Charles Grey is kept on a short leash (brokenace) wrote in superbabies, @ 2013-08-14 01:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | luka romanov, sherwood barton |
Log; Extremis and Foxtrot
Who: Luka Romanov and Sherwood Barton
When: Monday, August 12th
Where: The Rogers’ Kitchen
What: Part II of Sherwood’s Interrogations. With coffee.
Luka never thought he’d see the day that he invited Sherwood Barton over for coffee. They’d been sort-of family until last Christmas. Being brothers to two married people made them some kind of in-law, right? But the families hadn’t stayed on great terms after the divorce, and everyone on both sides was a little off somehow. Either way, this wasn’t about that. Sherwood was investigating the leak, and Luka had helped it exist in the first place. What he wanted was to curl up in bed and hide under the covers until the shame passed, but realistically, he couldn’t do that when someone was asking him for something he owed in the first place. So Luka told Sherwood that he could be found at the Rogers place, gave the security guard a head’s up, and made a pot of coffee while he waited for the guy to show up. Talking to Barnes had been mostly a dead end, and as little as that surprised Sherwood, that wasn’t exactly helpful. He had to hope Romanov, being the party with his full mental facilities, knew something. Though he wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea of interrogating someone in Captain America and Captain Marvel’s fucking kitchen. An awkward encounter with a guard and a bit of shuffling later and he found himself walking into the room, greeted by the smell of fresh coffee and the sight of the Stark prodigy. “Morning,” he said, doing his best to seem less... surly than usual. He imagined Romanov had been through enough, at this point. “Don’t pull something trying to be nice to me,” Luka said blandly. “You want coffee?” He was already on his second. Honestly, with Extremis, he usually didn’t drink it, but even after getting off the sedatives he was still exhausted. He wanted to be alert for another interrogation. “I’m not really going for ‘nice’ so much as ‘less angry,’” Sherwood said with a shrug. “I’ve heard it’s off-putting. And yes, thank you.” He’d been told Romanov had talked to SHIELD, had gotten access to the list of names and addresses that he’d passed along during the whole mess. He couldn’t blame him for being tired, not after interrogations and arrests and drugs. “I’m just here to ask a few questions,” he continued. “It’s not another interrogation. I’m trying to put the pieces together.” “So ask.” Luka got up to go to the coffee maker, but he gestured to indicate that he was still listening. “I’ll tell you whatever I can. I’m just tired, try to ignore it if I snap at you.” At least he was honest? That was something. He wasn’t putting in much effort to be presentable at the moment, either. The glow beneath his skin and in his eyes was unhindered, making him look eerie and inhuman. “I’ve got the list of intel you passed along to Barnes,” Sherwood said, after a moment. Better to get on with it, than try and continue with pleasantries. “It’s interesting, but doesn’t exactly help me trace what happened to him back to its source. What I need to know is when he started asking for this sort of thing?” “Couple months ago it started happening more often. He’s hit me up for things before. He knows he can trust me. But it got a lot more frequent a while ago.” Luka came back with two mugs of coffee. “I thought he was just getting more comfortable with asking me for help. I didn’t think he was killing our friends with it.” “Well, so far he’s only managed to kill one...” Sherwood sighed. Still, it was a bit of a timeframe he could work with. “Did he ever say what the information was for?” “Of course not. He doesn’t tell, I don’t ask, physical evidence disappears. I was raised by spies. Steven gradually started asking me more often. If I had a specific day when he suddenly exploded with questions, I’d give it to you.” Luka settled down. “You can sit, you know.” Sitting. Right. That’s what people did when they had coffee. It’d been a while since Sherwood had done anything even masquerading as social. He moved to sit across from the other man, picking up his mug and taking a sip. “Did you ever notice him acting strange outside of those conversations?” he asked, setting the coffee down. “Ever bump into him, mention it later, and not have him remember? Say something and get ignored? Anything?” “No. We don’t talk about things after they happen like that. Again, raised by spies, it’s kinda policy. And I don’t remember him acting weird. I thought if anyone noticed anything before this happened, it would have been me or Pella. They did a great job with his head. There was nothing. If he was ever brainwashed around me, I didn’t know. If I had, I wouldn’t have...” Luka shook his head, staring down at his mug. “But no. He didn’t act weird.” “And he never mentioned any gaps in his memory? Never talked about forgetting things?” Sherwood sighed. He was grasping at straws. There was a key he was missing, the link. He just didn’t know where to look. “Not once. If he was missing time, he didn’t tell me about it. If there was anything fishy, I wouldn’t have played into it like that. Steven’s good, if they were going to grab anyone’s mind, his was a great choice.” Luka took a drink. He didn’t seem all there, honestly. Sherwood watched Luka carefully, and nodded. Steven was good. The fact that he was a good choice was half the problem. “You’re either not paying attention, out of it, or still pretty fucking tired,” he said after a moment. “Or all three. Couldn’t blame you if it was all three.” Another sigh, another sip of coffee. “How much can you get into his communications for the past few months? If he was getting orders from someone away from the school, there had to have been something.” And if there wasn’t, then the potential pool for their brainwasher shrank considerably, in theory, at least. “I’m tired, but I’m never all there,” Luka admitted. He was so used to be around people who were used to him. Sometimes he forgot that he seemed off. “It’s been a long week. Seeming like I’m a hundred percent focused is an effort I just don’t feel like putting in right now, but it’s an act. I can’t concentrate on just one thing anymore. Noise in my head, you know. ---And I can get into anything you want. I rip through most encryptions like tissue paper. I can get you anything on his computer and his cell phone records, but you won’t find evidence. He’s too good for that. But the cell records might give you an idea of where he was? And I can take a look at the security tapes in the area, see if Steven’s on any that we missed.” “That’s fair,” Sherwood said, nodding. The thought of having the fucking internet in his skull was the stuff of nightmares. He didn’t know how Luka could stand it. “But that’ll help, if you take a look. Oyama’s got the security tapes around Terrence’s death, but Steven mentioned his cell records. Tracing his steps would be a hell of a step forward, at least. See if you can get me that.” “Will do. I wish I had more to give you.” Somewhere else in the house, there was the faint sound of a printer booting up and preparing itself. “It’ll take a bit to print everything out. I don’t want you to have a digital copy just to be totally safe from other hackers.” Sherwood’s brow arched at the sound -- trained to pick up on those little details, it hadn’t escaped his notice. “You... right.” He sighed. Computer brain. “Print copy’s good. Perfect, actually. God knows who’s reading files, anymore...” “Between Yoko and Magnus, you don’t want anything on any kind of network right now, and I can’t protect everyone. It’s just better.” Luka was quiet for a few seconds, deciding whether his next question was even worth asking. Eventually he decided that it was. “So. Who do you think is really behind this? Any ideas?” “At this point?” Sherwood frowned, looking into the mug and swirling the contents around idly. “Logans are suspicious. As is Rogers, quiet as he’s been. I don’t think it’s Oyama, and I think it’s within SHIELD, so that eliminates Magnus, much as he is a slimy little bastard... no pun intended.” A sigh. “Ivy’s disappeared after two big events, now, but I don’t want to think it was her, and I don’t think she’d take out her brother. Honestly? I still don’t know.” “It’s not Ivy. I had to dig a bit, but she was where she said she was. There’s video of what happened to her.” Luka shook his head and took a drink like it was a distraction he desperately needed right now. “I think she just ran away. It’s not up to me, but if it was, I’d take her off of your list. I lied a few days ago; I did find her. She just doesn’t want to be found, especially not after what happened to Terrence. Just don’t tell anyone I told you that.” “Honestly, that’s good to know,” Sherwood admitted. “I can’t imagine what she’s feeling right now. I just wish I could help...” He coughed, and took a sip of coffee. That was more than Romanov needed to know. He didn’t have time to start lowering walls that’d been built up for decades. “Thanks.” Once Sherwood showed a hint of that wall going down, even a little, Luka decided he would rather talk about that than what had happened. “What was up with you two, anyway?” Sherwood took another swig, emptying the mug, to give himself a second to think. Opening up with Barnes’ kid brother wasn’t how he thought he’d spend his afternoon -- how he thought he’d spend any part of any day, really. “You have the internet in your head and a documented disregard for people’s filters, so I’ll assume you know the general details,” he said eventually. “We were friends. We were fucking. It’s not anything more than that, not anything people usually read into that stuff.” He shrugged. “I don’t exactly have a lot of friends, here or anywhere. In the past few weeks, one got his brains blown out and the other was tortured and dropped off the face of the planet. Much as I don’t care for people as a general rule, I care about the folks I care about. I’m a shitty friend, but I try.” “I’m really sorry, Sherwood.” Luka was genuine, even if he still sounded exhausted. “I know we don’t exactly get along, but I am sorry. All of this has to be shit on you. I probably shouldn’t trust you, but Pella seems to have some kind of... I don’t know. Faith? But she trusts you. So I do, too.” “You don’t have to apologize,” Sherwood said quickly, walls coming back up. “I don’t get along with anyone much, Romanov, and this isn’t any worse for me than it is for all of us.” That much was true, he thought. This mess was Hell for the lot of them. “But... thanks. It’s good to know someone -- or two someones, I guess -- believe in me.” He smirked, slightly, before his usual stoic mask slipped back into place. “I won’t let you down.” “I hope you don’t. We don’t need anyone being next. ---Printer should be done, if you want to get going.” Luka had pushed Sherwood about as much as Sherwood was going to be pushed, but he was too polite (at the moment) to just up and leave. “I’ll keep in touch if anything new comes up.” Sherwood nodded, glad for the dismissal though... it’d been a nice moment. Strange, for him, but nice. “Thanks,” he said, more professionally than before. This was all business. “I’ll grab it on the way out, let you finish your coffee.” He felt like he should say more, should try and assuage the guilt he was sure the younger man felt, but that’d never been in his skillset. The best he could manage was to hold his hand out, stiff and formal, but still trying to connect, in his own way. Luka gave Sherwood a firm, friendly handshake in return. It was weird. He’d never thought that he’d be in a situation like this with Sherwood Barton, of all people. It was a rare good moment in the last few days full of nothing but bad. “Thanks. Don’t get killed. Please.” Sherwood nodded, almost smirked again. “I’ll do my best.” |