It's quiet...too quiet.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Sam got some intel about a possible safehouse-slash-weapons depo that might be of interest to Bucky, so he and Steve head out to upstate Pennsylvania to check it out.

Steve doesn't have much hope for finding Bucky there--they're always at least two steps behind him, it seems, cleaning up what he leaves behind-- but sometimes standing in rooms he knows where Bucky has been is all the comfort he can find. Sometimes he feels like painting "BUCKY COME HOME" on the walls, just to see what would happen.

But Bucky won't be back to places he's already destroyed. Steve knows that.


Anyway.



The warehouse is on the edge of a small rural town that the economic crisis has hit hard. Most of the store fronts are boarded up. Some of the fields are bare, some are overgrown, and some hold the machinery of fracking. The warehouse itself looks rusty and abandoned, and Steve would pass it by if there weren't the hope of some sort of clue.

(Or the chance to bash some heads.)

It takes only a tap from the shield to break the padlock on the small door to the side of the building. No reason to break into the main security doors and draw attention to themselves. Steve eases the door open and steps inside, and nods to Sam.

Comments

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"Orpheus," Steve whispers as he watches this, and he starts to move out from behind the crates toward him.

As he sees the bullets turn away from Orpheus, Steve's mouth drops open in wonder.

[notapilot]

Sam gets lost in the memory of hearing, really hearing, Marvin Gaye for the first time and his eyes tear up. He quickly comes back to the present and sees what Orpheus is doing. To Sam's credit, he doesn't gape but he does lose another moment to awe.

It's about then that Orpheus gets moved from "civilian to protect" to "asset to protect" and Sam starts targeting any HYDRA agents with long range or heavy weapons.

[golden_lyre]

As Orpheus moves further into the room, his song makes a subtle change. The anger stays, but something insidious slips into it. Something paranoid. A subversion of trust. Gradually, the HYDRA agents falter in their attack, and weapons shift trajectory from the enemy to each other.

Not all of them are susceptible to Orpheus' song, though. The trouble with villains is that they tend to throw themselves fanatically into their villainy, and where there is no trust to subvert, the HYDRA agents continue their attack, even as their cohorts turn on them and on each other.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

The HYDRA goons turning on each other gives Steve enough time to dive for his shield, and it rings like a bell as he throws it to a clump still firing, bounces off a few heads and then returns to him.

He catches the shield on his arm and whirls in toward the next wave.

[notapilot]

Sam keeps having to force himself back to focus, the music is that compelling. He starts to wonder why Cap keeps him around when he has such power at his call. And really who is Sam but a guy with a suit of wings. He knows Steve trusts him and he trusts Steve, but what if Steve is just humoring him?

Sam shakes his head and fires off another burst of bullets at an agent setting up a rocket launcher. Doesn't matter if Steve is just humoring him or not, he has a job to do. Orpheus seems to have himself covered well, so Sam launches himself back in the air where he can do the most good, firing off more smoke bombs and flash grenades.

[golden_lyre]

Even in his anger, Orpheus is careful and targeted with his attacks. He can't, of course, keep his music completely contained, but he can play it focused on only certain individuals or, say, certain parts of the building.

The mistrust and division is still an underlying theme to his song, but he weaves another layer on top of that so the very structure of the building begins to distrust itself. A support beam falls on one of the groups attacking. An outer wall falls on another.

And once the space is open to the outdoors, Orpheus can truly work.

He drops the mistrust entirely, but while the HYDRA agents are still coming back to themselves, the landscape around them changes. Trees uproot themselves and fall into clusters of HYDRA or simply walk into the midst of the firefight to block bullets.

It will take some time to get there, but amidst the music and destruction, there is the sound of rushing water, growing ever closer.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve watches all of this, and has to laugh in sheer wonder.

Then he takes off through the HYDRA agents to the rooms built into the back of the warehouse, in the hope that there's something in there worth recovering -- some kind of intelligence, something that will tell him their plans, something he can use to find Bucky.

[notapilot]

Sam just stares at all that happening, lost in awe until he sees a blue streak out of the corner of his eye. Quickly catching onto what Cap is up to, Sam drives down, calling out, "On your left," as he passes Steve. Even flying, he barely gets to rooms before him.

[golden_lyre]

Orpheus is focused purely on destruction at this point. As the river he diverted comes closer, it sweeps into the space, a flash flood only barely controlled. If Steve should find himself caught up in the wake, it will simply carry him along, but it cuts through HYDRA's forces, sucking them under.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve makes it through the doors just as the waters rush into the building.

[notapilot]

Sam folds his wings in to make sure Steve has enough room and then looks around for anything promising.

"You want me to guard or help search?"

[golden_lyre]

Orpheus trusts the river to do its work, and he rides along the current of it, making his way to where he saw Steve disappear.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"Search," Steve tells Sam, confident that the river Orpheus diverted through the warehouse will keep them safe from any lingering agents.

Intel is the most important thing right now.

[notapilot]

Sam nods and holsters his guns to begin searching.

"By the way, I owe your guy an apology. I underestimated him."

[golden_lyre]

Orpheus continues his song as he rides the crest of water. It doesn't take him long to reach the doors Steve exited through. Another intent chord collapses the doors behind him.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve snatches up a CPU before the water can rush in. He breaks the casing open and snaps out the hard drive.

"Yeah," he tells Sam. "So have I."

[notapilot]

Sam sets to looking for any hardcopies or portable computer media, flash drives or CDs.

[golden_lyre]

Orpheus' anger carries him along much as the river did. His mode is destruction, not search, and it won't be long before that destruction reaches this room as well.

"We need to go," he manages, through the haze of music around him. The song is stretching out of his control, and he's not sure how much longer he can channel it.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve tucks the hard drives into the velcro-sealed pockets of his uniform.

He goes to Orpheus and takes his face in his hands, and kisses Orpheus, firm and deep.

He says quietly, "You amaze me."

[notapilot]

Sam turns to the door to give them a semblance of privacy. That is until he sees how things are just coming apart out there. He coughs and says, "Sorry to interrupt but things do look like it's time make tracks."

[golden_lyre]

Orpheus has to frown a moment at Steve's comment, though he grips Steve's biceps hard enough to bruise. "You terrify me," he says in response, but is distracted from expounding on that by Sam's warning.

"Let's go," is what he says in the end, hands moving back to his guitar in case they need assistance on the way out.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"Terrify?" Steve begins, but yeah, they'll talk about it later.

He takes his shield from its harness and throws open the office doors to run back out into the fray.

[notapilot]

Sam is right behind him with his guns out, covering.

[golden_lyre]

Orpheus follows them both, hands back on his guitar, playing them safe passage from both flood and bullets.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

The shield slams into HYDRA agents and rings, clear as a bell, as it hits the walls of the warehouse before boomeranging back to Steve.