7074/Caught Red Handed

Caught Red Handed
Date of Scene:	25 July 2021
Location:	Rooftop in the heart of NYC
Synopsis:	Opal catches Bucky red handed, literally. But she still sees the truth of his heart. Question is, did she make *him* see it too.
Cast of Characters:	James Barnes, Opal Moirai

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James Barnes has posed:
    For someone like the Winter Soldier, bypassing the simple security of a modern High Cost, High Rise apartment building was no more difficult than tying his shoes. In and out, no trace of him on any cameras, he saw to it just as easily as he saw to the same during the days when he really and truly *was* The Winter Soldier.

    Tomorrow morning, the house keeper of Department of Defense Agent Blake Harris - also HYDRA plant number 201 or so - would find the man dead, his arm torn apart when he, apparently, figured it would be a good idea to stick his hand into a garbage disposal without disconnecting the thing first. A power surge, a fluke accident, the man bled out alone, unable to reach the cell phone a meager few feet feet from him on the counter.

    When Bucky makes his attempted escape from the scene, he does so through rooftop access, a quick - Super Soldier trot up a stairwell that the residents of such a place barely register as being there. Why would they ever 'take the stairs', they're too good for that.

    He pushes through the door to the roof, smiling behind the make-up and mask that are, normally, such a hated part of his past. But he wanted Harris to *know* his Grim Reaper, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Opal Moirai has posed:
    No sooner does he open the door to the roof than Bucky realizes he's not alone. The figure is dressed for the night, of course. The black jumpsuit looks like something made for motocross riders, and there's even a black, full-face helmet. There's also a gun belt with a holster.

    Definitely a woman's figure, both from the figure and the stance. One hand on a hip, she reaches up to pull off the helmet with a spill of blonde hair.

    Opal has been keeping track of Bucky's... antics... for years now, but only recently he's gotten bad. Or, rather, worse. Tonight she followed her instincts, and those instincts led her here. To the roof.

    Tucking the helmet under her left arm, she gazes at him. "Hello, James."

James Barnes has posed:
    He was just about ready to start running toward that serum enhanced leap to the building next. But he's stopped by that voice. For a second or two, he doesn't turn around. Could be that Bucky is considering making that running leap anyway? A second ticks to two, three, four, before he turns.

    This one was a messy one, much more so than any of the others, what can be seen of his face, both his hands, are smeared with blood... and the rest of him, well, splattered with the stuff.

    "Opal," he returns quietly, his voice flat - void of the general sense of 'human' emotion in it when he speaks to her normally.

Opal Moirai has posed:
    Something in the way she tilts her head, the drawing back of the blonde curtain from her gemstone eye. That eye which always seems to look right through him, into his heart. "James." she repeats, only this time the disappointment is clear in her tone.

    The woman doesn't ask why and she doesn't launch into a lecture. She knows what he's been through, almost better than he does himself. Her gaze shift, then, perhaps noting all the blood. "Are you alright?"

    No, she doesn't judge.

James Barnes has posed:
    Stained as it may be by his current deeds, that heart still beats bright beneath the temporary tarnish.

    "Yes," without hesitation. Bucky isn't lying, not on the surface of it anyway. He's fine, none of the blood is his, not a drop. ...but beneath the surface, he's anything but fine, he hasn't been fine in months. Hell, he hasn't been fine in *decades*, but he had been getting better, moving toward something akin to as normal as he could ever be.

    But then... HYDRA. His curse, the bane of his existence, the source of his suffering and nightmares, they invaded his home... they hurt the people he loves while he could do nothing but stand by and watch, helpless.

    ...is it any wonder the thin thread he had on a his relative normal was pulled and fraying at the edges to leave the blood splattered mess standing there now?

Opal Moirai has posed:
    Opal can see the darkening stain upon his heart. She's been watching it grow steadily every time he goes out like this. He's not following programmed instructions this time, and the woman knows it. Moreover, she knows that HE knows she knows it.

    Boot heels scrape softly on the rooftop as she steps closer. "Outwardly you are, yes." she replies, perhaps just wanting to hear the answer from him. No, he's not fooling her.

    "How much longer, James? How long until blood has washed away blood? You can never do it, you know. There is too much."

James Barnes has posed:
    "I'm *fine*." This time it's a lie, so much so that he looks away, over the skyline, rather than at the friend, lover - more than that even - standing in front of him.

    "They're not *people*, Opal," he tells her, his voice filled with conviction in the excuse he's made so long that it's become his truth. And maybe it is the truth, HYDRA, after all is filled with monsters and ugliness.

    Is killing them really so wrong? Probably not, if done from a rooftop four blocks away and down the sight of a rifle. But this? It's so up close and personal, so intimate.

    "They're trying to take over the fucking *world*." Someone has to stop them, right?

Opal Moirai has posed:
    To anyone without his reflexes... to any -normal- person... the draw-and-throw would be a surprise. Her right hand slipped around to the small of her back, and he's just finishing his declaration that 'someone has to stop them...' when the dagger sinks an inch into the wooden door frame.

    Bucky sees it coming, of course. And it's an all-too-familiar knife. Black hilt with a chrome blade and crossguard. But the emblems... a red-and-black swastika on one side of the hilt, a chrome-on-black HYDRA symbol on the other.

    They're not people. And they don't give those knives out to just anyone, either. No, that's inner-circle stuff.

James Barnes has posed:
    Reflexes can only be enhanced, really, if the processing of an event through the mind is enhanced as well - in a beat, he sees what's coming, literally what's coming. Bucky identifies that blade while it's still sailing toward him.

    Those pale blues dart from the embedded knife back to Opal, wide and, for a moment, uncomprehending.

    It might be THAT moment when she feels it, sees it, and just *knows* it; the fear and uncertainty, the doubt and constant, *constant* being unable to tell friend from foe of the past few months... it's that that has him in such a bad way. Because, if he can doubt *her* for even the split second that he does, how is he not doubting everyone around him at least once a day - Maybe even Sam, maybe even *Steve*. The seeds of doubt are a powerful thing once sown.

    "Opal?" a question, soft, barely there, heartbroken, is asked in that split second.

    His life, much of it, has been spent running and hiding from HYDRA, but always before he felt he had places that he could hide. Not so much now, not after people he trusted at the Triskelion, hell possibly his own damned therapist, turned out to be HYDRA plants and he found out that they're *everywhere*. Of course keeping himself in the thick of all of it, entangled in the legitimate fights, the toppling of bases and labs and everything in between, all that, it likely hasn't helped keep him from ending up here, on a rooftop, covered in blood and dressed the part of the Winter Soldier.

    "... I..." His voice cracks just a little. "... You're not..." Not a question, the doubt's passed by now, but the trembling inside, the momentary shock of the idea hasn't.

Opal Moirai has posed:
    She intended to shake him up, of course. Everything Opal does is for a purpose, after all. The blonde hears the question in his voice, and at that moment she wonders whether she want too far this time.

    "I am who I've always been, James." she replies softly, expression softening. "I am your friend. Does it make me less of a person that I've been among them? That I know their ways, even while I was working against them?"

    "This isn't the way for you to fix things. All the blood in the world won't help." She steps slowly closer, offering both hands outstretched in an embrace.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky looks away from Opal and down to his blood soaked gloves, that smattering of the stuff on his bare metal arm, the drop on the top of his boot. How he managed to get up here without leaving any of that behind, without leaving a trail; that's anyone's guess. That's the training of the Winter Soldier, that's part of the horrors, the monster they taught him to become.

    It's clear in those, slightly too bright, blues when he looks up that he wants nothing more than to walk into those outstretched arms, maybe even fall into them. But, he's all bloody and stained, so much more than in just the physical sense, the physical sense is just a reminder of the rest of it really. ... doesn't want to stain *her* with his touch, it seems.

    "I can't be fixed," he replies, wall building up slowly between them. "...can only mitigate the damage." His heart begs him to move toward her, aches for it. His head forces him to take a step back.

Opal Moirai has posed:
    Opal watches him, she sees the conflict. "You can't help what's been done to you, James. You didn't get to choose any of that." She steps closer, then. One foot, then the other. But just as it looks like she will step into his personal space, the woman reaches past him.

    Without breaking eye contact, she wrenches the dagger from the wood and slides it back into the sheath with a <snickt>

    Only then does she step close enough to -just- kiss his cheek... or close enough to run him off completely.

    "I am going to the bar. The bouncers won't let you in like that."

James Barnes has posed:
    He does take one more step back, but it's as far as he can get - his wall collides with the access door. "Always let me in bloody before," he comments... trying to keep the edge of what? Panic? Out of his voice. He's clearly not thinking... clearly tonight, at all.

    Is she shutting him out? Telling him he's no longer welcome there? Of course not, but... that's where his head jumps to with all his insecurities and misplaced guilt rearing ugly heads tonight.

    The likely true intent, 'Come back to James and away from The Winter Soldier and meet me there' is LOST on him in the moment.

Opal Moirai has posed:
    But Opal smiles, seeing the panic and the uncertainty in his eyes. "Yes. Yes, he has." she agrees. And the woman doesn't need to touch him to reach out and quell the panic. Just soften the edge of it, really. "On those nights you had no choice. You were following your programming."

    The woman steps back a pace, then, giving him some room. "You are better than this, James. This is -your- choice. Show me who you truly are."

    And perhaps along the way, he'll discover it himself.

James Barnes has posed:
    "I'm still following it," Bucky shoots back. At first that statement is meant to be a defensive thing - the implication that him showing them the boogeyman they created is a good thing.

    But maybe, after she's gone and he's left to strip off the Winter Soldier and rinse off the blood in a shithole apartment in Hell's Kitchen using rusty water from groaning pipes? Maybe he'll start to see that statement as the real truth of it. ...he's still following it, he's still the monster they created and maybe? He'll decide that isn't what he wants to be anymore.