19258/Brotherhood of the Chosen: Dastardly Dick.

Brotherhood of the Chosen: Dastardly Dick.
Date of Scene:	23 October 2024
Location:	Brunsman Estate: Summersville West Virginia.
Synopsis:	The team makes it into Richard Brunsman's fortress of a home, only to find out that the real Dick might not be as dastardly as they suspected.
Cast of Characters:	James Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Felicia Hardy, Bruce Banner, Richard Stadler, Camille Russo

---

James Barnes has posed:
Drawing a stark contrast to the mining town in West Virginia where Bucky and some close allies fought to save human beings from experimentation, Summersville is picture perfect. With it's private mansions perched upon high mountains, Summersville real estate comes with a high price tag. Each sprawling estate seems essentially cut off from neighboring homes by the expanse of land between them. This is where the rich go when they don't want to be bothered.

Richard Brunsman among those rich enough to have the pleasure of owning a home in the mountains of Summersville.

Intel revealed that Brunsman and his family would be out of town for two days starting just this afternoon. They began their trip to Washington DC early this morning - it's just after 7 PM, the sun is just about ready to set. It's always a good idea to get a true lay of the land in the daylight, wanning or not, than it is to try and go in blind in the dark.

Why didn't they just have a drone scope the place the day before? Because Brunsman's security is *tight*. So tight that any invasion of 'airspace' around the place by anything electronic would have sent off warning bells.

Faint light glows from several of the windows to reveal at least a few people milling about inside. It's very likely the staff? Could be a few of them are security? From simply watching and waiting, it's easy to ascertain that there are at least four warm bodies inside.

Bucky isn't with the team as they gather to discuss their plans - he's found himself a little nest up wind of the place. He's poised to take the shot - or shots - should this go belly up.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanova had gone to setup an observation position herself. She had taken out a bulky rifle that in it held a large disk. The disk was filled over with small 'insect' drones that upon initialization would spread out and move into observation points. Just the size of normal bugs, they hopefully would be less prone to be noticed even by more advanced stealth systems. Complete with things like UV scanners, 'scent' markers, and deployable beacons, she would move to line up the launcher and fire it over to one of the sides of the mansion.

The large disk would 'pop' through the air and hopefully be taken as just a branch blasted up by the heavy wind to flummp and roll along before releasing it's cargo for them to spread ou tand hopefully give them extensive on-site data.

Felicia Hardy has posed:
Felicia Hardy crouches low on a ridge overlooking Brunsman's sprawling estate, the faint glow of her HUD illuminating the soft contours of her mask. The quiet mountain air presses in around her, the distant glow of sunset casting long shadows across the manicured grounds below. This isn't the run-of-the-mill smash-and-grab, no open displays of chaos or adrenaline-fueled rooftop chases.

No, this job was all about precision.

She brushes a gloved finger over the wrist controls embedded in her gauntlet, cycling through the various scans her suit's inlaid tech can provide. A faint, flickering overlay appears before her eyes, displaying heat signatures of the bodies moving around inside the mansion -- four of them, at least. Staff? Security? Hard to say from this distance, but the contours of the building are clear enough. She's seen fortresses before, but this one's locked down tight.

"Nice place," she mutters under her breath, though the edge of tension keeps her voice low.

Her suit tonight is her more advanced gear -- sleek black fabric reinforced with a layer of puncture-resistant material. The lenses over her eyes pulse faintly with light from the HUD, tracking every movement inside the estate. On her belt, a series of small pouches are loaded with supplies: micro-explosives, smoke pellets, lockpicks. The basics.

Felicia flexes her fingers, her retractable claws sliding in and out effortlessly beneath the thin layer of her gauntlets. "All dressed up and nowhere to go," she purrs softly, though there's no one to hear her. She shifts her weight slightly, watching as the last rays of sunlight dip below the horizon. The estate below is bathed in shadow, save for the few lights still glowing faintly from within.

< "Looks like the staff's still hanging around. At least four bodies, but no signs of Brunsman." >

Bruce Banner has posed:
When one is attempting to look inconspicuous, it's generally best not to show up to a multi-millionaire's house dressed as the Unabomber. But not all of the members of Bucky's little band of scalawags have an extensive background in espionage. Which explains to some extent why the long-absent Dr. Bruce Banner is in the back of a van wearing a black hoodie, black ballcap, and a pair of mirrored aviators. All of which seem to have been recent gas station purchases. To make matters worse, his hood is pulled up over his head, and several months of beard have grown in to the point that it's beginning to give 'homeless.'

<BRAAAAAAP!>

Covering his mouth belatedly, though the burp has already been burped, Bruce tosses a can of highly alcoholic energy drink over his shoulder where it clatters against the floor of the van. Tapping away at the gakked-out laptop in front of him, he is scrolling through lines of code so quickly that it seems unlikely that he could possibly be reading them. Yet he's staring at them intently as he reaches for yet another Mad Cinco.

They're illegal to purchase in all fifty states, but apparently Bruce has a hookup.

Stepping out of the back of the van, with his laptop balanced precariously in one hand while he chugs the limited edition 'Kick-Ass Razzzberry X-Treme' flavored Mad Cinco, Bruce stumbles as one of his slippers gets caught on the van's hitch, but manages not to fall on his face. Looking at the Black Cat with bleary eyes, he seems too tired to register her outfit, which is a problem that his current alter ego probably wouldn't have.

Of course, the flannel pajama bottoms that he's wearing with his slippers aren't quite as attention-getting, but the good news is that they look pretty grimy.

"Brunsman's the bad <BRAAAAAP!!!> guy, right? I don't know why I'm asking, I literally don't care... transporter's set up but it's... <BRAAAAAP!!!!>... uh... configured for someone with about... five times your mass. So..."

Furiously tapping away one handed while he balances the laptop precariously on a lifted leg, Dr. Banner looks as if he's in danger of falling over at any minute.

"There we go. Should be good to go, but... if it was me... I wouldn't do that. Nobody ever listens to my advice though..."

Inside the back of the van begins to glow green. Good thing they're parked a good distance from the estate.

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Rick was muttering, yet again, to himself, sitting in a currently cold car, on what exactly he was doing in a place like this. West Virgina certainly had pretty mountains, to be sure, but beyond that, it had as much to recommend itself as the Dakotas... not a lot. The breaking and entering they had planned for this sort of operation wasn't exactly... new to him, but the manner of it was. It had been at least... 7, 8 years? And they weren't just ripping information out of the wall and leaving a trail of guards in the wake of plausible deniability. He was getting a bit tired of this spook stuff, and considering contracting this out next time to a friend.

The car was easy to get and kit out, of course; decals were always the hardest part, but most police departments used the same sort of gear when they were in unmarked vehicles, and it was just the matter of the right light bars, the right attenna, and a license plate that was much easier to fake and didn't take a lot of time in a body shop. Dark color, of course, on the side of the road, with a camo net over it, as Rick's own garb was currently covered with an inconspiious jacket. The radio was on, still receiving, for the moment, as he got on the comms themselves. "I'm you're Act 2, here, so just... don't get caught until we have the data. Hide the flash drive somewhere. And let me know if we need to go to plan B."

Camille Russo has posed:
Camille is dressed for stealth, runes embroidered into her hood and gloves that let her blend more easily into the shadows, sigils on her boots that keep her quiet and don't leave prints behind. A less permanent version of the same has been offered to the rest of their group, anything she could string together properly to minimize their chances of detection. Sound, scent, print... all fading into a faint distance as they come upon the mansion nestled into the high mountains.

Her mouth firms into a frown as she takes the place in, the glut of excess adding to the anger simmering in her mind at the thought of the man selling the nation's secrets to HYDRA. Making money off the senseless murder of her brothers and sisters serving the country. It's probably a good thing the man's gone, because intel like that... it cracks something open in her, the knowledge that this man is getting fat off payments that are a direct part of the reason her MO had become so important in the last decade or so, why they were cross-training across the sorts of branches that normally wouldn't have reason to need extraction.

"I have plenty of pockets to hide flash drives in," Cam remarks dryly into the comms. "And... whatever else we need to grab so that it doesn't look like we were here for intel, plus a few things that could be used for general chaos in the event we need to hide the theft of an entire internal drive or something." Most of her options were low-tech, but enhanced with magic somehow. The bars running up her spine were her favorites though, short enough to handle easily and far more durable than expected, enabling their use for prying apart and smashing with relative ease.

James Barnes has posed:
Fortunately, there *is* some wind gusting going on in the region tonight - it probably wouldn't matter much if there wasn't. Trees fall in the woods, it happens all the time - but does it make sound of no one's around to hear it? It's a pretty sprawling estate and there does only seem to be four people inside - at least on the upper levels. Does the place have a basement? It seems likely. Could there be people down there? It's anyone's guess. It could just be the biggest wine cellar in the world? One of the little bugs that got close enough would pick up the master bedroom dead center of the house and an office study just to the west of the bedroom. Two of the warm bodies are seated at a table in the kitchen - both of them men, both of them armed. One of the other two is in a smaller bedroom on the second floor, the other is in a living area on the first.

One thing that does stand out though is the small sign on the side of the gate leading into the property - Protected by AegisGuard - maybe Brunsman gets a discount for the advertising? For those 'in the know' when it comes to security system, Aegis provides all manner of high tech security, it's likely that every single system in the estate from motion detectors to electric fencing to standard alarm systems and cameras are run out of Aegis. It's good stuff, tough to break but not impossible.

To those that are really really really 'in the know', thirteen similar systems have been taken down by a virus they call PhantomWorm in the past five months.

Listening on open comms from his next in the tree line, Bucky mutters, "Really Banner? I could smell that all the way up here." The belches that is. Or at least he could imagine the smell from the imagery of sound. Was that a joke? From *Bucky* "This is plan B, Rick. Plan A was nuke it from orbit and sift through the rubble." Was that *another* joke from *Bucky*? "I'm bored - let's all hope I stay that way, yeah?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanova would take a moment to use the scope on her bulky launcher to scan the area while the micro-drones would go to insert themselves, scuttling through windows, ducts, and vents, placing the occasional small micro-sensor along to hopefully give them a ocntinuous data feed to use to scope the place out. While they could auto-hack systems if they could get to them, their capabilities was not guaranteed. Easier to do from a workstation.

But hopefully they could provide a workstation easily enough by tracking power and information feeds.

<<Go about your assignments. Best way to disable the security system?>> That's given to Felicia. The woman probably had already robbed several places with this setup in the last few weeks anyways. If she'd had an idea ahead of time of what the security setup was, she probably could have gotten ahold of the virus..

Felicia Hardy has posed:
Felicia gets to her feet with the fluid grace of a cat, every movement deliberate as she saunters over to Bruce, her eyes glinting with playful mischief. The subtle glow of her HUD illuminates the blue of her eyes as she sidles up next to his hooded form, and without hesitation, she leans in close -- close enough for her breath to brush against his ear as she whispers into _his_ comms with a sultry purr.

<< "If you think it's bad from up there, you should smell it from down here." >>

"Come on, Doctor. You can help me balance out that mass equation. We have a date with destiny, and I have pockets to fill."

Without waiting for a response, she grabs his hoodie, tugging him gently but firmly toward the back of the van. "Let's go, big guy."

Dragging Bruce with her, Felicia steps into the glowing green light of the teleporter, her lips curling into a satisfied smile as she glances over her shoulder. "So what do we do?" she asks, her tone still playful, but with a hint of challenge. "Is there a magic word? Or do I just have to say pretty please?"

The van hums with the energy of the teleporter as Felicia's fingers rest lightly on Bruce's arm, keeping him from retreating. Oh, he was going with her, one way or the other. But she gives him a teasing smirk, waiting for him to hit the button, her body already poised for whatever comes next.

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Rick grimaces a bit at the talk.. and the belches. "I know this is a group of reprobates, but can we try to keep this net a little more professional?" It's a desperate ask , as he brings his watch up, holding down the nubs to check the time in the green glow of a lit screen. The way that he had to do it from a setting sun answered his question more than the actual time, but it helped with his nerves. "At least I'm not in that teleporter, though. YOu're a bit braver than I am." And who knows if the soul came with you when that happened? At least he wasn't going to be met with metaphysical questions today.

A beep on the phone he was carrying (not /his/ phone; who the hell needed something tied to him pinging off a West Virgina Cellphone tower?) had him look down, reading it with a nod. No response to it; just the read receipt would be enough. "Passing over a link. Should link to that virus they happen to have some trouble with. Apparantly they're working on a patch that'll be out tomorrow, so use it today."

There were times when knowing someone in the NSA had it's perks.

Bruce Banner has posed:
If anyone thought that Bruce's burps were loud, they should try to measure just how many decibels one of his gulps is. Though it's likely that he's never gulped quite as loudly as when the gorgeous creature in the catsuit gets dangerously close. But of course, he can't help but smile a bit bashfully as he is negged, and seems more or less powerless to resist as he's led toward the van. He does not, however, seem too powerless to complain.

"I don't... uh... thing is... not really sure that's the BEST idea... In fact, I'd characterize it more along the lines of... maybe... the WORST?"

Bruce takes one last look at the sky before he gets into the van, and seems to be very nervous about something. Probably just the weather, right? He looks like someone who would get nervous about the weather.

As crusty slippers slide across the floor of the van, Bruce scoots along as he types, but somehow manages to still find time to chug his knockoff alcoholic energy drink. Judging by the bloodshot eyes and the... natural odors... he probably desperately needs the caffeine. The alcohol seems to be doing little to calm down the nervous little theoretical physicist.

"It's not going to be able to teleport us back out. And it's getting kind of late..."

The teleporter pad begins to vibrate as Felicia steps onto it, and Bruce seems perfectly comfortable to stay well just outside of its reach. Behind his mirrored shades, lines of scrolling green code are reflected as he makes the last minute adjustments. A highly detailed 3D model of the Black Cat appears on his screen, and he begins the final transfer.

"Pretty please. Huh. That'd be a first... but no... just try not to go insane from the temporal distortion and the brief exposure to the Face of God. It's very important not to make eye contact."

He taps a few remaining keys, and watches as the field engages. Turning away from it, he leans his head backward to finish off the rest of his Mad Cinco, and prepares to spend the rest of the evening doing whatever it is he does when he's alone.

But the floor of the van is slippery, from a previously discarded can of alcoholic energy drink, and thus Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, one of the greatest minds of this or any other time, finds himself flailing backward into an active transporter beam like one of the Three Stooges. There's a shriek, from Bruce, as he collides with Felicia, and a flash of green as their atoms are disassembled, scattered, and fired into one of the rooms of Scumbag Brunsman's highly-fortified mansion.

When they rematerialize, Bruce drops his drink on the ground as he falls flat on his back, his laptop flying away and landing several meters with a crash.

Camille Russo has posed:
Camille's eyebrow quirks up when she hears Felicia's voice coming from Bruce's earpiece rather than the woman's own, but she doesn't say anything. Soon enough Rick's chiming in, and her quiet chuckle stays off-comms. Her hand disappears into her pocket, trusty marker making an appearance as she steps up to the lock on the first set of gates. A bead also makes an appearance, small and round, similar to a liquid pill in appearance if not for the vivid lilac appearance. It's tossed at the lock, breaking and splashing across it on contact.

She holds her breath, listening for the tell-tale sounds of alarms or the hum of electricity, then slowly reaches a hand up to hold the lock steady. A scrawl and the lock clicks open in her hands, gates swinging open on silent hinges.

The potion lingers behind, a trace of her magic clinging stubbornly to the lock.

James Barnes has posed:
Bruce and Felicia successfully reach their destination - it might be good to remember that said destination is well within earshot of the two armed men at the kitchen table. It doesn't sound like a lot, in fact it's not - they could take those two no trouble at all. But there's always the off chance that one of them presses a button and sounds the alarm.

As Natasha's little drones work their way inside, two discoveries of note are made. One - this place does have a basement. There's a desk, a rather elaborate computer system and two obvious safes in one corner of that basement room. In the other corner of the room is the door to what might be a panic room.

The second discovery - Mrs. Brunsman and her son, Richard Brunsman Jr. (Age 13), must have decided to skip the trip to DC. The mother's the warm body in the living room, the boy is in the bedroom on the second floor.

It's just one of the pitfalls of working with a small, secular team that's cut off from the assets and equipment provided by the likes of SHIELD. Intel isn't always correct and there isn't always a way to triple check to make sure that it is correct.

<< "Stick with us long enough, your soul won't be something you need to worry about." >> That? Didn't even sound like Bucky was joking. This sort of stuff, unsanctioned and 'do whatever it takes to get it done' stuff? It isn't for everyone. It can be truly soul sucking for anyone that thinks solidly in terms of black and white.

But even with all the joking, Bucky is actually very serious about his 'work'. His voice has lost all sense of humor - Winter is back. << What the hell was *that*? >> Loud noises in a stealth mission can't be good.

And they're *not*. The two men at the kitchen table stand so quickly that one knocks his chair over in the process - cards in the hand of the other flutter to the floor as he abandons them to draw his sidearm.

Outside, the sun is about a hair's breadth from being replaced by the rising moon.

And Camille has found her way through the front gate.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
As she hears the sounds of scuffling along the other end, Natasha, still on the perimeter as backup given the teleport inside, goes to internally sigh. And moves to get up fron her concealed position about five hundred meters away from the Mansion and goes to approach it, staying close to the ground. Moving to head over towards the side of it to use the walls as cover, giving a quick update along the comm <<En route and on standby. Positioning?>> Asking where they wanted her to go if they needed backup. And hopefully staying to the side of the security system. Taking with her simpler equipment now that she was approaching to help with the guise of it being a robbery. Some small pliers for wires, some spray on gel for cameras, and some small mirrors to help peek around things. Presuming she can get to the side of the place undetected, she moves to press to the wall to listen in and wait to see if the others would yank her inside - or there was the sounds of an alert going off.

Felicia Hardy has posed:
Felicia taps her foot, crossing her arms impatiently as she waits for the final scan to complete. Her lenses glow faintly, the inlaid HUD flickering with data as she shifts her weight, clearly ready to move. The teleporter hums beneath her boots, and Felicia glances toward Bruce, who's still fumbling with his laptop.

<< "I'm going in. I'll let you know when the security system's down." >>

But before she can take another step, the teleporter beam activates, and suddenly, Banner is crashing right into her. There's a flash of green light, and when they land, it's in a heap -- with Felicia pinned underneath the scientist. A surprised grunt escapes her lips as the weight of his body presses her to the ground, but the sound of men cursing in the kitchen snaps her back into action.

Rolling Bruce off of her with a quick motion, she gets to her feet, drawing two shocktacs from her belt. Her movements are quick, precise, despite the unexpected company.

The first man bursts through the door just as Felicia leaps at him. She grabs his arm, twisting it into a joint lock and using his momentum against him. He struggles, pushing back hard enough to make her stumble, but Felicia recovers quickly, thrusting him forward and spinning to use him as a shield. Her hand flies forward, releasing one of the shocktacs with deadly accuracy. The small metal disc embeds itself in the second man's chest just as he's drawing his gun.

Electricity courses through him, his body seizing violently before collapsing to the floor. "Night, night," she murmurs before placing the second shocktac on the man she's holding, letting him go and watching with satisfaction as he spasms and crumples at her feet.

Her wrist unit lights up with Stadler's message as she's brushing herself off.

<< "We're in. Working on the virus." >>

"Doc, can you handle uploading the virus?"

Or, maybe... hopefully... he had already started that.

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Rick is leaning forward, as the comms go silent after Felicia mentions what she's doing.. and there's a very loud sound. His eyes are on the police radio; if there is an alert, it would hopefully come through this radio here... private security would take time to get to a place as isolated as West Virginia, and the local police had 16 officers to play with; a billionaire having trouble would have provoked a response, at least.

But then there's a message that they're in, and uploading now. "Anyone mind clueing me in on what the sounds were on the comm there? Whose on site currently?"

His eyes go to the UMP, resting on the seat next to him, silence already affixed. He... would rather not go to Plan C. Or get arrested in the middle of the Applicahans.

Camille Russo has posed:
Cam hears the crash through the comms and winces, still making her way through the front. It's possible she's been spending too much time with John, as her first thought is a string of colorful but distinctly British profanity, a faint urge to blame Caleb - it's rude and she's a little ashamed for thinking it, especially since she'd actually like to have some of his little concussive beads and other tricks on hand. "There's another gate between me and the front door. Try not to blow shit up before we can get in and get the job done," she hisses into her piece, stalking up to the next gate to repeat her trick. Toss, splash, and a confident grab before she draws a tiny sigil, the lock clicking open and gates following with a silent swing.

"I believe that was the teleporting duo," she adds for Rick. "And both gates are open now, so at least there's a chance for an easier exit."

Bruce Banner has posed:
It wouldn't be fair to call the position that Dr. Banner is in 'fetal', necessarily. Because he's partially upright, back pressed against the wall, and hugging his freshly-grabbed laptop to his chest. But with his legs drawn up close to him, and since he's rocking back and forth amidst the sudden chaos and the ensuing violence, he certainly doesn't present an especially commanding figure.

As the second goon goes down, Bruce scrambles to his feet, checking the computer for signs of trauma. There are a few, but fortunately it still seems to be in perfect working order. It's strong enough for a Hulk, but made for a Banner.

"Wow, you really handled that. Sorry... shaking... think it might be all the excitement..."

There's a van full of empty Mad Cinco cans that say the shaking was caused by something else entirely.

He has the good sense to keep his voice down, but he looks antsy. Like 'Is this the Five O'Clock Free Crack Giveaway?' levels of antsy. Looking around the room with spastic, jerky motions, Bruce finds the server that he was looking for, and reaches into his pocket. He has to set his laptop on top of the server, as his hands are moving a bit unpredictably. As he produces a datastick from his pajama bottoms, he fidgets with shaking hands as he tries to insert it into the servers USB drive. Dropping it on the floor, he curses mildly, and spends a few seconds picking it up.

Smiling at Felicia nervously as he stands back up, he manages to get the drive into the server, and then continues looking at her with a smile on his face. This goes on for a couple seconds too long before he realizes he's supposed to be doing something.

"Oh.. uh... ha! The virus. Right... the virus. The old virus... Good old... virus... You know, has anyone ever told you that you look just like a young Anna Nicole Smith? Not like, MUCH younger... I mean, before she died, anyway, but not uh... ahem! Let me get this virus uploaded."

Bruce flips his laptop back open, and begins silently tapping away at the screen, turning his back toward both the Black Cat and the door while he goes into a state of Nerd Flow.

James Barnes has posed:
Up in his little nest, Bucky has line of sight down into that kitchen window. His finger rests easily, lightly on the trigger of his rifle as he stares down the scope. Less patient men might have already taken the shot on at least on of the men in the kitchen. Even as one perfect headshot presents itself, he holds to see if those inside can bring the situation under control quickly enough. He relaxes when he sees Felicia does, in fact, have it under control before either man had a chance to sound the alarm.

In the living room off the kitchen, Mrs. Brunsman stands and looks toward the kitchen. She doesn't call out, she doesn't say a word - she just hurries toward the stairs, up one flight and to the left. She's going for her son. She knows the sounds of a 'scuffle' when she hears one - she watches a lot of television so she probably wants to be sure he's aware of intruders, wants to be sure he's safe.

One of Nat's little drones that's planted itself on the curtain in the boy's bedroom activates with the sound of voices. "Ricky, we have to *go now*. ... "But mom, they still have *dad*." ... "I know honey, but we have to get out of here while those men are distracted by whatever... we just have to *go*." ... "We can't just leave him!" ... "Shhhh, honey, they'll hear you. Your dad would want us to get out while we can, please hurry now."

Back up in Bucky's little nest, his brow furrows as that conversation is broadcast through the communication system. << "Shit. Someone get to that bedroom." >> Then he does something he has probably done only a handful of times in his long long long life as a sniper and an assassin, James Barnes abandons his post. << "I don't think it's the *real* Brunsman selling those secrets." >>

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanova would take a moment to listen to the drones, and then to Bucky's response to them and give an affirmative. <<En route. Russo, Stadler, can you rendezous if need be?>> This is escalating quickly - they had bad intel going in and they made too many presumptions. But that was the way all the ops went. And here.. Her comrade was going on in, so she would go to be his backup.

Natasha goes silent. The part of her that is the barely balanced killer goes silent. There is a child on ahead. A child that she needs to help extract.

That also does not need to see the presence of the woman that Natasha is. She also pauses a moment to slide on a facemask as her hair would blend to a dark brown with it. They weren't supposed to let on who they were, after all. She's intent on ypassing any guards or security en route, taking her time to sync her arrival with that of the others to get some observation up the area first.

Felicia Hardy has posed:
Felicia tilts her head, glancing at Banner as he fumbles with the USB drive. She's got one foot already heading toward the hallway, her patience clearly wearing thin. A smirk plays at the corner of her lips when he starts rambling about Anna Nicole Smith.

Her wrist gauntlet lights up with a message, and Bucky's voice crackles through the comms, cutting sharply into the moment.

Felicia's eyes narrow, calculating the risk. "That's possibly very flattering, but can you please hurry?" she murmurs dryly, her hand resting on her hip. "I'm going to check upstairs."

<< "Two down. One in the kitchen, one in the security room. Banners in the security room. I'm going upstairs." >>

She knows full well the rest of the team is already moving, converging on the mansion, but the tension in her posture betrays her. The timing here is razor-thin, and while she's normally all for taking her time, tonight calls for speed. Her footsteps are silent as she glides toward the stairs, her HUD overlay giving her a full readout of the mansion's layout -- or at least, what they know about it so far from all of those little drones. Her lenses glow faintly, scanning the path ahead.

The goal is to get upstairs. Clear the bad guys. Find the study. Snag some intel. And... maybe a few shiny things along the way. Easy.

Felicia reaches the foot of the stairs just as she hears hurried footsteps ahead. Her lips press into a thin line, and instinctively, her hand hovers near her belt. Her intention had been to avoid a confrontation with civilians, but it's clear the mother and child are on the move. If she has to deal with them, she will, but they're far better left to the rest of the team while she works on... other things.

Bruce Banner has posed:
Banner's fingers move so quickly on the keyboard that they're hard to track with the eye. He's typing away like a man possessed, as if he has a gun to his head. It might look to the casual observer that he's simply nervous about the mission, but missions aren't generally the sort of thing that Bruce cares about. After all, he's a scientist, not a soldier.

As he finishes the upload, a look of relief passes over his face right after he presses the 'Enter' key. He smiles with satisfaction as he looks at the time on his laptop's display.

Just a few seconds before sundown.

Turning towards the Black Cat, the scientist's smile seems to be turning into something else. Something a bit more sinister. Behind those glasses, something almost seems to be glowing.

"It was great meeting you, Miss uh... Black Cat. But you might want to keep a little space now. Nights belong to the Other Guy and... no telling what sort of mood he's going to be in."

As she leaves the room, Bruce breathes a sigh of relief. His voice had been steadily dropping in tone toward the end of the sentence, and his nervous fidgeting has stopped altogether. Rather, he seems to be perfectly confident, perfectly self-assured, and... better not to speculate too much about the 'and.'

Stepping away from his computer, Bruce's foot lands with a heavier thud than normal. It shouldn't be surprising, as his foot is much larger than it was a split second before. His feet expand, leaving the slippers in shreds. Legs expand, doing the same to most of his flannel pajama bottoms. But it's his upper half that has the most jarring of changes, as he grows to an enormous size within the space of a few seconds. Grunting with discomfort, if not with pain, Bruce grips the sides of his head as his skin gradually changes to a deep gray.

Breathing heavily, The Incredible Hulk is now in the security room, looking at the server equipment with pure disgust. The earpiece has practically fallen deeper into his ear canal, and the mission update causes him to grimace as he looks down as his barely-clothed body.

"Not Banner, kiddo. Someone's got some explaining to do before I start lashing out indiscriminately..."

He's had harder-hitting comebacks. But 'indiscriminately' is an awfully big word for a Hulk.

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Rick grumbled to himself, before keying the comms. "Heading on the way." He said, before he moved to quickly exit the car, grabbing the camo netting from the side and quickly gathering it to stuff into the trunk of the car. It was an off the rack Ford, the type that you'd find common on the streets... and in police departments. It sounded like that plan was long tossed out the window, though.

The car moves down from the embankment, over to the road, as Rick moved to reach in and pull the balaclava over his head. The worst part about this was the contacts he was wearing; uncomfortable things, and necessary for someone who normally wore glasses and didn't want to be identified by eye color.

The car winds up the road, then through the gates Camille has already managed to cut through. Stopping in front of the house, gloves on, and the UMP grabbed from the passenger seat. He's already out of the drivers as he moves the sling over his shoulder, checking for a round in the chamber and that the suppressor's secured.

"Securing the downstairs. Where are we with the civilians?"

James Barnes has posed:
It wasn't so much that the intel was *bad*, it's more that no one expected someone else to be playing the part of Richard Brunsman. The man's been seen in public, he's likely been to the office. Someone else is out there walking around wearing Brunsman's face. Or at least it sounds that way? Bucky's approach to the house is anything but stealthy. It's hard to be stealthy when running at the full speed the serum in his veins allows - down hill and through the trees and brush. << "Go, go! Get them out!" >> It could be that Bucky's panic is for naught. It could be that the only two left to 'guard' Brunsman's family are already down for the count. No alarms have been sounded, at least not audibly. But he's not operating on 'could bes', he's operating on 'worst case'. Bucky never wants to see a child harmed. But there's more at stake here. If someone else is wearing Brunsman's face - they need his family alive to try to figure out *who*.

When the virus takes out the security systems, it's not so much a distinct sound that makes everyone aware of it. It's more an absence of sound - like when the 'fridge turns off during a power outage, one never really notices the sound until it's gone. The sound of electric buzzing through the fences dies, the soft click of cameras scanning, both inside and out, dies. The soft blinking green lights on the keypads throughout the house - indicating that the system is active - die.

In the time that it takes Rick to get out of the car, Bucky's already made it to the house - or at least to where Rick. "Upstairs, kid's bedroom!"

But they're no longer upstairs in the kid's bedroom. Serendipity has them *just* missing Felicia. She slips into the study right before they're slipping out of the boy's bedroom.

Mother and son begin a slow descent down the stairs, careful, watchful, silent and mom's since armed herself with a small 9 mil.

<< "Nothing here to kill, go run it off outside." >> Bucky offers over the comms. It's something he understands, in a way, being two different people - two different *things* at one time. One with an urge to do right, or try to do right and one with the urge to kill everything in sight. He gets it.

Felicia Hardy has posed:
Felicia slips into the study, her role as a SHIELD operative falling away like a discarded mask. This was familiar territory now, the rush of the mission replaced with something more primal, more instinctive. She's no longer just infiltrating a fortress for intel -- she's a thief again, slipping effortlessly back into her old skin. Jewel thief, burglar, master of the hunt.

The quiet sounds of the mother and child moving past her room barely register. She's aware of them, but they're not her concern. They're moving on, and so is she -- after all, there's a study to finish pillaging and other rooms to visit.

Her eyes sweep the room with a practiced gaze, pinpointing every detail that could hide valuables. The ornate desk, the bookshelves, the safe behind the abstract painting -- none of it escapes her. She moves systematically, her hands gliding over the surfaces, checking for hidden compartments, sliding drawers open with barely a sound. She's done this a thousand times before, maybe ten thousand, and it shows in the fluidity of her movements, the way her fingers effortlessly search for the edges of a safe or a hidden panel.

Her HUD helps, highlighting potential hiding spots for anything valuable, filtering in heat signatures to look for electricity running to unusual places. She grins as her fingers find a hidden compartment in the desk, pulling out a stack of cash and a few sleek, glistening jewels. Not exactly what she's here for, but she's not about to leave them behind.

Once the study is cleared of anything useful or valuable, Felicia slips back into the hall like a ghost. She'll move on to the master bedroom next, systematically sweeping the house. She's light on her feet, never lingering too long in one place, collecting whatever catches her eye and slipping it into the pouches on her belt. Gold watches, diamond necklaces, even a vintage lighter -- she takes it all with the ease of someone who's done this a thousand times over.

Bruce Banner has posed:
"Crummy, good for nothin', weak-chinned sonuva bitch... where the hell did Banner leave me this time?"

Though he's talking mostly to himself, Hulk is still wearing Banner's earpiece, and his fingers are too fat to get it out of his ear canal. This has the benefit of piping him into the team's comms, but the drawback of having his gravelly voice spouting working-class mob enforcer rhetoric directly into their ears.

Or wherever they keep their transmitters.

Looking around, Hulk tries to make sense of what he's seeing, but ultimately begins stomping toward the door. There's nothing he can really do here. Of course, it means that he's leaving Bruce's laptop behind, and his virus-laden memory drive inserted in the security room's server...

"This better not be an Avengers thing. I told those mooks I'm DONE with 'em...." As he looks through the doorway, Hulk seems a bit more confused. This isn't the Avengers Mansion, though it's possibly slightly swankier than the ancient estate in New York. Don't tell Tony, but his childhood home is kind of a dump.

"Huh... maybe it ain't so bad. Maybe banner hooked up with some kinda rich divorcee..."

The sound of Hulk chuckling at the thought of Banner hooking up with someone can be heard for a solid forty five seconds.

Camille Russo has posed:
This is getting to the point where she thinks they might need to involve SHIELD - well, Fury. If someone's impersonating at least one higher up in the DoD, then keeping it mostly off the books is a move she can fully agree with, but with civilians involved and one of them a child... she purses her lips in thought. They'll need more than the sort of safe house an agent's willing to squat in, but also something low tech... warded...

Her train of thought trails off as Bucky barges past her, and she pulls her hood down hastily, approaching the woman and child with her hands flat and face visible. "We're here to get y'all somewhere safe," Cam says gently, letting her accent deepen in the way that tends to make people think she's a lot less dangerous than she can be. "I'm real sorry for the ruckus, but we had to make it look legit for the folks holdin' your husband, understand?" She moves closer by slow inches, keeping her posture soft and her hands visible. "Y'all got go bags somewhere with a change of clothes? Sooner we get y'all outta here the safer you're gonna be. No electronics though, sorry. They might be bugged."

She gives them a soft smile, stopping at the foot of the stairs and giving the upstairs a glance before her gaze settles on the duo. "My name's Ami. I hate we're meetin' like this but we thought it might be the best way to get y'all to safety." A small misdirection, but not a full untruth. She hates the nickname in truth, but she can't think of a better option for Amelie on the fly that isn't distinctly French.

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Stadler's already moving toward the door. The fact that he's armed may not help the situation, but he can move to lower the temperature by sweeping to the side of the family, checking the room's down stairs. "Do you know if there's anyone else we need to worry about?" He asks the mother. Voice muffled by the balaclava, but his weapon is still pointed at the deck, handing on the sling, finger off the trigger. "Response team they might have mentioned? Any threats?" He asks. Hopefully the confusion about why they were asking these questions would make things... a bit less stressful than thinking they were here to harm them.

James Barnes has posed:
Mrs. Brunsman puts herself squarely between herself and these sudden new arrivals. "N-no," she stammers, but not with too much confidence. "It's... always just been the two of them," she continues - gaining a little more confidence in the fact that these new comers aren't just going to shoot them dead. "Since, since they locked Richard up in the basement..."

Bucky doesn't try to address the terrified mother. His face is hidden, but it's certainly not an effective 'disguise'. The Winter Soldier is a known element if his current apparel and appearance were to be described in any detail.

Instead he breaks off to make sure the two men in question are down for the count - and thusly bound for the count. Bound and gagged.

Now she stands up straighter. These people seem to be here to help, the 'bad guys' seem to be out of commission. So she seems more willing to make demands. "We aren't going with you without Richard."

The team now has approximately thirty-six hours to figure out what to do with this mess before notRichard comes home to the wife and kid.