13040/Well of course this bodes badly.

Well of course this bodes badly.
Date of Scene:	11 October 2022
Location:	Kirkenes, Norway
Synopsis:	Searching for stolen crystals lost by Felix Faust, Bucky and Wanda track someone to Norway.
Cast of Characters:	Wanda Maximoff, James Barnes

---

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"Oh, it's being transported by sea," they said. They being a tired aid worker from that one time in Latveria when Wanda spent more than a month in refugee camps. It, a box of arms smuggled out from under Doom's nose by unhappy refugees.

Crystals, they said, except when are crystals ever so simple? A box of gems. A box of reality-altering rocks, more likely, or bits and pieces being smuggled from Murmansk calls for more desperate measures when two people prefer not to return to Mother Russia.

Hence, Kirkenes, the nearest base to the Russian border. Boats and ships flitting through the White Sea and its moldering ports prevail. Russians and Norwegians, Finns and a lot of intelligence officers tend to lurk there, as they have since the days of the Cold War.

Enter Wanda, lying flat against the ground on a low rise, staring at a pretty sad excuse for a fishing boat limping along. "Is that it? How is that going to make it to Trondheim?"

James Barnes has posed:
"Hrm?" Bucky looks over at her. He's lying flat on his stomach, too, looking at the boat as it waddles its way along. "Well," he says, "either they've bribed a lot of people, or they have something or someone in there that will make anyone that tries to mess with them regret it. Maybe Arkady's on there. He's mercenary these days, if I recall correctly.@

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Fishing boats aplenty score the Barents Sea, icy and full of the occasional non-plundered fish stocks as it is. Submarines are probably out there. Unlike her father, Wanda doesn't sense metals at that range. Even her keen eyes are tested by distance, trying to scour for anything vaguely magical.

"Arkady?" The name rests on her tongue like a curse. "No. They could not be so reckless. They took shards from Doomstadt. Would /he/ ever tolerate Arkady? Any mercenary would sooner be a robot." Evil Vision! Okay, not so much.

James Barnes has posed:
"Desperate sounds the same in any language, babe," Bucky points out with a shrug. If Omega Red is on board, I wouldn't want to mess with them, either. That pale tentacled freak is a handful on my best days." He glances behind him and then back at Wanda. "Those pants look good on you though."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"He's even worse of a boogeyman than you were." Dark words from the witch, who frowns a little into the pretty, golden litter of leaves obscuring their position in part. Norway is pretty at this time of year, but it's already starting to fade into longer nights this early in the year. Her gaze trails off to watch the boat lumbering along, unruffled. "You would like the pants. They're yours."

Thief. She inclines her head slightly and frowns. "We might need my brother. He would outrun Omega Red's appendages, largely. But... ah, I'm starting to think like you as much as I wear your clothes. He'd tell me to just hole the boat. Man can't fight if he's swimming in ten foot waves. The Norwegians would go out to help them, though."

James Barnes has posed:
"If the point is to stop the boat we can always hole the boat further out. YOU can fly, THEY cannot," Bucky points out. "Just hang me out in the sky with a rocket launcher and the right ammo and I'll sink their battleship. After that, it's just a matter of making sure no one dies and fishing the crystals out."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"I only know smugglers are aboard," Wanda murmurs. "The crew might not know what they were paid to carry. We don't know if Arkady is present, or others. The crystals are too dangerous if they function. They change space. They made my powers difficult to use, I was fighting them in concentration. Ideally I want them destroyed so they cannot be used to hurt other people. The fewer with my gifts, the better."

James Barnes has posed:
"Agreed. So I propose we let them sail out a bit further, get a boat of our own, and then catch up to them. We can just leave them stranded without a motor and let the authorities know, especially if we stop them only a few miles away. Get the crystals, get out." Bucky reaches back and spanks Wanda, just before rolling on his back and then his feet.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Wanda gets up from the rise, brushing dirt and leaves from her pants. "You're driving." Chaos witch steering boat, that's bound to look great. "I am better suited to yachts. Decks of yachts." She closes up her coat after he smacks her and glares at Bucky, all warning and no bite. That's how they roll. "You are lucky I got past the 'make people fly randomly' stage."

That doesn't stop the nearest tree from dumping all its loose leaves at once on him though.

James Barnes has posed:
"Is THAT why I'm lucky?" He lifts his arm when the leaves come down, laughing. "I see. I'll have to keep that in mind. That said, I can't argue that you look great on the deck of a yacht." He's seen her sunbathing on the deck of a yacht. He doesn't even need to imagine it. "All right. I'm going to go see about renting something small and quick."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Wanda threads a path towards Kirkenes, though the town nestled against the hills is some distance off, bustling with activity as day seeps into night. "I'll go into town. Do you need anything? I'll meet up with you when..." Patting around helps her find what she's looking for, a burner phone keyed to the local area code. Nothing fancy about being in Norway. "Send a text about the painting coming along? Too obvious?"

James Barnes has posed:
"I think the painting coming along is just subtle enough." Bucky steps over to Wanda and tugs on the waistband of her stolen pants, pulling her in so he can kiss her, slow and long for a moment, before releasing her. "Be careful. Don't alter local reality without me."