006 || Video

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[He considered making this a voice or a text entry on the network for the sake of avoiding... well, people - but ultimately that would raise more questions with those who know him. Civilian clothes, calm demeanor, utterly meaningless political smile.]

I hope you're all faring all right with the changes in our environment and the requirements that puts on its population. I'm used to rationing, but I understand that it's probably and adjustment for those of you that are not.

Peggy and I had an idea about that - we wanted to see if there was any interest in a communal pot luck, periodic until things normalize.

Additionally, we wanted to see what people thought of a resource pool of food and nonperishables held in the... should I just call it a community center? That's how we'd like the space to serve during peacetime.

Um. [A small laugh.] Sorry, I lost my train of thought. As I was saying, we'd like to work on what amounts to a food bank for the duration of the rationing and possibly longer, if it proves useful and necessary. Donations are of course encouraged, particularly from those whose enterprises are not as effected by the restrictions currently in place.

[The empty warmth briefly dissipates, leaving Steve militant all out of proportion to what he says next.] To pre-empt those who think it's naive, ill-advised, et cetera, we would be monitoring the intake and distribution of goods to ensure that no single party exploits the generosity of contributors. I think as a charitable model it's a good one.

[He clears his throat and settles back in his chair.]

I'm not much good with plants, but if we could get space on the roof of the building, it might do some good to have a garden up there as well.


[100% JARVIS-assisted encryption to Evandau]

Sir. I would like to discuss, in person and at your earliest convenience, a potential threat to the safety of the Foreigner population. And also inquire after the well-being of Miss Namorita Prentiss, who you have in custody.


[ACTION FOR PEGGY]

[Done. He switches off the console and tilts his head back, inspecting the ceiling of the apartment with one of those vague and pointless realizations regarding how few people ever look up.

He scrubs his face with both hands and gets up, going to the kitchen to wet a cloth and press it against his face, then neck, mentally reciting passages from the books he'd read before Keeliai and snatches of songs to try and keep his thoughts from going back to the lab Natasha described and its contents. It doesn't work especially well.]

Comments

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[He ends up picking his to pieces before he starts eating it. He does eat it, though, hungry or not. A promise is a promise.]

I told you about my friend being here. Bucky Barnes. There was someone else I'd gotten close to, from... the future? The present? Both, I guess. Agent Clint Barton. Worked with him while I was back in the world, and he ended up here too. Disappeared before you came, but they told us over and over that if someone vanished it meant they'd gone home.

[He dusts his fingers off and leans forward to scrub at his face with both hands.] I knew better - I know better - than to trust something like that. I should have looked harder. I never should have stopped looking.

[depicted]

[Dorian presses a palm against Steve's shoulder. The distress is obvious. The exact cause isn't.] It's a comforting idea. A nice one to believe.

[He says that without judgement or forgiveness. Dorian had accepted the idea at face value, right up until the moment Steve said those words. Now he is waiting for the ugly truth to come out.]

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I should have verified it, found some way- [Exhale.] When the turtle's shell got cracked, I sent an associate to investigate. She found him. Him and two others who disappeared, but the other two - they were alive, they wouldn't leave with her, they said - it doesn't matter what they said. Something had been done to them. And she found Clint on a table being taken apart.

[Steve wipes his palms against the thighs of his pants, thinking it all over again, anger billowing again, redoubling at the fact that he can't act, not without more information.] I keep wanting to think maybe it wasn't him, maybe it has something to do with those clones, but then how were the other two able to answer questions? And even if it was a clone, does that make it... It doesn't change anything. It was still him. Someone still did that to him while I walked around over his head and lived like nothing was wrong.

[depicted]

[Dissection.

It echoes in Dorian's memories with a dozen awful connotations. Horrors of from the war, the reports from camps that sickened even him. Knowledge of what would be done if anyone found out what he was.

Selfish fear and righteous anger make a powerful mix.

Dorian hand becomes a stronger grip. He makes certain that Steve is meeting his eyes.]

But we know now. And we are going to end it. We protect who we have left.

[It's in the low fury in his voice, the hard anger in his jaw. Dorian means what he says, and he knows Steve's resolve is the same.]

Is there a way back there?

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[That simple question runs through Steve like an electric shock. He still has to speak with Evandau before he'll be comfortable taking real action, but there it is - step two. Getting through the patch over the spot Natasha went in and getting back to where she found the victims.

How could he not have thought of it already?

Quietly:] We'd have to make one. If we got caught, it could be... bad, to say the least. The repercussions for the other Foreigners would likely be severe.

[But all of that said - ] Yes. Probably, yes.

[depicted]

[He presses his forehead to Steve's, runs his fingers through his hair. Reassuring.] Then we just have to not get caught, don't we? [Dorian gives a quick, confident smile.]

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[The sudden closeness is startling, as is the touch. It's not the kind of affection Steve is used to.

At all.

Particularly in a context like this - the context of violence, espionage, potential conflict. He stumbles over how to react, the circuit of rage broken by surprise.]

I- Logistics. [Right, focus.] We have to find out how to get through - if it's going to need a charge, how heavily guarded it is - pick a team, possibly provide a distraction.

[It is kind of bizarre to say all this while forehead-to-forehead.]

[depicted]

[Dorian can't help himself. He starts laughing. He releases Steve and covers his face in his hand until he can stop the laughter.]

Sorry, sorry. I should have given you a friendly punch on the shoulder.

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[He ducks his head, smiling a bit in spite of himself. Steve likes making Dorian laugh, even if it is at him. He coughs and itches his nose.] Maybe add an 'atta boy' in there or something.

[Deep breath, scrubbing his face again.] Thank you.

[depicted]

Mm, wait, let me see if I've got this right. 'You're welcome' isn't it. [He gives Steve a friendly punch to the shoulder.] There you go, chap—

—no, wait, still too British. Sorry, my American accent isn't at its best.

[He gives just a moment before saying,] We see what it'll take to get in, sure. Then we'll see if there's any way to cover our tracks, yeah? It's best if no one knows we were even there. Maybe if there's someone who'd be able to take it apart and put it back together quickly . . .

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[Stark, is Steve's first thought. Maybe that boy, Leo Valdez, though he's not keen on the idea of getting someone so young involved.

They'll need Natasha. The thought rankles a little, even as he can't really manage to be really angry at her, not right now. Not when she's in her own kind of mourning for someone she cares about maybe as much as Steve cares about Bucky.

And it occurs to him suddenly that he keeps thinking they and including Dorian in the equation.]

You don't have to go in. To do any of this. It's risky - and it's a sewer.

[The last bit is half a joke.]

[depicted]

[Dorian only acknowledges the joke with a smile.]

I'm immortal, remember? [He pauses a moment—the implication, of course, is that he can't be hurt as others can. But then he elaborates.] So I have all the more reason to want to stop them from dissecting us when they're done.

[He's immortal. If they decide that they are through with him, he won't get to die as Clint has. There will be no release from his pain.]

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[He wants to say I won't let that happen. But he can't. He's already let it happen - not even once, but twice, to those close to him.

More, if the others who disappeared suffered the same fate.

The sudden thought of Howard responding lifelessly to questions or being pulled to pieces by a lab assistant drives Steve to his feet. He can't keep still, and several of the local fauna claiming the crumbs from his bread bolt back into the wilting undergrowth when he starts to pace.]

I'll take this place apart before I let that happen. [That, at least, is true.]

[depicted]

[Dorian grabs Steve's arm.]

I appreciate the sentiment, but I plan on doing my own part in protecting myself and those I care for. [He tries to get Steve to look him in the eyes again, to focus him on the immediate present, not the injustices of the past and the wrongs of the future.] So unless you want to help me practice my street brawling to work off that anger, we need to keep planning.

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[He does look Dorian in the face, briefly, before he can't, dropping his gaze the same way he did when Peggy found him in the bombed-out bar where the Commandos became the Commandos, drinking the liquor of a dead man's home city.

There's a knot tightening in his throat that words have to navigate around before he can manage to say them.]

I'm not good at this. [This. Losing people, failing people, waiting on justice.]

[depicted]

[He should probably go for a punch to the shoulder. Instead, it is the stroke of a reassuring thumb where Dorian holds Steve's arm.]

In my experience, you've lost something important when you get good at it.

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[He sits, driven down by exhaustion of several different kinds.]

I never wanted to see someone I know strapped down again. Now I just... wish he'd been alive. But if he would have been like the others -

[Mindless. Maybe not remembering who they were. Which brings him looping around to Bucky again, and Dorian's hand on his arm is all that keeps Steve from getting back up and pacing the park's remaining grass into dust.] I'll have to do this all over again back home. For the same reasons. Because I didn't think. Because I didn't look. I didn't take the time.

[He didn't have the time, and he knows that. He had no reason to expect Bucky survived the fall, and he knows that too. It doesn't stop him from blaming himself - no matter how many times and with how much force Bucky would punch him for that.

He massages his forehead with one hand.] I'm sorry, I shouldn't be forcing all of this on you. I just - the others would give me a dozen reasons I shouldn't feel this way, tell me to stop, maybe even make sense about it, and God knows why but I don't want to stop feeling like this right now.

[It's self-flagellation, pure and simple. The only punishment he can begin to inflict for the things he's done or failed to do - an indulgence of emotion, maybe, a waste of time. But somewhere in the logic that governs his scales of cosmic justice, it's something he can do to balance them, the only thing he can do right now.]

[depicted]

[Dorian watches the shifts, the thoughts that interrupt themselves. The multiplicity of weights picking away at the mind. He doesn't interrupt them, or push further into them. He won't forget them, but then, he doesn't forget anything.]

[He even smiles. It wouldn't be a pretty smile on any other face. But he accepts what Steve is doing to himself. 'Self-laceration,' they might call it in a Russian novel.]

You're talking to a man who has spent long hours looking into the ugliness of his soul. I think I know a thing or two about this kind of emotional wringing out.

[Simon had told him it wasn't healthy. And Simon was probably right. But when there is no other satisfaction to be found, at least they can have this.]

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[He stares at his hands, not really seeing them.]

I don't think it's fair. For you to have to face it in that way. The rest of us get to choose what we face and what we hide - we're no different. Give any man a portrait of his soul and it's going to go bad as he lives, because that's what people are. We make mistakes. You're not a monster for making mistakes.

[depicted]

[Steve has a way of surprising Dorian by turning the conversation back onto him. It shouldn't be surprising for an egotist, and yet there he is, startled eyes on Steve's face.]

Simon—my last lover, before I came here, the one who convinced me to at least try—Simon told me it wasn't good for me. "Maybe get rid of that picture," he said. "I don't think it's healthy, having that stare at you every day."

[A soft laugh. How useful a perfect memory is.]

I think he was right. But if you get into the habit of living like that, you don't know how to live without it. How else but self-torture to get control in a hopeless situation?

[Dorian describes the ugliness with a brutal and dispassionate honesty. He is disinclined to lie to Steve Rogers.]

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It's not hopeless. It's never hopeless.

[Even if hope can be exhausting.] You're here now, whatever else happens. You've got the chance to live another way.

[depicted]

[Dorian's smile becomes teasing.] Are you telling me not to indulge in my failures, Captain Rogers?

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[He laughs, tiredly.]

I guess I am.

[depicted]

It seems like we share more than a few unhealthy habits.

[Dorian isn't going to stop Steve, of course. But a reflection can have a certain effect, and Dorian isn't hesitating to indicate the mirror.]

[Besides. Dorian has faith in Steve, too.]

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[This time he's the one making physical contact - a brief, one armed hug that is a little more forceful than he ever intends.]

I won't do it if you won't.