xp_logs | Operation: зимний солдат

Doug covers the lobby while Jubilee goes to break in to see what she can find in Mr. Barnes' apartment.

And then Mr. Barnes comes home.

Doug settled an earbud in his ear, and made his way casually down to the lobby of the brownstone that housed X-Force's (and Bucky Barnes') apartments. Mr. Barnes had left on some errand or another, which would in theory give Jubilee enough time to break into the older man's apartment and try and find some kind of information to confirm the things their digging on him had turned up, and in time for them to make scarce before he got back. If he was, and he had access to the brownstone... He sat down in one of the chairs in the lobby that had a full view of the front door, and fished a paperback out of his back pocket, looking for all the world like he was waiting for his girlfriend to meet him so they could go out for lunch together.

"You're clear, Jubes," he murmured, turning to a dog-eared spot in the novel.

"That's a go," Jubilee replied, testing the window first to see if it would open.

It wasn't something she was particularly expecting, but people could surprise you and the easiest way in was always the best. When the window refused to budge, she pulled out a glass cutter and cut a small hole just above the window latch, sliding it across before pulling the window up and sliding inside the apartment. As she touched down on the floor, she pulled out a spray can and sprayed a fine mist across the apartment in front of her, looking for any more obvious security.

Doug tried his hardest to leave Jubilee to her work, though it wasn't easy to question every soft grunt or noise she made in the course of her breaking in, or to ask impatiently for progress reports every minute. It was not easy for Doug to wait, though the waiting itself wasn't really the issue so much as not knowing what was happening.

"Bingo," Jubilee breathed, pushing back the carpet that was currently hiding the floor safe. It seemed like a pretty straight forward lock, albeit an electronic version. She'd need to check for any traps or security alarms but she should be able to crack it fairly quickly. "I've got a safe, gonna take me a few minutes, so I'm gonna go quiet."

The front door rattled, and there was some muted cursing before the lock turned and Barnes let himself into the building. He had a brown paper bag in one hand, where a bagette poked out from the top. He didn't spare Doug a look, instead walking over and opening his mailbox with one hand to look inside. With a slightly disgusted sound, he closed it and turned towards his apartment door.

~Shit.~ This was a time of day when Mr. Barnes was always out of the brownstone for at least an hour or more. He'd been gone for about fifteen minutes at most, and Jubilee was probably still in the middle of cracking the safe she'd found. Which meant that Doug interrupting her over the comms to warn her was probably one of the worst things he could do.

Instead, he muted his comm, moved quickly to his own mailbox, and fished out an envelope. "Mr. Barnes!" he called, jogging up behind the older man. "I think you may have dropped some of your mail..." It was a weak plan to stall, but it was the best he could come up with in the space of about fifteen seconds...

Barnes paused, just long enough to cast a balefull glare over his shoulder at the younger man. "No, I haven't." He took another step towards his door and stopped. "I haven't and you don't. That envelope is from your own mailbox."

~ShitshitFUCK.~ If even half of what they suspected about Mr. Barnes was true... Well, the wheels were pretty rapidly coming off of things. He still needed to kill more time. "So it is." Doug shrugged, still trying to bluff through things. "Grocery shopping? What'd you pick up?" he asked, a curious note to his voice.

Barnes' eyes flicked from Doug to his front door and back. With a bit of a shrug, he passed the bag of groceries to Doug, forcing him to take it or let it drop. "See for yourself, young man."

If it weren't for the fact that he'd been suckered in somewhat similar fashion rather recently, Doug might have taken the bag. Human nature was such that catching a dropping item was a hard instinct to overcome. But given what they suspected of Barnes, Doug's instincts were working overtime, and the bag dropped toward the floor between them.

It didn't help him as the bag transited downward, Barnes' hand was moving as it cleared the space between them. The wooden knob of his umbrella handle hit Doug in the throat, just below his chin. A fraction of an inch lower, and it would have been a killing blow. Instead, it left the younger man gasping for air and in terrible pain.

"It was only a matter of time, I suppose."

Doug's untrusting instincts were the only thing that kept the blow from being a lethal one, or leaving him more vulnerable to any kind of follow-up. The slight lowering of his chin at the last second had at least kept him upright. He staggered backward, trying desperately to catch his breath, keeping Mr. Barnes in front of him and his hands coming up toward a guard position.

Barnes' hand slipped into his pocket, and came out with a small tube that he pointed in Doug's direction and depressed the top. The pepper spray was not the usual commercial self-defense model that was sold in stores, with it's weak aerosol and limited range. This was closer to the police model, and trapped him in a cloud of burning haze.

Doug often joked about waging 'savage war' on his tastebuds, but there was a world of difference between the amount of capsaicin in the spicy food he favored, and the concentrated amount in the riot control agent Barnes was using. The fact that his hand was already up saved Doug's vision, as he was able to get an arm in front of his eyes to block the stream. The fine mist, however, was sucked down his windpipe as he continued to struggle for air from the jab to the throat, and he wheezed alarmingly.

Barnes moved towards the door, transitioning around the haze that was choking Doug, and leaving him red-eyed and half blind. As he staggered forward trying to grapple, Barnes reversed the grip on his umbrella, and once again drove it into Doug's body. This time, it was into the floating ribs on his right side. The heavy knob cracked them, driving the breath out of him and doubling Ramsey up. He received a crack across the cheekbone from the umbrella as Barnes drove him back into the corner, finally clearing him a way to the door. He moved with surprising, although not unnatural, speed for an old man, pulling open the glass interior door.

Wade raised his hand to hit the buzzer so he could get into the building and up to the second floor - his cunning plan for the evening involved kidnapping his girlfriend so they could go see a movie. Only he heard a thump, he thought, and that was weird for the area. Or this building, anyway, so instead of buzzing for entrance, he pulled his phone from his pocket. Marie-Ange would probably laugh at him, when he called her from her doorstep, but his paranoia was still too ingrained to take chances.

Barnes pushed through the glass doors and then the exterior doors. He almost ran into Wade, but turned his rush into a stumble instead. "Sorry about that, young man."

Catching the door as the man stumbled, Wade didn't reach to steady him. "No problem, old dude," he answered, using his foot to hold the door open so his hands would be free if he needed them. "You alright?" This was so weird. He hoped the old dude hadn't broken a hip or something. He also hoped he didn't decide to fall and have trouble getting up, since Wade didn't feel like skipping his surprise movie night to pretend to be a panic button or something.

"I think I broke this." Barnes brought his hand out of his pocket with the black cylinder. As Wade glanced down to see what he had, Barnes triggered the spray. Instead of the eyes, he caught him full in the mouth and nose, using the distraction to broke free and down the steps to the street.

Wade stopped breathing, jerking back and away from the spray because seriously, what the fuck? Only the fact that he'd promised he wouldn't kill anybody in New York kept him from chucking a throwing knife at the old geezer. He'd gotten a good look at him, at least, and given the rush he'd been in, it was safe to assume that something had gone down inside, which meant he really, really needed to make sure Marie-Ange wasn't asphyxiating on the floor or something.

Poisons had no effect on him, but pepper spray was a little different in that it could still irritate the hell out of him - and it stung like a bitch. Ducking inside, he pulled the wipes out of the little snap case attached to his belt and closed his eyes so he wouldn't risk getting the spray in them any more than it already was, then he ripped one packet open and started trying to get it off him.

Which was when he noticed Doug.

"Not..." Doug coughed and hissed as his ribs moved. "Not nearly as fun as lunch at Mama Lupe's, huh?" He was leaning against the wall, the marks of his tangle with Barnes clearly showing. "Got some extras in there?" he asked. "And some tape for my ribs while you're at it?"

Wiping off his face, Wade blinked his eyes open and, though they'd teared up, he managed to get over to Doug so he could hand off some of the wipes. "Son of a bitch." The itchy, burning sensation he had going on all over his face was more than a little annoying, but it'd go away once he managed to get a few minutes between himself and the initial spray. "A first aid kit I am not." He did, however, have the presence of mind to check behind the little desk to see if there was an actual first aid kit there. "Bandages and tape," he said, coming over. "Anybody else get hit by the old dude?"

"Just you, me, and our collective pride," Doug confirmed. He unmuted his comm as he wiped his face clean and hiked up his shirt so Wade could help him tape the ribs. It only had to last until he could get over to the off-the-books no-questions-asked doctor Emma kept on retainer for times just like this. "You get the goods, Jubes?" he asked quietly, but not too quiet for Wade to overhear. The guy was dating Marie-Ange, he had to know some of their business. And he'd hate to have had his impromptu beating-as-stall-tactic have been for nothing.

"Don't know, Doug. I got something, just not sure how helpful it is," Jubilee replied, pulling herself onto the fire escape and closing the window behind her. She'd already cleaned up after herself, making sure she'd left nothing that would even speak to someone having been there at all. "Maybe the others can make something of it that I'm missin'."

"Okay. Get what you've got and get out," Doug told her, before looking up at Wade. "Marie-Ange is out of the country right now, and under the circumstances, I think we're better off not being here if Mr. Barnes comes back."