trainwrecked | For ashyperfume

He waited exactly fourteen minutes. Then decided that she had thought better about pursuing the acquaintance, gathered the papers from the table. Left a few dollars (careful not to leave foreign currency) on the table, and slipped out of the dive bar...

... only to see her still standing there. He didn't get too close.

"Should I return inside and wait for you there?"

He would, too. If she needed space from him for a longer time, he would give it to her - it was her decision.

Edited (slight addition) 2014-06-14 22:22 (UTC)

She stood there, leaning against the brick of the building, not far from the door. It was dark; the dim pool of the street lamp washed light over her outline. There was a cigarette in her hand, burned down almost to her fingers, leaving a trail of smoke in the air. It had rained recently; the pavement was damp. Likely the building was damp, and the back of her dress as well. But she didn't seem to care.

Her face turned back to him at the movement, at the sound of his voice.

"Why are you here?" Her voice was soft. "Don't give me some answer about how I asked you. We both know if you hadn't wanted to come, you could have vanished. Slipped off to some other country, been some face I saw once at a party, and never again. You came back . . . and that was a choice."

"I want... or don't want, a very small number of things, Fuu." He slipped back against the wall, close enough for very quiet conversation, or very fast reaction, but not quite crowding into her space. "I was a weapon. Weapons don't want things. I have set myself a target, and coming here didn't go contrary to it."

Oh, yes, he knew what her next question would be.

"As long as Hydra exists, they'll come after me. I can't even begin to make up for what I've done until they're after me. So I'll bring them down."

So simple.

So final. He meant it absolutely.

She watched the smoke rise off her cigarette, the thin spiral of it trailing into the air.

"I meant, James, what you want from me. With the point that you didn't have to tell me any of it."

Maybe weapons didn't want anything . . . but he did.

"Ah. That's a different question."

He thought over it for a moment. (No, not many things, not ones he understood or had a clear way of thinking how to achieve, at any rate.)

"I told you back at the party. I need... to learn. About all the things that I've lost, wiped and wiped again. Some of them, I can fill in by watching. You're the first person who wasn't... intimidated away by the way I am. And I still want to learn." A slight head-tilt. "And I don't think there's a way you'll stay safe if you only know part of the story. It's hard to believe with all the pieces available."

His mouth pursed. "Besides, if I didn't give you answers and you decided to pursue them, and me, anyway, I'd have one more person, one whom I don't know and can't predict, to watch for going after me. Hydra's plenty enough."

He may not have realized, yet, that Steve was after him, too, but he knew it wasn't a threatening type of pursuit.

Silence stretched for a little longer, before he added, "and I enjoyed talking with you. Not something I'm used to."

She smiled faintly, staring into the puddle-streaked sidewalk. It bloomed slowly, just the faint upturning of her lips.

"You really haven't had much conversation."

One last breath of her cigarette, and she flicked the stub away, sending it rolling and bouncing into the street. Her eyes were back on him. "All right. Tell me what I need to be wary of, being around you. Men crashing through my ceiling?"

"You have better standards than me," he remarked dryly, but it was. Relieved, too. It was good, surprisingly, deeply, to make somebody smile. It wasn't a thing he remembered doing before, though he must have, at one point. He could guess.

The pictures showed it, at least.

But the relief faded, drained, pooled in the darkness at his feet and tried to pull him under.

"I don't know if you looked much into what happened in DC, but the significant property damage... it was the price for not getting something much worse. There were three massive weapons, ready to take out people in the range of tens of thousands per round of ammo. People targeted by their genetic scan, identified as targets by an algorithm extracting their past, from their digital signature, and projecting their future. Hydra was going to take out everybody who was likely to create problems for them. The estimation was around twenty million, globally."

He knew the numbers. Those had been programmed into him after the last wipe.

"If I am identified, and you through me, you probably won't see them coming. I was the best at that, a ghost, but they have others.

"It's why I didn't want to say any of it over the phone. Keyword searches are far simple and more reliable than voice identification. And somebody, somewhere, records everything that gets onto a digital carrier. Phones in Zimbabwe are analogue. But not so much over here."

This time, his teeth flashed in a sort-of smile in the darkness. "Most people don't quite have to worry about such individual attention. Unless I make a mistake, you're safe from them. And I won't make a mistake."

He wouldn't say that she was safe, considering her job, and her employer. Just safe from the beast in the shadows that he'd told her about.

She wished at that moment that her cigarette had had more life to it. She missed it in her hands, between her fingers.

So keeping herself safe involved keeping him safe. She didn't like that -- that reliance on someone else not to make a mistake, not to slip up. Humans were imperfect, prone to distraction, to exhaustion, to error.

"There's always someone better," was her short reply. "Better than you, better than me. The trick is to play the game so the odds are always in your favor -- and then don't rely on the odds to save you."

One hand pushed the hair back from her face, mouth twisting. "Don't get me started on how stupid the idea of an algorithm like that is. I'm sure some Hydra mathematician who sees the world only in black and white thought that formula was a stroke of genius. But in a world of over 7 billion, knocking off 20 million is a grain of sand. Humanity isn't that simple. Sometime, somewhere, someone is bound to do something inconceivably, unpredictably stupid."

In spite of the fervor of her words, she trailed off, and for a long moment stared into the darkness beyond the nearby streetlamp.

"I won't rely on you to protect me." The words came suddenly again, quiet but sharp on her tongue. "But I have things to do that I need to stay alive for, so I'll trust that you won't make that goal harder. I'll do what I can to interrupt or confound whatever hold they're trying to have on you. But you're required to stay alive so that I don't have to worry about what happens after."

His teeth glimmer into another grin, a proud one. Yes, there was always someone better. The fact that she was fully aware of that fact changed the game, somewhat. She wasn't just somebody to be protected, now. She was somebody that could be... on close to equal footing. That was exceedingly rare.

But the enjoyment faded away at the mere thought of Zola.

"The man who invented the algorithm... was in fact, working to aim for the ones who would do such incredibly stupid things. They learned when Captain America brought them down, after all, and he's... exactly that kind of stupid." A faint glimmer of warmth shaded his voice, when he talked about Rogers, but only a very distant, one. "What he was targeting primarily were the people who would do that no matter what. Then the people who'd react to it. Take out the kindling, and no matter how many sparks you might have missed... there won't be a fire. And they can take out the sparks at their leisure."

He wanted to give her a better idea about the twisted genius that Arnim Zola had been. But, try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to compliment the Swiss.

As to her final declaration, he nodded. It was the best option. "That's a better way to do it. I won't make a mistake, but I've been telling you the stakes so that you don't have to rely on me alone. If you don't know what you're fighting against, it's so much easier to fall into a trap." He canted his head.

"How good of a scramble are you talking about?"

"My point," she said softly, "is that you really can't predict stupid. Not the blind, powerful stupid that wells up somewhere deep inside, that lashes out. Trying to control such a variable . . . there's something more to the human soul than numbers. There's always kindling. There's always fire. Without it, there would be no one to join Hydra in the first place."

The corner of her mouth twitched wryly. "But it doesn't matter. It still would have meant that 20 million people would be dead."

Her shoulders lifted. "In terms of your question . . . for that I'll need data. What they collect, how they collect it, how they store it, their process of analysis. The less digging I have to do, the faster I can work, the more I can target, and the better whatever I try will hold."

Wry again, "It seems like most men in your position would have opted for plastic surgery and an unknown shack in the mountains."

Edited 2014-06-20 01:31 (UTC)

"Oh, Hydra is all about making sure that kind of fire is put out. Maybe Schmidt burned. But the rest..."

He shook his head, but didn't argue anymore.

For a moment, he watched her, with the last statement, closer than laughing - not very humorously, but laughing all the same - that he could ever remember being.

Then he pulled up the sleeve of his jacket, and tugged the back of his left glove down, letting the distant street light glint off the metal. "Not everything about me can be covered up by plastic surgery, Fuu.

"As to what they collect... for the algorithm, everything. From facebook posts to bank account movements, test results... anything and everything. When they're looking for somebody, it's focused more on a specific individual. Keyword searches over all channels that they listen on - audio, text. Pattern recognition over video. They watch over people using twitter when they're on the lookout, for anything that might be a lead-in. If it's on a digital carrier somewhere... it'll probably be accessible to them, eventually."

It was a bleak picture he was painting. But even without the hub of SHIELD resources, even without the cover, HYDRA was a powerful, powerful organization, and it was important not to underestimate it.

"But, other than the automated optimized searches, it still takes people to direct them. One of the things I'm doing is try to remain as unpredictable, compared to both the life I knew I've led and the missions I've had as their asset."

Hence a shady businessman party on the West Coast. Hence Zimbabwe. Hence learning in the least direct ways that he could manage. His hand shifted on the folder he was holding. "And that's why I thank you very much, for bringing this to me, even if you did it for a very different reason. There's much I don't remember yet."

He shook his head.

"I'm sorry. This has been mostly about - me. But I think it's a good habit to get the most dangerous out of the way first."

Beat.

"And so you know, if you turn around and walk away from this all right now, that it's not a wrong choice to do so. Also, in that case, not to step on any toes."

Edited (adding a bit at the end.) 2014-06-20 09:40 (UTC)

"God." The word was soft, and unthinkingly her hand went out -- maybe to still him, maybe at the glint of metal he'd revealed. "Stop a minute."

Her eyes flicked sideways up towards him, beneath her lashes. "Also, I didn't realize this was a date, to worry about getting the entirety of myself out on the table."

He didn't move, frowning at her a little. His mouth shaped the word 'date,' as he tried to connect it to... this.

"I didn't... what?"

That rang bells in his head. Like it should be amusing, like he should be relaxing and making a 'move.'

But damned if he had any idea what that meant.

Not making a move might have been the best move he could have made at this particular point . . . and it was highly possible that her words had done exactly what she wanted and made him still. Her fingertips grazed his arm. The metal was cool and ridged, warming beneath her fingers. She touched what he had exposed, then slightly more beneath his sleeve.

"Did wonder about the gloves," she said quietly. "I take it that it goes all the way up."

"Yes." His answer was brief, but he didn't make any motion to stave away the light prodding. (Just wait until he remembers about making moves, Fuu. Then set him loose at one of those events and watch all the ladies charmed despite themselves...)

"It's attached at the shoulder. And gloves are... easiest."

Of the ways he could disguise the arm. At least temporarily.

(Charm is all well and good . . . if you can use it to get the one you want. For her it works well for keeping people away.)

Her fingers rested where they were. "Makes sense." Her eyes met his through her lashes again. "But you realize it has nothing to do with plastic surgery on your face."

"Only that it would be rather pointless, with the medical data they have on me and are very, very unlikely to lose."

He sounded... just a trifle tired. He'd considered so many options, on what he could do. Plastic surgery had been one of them. But there would be a paper trail, no matter how obscure.

"Doesn't matter." She'd been trying to poke at him again, for whipping out his arm when she'd merely been joking about his face before.

"To answer the question you didn't ask earlier, you already gave me an out, and I didn't take it. I'll suggest that you don't try to give me another one in this conversation, or I'll think you're trying to talk me out of it entirely. I'm used to playing with fire. And walking on toes, for that matter. You can ask my mother."

A breath, and her hand slid down to his fingers. "What would need to happen with you, James, is something that it would take an entire team to do. I'll be upfront with you on that. What you need is someone to hide or scramble your most recent and future digital footprint. That means figuring out where you've appeared and what you've touched. For records, simply erasing the trail of your access and then the record of my interference. Similar for anything audio, though you wouldn't be able to tell me that they wouldn't have anything involving voice recognition in play. Photographs will be harder, involving coding to either turn face-recognition scans aside or to alter the source image so that it doesn't lead back to you. Video or live feed . . . much harder. I can turn spiders and robots aside, but were anyone to be actively watching it, there's little I can do without direct interference. All of this, and it involves constant maintenance and upgrading of the code, as you can be sure that they'll be doing the same. I'm good, but I'm not an entire organization with the same kind of time and resources."

Her fingers curled gently against his palm. "The short of it is that I can give you breathing room. More time in one place. Less sense that someone is always looking over your shoulder. Maybe even some of what I did before -- some pieces of yourself, here and there. But I can't cure the disease. I can't get ahead of those kinds of odds."

"If you want such an imperfect net, I'm not sure I can disregard the challenge. But if you want to walk away now . . . I give you the same out."

"I've killed enough people, Fuu. Some of them could have walked away, if I'd given them the opening." That did include the people who got killed because he was operational nearby.

If there was something appealing in her helping him, for her, he thought it should be done without the shadow of uncertainty.

But then he nodded. That was... good. More breathing room. Although... well.

"You probably have a good idea of what this city can do, in local surveillance." She probably, he thought, had access to them, if she was offering what she was. "It'll probably give you some idea of how well I can avoid making mistakes, if you can trace my way to this bar. How I came into the city, where I passed... it would give you a specific reference point, that should make it easier, right?"

But she wouldn't find much. Maybe a shadow, here or there, or a figure that might or might not be him. Never a face.

"To do that, however, takes more time. If I know which corners you'll allow me to cut... that would be of great help."

Then he looked at her, his face calm, almost easy. "And in exchange?"

It was her turn to look tired. It crept across her face like fog across the moon. She pulled away, digging into her bag for another cigarette. For some moments, she didn't answer at all. In the new angle of the light, half-hidden by makeup, he might be able to catch the deep shadows beneath her eyes -- the marks of a woman who didn't sleep well . . . and hadn't in some time.

"Company." The word came almost too soft to hear as she produced the cigarette she sought. "I don't have much of it these days . . . and in the end, that's what I want most."

But just as suddenly, her eyes dug back into him, almost in challenge. "But as a request, not an obligation."

Well, that certainly wasn't what he'd been expecting. And it...

It struck closer to home than she could have probably thought it would, if he could go by the look on her face. Her request wasn't about him. It was about her, so she couldn't know...

"I'll try," he breathed out, tightly, after a moment. He wasn't sure he could manage it, as much as was needed, but he would very certainly try. Because he couldn't be there for his ... friend, because, as he'd said, he wanted to learn, because it wasn't going counter to his objectives.

Because she was asking. He was pretty sure this wasn't something she ever mentioned to anyone, let alone asking.

And she was asking, not manipulating him.

But, in the end, she was naming her price - take it or leave it - for her reasons. And he was accepting for his own.

Her expression eased, her smile similar as before -- slight, slow-blooming. "I'll imagine I'll need some Russian translation anyway."

Small pause. But he would still need an interpreter for her for a while, yet.

"From me, or for me?"

She certainly wouldn't always make it easy. Though to start learning about the intricacies of human interaction, what better way for someone used to being challenged to begin with one?

"Both." She cupped her hand to light her cigarette, coaxing flame to the tip. "I don't know Russian, and any information about your most recent past is likely to be in that language. While certain parts of coding are universal, that doesn't help me to know where to dig in a language that doesn't even use the same letters."

What's to say that he didn't prefer a challenge, actually?

He nodded, slowly.

"On the one hand, I would not recommend trying to dig up that data directly. On the other hand, a process of learning could mask actually reaching for it. That might work. Create a process where that would not be a deviation. Nothing to alert them."

Ever so slightly, he smiled back. She told him she wasn't going to rely on him for safety, which meant that warning her just how dangerous that play could be was unnecessary.

"And teaching you Russian can be a reasonable excuse for my visits."

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