foes | EL NYSA

( LOG 1 PART 1: from here. )

[ Bucky's awareness of the other man's presence, the particular pattern and cadence of his footsteps, flickers in like a shutter zooming and closing. Captures information. Files it away: profile created for one 'friendly' guy who carves machetes out of scrap metal.

That takes some doing, he thinks, as they move around a grove of strange fern-like trees. Upside-down weeping willows.
He signals his new partner to circle one half, meet him on the other side.

Either the man's got friends, or he's Gifted.
Bucky considers the Maximoff girl. ]

Hear that, [ again, not a question — confirmation, ] running water.

[ Friends or gifts. He wants to know, either way. ]

( LOG 1 PART 1: from here. )

[ A clipped nod is her confirmation: yes, water. The camp's running short already; he knows not even half of the intended supplies made it down with the pods. ]

You ready to come with?

[ Now that she's alerted him of her presence, she might as well let him guard it. Maybe the situation can be mutual. ]

( LOG 1 PART 1: from here. )

[ He hears the muffled pounding from fifty or so paces away, he figures. His hearing could normally go further, but say hello to some especially extenuating circumstances (pods wailing as they plummet towards the earth all around them on a wing and a prayer and a parachute, if they're lucky).

Then comes the tell-tale howl of an impatient man in an inconvenient bit of pain. ]

Hang on, [ he slaps his hand on the outer shell, ] I can help, but you've got to stop kicking first.

They start out alone.

Bruce deliberately avoids a route intersecting with others — prowling without worry. Some instincts have to be let out once in a while, he takes this, and he lets it breathe as it must.

Still, he’s not surprised when a shadow crosses his periphery, and a low voice says, hey, you friendly?

He places the voice immediately. That's not the point. The point is: So you still think you’re funny.

There’s a joke about how they don’t like change, loaded in both of them. I know you is better than hello; I understand is unvoiced, the closest thing to mercy from them both. He's made space for complements, not reflections — there’s no value in that kind of kinship. It is at most a necessary evil: nothing can be built from it. Shadows aren't real.

(And yet. Left and right, weapons not pointed at each other. They started out alone, and now they’re not. There’s something to be said for animal magnetism.)

The pad of their feet on the forest floor is silent.

He hears the spiders first. Or — he hears Dick, softly calling him through the trees. His voice pulls a heartstring taut.

How dare you. It’s a fierce hiss, he knows his ghosts. Bruce Wayne excels at few things more than that. But it tries again, whatever it is, and it’s then he decides if it calls him, he’ll answer.

He can feel Barnes next to him, abruptly present. Taut, listening. If he hears it too, they know what they have to do.

They start in the same direction. The same, measured steps. The soft pressure of fingers around a trigger, cousin to the swish of a machete being drawn.

What is it?

Neither asks and neither answers.

Prey.

hey handsome

How do you feel about teamwork?

[ They have an agreement, of a kind. A shared space in a small repair shop with an attached garage. Time that's letting them learn exactly what angles the mirror shows as the same. What he's thinking about is something else. ]

Hey Bucky

I found your username off the network

Wanted to see how you were settling in

☛ beknight.

☛ krasnaya_vdova.

☛ godwins.

THE DESCENT PT. 2 — BREAKFAST & BAGELS.

no subject

text | foster | batcrypted

text; un: s.rogers