neither does the Airstrike armor either, really. Feel like there might be a place to put the more, overt soldierly types yes?>>Because Russia was a success in her eyes, and well within her SOP obviously. <<I'm not a fan of taking orders from Civilians, or being around them really. Remember I was a lifer until I defected, and giving up the uniform was the hard part of it.>>

    Theres a slow drag there, ashing that cigarette casually as she returns some SHIELD guy's stink-eye, with bionic perfection. <<I also need to start thinking about what comes after, who takes the armor up.>>

Winter Soldier has posed:
There's the faintest wistful flicker at that. Once upon a time, he was a soldier and not an assassin. <<SHIELD needs soldiers - it's not all sneaky covert action. Hell, you might want to talk to Steven about it, too. The Avengers might need heavy duty back up, these days. Most of the folks here aren't really civvies...>> Buck snags the ash-cup, taps into it. Does nicotine even get to him, these days? But even if it doesn't, the memory of it is enough. The last comment has him cocking his head. <<YEAh? What're you thinking there?>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<I'm dying in the armor, like every other Dynamo. In Russia this was no problem at start, there was a whole program and a pool of candidates who were ready to do it and protect the -people-. Now though, if I die and there isn't another?>>Theres a shrug and a wave of the hand there, sucking on that cigarette again. <<Best case is It ends with me, which is terrible enough. Worse though, Russia invents new fascist version and betrays everything every Dynamo has stood for since program inception. I mean they brainwashed Ursa Major, who was sort've my Steve. He didn't even know my face, and they have him with a clones of the original Winter Guard. Whats next, they clone me too?>>

    <<The Dynamo is the protector of the prolitariat, the defender of the people. Twelve men have given their lives for the cause, they deserve to live on. So I need to find somone who can take the armor if I should fall, to keep the banner out of the mud.>>Theres a pause there, as she chains up another smoke. <<Another Soldier, of course. Civilians would not understand what this is, what it means to wear the armor of the people.>>From a woman who's got "I'm just here for the violence" tattooed on her bicep, no less.

Winter Soldier has posed:
....is this going where he thinks it is? Surely not. But there's that little pinched line between his brows, and he doesn't take another drag, for the moment. <<Now, I don't know the specs on that gear - does it have to be deadly?>> is his first question. Still an American, despite the Siberian crucible they put him through. <<And.....I hate to say this, but....yeah, it's likely they'll dust off the symbolism, make a new set, and use it for whatever tinplate would-be tsar's willing to throw money at it. Putin's gotten better and better at invoking the old Soviet tropes. You got an apprentice back in Russia? Someone we need to get out - a likely candidate?>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<Not you, my friend. Not Steve, or anyone else I know. The suit uses an implant at base of skull, takes information from nervous system directly. Empowered persons do not move or feel in the same way that normal people do, and then there is the matter of temprement. Your violence comes from the wrong place, you're too calm.>>Calmly she rolls up the sleeve of that Gorka to expose her mechanical arm, with a neat roll of the rest. <<Is how I control this, is like suit. I cannot see armor as armor, I must see it as me. I am in two places at once, two people. The Suit, and Galina. I must know how to rage, to beserk like warriors of old. Is only way to fight when sheathed in enough power to light eastern coast.>>

    <<No last candidate died in helicopter crash with VDV, conflict in Ukraine. He was not a great pilot to begin with, but he had the right sort of temprement. I will need to find new peson, build training suits and reverse engineer implant. Would be complicated, and costly.>>Theres finally a little shrug there. <<We must have the heart of a tiger, and the mind of a monk. Is rare sort of person.>>

Winter Soldier has posed:
He blows out a little laugh in relief....and promptly blushes at his own temerity for even thinking it. Another, deeper drag, and he sighs, blowing smoke off to one side. <<Yeah,>> he admits. <<I was always a sniper, and that needs coldness. And I can't even see this as part of me.>> HE stretches out the metal hand, flexes the fingers. It's a strangely beautiful thing, watching the fine plates shift like the scales of a fish, or sleek feathers. <<Let alone armor. Though Steve might be able to, considering. But he wouldn't....>>

Buck leans back, chair creaking. <<This does sound like a very good reason to really enlist with SHIELD. They have the budget, they have the technical ability, and they have the mandate to protect. It'd just be the people of earth at large, not only Russia.>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<I have always fought for the -people-, The Dynamo exists to protect innocents no matter their nationality. Is why they created Titanium man, and why Dynamo and Titanium man never been allies. It's also why I took such pleasure in killing that animal, and why I did not shy away from making it last even as old team beat me. This is no big change for me.>>Theres a little shrug there, leaning back to sneak a cup of coffee off some poor sod as he passes by with his lunch tray.

    <<You are not collection of things, remember this well my friend. You are not a bundle of organs and a mechanical arm, nor are you what you have done. We are what we fight for, what we are willing to die for. I have unique perspective though, I have my mind partially seperated from the flesh every time I suit up. I am not what you see, nor are you. We are something intangible, a spirit or soul. The flesh is temporary.>>Philosophy with the Dynamo, go fig.

Winter Soldier has posed:
She's caught him with that, it's readily clear. By the look in his eyes, the way he almost forgets to ash again. One last drag dispatches the cigarette, and he drops the butt into the mug.

Buck looks for a moment as if he'd argue, but he doesn't. What's really wanting to argue with her is the decades of conditioning meant to render him a tool, a weapon, a compliant piece of equipment. Trying to bootstrap himself back to a fully autonomous sense of self - it's like watching a cartoon character that's been steamrolled get himself back up to three dimensions by blowing into his own thumb. And she's just exposed another bare spot. His lips firm up into that almost pout. <<You really think that....>> It's wondering, more than anything else.

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<The First Darkstar was my friend, I knew her very well. When she died they cloned her, conditioned her brain with some sort of gadget to fill her with everything the first one ever knew. The second dark star had the same experiences, same memories, same tools. She was the exact same in every measurable, mechanical way. Yet she wasn't the same, she was a different person. This second Dark Star was also my friend, I also knew her well. Everything the same, yet she wasn't. She was a distinct individual, both were unique in all of creation.>>And a pause to chain up another smoke. <<All the same parts, different person. The Third Darkstar, all the same parts again and yet again? Different person.>>

    <<You, are the pilot. Immaterial, immeasurable, invisible yet existant. Is very Russian to disbelieve anything you cannot touch, yet obvserve every superstition.>>And an ash, as she sips her stolen coffee. <<You are the same man you always were. We are all the people we were meant to be.>>

Winter Soldier has posed:
<<But I'm not,>> he says, lifting a finger. IT's not bitterly personal - almost banter, in fact. But that's a welcome change. If he can....well, not play with it exactly, but turn it over. <<I'm not the James Barnes who went off to fight the Nazis all those years ago. Not just him. I was the Soldier. I remember the things the Soldier did - it was my hands that did them. My body they altered. The Soldier's gone, but...it was an amputation just as much as if you cut off this whole arm.>> And he flaps the metal hand, ridiculously. <<He's not in control anymore, but.... the space is there. The experiences I had. STeve....he looks at me, he sees the friend of his childhood, who just happened to be hurt in the war. He can't really see the changes....>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<Change does not unmake a thing, it changes. Just like pouring water from one glass to the other, the shape of the container changes but it's still the same water. Your perspective is different sure, but that doesn't mean you're not you.>>And another cigarette, because of course. <<If I stand on this chair, my perspective will become radically different. Everything will seem different, even if they haven't changed. I haven't changed either, I've just moved to a different place. The line however, is unbroken.>>And a little shrug. <<We are who we are, nobody can rob us of this. No matter the container, or the perspective. You don't need to expend so much energy trying to justify things, you're all tangled up in whats wrong or lost.>>A little shrug. <<Whats it matter anyway? Neither of us is gonna get out of here alive, we're stuck in this together. You find people who like you and you run with them, you don't need to justify how and why.>>

Winter Soldier has posed:
<<Look at you, you're a philosopher,>> Buck's voice is gentle, teasing. <<But I wasn't me. Not then. Like...possession. Now I'm like....>> He glances around, as if a suitable simile will appear out of thin air. <<I dunno. It feels like being an earthquake survivor, sometimes. All those years and violence - the last time I had a whole year where I knew myself, we were at war. Stalin was in charge, men hadn't walked on the moon....>>

Then he shrugs back, hands spread. <<But you're right. Like we said back then, the only way home is forward and through. No way to turn back.>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<You were asleep, you did things whilst asleep. Now you're awake, the past cannot be changed so do not worry over it.>>Eyebrow lofted a little, and a ghost of a smile. <<Worry about what you can change, otherwise everything will always just suck.>>

    <<Philosopher, meh. I read much when I was Moscow's lone defender, library was free and warm. I needed perspective, a more refined lense to view the world around me so I might discover my place in it. >>And well she lifts that robotic hand, to tap at the metal bits surrounding that mechanical eyeball. <<Then again I was shot close range in head, bits of grey matter was put in jars. Maybe you are talking to a crazy woman with brain damage, eh?>>Theres a smirk there, finally. <<In the 93rd Guards, it was "None but us". In the Winter Guard it was "For the people". Now it is more uhh, "You see Mouse trap, I see free cheese and a fucking challenge." you know?

Winter Soldier has posed:
Buck blows a rude reply to that. <<I've had more electroshock than anyone who isn't being executed ever should. You're definitely talking to someone with brain damage, too. But.....holy fools gotta come from somewhere, I guess.>> Now there's an image - the pair of them as those wandering saints of Orthodoxy. <<You're right, though. You're right.>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<I was Senior Sargeant, I am always right. It is a terrible curse, ruins movies all the time.>>Glasses replaced, before she sinks back with a genuine little smile. <<God the church, don't even get me started. Would be comforting to believe, but I've seen too much combat to believe there is a plan. My mother believed, but I never knew her. Grandparents..>>Theres a little lift of her hands and a shrug. <<Never met them, Latvians originally so probably quite mad.>>

Winter Soldier has posed:
He snickers, a little. <<Are Latvians always mad?>> Buck wonders, as he pushes aside his nearly empty tray. <<And yeah. I wasn't raised in any religion. Technically, I'm a Jew, but...>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<Latvians, yes always mad. Superstitious as anyone I've known in all my travels, and very religious. The Bulgarians are a close second though, Widden is worth a visit though.>>Theres a little smirk there as she leans in. <<I had this Private from Bulgarian stock in my unit, built like a rock crusher. Anyway he told me a story, a folk tale. You ever heard of a "Wolf Wife"?>> And so the central business of a good russian get together has begun, folktales. The Vodka will probably come out later, probably.

Winter Soldier has posed:
<<Bulgarians are straight up insane. It's gotta be something in the water.>> He won't argue that. <<No. There's a lot of Russian and Slav culture I didn't know, because no one ever thought I would need it. They instructed me in what they thought a weapon could use, but.....I didn't ever, like, hang out, even when I wasn't alone on a mission.>>

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    <<So if a young girl dies cruely before her time, her spirit can't pass on. Her place in the afterlife isn't ready yet, so she has to wait. Now the alternative, is revenge. She's owed payback, rightfully. So she can find a witch who sees ghosts, and petition her. If the Witch agrees revenge is needed, she finds the spirit of a she-wolf who's got a legitimate grudge against men. The three talk it out, and if all parties agree? The girl digs her way out of the earth, and knows where her killer is right out. She goes and turns into a wolf, kills the man. Now if she eats his heart, she remains amongst the living to avenge others. If she passes on the meal, she and the she-wolfe get like express passage to the afterlife.>>Knuckles rapped against the wood, to keep the spirits at bay. <<If they stay, they find love and become wives. All is swell, until somone fucks with them. Then it's game on, right out of the gate.>>

    <<I love that sort of stuff, all the girls in the academy used to be super into folk stories and stuff like that. I thought it fun, but then I served with the Slavic Thor and the Slavic devil for a year or two. That sort've, adjusted my world view of things you know? Now it's all I read about, puts things in perspective.>>