Topic: Connection

Lucy Rogers

Date: 2016-11-23 17:06 EST
Despite everything that had happened and was going on in New York, Steve never forgot to make his nightly call home to Rhy'Din to say good-night to the kids, and see Lucy's face, hear her voice. Despite everything that was going on, it was Lucy that kept him grounded. If it wasn't for her, he'd be nothing but a soldier, a spy, a secret agent, a field operative - a weapon created by the SSR, but not controlled by them. He wasn't just a super soldier; he was a husband and father, with a wife and children who loved him. Though his heart ached to be with them, he had a responsibility to the world, too, to do what he could to keep other families safe. He only hoped they understood that and didn't resent him for it.

And so, while the others were busy making pizza and pretending all was right with the world, he made his nightly call to his wife and children, needing more than ever to see their faces and hear their voices, and remember what exactly was at stake here.

Lucy had set up the computer in the main living room back in Rhy'Din to accept the call straight away if it came from Steve, which meant that almost as soon as he connected, his screen was filled with a picture of home. This particular picture was full of small characters wearing their pajamas, curled up on the couch around their mother and comparing notes on her bump.

As the screen flashed to life, Lianne looked up with bright eyes, wriggling straight off the couch to hurry over to the desk. "Papa! Hello, Papa!"

Thankfully, Tony had a private server, and Reed had finagled some way to navigate the Nexus so that they had a clear link to Rhy'Din. Steve didn't understand the science behind all of it, but he didn't need to either. All he needed to know was that it worked and that it was secure. "Hey, Munchkin!" he greeted Lianne as his daughter's adorable face filled the screen, smiling brightly for her father. "How's my best girl?"

"I have a boo boo," Lianne informed him, lifting her hand to show him the band-aid stuck on her wrist.

"Tell Papa why you have a boo boo," Lucy's voice called from behind her, and the little girl giggled, easing back so that Jamie and Martin could be seen, too.

"I pulled Cherie's tail by not purpose, and she scritcheded me."

"Oh," Steve replied, trying his best to hide the smirk and look sympathetic rather than amused. "By not purpose?" he echoed, unsure if she meant she'd done it by accident or on purpose. The children, Lianne in particular, were still having some difficulties mastering English, as their native language was French.

"She was trying to brush her fur, and Cherie didn't want her to," Martin interjected helpfully. "Because you do it too hard," he said, turning to look at his sister.

Despite the little squabble between siblings, Steve couldn't help but smile. This was what normal was all about, and he missed it.

"Because she was moving!" Lianne protested, grunting as Jamie elbowed her out of the way to wave a piece of paper in front of the screen.

"Pitter, Daddy, pitter!"

"And Jamie made you a picture," Lucy added. She was just visible behind the children, tidying up in preparation to shoo them all up to bed.

"Oh, well ....Just brush her a little lighter next time, Li. Maybe you could ask Martin to help," he suggested, which put a smile on the boy's face. He looked to the piece of paper Jamie was thrusting at the screen and laughed. "I see that, Jamie! But what is it a picture of?" he asked, seeing only scribbles of crayon on paper and unable to interpret what those scribbles were supposed to be.

"You an' Unc'Jonie an' Nash'a," Jamie informed him, pointing to each random stick figure on the scribble. "All whooshy!"

Behind him, Lianne was pouting a little at having to ask for Martin's help with her own cat, but she'd get over it. She enjoyed her brother's company too much to hold it against him for long.

"Oh! Of course. I see it now!" Steve replied with a grin, though he really didn't. He saw three stick figures, which looked practically identical to one another except that Nat's had more hair and Johnny's had some additional scribbles Steve interpreted to be flames. "Are you all being good for Mummy?" He noticed Lianne pouting a little, but he knew it wouldn't last.

"Jamie sneezed in her dinner," Lianne offered, ever the tattletale, but beamed her smile immediately afterward as she cuddled her little brother. "Are you coming home, Papa?"

Steve chuckled at Lianne's tattling. He missed the mayhem of life with his three small children. It didn't matter that two of them were not of their own making. It never had. He loved them all the same. His smile faded a little at Lianne's question, and he sighed. "Not yet, Pumpkin, but soon. Promise. How are the puppies doing" How's school?" he asked, changing the subject more for their good than his. His heart ached every time she asked him that, but he couldn't go home, not quite yet.

The conversation turned, as it always did, to the inconsequential details of his children's lives; what they had done today, what they were thinking about, until finally Lucy returned to take charge.

"Say goodnight to your father, it's time to sleep," she told them.

Of them all, Jamie was the most enthusiastic in his goodnight, the novelty of having his father on a computer screen not yet worn off for him.

Steve tried to keep the conversation and the goodnights as normal as he could, but it killed him that he couldn't be there to hug them or kiss them or tuck them in at night. It was the small things he found he missed most. The little squabbles, the cuddling on the couch, the little fingers that always seemed to find their way to his mashed potatoes, and the drawings that got stuck on the fridge. The nights when he barely got any sleep and almost fell off the bed because three small children had crawled into bed with them and somehow managed to wedge themselves between him and Lucy. He told Jamie to be good, and Lianne to help with her little brother, and Martin to take care of them all. It was only when Lucy went briefly away to tuck them all into bed that Steve lost it a little, tears springing to his eyes that he had to wipe away.

Thor was briefly visible in the rush to the stairs, always close to Martin's side, and Cherie took advantage of the quiet to investigate the shining screen curiously before she, too, trundled off upstairs. But before long, Lucy was back, picking up the laptop to bring it over to the couch and make do with hugging that and pretending it was Steve.

"Hey, baby," she greeted him softly. "You look tired."

"It's been a long couple of days. I'll be okay," Steve assured his wife, with a faint smile. Now that the kids were tucked safely into bed, he could take off the mask and just be himself, no pretending where Lucy was concerned. "Miss you," he told her, wishing she was there, instead of half a galaxy away - or wherever Rhy'Din was.

Lucy Rogers

Date: 2016-11-23 17:06 EST
"I miss you, too," she promised him softly, one fingertip tracing the line of his cheek on the screen in front of her, wishing he could feel it. "Try and get some sleep tonight, okay' You're no good to anyone if you're not sleeping off that adrenaline rush."

"Is that doctor's orders?" he teased back, wishing he could reach through the screen and take her hand, kiss her, hold her close. But all that would have to wait a little while longer. He sighed again at the thought of that. "This whole Hydra thing is a little more complicated than we thought."

"Wife's orders," she corrected him with a smile, tilting her head as she listened to his sigh and the words that followed. "How is your guest?" she asked curiously. He'd mentioned that they had rescued a girl from Sokovia last night, but little else following that. "Is Tony behaving himself?"

"Tony's fine," Steve replied, for now anyway. "His mouth is his worst enemy." He paused a moment, a puzzled frown on his face. "Stupid question, but who's Chucky?" he asked, regarding something Tony had said earlier that Steve couldn't reference and hadn't had the chance to research.

"Chucky?" Lucy blinked, confused by the unexpected question. "Uh ....he's a possessed dummy that stabs people to death in horror films." She paused, eyeing her husband suspiciously. "Why are you asking me about that?"

Steve furrowed his brows, as he tried to make the connection between Lucy's definition and Alyona. "Just something Tony said. I guess I still have some catching up to do." As far as pop culture was concerned, anyway. You didn't catch up on nearly seventy years worth of it overnight. Steve wasn't sure what he thought of the movies people these days found entertaining.

"Do I need to ask Liv to call him again?" Lucy asked her husband, both brows raised. It was a little ridiculous that she didn't even consider calling her half-brother herself, but she and Tony were oil and sparks when they were around each other. A little too much alike, and trouble waiting to happen.

Steve smiled at her suggestion. Oddly, Liv seemed to be the only one who was able to talk any sense into Tony, other than Pepper Potts, anyway. "Not yet. He's got a lot on his mind. We all do." And it was probably about time Steve explained what all that was. "Mind if I send you a file?"

"Any time he needs a guilt trip, tell me, and Liv'll deliver it," she reminded him fondly. His query about the file piqued her interest. "Of course I don't mind. Is it pertinent to what you're up to over there?"

"Yeah, it's about our guest," he replied, tapping a few keys into the computer to upload the file and send it via Tony's secure server over to Lucy so that she could view it. "Everything's there, including blood samples. She's a telepath, like Alex, but what I'm wondering is whether she had latent abilities to begin with or whether it's due to Hydra's tinkering." He knew that probably wasn't something Lucy would be able to deduce from Rhy'Din. "We're de-briefing tomorrow. What are the chances you could make it?"

She scanned the information he sent her quickly, minimizing it before she could get sucked in. "You want me there?" she asked in surprise. "I can ask Liv to take the kids easily enough, but they'd love it if you came back with me, even if it's just for one night."

"Yeah, I do. You've done the research. You know the serum best, Luce. We need to know what Hydra did to Alyona, how close they're getting to the serum. And I need you to know what else we've found out. If I'm gonna be involved in this ....if we're gonna be involved in this, then you have a right to know. It's bigger than we thought, Luce. They've infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. They've got bases all over the world. I don't know who to trust anymore, but I trust you."

It would have been easy to leave New York, forget about the Earth, and make a peaceful life for themselves and their children in Rhy'Din, but that wasn't who Steve was. He couldn't just turn his back on the Earth and pretend everything was okay. He'd never be able to live with himself, if he did.

"All right," she nodded, unwilling to admit to the thrill of excitement at getting involved in this challenge, even if it was only a one time deal. It was something other than being Mama which, though rewarding, was infinitely less of a challenge than deciphering someone's genetic structure from blood test results. "What abilities has she manifested?" she asked Steve, leaning over for a notepad and pen. "Telepathy, you said. Anything else, or is that it' It'll give me a baseline as to what markers to look for."

"She can see into someone's mind, just by looking at them," Steve replied. "I tested it. She needs that connection in order to do it. She can equally allow someone into her mind, but it pains her to do it. I think there might be some energy manipulation there, too. I'm not quite sure how it works, but she was using some kind of red mist to keep me and Nat away from her, until she realized we weren't there to hurt her. Telekinesis, too maybe. I don't know. I'm not a scientist."

"Well, neither am I, but I'm getting pretty good at spotting where the special places are on DNA strands these days," she smiled, scribbling this down. The fact that one type of mental manipulation seemed to hurt the girl was interesting, but she'd think about that later. "Has anyone given her a medical work up since you guys got back?"

"Some of it's in her file," he added helpfully. He'd read that file, but understanding it all was another matter. "No," he replied. "I don't wanna scare her, and there's no one here qualified to do it. That's another reason I'd like you here. I think she might trust you."

Lucy's smile was very familiar as she met his gaze through the cameras connecting them. "Steve," she said in a teasing tone of voice, "are you thinking about adopting a fully grown woman?"

"Now you sound like Tony," Steve replied with a frown. "She's not much more than a kid, Luce. Do you know they started experimenting on her when she was six" Six! What kind of ....of people do that to a six year old?" And he was using the word "people" very loosely.

"I'm teasing you," she reminded him. "Tony's a jerk." That cleared up, she turned her attention to trying to assuage his justifiable sense of outrage. "These aren't people," she told him. "From what I've read about Hydra, the people they recruit lose any sense of their own humanity through the things they do. They might well justify their actions to themselves, but there is no justification for what they've done. For what they're still doing. That's why you're there, love. To knock them back and make it that much harder for them to keep behaving the way they are."

"It just ....it infuriates me," he admitted, though she knew him well enough to know that already. He wasn't the kind of man to desire vengeance, but if anyone had it coming, it was Hydra and anyone connected to Hydra. "I can tell you more when you get here," he promised, not wanting to overload her with information that would only cause her to worry. "There's something else, though."

She frowned curiously, one hand absently rubbing the growing bump at her waist as he seemed to do a U-turn on sharing everything over a vid-link. "What is it?" she asked, knowing he wouldn't be adding more if he didn't think it was important.

Lucy Rogers

Date: 2016-11-23 17:07 EST
"We've located another Hydra base. Nat thinks it's the main development lab for the serum. We think they've got another enhanced there, possibly on ice. It's been suggested we nuke it," he said, letting her come to the obvious conclusion on that one.

"Well, not before you get him out, obviously," she said, without even thinking about it. Her frown reappeared as she held his gaze. "You are going to get him out first, aren't you? You're not just going to condemn him to die just because he's there?"

"No, we'll get him out, but ....he might be a loose cannon. I've read his file, Luce. He's former KGB. He's been on ice since the '60s. Could be they had trouble controlling him, but why not just kill him then" Why's he still on ice after all this time?" Steve ventured, curious to see what she came up with. "I've got some ....people doing some digging. We should know more by tomorrow."

"Well, we know that their attempts at a serum have been unstable, and that was just their latest attempt," she pointed out. "It could easily be that, yes, he is difficult to control, but with the proper application of treatment, he would recover from the side effects of whatever they've done to him. Don't you think he deserves a chance" Clint made the right call with Nat, after all. Why shouldn't you give this man the same chance?"

"I will. It's not that. At least, not entirely. They're gonna wanna use Johnny to blow the place up," he told her further, admitting to a crisis of conscience when it came to both the captured agent and a man he'd come to think of as a kid brother.

Lucy bit her lip, knowing full well she wouldn't be passing that on to Liv. Hopefully Johnny would, though. "If he wants to do it, then nothing is going to stop him," she pointed out. "If he doesn't, then you have the tech and the ordinance to be able to do it without him. Just ask him, Steve. Or better yet, don't make any mention of how you're going to do it. If he feels able, he'll volunteer."

"We're talking about a nuke here, Luce. We need to blow this facility to kingdom come. It would be better if Johnny does it. He'd be better able to control the blast, but what if something goes wrong?" he asked, unsure if he could ask it of Johnny again, and he sure as hell wasn't giving him orders to do it.

"And by wrong, you mean what if Johnny gets hurt," she said quietly. "Steve ....if he chooses to do it, then it's his risk to take. No one knows fire the way Johnny does, except possibly Fliss, but Liv will have a heart attack if their daughter gets involved in all this. He's done it before, successfully, and this time, he won't be dropping into several thousand fathoms of ice cold water, either."

"No, just a whole lot of snow," Steve remarked, practically giving the location of the Hydra base away, or at least, narrowing the possibilities. There was no way he wanted Fliss involved in this, and Lucy knew that much already. "It would use up his flame. He'd need time to recharge. But we'd make sure we had a way to get him out of there this time. I want no mistakes."

A small smile flickered on her face. She recognized this rhetoric - Steve was talking himself through everything he could possibly do to make this task easier on the one person who could perform it most successfully. He didn't really need a response, but he'd appreciate one. "Maybe you could talk to Sue about that," she suggested. "She told me a story once about having to contain Johnny's flame when he went super-nova. If she could do that, then isn't it possible that she could protect herself standing right next to him when he does it' That way, he's not alone, and you can always have someone standing by with transport to get them out."

"Maybe," Steve mused aloud. If anyone would know the answer to that, it would be Sue Richards, and she'd likely be at the de-briefing in the morning, as well. He smiled as a thought occurred to him. "You know, it seems we're forming our own team separate and independent from S.H.I.E.L.D. That's not gonna over well with some people." Nor would operating without the Council's knowledge or express permission, but Steve wasn't sure he cared. If S.H.I.E.L.D. had been infiltrated by Hydra, they couldn't risk anyone knowing what they were doing, not even Director Fury.

"Then those people can stick it up their backsides and swivel on it," Lucy assured him confidently. "I have more confidence in you and your team than I do in some shadowy organization calling themselves the World Security Council, who aren't known about publicly, and aren't accountable for any of the decisions they make."

Steve chuckled as Lucy put her feelings, as well as his, in such succinct terms. "I can always count on you to tell me how it is. I think that's what I love most about you. Your honesty. You're not afraid to tell me what I need to hear, even when I don't wanna hear it."

"You put up with a lot from me," she chuckled in return. "I love you, sweetheart. Try and relax tonight, okay' Sleep, at least a little, or I will sedate you when I get there tomorrow. I don't think you want your new friend's first experience of me to be stabbing a hypodermic into your backside."

Steve laughed again. "You might enjoy that a little too much," he teased back. "I'm going home with you tomorrow. I need to see the kids. I'm not gonna become one of those dads who goes off on missions and never keeps in touch, Luce. Promise. Johnny can come, too. He should talk to Liv before he decides." As important as the base was, it wasn't going anywhere, just yet, and they'd have to wait for the CIA agents to get hold of Evchenko first, anyway.

"Good," she smiled, glad he'd made that decision so easily. "Then we'll see you tomorrow, love. I'll have a look at the file in the morning, before I join you. Take care of yourself, okay?"

"I love you, Luce," he told her, refusing to end the call until he'd told her that. No matter where he was or what he was doing, he needed her to always know that and be sure of his love and devotion.

"I love you, too." She blew him a kiss, feeling a glorious sense of relief that she would be seeing him very soon. "Sweet dreams, love." One fingertip touched the image of his face for a moment, before she sighed, reluctantly ending the call.

"See you tomorrow," Steve replied with a smile and a sigh of his own as he, too, ended the call. It had done him a world of good to see Lucy and the kids and hear their voices, if only for a little while. It gave him hope and a sense of purpose, knowing what he was doing wasn't for naught. He was fighting to keep his family safe, first and foremost, and then to keep all the other families safe, not only from Hydra but from all forms of tyranny. And this time, he was going to make sure Hydra was wiped from the map for good.