starter for @ifyoucatchacriminal
Okay hate is a strong word.
What he hates is--at present--all around him. High up where there's no real solid earth to be had under your feet. Where there's not near enough matter to do much with. And maybe his stomach dips a bit when the quinjet drops out of the clouds. Beelines it to a path that he could swear was only inches above the ocean. He can feel the proximities even if those around him can't. The displacement of water and air molecules hitting the ocean surface.
And where it was only a minute...three at most before their speed drops out and the silence invisible metal bird's loading ramp begins to drop....that's his cue. One he doesn't miss even if his feet feel like fucking jello on the quinjet floor. They'll feel better soon. In just a second he just has too--
Half a second of being air born before boots strike something solid for the first time in three fucking hours. An outcropping of rock that in the wake of an easy spark of autumn color mold to the shape of his boots. Adhere them so he isn't sucked back and out to sea by the retreating quinjet engines. And here he crouches until its gone. Here he waits until the only thing that can be felt or heard is the water crashing against the rocky shore line.
Motus ground side. Heading to designated extraction point.
The tiniest of ear buds seems way to loud. Another pitch of orange from his fingers and its turned down to something reasonable. Whichever fucker it was that turned it up--like he doesn't fucking know--he'd take his knee out later. For now all his focus is shifted. Realigned to the task ahead of him. Because yes he hates water. Yes he loathes flying. But what Bastian Barton rage will absolutely not abide--what really sets his constant anger problem into a tail spin? When inhumans and mutants are used and not properly paid. When they are treated like slave labor and expect to say "Thank you sir" not "Please sir might I have some more?"
And maybe the rage flickers in his gaze. Makes normally blue eyes take on a very different shade. Makes the burning rage catch to anything and everything flamable in his soul. Makes this mission a little more personal than it should be. Because regardless of his own hopeless circle of servitude. He'd done this to himself. He'd been the one that killed thousands of innocent people--accident or not. He should be grateful SHIELD gave him a way to spend his life outside the bars that his conscience knows he should be in.
A breath and a crinkle of his nose. Salt--not unpleasant. Its the dead fish stink. Someone clearly didn't dispose of last night's dinner properly but that's not his concern and autumn torch lamps--small as they are in the abyss of wide dark beach--get hidden behind binoculars. Locating the first of his targets walking back and forth along the dock like good watch dogs. A boat or two bobbing up and down with the tide. Good they hadn't seen the quinjet. Surprise is still to his advantage. And as much as he hates what comes next, there's no sense procrastinating.
Into the water, under the surface. Down, down, down until feet meet sand. The water around him pushed away to create a bubble. And onward he walks. Across the ocean floor until he's right where he wants to be beneath the docks. Only then do feet come clear of sand and up he goes. Breaking surface underneath one of the off shoots of a metal walk way. Fingers coming up to press against the under side and one by one the guard dogs drop like stones. Their autopsies won't make sense but that's not his problem. And so much like a son of Posidon he is not, out of the water he comes. Water evacuating him and his clothing like the survivors did the Titanic.
Quiet feet that carry him onward and inward. Weaving through the dark that he causes. One light here another there. No pattern can't chance it. And its another six lives that he leaves in his wake before he breaches the actual interior of the compound. And while everything had been going exactly as it was supposed too--
The alarm fires up like a fucking storm siren. A uncontrollable tilt of his head. A hand slammed into the nearest wall. White lit orange splintering into and through the concrete and metal. The siren choking out in a series of half tones and off key wails. Its not that it bothers him but it did prevent him from reading the molecules in the air. Prevent him from using that to ensure he didn't get cornered or snuck up on. Because people leave tracks when they move. Invisible to most. But in the same vein of killing the sirens he's also gotten a brief snap shot of the lay out of the place. Where all the voids are. Because voids mean people. And heavy boots move him onward. He has to find where they are being kept. The people that didn't ask for this kind of life, and certainly wouldn't be stuck in it a second longer. If he had any say about it anyway.
And the screaming continues. The necessary blood shed to see people like him free. And in his wake even Hulk might say he over did it but he doesn't care. Hallways crushed like soda cans. Half bodies bisected by walls and flooring. This is what he is good at and this is what he will do. What he is doing at least until a rather heavy door is engulfed in raging orange crackles of light and soundly ripped right off all eight of its henges. Baz stepping through the gapping hole expecting what was left of this garbage human's lack luster guards. But that isn't who ends up standing between him and his quarry. And for a honest to fuck second? Bastian Barton freezes. Stares in both confusion and completely shock. Though his face looks more like someone just told him the entire world got an email about him still having his V-card.
The orange bits that proceed him through the walls and floors ahead tell him what his brain doesn't want to believe. That this is not a mirror. And that this is not a holo-image. That--this---not human--is real. The question is---what kind of real. And how very fucked all of this might just end up turning. And quick. But that's the logic talking. Logic that doesn't make it out of his mouth. Because to be fair? What the fuck else could come out of someone when faced with a person that is at least at first glance an exact carbon copy of themself?
"T'fuck s'this bullshit?!"
