Re: quicklog, marvel (nyc): luke h & bucky b
The powered individual on the other side of the door probably could knock it down, if he gave himself a running start. Whatever was on the other side was heavy, but not impassible.
The stranger's voice still echoed through it. "No good." A pause.
The man could be a police officer. It was possible. If that was true, his options now were to kill him or to convince him that he wasn't a threat. The man hadn't recognized him on sight, or was pretending he hadn't.
"Notice the people?"
Only someone like this possible police officer could have noticed Bucky hanging around those places, around the homes, businesses, and haunts of a pair of souls in disparate parts of the city. He was a ghost, after all. He covered his tracks and remained below the notice of even the pair's well-paid security teams.
Luke might have noticed him in the blocks around an upper Manhattan hotel, one that featured a luxuriously appointed penthouse at the top. The person who lived in it gave the name Zoya Abdulova.
Across town, in townhouse that bristled with security details outside and expensive security within, there was another. This one called himself Ilia Kozlov.
Bucky had been there, too. Never obvious, never lingering, never passing more than once or twice in a day. But he had been in the vicinity many times in the past few weeks. He had been watching.
"Zoya Abdulova and Ilia Kozlov." The impassive voice paused long enough to make it unclear whether he would continue.
"They were called Dyatlov, once."
Was the man a police officer? That remained to be seen. If he was what he said, he would investigate the pair of them. He would find people by those names, people long thought dead in their home country. People with secrets that had paid dearly to bury, and new lives they would fight to give up.
Outside the door, it became quiet. Something had been blocking the light streaming in past the crack. It disappeared, and a small stream of light flowed into the stair again.