xp_logs | Operation: зимний солдат

X-Force has the most uncomfortable strategy meeting ever, with the inclusion of Bucky, as they plan to go against the Winter Soldier. It really starts off awkward and gets no better when they realize they don't have enough people to get the job done.

The X-Force team (plus James Barnes) had collected in the main room of one of the hotel suites they had gotten in Moscow as their central base. The room was somewhat cramped with nine people in it, but it was the best place for strategizing, as they could control access, Emma would detect anyone approaching the moment they stepped off of the elevator, and Doug had swept the room several times for bugs since their arrival in Russia.

Doug indicated an irregular area near the borders between the Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia on a map. "Pripyat. Home of the worst nuclear disaster known to man. And Aleksandr Lukin owns a depot within the exclusion zone, under a lot of corporate misdirection, but he's the owner. And that's where Karpov apparently stored all of his Directorate X resources." Including the Winter Soldier and the stasis unit that kept her under wraps between missions. His eyes flicked almost unconsciously to Mr. Barnes.

"All? He wouldn't store everything in one location. Lukin isn't a fool. This will be the main depot, but he'll have other surprises if he gets away." Barnes leaned over the map, adjusting his glasses. "Bad country down there. Hard terrain to fight in, even harder to support units in the field. You'd better bring in everything you need, because once you come off the junction here, there's no where to retreat."

Marie-Ange nodded. "He certainly has to have other resources." She had bruises from her and Cammie's encounter with the Winter Soldier in one of the other locations. "Which means we cut the head off the snake and pick the information out of its brain." A pause. "Which is disgusting and a bad metaphor. Emma, do you have any particular objections to sifting through Lukin's brain and getting as many of his secrets as we can find?"

Emma nodded. "He's taken lessons in shielding and they're strong for a non-psi. I'm sure they'd stand up to most telepaths, particularly if they're in a hurry." Emma's smile was brief but predatory. "If I have a team that will buy me time, Mr Lukin will learn that I'm not most telepaths. What are our other targets?"

Doug tapped a finger to his lip. "The way I see it, we have three objectives - Lukin, the depot in Pripyat, and recovering Mr. Barnes' daughter." Which likely meant splitting the team in three parts. And without Remy or Pete or Betsy to lead, who should make those decisions? "The goal with the depot is to destroy or otherwise deny use of whatever's in there. Jubilee?" he suggested somewhat diffidently, as her powers were probably the most naturally destructive of any of them.

"Thought you'd never ask, dude. I'll take Cammie with me in case we meet any resistance," Jubilee replied readily, looking over the map. "Just how radioactive are we talking here, by the by? Am I gonna have to do some sort of decom after we blow this place?"

"The levels of background radiation range between five to eight times that of a normal city. So long as you both avoid picking local berries for lunch, it won't be worse than the radiation you get from a bad sunburn." Barnes said, not looking up from the map. "I would discourage any thoughts of bringing back souveniers."

"Take Cammie with you because she is immune to radiation." Marie-Ange corrected. "Do not pick fights or engage anyone you see there." They couldn't afford to lose anyone else and Cammie wasn't trained enough to handle any of Lukin's people, or worse, the training that Rebecca Barnes would have gotten. Who was still their main problem. They had Sarah, but even Sarah could only do so much if the Winter Soldier was inclined to throw more grenades. Or cars. "We are too thinly spread for this.." She muttered. "A dead city means I'm as good as useless in a fight as well," Amanda added. "I wouldn't normally suggest this, but maybe we should get in an 'outside consultant' to give us a bit more clout?"

Doug frowned at the map. Amanda's suggestion was a good one, but who? He ran through a mental Rolodex of people that they might be able to call on. People who could stand toe-to-toe with a trained assassin like Rebecca Barnes, and would be willing to work with X-Force and take direction... And preferably someone with a healing factor like Sarah's to blunt the worst of any potential radioactive hot spots... He grimaced as the mental calculus spat out a fairly ideal candidate. It wasn't that he didn't like the idea, but suggesting it would be rather awkward...

"How about your boyfriend?" he turned and asked Marie-Ange. "Y'know, the merc with the mouth."

"I regret ever asking you to do a background check on Wade." Marie-Ange said. Which was not a complete dismissal of the idea. "I would rather not, but I am not sure who else is available." Cammie was too new and untrained, even if she had some basic instruction from Logan. Amanda was injured. Doug was injured. They did not have Remy, which had been the entire problem in the first place and what had gotten them into this mess. And even if she went in herself or sent Wanda, they would still need people to go after Lukin. "Sarah? Thoughts?"

Sarah didn't know Wade very well, but they were running out of options. Years ago, Sarah would have been convinced she could take down Rebecca Barnes herself, but things had changed. It was better to have backup just in case, to make sure the whole mission didn't fail. "Whatever's going to give us the best chance of taking this chick down."

Cammie had stayed quiet for most of the thing, all she needed to know she did. She was going with Captain SugarHigh to blow a place up. Which, in her book, sounded like a good time, "Well, let's get this show on the road, huh?"

And in the never-ending sequence of Doug and Marie-Ange's awkward conversations, Marie-Ange asks Doug to take up a sniper position just in case and to call Wade to ask him for help. Doug is displeased but gets it done.

Marie-Ange looked tired, but only if you knew where to look. It showed in the slips of English grammar in favor of her native French, the number of painkillers she'd taken, and the way her hand clutched at a cup of strong tea like she was worried she might drop it. She lingered in the hallway outside the room they'd taken over. Doug was last out, taking his time packing up his computer and still moving with the careful slowness of someone with sore ribs.

She caught his eye as he closed the door, and handed him a slip of paper. "One of our contacts. One of the ones I did not burn to get information." Someone was going to yell at her for that, she knew it. "He is an arms dealer, I need you to get a rifle."

Marie-Ange did nothing without a reason. As frustrated as he still was over the way she had left for New Orleans, and returned with little warning, Doug still recognized that. So the fact that he was the one she was telling to get a rifle was important. "Why?" he asked, a neutral flatness to his voice that belied the roil of emotions that tended to stir up whenever he and Marie-Ange talked.

"Because I do not have enough information to know Rikki Barnes' capabilities, and I am already sending Sarah and Wade into an unsafe area. If something goes wrong, I want someone in a building as a sniper." Marie-Ange explained. "I... we are already several people down, I do not want to lose any more people."

"And by someone you mean me." It wasn't hard to guess. Of the small group not assigned to other tasks, Amanda had no training or ability with guns, and given where they were going would have a difficult enough time just staying upright, most likely. And asking Mr. Barnes to put crosshairs over his own stepdaughter... Still, Doug could feel a phantom mule kick to his sternum, and a shortness of breath remembering.

"If you do not think you can do it..." Marie-Ange said, carefully. "But I will not lose anyone else. No one else is going to be capable of it." She almost doubted Doug would be, because despite the fact that he routinely carried a pistol these days, it was one thing to use a handgun. It was another to use the weapon similar to the one he most associated with emotional trauma. "I will pull North out if I have to, but I would rather not." She still needed him and Jake looking for any trace of Remy.

"I can do it, that's not the issue." And all of her reasoning made perfect sense, in a cold, rational world. The problem was, the world was anything but cold and rational. Especially when the two of them were alone in a hallway together.

Marie-Ange nodded and her expression softened momentarily before she looked away from Doug. "Take Amanda with you. If it gets very bad, we may need every advantage we can have, and if she has to beg Pripyat to help..." she shrugged, and adjusted the strap of her messenger bag. "I also need a personal favor."

"What is it." Doug's reply was in theory a question, but it was delivered in a flat tone of voice without any kind of questioning inflection. It was as if he was saying 'this is already hard enough, what do you want of me now', except that he wouldn't actually say that out loud.

"I do not think I can call Wade." Marie-Ange looked sheepish. Legitimately and honestly sheepish. "It is awkward enough having to admit that I am making this up as I go on, and I have already burned more good will than I can afford, and I just cannot ask Wade to come out here." She fidgeted more with the strap of her bag. "Doug, I just can't."

"But you can..." Doug bit off the instinctive retort and took the moment to listen to what Marie-Ange was actually saying. She was being completely honest and open, something that had been sorely lacking between the two of them since she had gotten back. And on top of that... "You used a contraction," he noted with a not-quite-suppressed quirk of his lips. "Should I be checking for your evil 'brother' attempting to impersonate you?"

"What?" Marie-Ange rubbed at her eye tiredly. "I have no idea what you are talking about. I have an evil cousin..." She leaned against the wall of the hallway and closed her eyes. "I am so tired. I thought we had a chance to find Remy and now we are chasing something a little better than urban legend through Russia and I just want to be done with this." She felt foolish and unsteady and like she was utterly out of her element and no one could know, except Doug who usually did anyway even if she was trying to hide it.

Doug shook his head. Explaining the joke tended to ruin it. Besides, he could never tell when Marie-Ange was being serious about missing one of his references, versus when she was simply pulling his leg. "Fine," he said after looking closely at her. "Give me the phone." He thumbed the first speed dial setting on her phone, and tried not to think about how for the longest time, that number had been for him. "Wade!" he said in a much more cheerful tone of voice when the other man picked up, remembering their compact to not be awkward. "No, Marie-Ange is fine, I just borrowed her phone. I've got a favor to ask. No, not that kind of favor, jackass..."