#p: echo

[dog-tagged]

@pyxisastronautica has replied to your post:

E: Have you been well lately, Ms. Chi?

I am better. My temperature still runs high at 99.4-100.0 degrees Fahrenheit, but it is no longer a fever by the medical definition.

Mirielle still will not let me eating the greasy foods until the temperature goes down. I am pondering to make an ice bath to see if it will help me get better.

I want to eat a burger.

How are you?

[lilianna-potter-blog]

misterstcloud liked your photo:Mr. Sloth is always there whenever you feel like...

Thanks

[maxwellfoster]

Text || Max & Echo

Max: Hey man, for picture day tomorrow, do we have set times our classes go down or will they page us through the intercom?

Echo: Because we have the wild and crazy rugrats, we’ll go down first thing in the morning, right after attendance and all that fun stuff. I’ll pop my head in for a five minute warning if you want? Or you can just take the cue when you hear me trying to get my kids to line up.

Max: Gotcha. I probably should have figured this out before the night before. Hopefully my kids will listen and actually line up when I tell them to.

[velociraptorpriincesses-blog]

Echo tags

[tonyrockstark]

Moment of Surrender || Bucky, Echo, Tony

Following the plan suggested by Kennedy, Echo, Tony and a group of SHIELD agents ambush Bucky. He surrenders and is ushered to a cell, leaving behind his robotic arm and cell phone containing Sin's number.

Bucky stepped into the SHIELD building, met by glares and looks of surprise - no doubt because of the mess he must have looked like. He had a poorly made bandage wrapped around the gash in his forehead, he looked like hell and the hangover certainly wasn't helping him. It was ridiculous, just how easy he could walk into the building. Bucky had expected everyone to be gunning for him by now, but... nope. The only frustration he had to deal with was his phone exploding with texts. Armed with one of the pistols he had found in the apartment, the Soldier made his way to the elevators, sighing quietly once finding himself alone in one. Hitting the button for the elevator, he leaned against the wall, hoping to god Kennedy would be an easy fucking kill after everything that had been happening so far today...

Echo felt sick to her stomach, waiting in the now-empty room for Bucky to arrive. She had asked for a moment alone with him, especially after the globe-sized bruise that fit snugly on her forehead, the dried up blood now only speckles in the nasty purple. Back-up was already situated around the med bay, waiting to seize him when needed; she had no weapons besides a knife-- hell she didn't need it when she had Iron Man in tow. Fuck if she ever really thought she would say that. Texting him had been hard enough, but she cleared her throat to the comm connecting her to Tony. "They confirmed him entering the elevator. You ready?"

Tony “Born ready,” was Tony’s response. He was waiting in the room adjoined to the one Kennedy had been in and where the Winter Soldier was now expected. The decision to keep himself hidden initially came after he realized only he and Echo would be doing the heavy work; he didn’t need Bucky to EMP him the moment he saw him. He would be the element of surprise on top of the element of surprise. “I’m getting the feed from the security cameras, he’s coming out now.”

Bucky scratched at the bandage with a quiet sigh as the voice inside the elevator announced he had reached the right floor. Turning his phone off, sick of the buzzing, sick of that stupid girl getting inside his head, the Soldier stepped out into the corridor. "Med people." he called loudly, knowing it was the best way to get attention. "Gimme Kennedy Cross' room. And get a fuckin' needle ready, you're fixing this." he jerked his thumb towards the bandage on his head, nodding in thanks once he had been given the room. "Cross, you better have something fuckin' good to say to me sweet--" He stopped halfway into the room, almost ready to break down at the sight before him. "Set...me...up..."

Echo nodded, preparing herself for the initial impact. Tony in the other room... made her feel safe? She didn't know how to explain it and, quite frankly, she never really cared to to begin with. It was seeing him stand there that made he slowly remove the knife from its pocket on her person. Lifting her chin, she tensed, allowing him to settle into his surroundings. She could have said something clever, been a total jackass about all of this, tell him she proved him wrong, but the only words that came out were "Hi Bucky." Holding the knife, she dropped her arm back to her side and frowned. "No firearms, like you asked."

Tony “No fucking firearms, like he asked,” Tony rolled his eyes as he echoed the words, the sound only meant to reach Echo’s ears through her comm device. “You’ve been negotiating with the terrorist. Beautiful call, as always.” He had Jarvis run a final weapons check as he hooked a virtual window of the HUD to the security cameras in Kennedy’s room. He didn’t know how exactly he was supposed to use /his/ firearms if the purpose was not to hurt Bucky too much, but he’d figure it out. “Keep it simple. Try to subdue him, I’ll come in when he’s distracted enough.”

Bucky Fucking Cross. She had told, probably squealed to everyone what was going on. Honestly, he couldn't blame her. It was his own fault. He should have just killed her last night. One target down, even if it wasn't the one he had come here with the intention of killing? Well, it was a start. Even if it was her. "You brought a knife to a fucking gunfight, doll." he breathed, seething with anger and...god, he didn't want to do this. Drawing his pistol, he stepped closer, smacking her across the face with the butt of the pistol. "Should have run to fucking-- Fucking anywhere... Why couldn't you have just run!?"

Echo The hardest part about keeping a comm on with Tony was the fact that she got to hear every freaking word coming out of his mouth without any bark back. Oh, she'd bark back later, alright, much later when she could beat the living shit out of him for mocking her at a pretty damn bad time. Seeing the anger rise from his cheeks, Echo kept her back to the wall and held up the knife, but he was faster, knocking her to the floor in whiplash speed at the smack of the pistol. Dropping the knife, she looked up at him, spitting the blood from her mouth. "You can't kill me." It was confidence she wasn't quite sure she really could hold onto. Using the bed to bring herself to stand, she held the blade out, keeping her distance. "And leave you behind? You really think I'm in any position to do that?" She wiped at her nose. "Your face looks fuckin' awful. You're welcome."

Tony “Correction, he /can/ kill you. Dropping the knife was stupid. Drop the ego instead and pick that thing up,” Tony instructed, hoping she would actually listen. “Make him turn his back to the door I’ll come through, I’ll try to attack him from behind.”

Bucky wasn't sure if it was anger flooding through him or terror. All those messages, this woman trying to get into his head, he didn't want to admit it had worked...He couldn't, but she was right... How could he kill her when even the blow he had just knocked her to the ground with left him guilty. "What h-happens when you get hit by a fucking door." he whispered, never lifting the gun from her. He had to do it, had to pull the trigger. If he didn't Schmidt would only send somebody else... Running his free hand through his hair, he shook his head slowly. "I'm not him..."

Echo Maybe she'd get the Soldier to kill Tony, too, while he was out on his little spree. Slowly moving her way away from the bed, hoping he'd follow, she could only hope the mental signals for the pompous asshole to get the fuck out here would translate through particles in the air. "You gave me no choice," she replied swiftly enough, though the real problem was when she saw it in his face: Bucky was struggling. The gun was still on her, but he was stalling. "A part of you believes me." Fuck if she took a leap of faith, too. Holding up her hands, she tossed the knife to the side and beckoned him to her as she dropped to her knees. "Go ahead. Put it to my head, blows my brains out, but you have to watch when you do it. M'watchin' you while you do it because I wanna see if there's one hundred percent of you believing that you are not him."

Tony groaned audibly when Echo dropped to her knees. The ambush was supposed to be their thing, and she was 250% falling for the Soldier’s act. He didn’t know why the heck he had thought that trusting her would be a good idea this time. Still thinking he was acting ahead of the ideal timing, but unwilling to let Echo get herself killed right there, he kicked the door, which detached from the doorway and fell forwards. “You’re an idiot,” he said to Echo, loudly this time, giving himself a thrust forward with his rocket boots so that he could land a metal fist on Bucky.

Bucky kept the gun trained on her still, even as she moved around the place. If he fired now, the whole SHIELD building would be alerted, he wouldn't be making it out of here. But... Schmidt would have his head if he didn't make an attempt, wouldn't she? "I have his memories, you're just-- You're trying to turn me into him... Th-That's all that's happening here..." he struggled to get out a sentence, but as he spoke, he was lowering the gun without realizing. How could he shoot her? Bucky didn't have time to question it before he felt something collide with his shoulder. Staggering back, falling against the bed, he laughed weakly at the sight of Stark's obnoxious suit, metal hand clutching at his now injured shoulder with absolutely no thought as to where his gun had ended up. What was the point? "I-- Christ... I've fucked up..."

Echo It happened too fast for her to really gauge any of the reactions. Her heard Tony, but she was more focused on the way that Bucky had lowered the gun even as he argued the faults in her claims. "Don't." Standing quickly as though she were ready to lunge at Tony for attacking him, Echo held out her hand to the oncoming agents in their gear, guns ready at either doorway. "You can either come willingly or you're gonna have one helluva time with Stark." Spitting out some more blood, she rushed to grab the gun on the floor not too far from the bed.

Tony tilted his head to the side, and even if Bucky couldn’t see the condescension in his expression, he hoped he would be able to hear it in his tone. “Don’t feel bad for this right now. Bucky or Father Russia, you’ve had that punch coming for a real long time.” He pressed Bucky’s shoulder tightly against the bed, keeping a strong grip on his metal wrist with his free hand. After Echo spoke and as the other agents revealed themselves, Tony nodded in her direction. “She said something intelligent, color me impressed. How about you listen?”

Bucky now knew how it felt to take a damn punch from his own arm... If he could have found a way to twist under Stark, get his palm pressed flat against that glowing chunk of metal in his chest, Bucky could have taken out the bastard, but the suit was too much. The pain in his shoulder only grew with Stark hovering over him, but he forced himself to look away, to turn to Echo instead. "You guys fix my head if I come with you?" he asked quietly, directing the question to her.

Echo went still as he addressed her, though her gaze jumped from the suit back to Bucky several times with an attempt for an answer. Her heart was physically hurting at the very sight of him getting hurt by Tony; she wanted to leap towards the billionaire, rip his face off, tell him to get his hands off of him, and after hearing the tone of his question, she faltered and nodded eagerly. "We'll try. You have to trust us and surrender over any contact with Synthia Schmidt. You have to cooperate with SHIELD or else you'll have a hard time stayin' here." And that empty promise hurt even worse.

Tony Part of him felt that Bucky was bluffing, playing the victim to pull at Echo’s heartstrings. And succeeding at that, considering how lenient and subdued she sounded now. Unfortunately, or maybe not so much, there was also a more human part of him that wanted to believe that there was at least a little bit of the real Bucky starting to come through. “I’ll tell you how this will work. I’ll release your human arm, then you’ll use that hand to detach the metal limb,” Tony said levelly. “That will be your sign of surrender. Anything else is a sign for me to blast your face off. Got it?” He said, gradually loosening his grip on Bucky’s flesh shoulder.

Bucky 's jaw was set tight, struggling to keep himself from growling in pain and frustration. "I'm gonna have a hard time stayin' here anyway, sweetheart..." he smiled weakly, making a note to himself never to piss off Tony Stark enough to have him tackle him again. "I got it, I got it... EMPs and all..." he nodded slowly, unable to keep from hissing in pain, almost sure the bastard had dislocated his good fucking shoulder. He reached up though, fingers gripping the latch that would detach the metal arm from his body. "Y'get off of me now, y'asshole?"

Echo nodded. He would have a hard time, but she could only hope she was really getting to him. Sitting him away from Sin's reign? That would be their ticket to getting him back. She sounded relieved when she barked out the order, body and mind exhausted from the last forty-eight hours. "Get off of him, Tony. He can't do much else, firin' squads all here."

Tony ‘s eyes followed Bucky’s hand with so much intent it made his head throb. He was partially surprised when the man reached for the latches, enough to hesitate in letting him go. His eyes were narrowed behind the mask, studying Bucky’s expression and trying to catch any tells that he was lying. It wasn’t until Echo spoke that he snapped out of that, standing back slowly. “Arm stays with me, and you follow the agents, they’ll escort you to a secure cell,” he said with all of the coldness he could muster.

Bucky had surrendered. Schmidt would kill him herself for this, but he really couldn't have cared less. SHIELD cell would be better than nothing, better than having to return to that bitch and admit to her he didn't have it in him to kill one of his targets... Schmidt had ruined him. "Better have painkillers where I'm going. Or at least someone that'll knock me unconscious again, that's always great..." he mumbled sarcastically as he was allowed to push himself back up to his feet with a useless arm. "Her number is in this. I don't know if that'll help you, but..." he pulled his phone out of his pocket anyway, leaving it on the bed with a quiet sigh. The agents didn't speak, simply motioned with the guns they held for him to start walking. This was hell, but it was only the beginning of it.

[tonyrockstark]

In the Air Tonight || Tony & Echo

Tony calls Echo in to make her go over her problematic SHIELD personal file with him. Needless to say, all roads lead to screaming, a punched jaw, and some kind of odd mutual almost-understanding-but-not-quite thing.

Echo: never sped so fast in her life in New York City when it came to driving to the Tower. The two D-words that she really rather not talk about came passing right through the lips of Tony Stark over a phone, no less. He had her file. He had the names, dates, photographs -- least whatever of those were still left standing after they practically blacked out half of her shit. Accessing through JARVIS, she came storming into the Tower, straight to the workshop floor. Without a single hesitation, she stalked out with a shout, "Tony!"

Tony For someone accusing Echo of being irrational, Tony was acting pretty paranoid himself. The moment Pepper left for her drive, he started up the program Kennedy had set up for easy SHIELD access, ready to go through as many files as he could. After going over the ones belonging to the obvious bad guys, Tony decided to go in deeper and run a background check on everyone that would be directly involved with the mission. Echo’s file caught his attention first by the mismatched dates, then by the mentions of organization names without any specificity – all in all, he deemed it good reason to call her. It obviously didn’t go well, if her tone when she stalked into the workshop floor indicated anything. Tony opened the door remotely from where he sat by the mainframe, trying to look completely unfazed. “Your annoying screaming will only make things harder, sweet thing.”

Echo wasted no time locking eyes on the person speaking. Her temper was only surging sky-high, up into the clouds, into space. Trudging towards him, the agent cleared her throat and pushed her phone into her pocket, ignoring the buzzes from Bucky. "Show me."

Tony didn’t mind the fact that he had upset Echo this much on the least, if anything, this behavior was only confirming his paranoia. The reason why he had invited her over was because he wanted to be watching her reactions as she went over her own file. JARVIS was running a lie-detecting scan on her, and Tony was getting the feed on his cell phone. “There you go,” he said, surrendering her his chair in an act of mock courtesy. “It runs well up until the DOMAIN part. Davis was the turning point. I want to know what this all means.”

Echo stood, chin raised and shoulders square like a soldier, face expressionless to prepare for the file she hadn't seen in years. No matter who it was with, it was touchy beyond belief; only Clint knew about DOMAIN and only a select few knew about her sister. Tony didn't deserve to have her name being spoken by him, not by a long shot. "Got your fancy shit waiting for me in here?" she murmured. Yeah, no kidding he was concerned when there were blacked out photos, paragraphs upon paragraphs with only phrases spared. "I'm not going to be putting you in danger, Stark. You're not at the clearance to know."

Tony scoffed loudly at Echo’s comment about clearance. “Don’t give me /that/ talk, darling. If I have clearance to put myself out in the fire, then I have clearance to know two shits about the people who will supposedly take me away from there. You never answered the question.”

Echo "It's /Echo/," she snapped loudly, nerves getting the best of her. "And you don't get to know the answer to half of it. You're entitled enough, you think you need /more/? Please, get over yourself, Stark, it's exhausting to stand next to your ego." Jaw clenching, she pointed to the screens and gave a one-shoulder shrug. "Recruitment for another branch in the government before I showed up in SHIELD, it was necessary to black out things that SHIELD didn't need to know."

Tony “Well, I’m not SHIELD,” Tony’s voice was cold, but he still spoke through his teeth. “You don’t get to tell me what I do and what I don’t need to know. You out of all people should know what I’ll be dealing with if this mission goes forward, and I don’t want to be blindsided by anyone. That’s all this is,” he was actually trying to stay patient, but the façade was starting to fail him. “Now just /tell me/.”

Echo "If SHIELD didn't need to know, then neither do you," she replied swiftly. With a short, breathy laugh, she refused to look at the screen and instead observed the workshop. "My personal life doesn't concern you, or Pepper, or Steve, or anyone. You're dealing with a psychopath. I'm an agent who has dealt with them firsthand. Why is that not good enough for you?"

Tony “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Tony started angrily, taking a step away from Echo to distract himself with another screen before he did anything stupid. “But the things SHIELD /didn’t/ know are the very god damn reason why the psychopath is out in the first place.” He had to throw his head back and laugh and Echo’s last words. “Good god, did I ever make it look like I’ll take your word for anything?”

Echo joined the chat 5 seconds ago

Echo snorted and shrugged, digging her hand into her pocket to go back to texting, disinterested by his condescension. "Davis was a girl I trained with when I was in DOMAIN. DOMAIN is blacked out because there's a lot of international security involved in it. It has absolutely nothing to do with you're dumb ass. Happy?"

Tony raised his eyebrows when Echo suddenly blurted out all of the information he asked, all nonchalance as she toyed with her cell phone. His own vibrated in pocket, and he took it out to check the alerts sent in by JARVIS. She was lying through her teeth. “Wrong answer,” Tony stated coldly, stuffing his phone back in his pocket. “Try again.”

Echo Exasperated, she dropped her head back and slouched her shoulders, annoyed. "How is it--" She was in Stark Tower. Two and two put themselves together and she stared, blood running cold. "You got this set up to see if I'm lying?" Each word heightened, the anger bubbled dangerously over the lid and she stalked over, venom seeping in every syllable. "Are you fucking /kidding/ me? Fuck it. You go in there blindly, then. Go ahead. No word to Fury, no word to any officer that could help you when she's got the barrel of a gun in your mouth. And when you die?" Waving a hand, she stepped closer. "Auf Wiedersehen, Stark."

Tony couldn’t say he wasn’t expecting this sort of reaction from her, but when it happened, it annoyed him more than he could possibly put into words. He was just as on edge as her, but at least /he/ was trying to keep it together. The reason why was obvious now though, even more obvious than before. She didn’t really give a shit about what happened while he was in there. “Can’t let you go now, sweetheart,” he said through his teeth, taking her wrist. “You kind of know the whole plan. So you either stay until you’re clear, or I’m going to assume the worst. And if I assume the worst, I’m telling you, there’s no way you’re leaving this Tower without an order for your arrest.”

Echo did not take kindly to him touching her. Opening her hand to drop the phone to the ground, she gave the smallest of struggle, a half-assed attempt until he got everything he needed to say out. Eyes alight, she laughed outright, open-mouthed with a large smile. "Arrest me? For a file that isn't even yours to look through? Oh, c'mon, Stark, you don't wanna go here, not with me." She hissed and leaned forward. "Touch me again and see what happens. You got money but I'm not afraid to spit on a spoiled, daddy-issued billionaire."

Tony released her wrist, knowing he would probably end up twisting it the way things were going. As much as Echo annoyed him, he didn’t have the right to physically harm her, not yet. He stepped away from her, lacing the fingers of both his hands behind the back of his head. He turned back to Echo at her last few words, finally losing it. “Don’t make this about /my/ money and issues, all right?! I may be a billionaire, but I have just as much right not to be backstabbed as anyone else! I don’t want to play another game that lands me in a cave with no control over anything!” He stopped himself there, turning his back to Echo in order to compose himself, supporting his hands on the edge of one of the workbenches. “Who was Davis?”

Echo wretched her wrist away from him and brushed it with her other than like she'd be removing dirt. He was paranoid. It became very clear to her the way he mentioned a cave. "It is about your issues, Stark, what the fuck else could it even be? You see me with Bucky, you see all of that. What makes you think you're so goddamn special?" Hell, way before she even met this asshole, she used to admire the weapon technology they had available at their disposal; a weapon's associate was supposed to be on top of it, though technology was never her forte. The other agents, they were about tech bombs. She was old-school automatics. 'Was'. Past tense was the heavy hitter that made her look at the screen again, made her reach into her bag to take out her wallet. A folded photograph sat between her index and middle finger as she held it out for him to take, voice hardly above a murmur. "I think you're smart enough to guess who Davis is."

Tony “If it’s all about my issues, then just indulge me, god damn it! I swear, that’s the quickest way to make me shut up!” That was possibly the lamest argument he had ever thrown, but he figured he was better off with those than he would be by letting anything else like his previous cave reference escape. Tony carelessly snatched the picture from Echo’s hand, letting off an angry puff of air before examining it. The first thing that struck him was the similarities between Echo and whoever was portrayed. He turned the picture over and took a look at the year, seeing how it matched up to the file. “Sister? First cousin? Probably sister,” he said, his tone more subdued this time as he returned the picture. “And this ties in with DOMAIN how?”

Echo "Could tell you a lot of things. I mean it's not exactly a secret you were locked up for a really fuckin' long time with a bunch of terrorists. No shit you wouldn't wanna get locked up again with a woman who's probably watched you like a damn hawk since gettin' here." She'd argue til kingdom come -- after all, that was what she was good at. The leap of faith was to hand him the photo, the one she kept on her at all times; having him even remotely put his fingers on it made her skin crawl, but if he wanted to know, then he'd know the bare minimum. "She's my sister and the reason I got pulled from boot camp to DOMAIN." Taking the photo back, she gingerly tapped it back into its place and dropped her wallet back into bag. "I answered your question and that is everythin' you need to know, Stark."

Tony scoffed at Echo’s words, even though all of them rang truth. “Yeah, /of couse/ you know so damn much about me, my story is splattered all over newspapers and that’s all you ever need to know, isn’t it?” He asked sardonically. “I’ll tell you what never got to the papers. That whole thing didn’t just /happen/, I was sold out, and by the guy who knotted by bow tie the day of my parents’ funeral. Don’t judge me just because I want things to work properly this time around, and I say this subject is /over/ now.” His tone was final, and he reverted all his focus to Echo and what she had to say. JARVIS didn’t mark her up for lying this time. He narrowed his eyes slightly when she was done. “I’m still in the dark about DOMAIN. They don’t show up anywhere else, I’ve looked. What sort of ghost organization is that?”

Echo went silent as he added a few more ounces of fuel to the fire, though it wasn't under her ass. That was something the newspapers failed to mention, but for once, she wasn't going to pry. Rolling her eyes dramatically at talk about DOMAIN still, she cocked a look and spoke as monotone, as emotionless, as she could. "We do longterm missions under heavy aliases and take out political threats." She was sure to add a short smile. "Still not happy? You seem to never be happy."

Tony arched a curious eyebrow at her statement about DOMAIN. “‘We do missions’?” He echoed her words. “Interesting use of present tense there, sweetheart. I thought you were SHIELD now. And what types of missions and political threats are we talking about? What do they have to hide, if they’re playing on the good side?” He had to smile sarcastically at her last statement. “Oh, because /you’re/ such a well-adjusted ray of sunshine, aren’t you? Couldn’t even say the word ‘sister’ without massively lashing out first.”

Echo "We -did- missions. Seriously? I have to justify my tenses? What are you, Joe McCarthy?" she spat viciously. He was walking on a thin line to begin with. "Confidential assassinations of international tyranny and-or dictatorship." Pointing a finger, her eyes narrowed. "You don't even get to talk about my sister. You want another lashing out? That's not even close to me lashing out."

Tony shrugged noncommittally at her first question. In all honesty, she wouldn’t have to get going on justifying tenses until JARVIS sounded the alarms saying that she was lying again, but he would prefer to be given all of this information as upfront as possible. “Oh, and who controls these guys, if not even SHIELD can know about them? Are they still out there? I mean, should we be worried about /this/ too, on top of everything else?” He rolled his eyes, then tilted his head a bit condescendingly. “I’m guessing the sister died tragically. Newsflash, that happens to people. Don’t lose your mind over that.”

Echo could feel herself losing a lot of control on this one. "They're in the fucking past, Tony, what does it matter? I'm not worrying about my old goddamn agency that has..." Taking a deep breath, she gestured a sweep with her arms. ".../nothing/ to do with /any/ of this. I was seventeen, exited at nineteen, that's almost a decade ago." Then he crossed it. She didn't know how and she didn't even remember taking those steps forward, but her arm reeled back before she could stop herself with an attempt to throw a punch at his jaw.

Tony could tell that he had crossed a line, but Echo kept giving him information nonetheless. The glimmer of anger in his eyes turned into focus as he absorbed information he had never heard before. Soon enough this wasn’t about this mission anymore, it was about his own insatiable curiosity and near pathological need to know everything that happened. His eyes lit up with another question, but when he pulled himself back to the present, it was to see Echo pulling her first back. He wasn’t able to duck fast enough – that was the sort of situation where his age showed – but he did lock his fingers tightly around her wrists afterwards, using his other hand to gain his balance back by holding on to the edge of the table. “Well, /that/ just screams well-adjusted,” he said angrily, feeling the side of his jaw. Jesus Christ, if there was a bruise, Pepper would flood him with questions. “Are you /sure/ you’re mentally stable enough to be walking around carrying a gun?!”

Echo punched Tony Stark in the face. It was something she was dreaming of doing all over again, one of the top listings of her bucket list, and even though he grabbed her wrists afterwards, the deed had been done. "Davis Josett Galaeus was killed in a hit and run and I tried to put the twenty year-old man responsible for the accident in the ground. She was twelve and he was too busy changin' his shitty CDs to notice her crossing the street. Please tell me that that just happens to people and that she deserved it so I should get over it and I will have absolutely no trouble leaving here with a very solid reminder why I feel no sympathy for a man like you." But she said too much. Eyes rounding, Echo stood straighter and clenched her jaw to draw any ounce of composure back to her mentality.

Tony ‘s levels of hatred towards Echo obviously peaked at that moment. He had learned, and definitely not because of her, just how much a person’s death could matter. But he also had a death toll of millions riding on his back, and could very well drive himself crazy if he started going over the particulars. Dealing with maxims was a defense mechanism, and all Echo did was to trigger that. “I never said that she deserved it! But yes, death does happen to people, all right? Everyone, even your sister, even if it isn’t fair! Even if it was because of a stupid mistake by a stupid guy who should have known better!” That was it, he felt like the driver. Right then and there, he felt like the idiotic blind driver that had been too distracted with his own life to see he was ending a little girl’s. That was just what he had done on a grand scale. It was probably why Echo had a problem with him.

Echo There was a lot of things off with what he said. She was reeling over a lot of things, half expecting him to kick her while she was down. After all, this was the golden opportunity. Tony Stark had every single comeback riding on him for free and for once, her guard wouldn't be able to handle it. Davis was a special subject that always destroyed her insides, always reminded her why she was still even here. But he didn't. "A stupid mistake by a stupid guy?" she asked, voice croaking at the end of the question. "Mistakes don't go away because they're stupid. They get seared into your brain and they don't ever leave. He woke up and got married and had two kids of his own, that ain't him ownin' up to his mistake. He walked out of that hospital, had the time of his life, didn't even acknowledge it." Bringing her lips into her mouth, she put her hands on her hips and steadily breathed, gaze to the floor. "You got no idea who I am. You're the last person I wanna have this conversation with, Stark, so drop it."

Tony felt something breaking in his veneer as Echo described the behavior of her sister’s killer. Wakes up, gets married, has two kids, lives happily ever after, doesn’t even seem to acknowledge anything. Story of Tony Stark’s life. Years killing people without acknowledging him, and now he was married and trying to give himself a chance to be happy. “You don’t have the right to assume he never acknowledged your sister’s death. You have the right to hate him and never forgive him, but unless you’re /in/ his head, you don’t have the right to assume anything, no matter how all right he seems with everything. The world is filled with great liars, you of all people should know that.” He shook his head when Echo asked him to drop it. “No. You can’t spend the rest of your life thinking you’ve done right by putting down a guy just because he tried to be happy after the mistake that changed his life. You can’t do that.” He had to pause and swallow back whatever was making his throat feel thick. “He had a wife and kids. If you put him down, /you/ are that guy in their lives.”

Echo hated how emotional she could become when she was frustrated with incredibly personal topics. "Sounds like you know what you're talking about. Guilty conscience?" She was unable to pass the low blow, not when this was the time to do it. From a guy who owned one of the greatest weapons industries on the globe, he had some blood on his hands; maybe not from direct kills, but he was responsible. "You don't get to tell me how to live my life. You don't have any room to talk about yourself." Rubbing her nose with the heel of her palm, she offered a one-shoulder shrug. "I flunked out of boot camp because I had a criminal record. DOMAIN's five-person team, three year mission got busted from a mole, one of my very good friends." Pausing, she slipped on that airy tone to protect herself from crumbling. "Might as well tell you, right? Since you're all-knowing and so much /better/ than me. The story with the torture at the end? That's what you wanna hear about, right? People like violence."

Tony bit the inside of his lower lip for a moment, anger and defensiveness flashing in his eyes. “Shut up,” was all he could muster. That one was a low blow, then again, at this point, nothing Echo said would surprise him. It amused him now, the thought of people saying they were so alike. When it came to this whole thing, she was on the opposite side of the spectrum. “I never said I was any better than you,” he said as levelly as he could, massaging his jaw one last time. He could feel it bruising. “But you tell me, where’s /your/ conscience? If you’re telling me that you can just stand here and talk to me about the day you tortured someone, where /is/ it? You’re wrong when you tell me I don’t have any room to talk about myself, because I do have some. There’s a lot of things I hate about me, but I know I have a heart and a conscience and I know just where things hurt me every single day, and I know /that’s/ what keeps me from turning into the monster you think I am.” He paused, leaning the small of his back against a table, grabbing the edges with his hands. “I don’t treat mistakes lightly. It’s obvious to me that you’ve made some. If you can’t see that, then that’s the reason why we will never be able to see eye to eye.”

Echo bit her tongue, dug her nails into the center of her palms, did everything in her power not to reply with the words 'make me'. What she would defend was that he crossed the line way before her, setting the curve where low blows weren't illegal. She felt smug just looking at him massage the tender spot on his jaw, knuckles quick to remind her the decent shot she got in. "And what hurts you?" Her head tilted, glad the subject could level to something she could control herself over without specific names or dates or places. "If you are that stupid to think I don't see my own mistakes, then you really don't know a damn thing about me," she added, unusually soft. "I have yet to be proven wrong about every notion I have of you, pretty speeches of character or not."

Tony ‘s lower lip quivered at the question, more out of anger than anything else. If he was a caged animal, he probably would have growled – he actually felt like one, not having the right to lunge forward and punch Echo to hell and back. He tried to swallow the fury back though, at Echo’s tonal shift. If she could pull off a soft tone, then he sure as hell wouldn’t be the only one left looking like he was about to break something. “Nothing I do or say will ever prove you wrong. Because you’re the person that people like me hurt.” He switched his tone to airy nonchalance. “Now, that puts us in a nasty position, because I need to make sure that /you/ will resist the urge to throw me to the sharks because I pretty much embody everything that hurt you to the point of turning you into the fucked up person you are today.”

Echo couldn't stop the small chuckle passing her lips even if she tried. He was the person that hurt people like her. Poetics at their finest, the gears clicked, partially agreeing with his statement. "If you really believe I'm going to take what happened when I was sixteen and apply it to an alcoholic superhero, you're an idiot. I'd never do that to Pepper. I wouldn't do it to you even /if/ you ditched Pepper. Glad to know your opinion of my rational judgments." Taking out her phone once more to text Bucky with slightly shaken fingers, she kept her cool for what it was worth and cleared her throat. "I meant what I said. She'd kill Steve. You're just bait to bring Steve to guilt. Why do you think she even bothered with Pepper in the first place? To bother Steve?"

Tony scoffed at the phrase “rational judgments.” If there was one thing he could say for sure about that conversation, it was that he hadn’t seen anything remotely rational in Echo. Some part of him felt bad for having pushing her past that point, but mostly he was still wired up and upset at her. He winced at the mention of Pepper, not saying anything at first. The way he was keeping all of this from Pepper was a whole other can of worms he didn’t want to open. He was lucky his superhuman capacity for denial shielded him so effectively. He considered what Echo said next, eyeing her carefully, waiting for JARVIS to text him any indications that she was lying. When his phone did vibrate though, it was Pepper. Tony put it back in his pocket. “You mentioned Pepper. You care about her,” he stated. /That/ was something he knew for sure about Echo. “Promise me you won’t do anything to purposely take me away from /her/. Once you do, then this is settled.”

Echo wasn't sure why she got so offended, but she took the seat by the desk, rolled it away from him, and plopped down with no real etiquette in mind. "You're fucking with me." But he wasn't, which was what fascinated her. Sitting her elbows idly on her thighs, she assessed the little cocky man and brought her lips into her mouth before asking, "How much do you think I actually hate you? Enough to fluke a mission to get you killed?"

Tony looked away as Echo put that distance between them, relieved that she was doing it. When she asked her question plainly like that, he felt self-conscious about how stupid it sounded (so much for being the rational one there), but even that was momentary. He lifted his body with his arms until he was sitting on top of a desk, his feet resting on the seat of a chair he pulled over. “I don’t know,” he admitted, looking down to his own hands as he fiddled with his wedding band. “I’ve seen people play the ‘bigger agenda’ card before. Way too many times. I’ve seen elaborated plans that took years to come to completion. For all I know, I could just be a pawn, it’s happened before. /I/ have played that game before.” There was nothing hostile about his tone this time, it was just leveled and honest. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

Echo To play the honesty game with Tony alone was about as weird and squirm-worthy as sitting at a Langley family dinner where it took four hours for it to be totally over. At least he thought her smart enough to come up with an elaborate plan like that, though to put her on the same ranks as Sin discarded the pro-points completely. "The bitch tortured the one person I'd die for. I offered you up so quickly because I would've offered anyone that wasn't him with the quickness. I ain't all about any heart to heart shit, but I will tell you one thing: I hate you, but not nearly to the intensity as my closest enemies." The phone could easily be used as a prop for distraction, and with the murmurs, she kept her thumbs busy. "I would never wish what happened to Bucky and me on you and Pepper. /That/ is why I'm tryin' for as much back-up as possible."

Tony was alert for JARVIS signals, and again he received none. Honestly, at that point, he should have already started to give more credit to Echo’s words without any lie-detecting scans being involved, but who was he kidding, he would keep being his paranoid self right up to the bitter end of this. He took in her words, narrowing his eyes intently at her expression when Bucky came up, trying to figure out how linked to him her motivation was. He stayed quiet for a few moments when she was done talking. “Fine. /Fine./ I’m sorry I bothered you,” he yielded, promising himself that if Echo tried to be funny about that, he would pin her against the closest wall. “Thanks for the punch. Pepper’s gonna ask what happened. We need matching lies.”

Echo knew her annual amount of eye-rolls were being used up awfully fast. What she wanted nothing more was to give this guy a royal beat down, a taste of his own medicine just so she could cuddle against Bucky and sleep soundly tonight, but she kept her fists to herself. As far as she was concerned, she'd given him the truth; JARVIS apparently wasn't throwing any curveballs, either. "Matching lies? What are we, in seventh grade kissin' behind the bleachers?" she asked flatly, unimpressed. Standing from the chair, she straightened her clothes. "I punched you because you're an asshole. That's about as simple of a story you can get for them to whole-heartedly believe it."

[tonyrockstark]

Next Steps || Tony, Steve, Echo, Kennedy & Pepper [briefly]

After finding out about Sin Schmidt's escape from her SHIELD holding cell, Steve, Tony, Echo and Kennedy meet to discuss the next course of action (not before putting Pepper to sleep first.)

Tony: If there was one good thing about today, is that he got to learn that the new lockdown protocols for the Tower worked perfectly. Tony himself might have had a problem getting in if he hadn’t been the one to design the program. None of that was extremely comforting though, until he was in a room with Pepper and had access to a screen telling him the minute details of the status of each one of his dozens of new suits, all on stand by, just in case. He made it to the Hulk cage a few minutes after getting to the Tower, and was in after punching in the codes, his eyes instantly searching for Pepper. “Kennedy, you stay away from my stuff,” he said as he walked towards his wife.

Pepper was up on her feet in an instant when Tony entered what had to be a clausterphobic person's worst nightmare. All in all she was handling things decently, other than her tendency to snap when annoyed. It wasn't until she threw her arms around Tony's neck and allowed herself to take a deep breath that she realized how tense she was, "Hi." Was her muffed greeting into the crook of his neck. She could worry about the fact that they had a room full of people watching them later.

Kennedy rolled her eyes at the order and twisted her neck to glance over her shoulder at Tony. "What? I'm only looking, not touching." With another roll of her eyes, she continued scratching her fingertips into the furry heads of the two German shepherds sitting on either side of her while her eyes glanced around the others in the holding cell. "Hope no one's feeling particularly claustrophobic today. Or tonight."

Echo rushed in a little on the late side, showing up a whopping twelve seconds after Tony showed up with a duffle bag and a backpack slung on the other shoulder. "Sorry, got held up." Great. The peachiest of the peachy all roped into small quarters... no wonder Bruce was such a stickler about this shit on the side. Standing a little taller at the sight of Bucky sitting on his own in the corner, she lifted her chin and cleared her throat. "We're not going to go anywhere else? I thought the glass was bulletproof. Don't need to..." Grimacing, she dropped the backpack and sighed heavily, "...know how the fuck the other half lives."

Tony returned Pepper’s embrace, feeling the tension in her as he did so. “Hey, honey,” he said into a kiss on the top of her head. He was pretty nervous himself, but resolved to show her some stability. “Tonight. It’s night out.” Tony lifted his eyes to add to Kennedy’s statement. His head snapped warily at the sound of someone else walking in. He was relieved but annoyed to see it was only Echo. “I can access my mainframe through the screens here, but I keep my explosive stuff in the workshop. Absolutely no dogs allowed.” He turned his head back to Pepper, lifting her chin from his neck. “I want to leave you somewhere safer than… wherever we’ll be.”

Pepper searched his eyes with a confused look, "You want to just leave me somewhere? I've been hiding here for hours. Where exactly do you expect to put me? I want to go with you." There was a stubborn tone to her voice. He knew the tone. She was tired of being here. He was where she felt safe, so she wanted to be with him, case closed.

Rogers joined the chat 5 seconds ago

Kennedy There was going to be a lot of eye rolling tonight. Kennedy kept her attention elsewhere while Tony and Pepper had their moment. She murmured a soft command in Russian to the two dogs before shouldering the small backpack that she'd brought. Her fingers traced along the straps slowly, waiting for Tony while thinking of the number of ways that she'd rather be driving the edge of Steve's shield into the Sin's face right about now. "Direct access is preferable. I need somewhere that I can work."

Echo clenched her jaw and looked to the side before crouching to sift through the duffle bag first. "I brought beer for the long haul." Lover quarrels were going to happen a shitton tonight, though by the way Bucky stared off, she knew she'd get her time to deal with that later on. Taking out one of her handguns as well, she loaded the magazine and rolled her shoulders until she stood tall once again. "S'like hangin' out with the Nerd Herd.. SHIELD's not really sharin' much as usual." Echo cleared her throat. "I also don't think Sin being out of a cell's really all that recent."

Rogers: looked up at Stark Tower, locked up tight. He must have taken too long because there seemed to be no way in and it wasn't like Stark could make it easy and install a doorbell. The door looked solid enough so he just started pounding on it. "Pepper, let me in," he shouted to no one in particular, figuring that there must be a dozen security cameras around.

Tony bit his bottom lip at Pepper’s resistance. He’d seen that coming. He didn’t say anything at first, but when Echo loaded her gun, his body shifted uneasily. He didn’t want Pepper to be in that environment, even because Sin would be the main topic of conversation. Tony put a kiss on Pepper’s forehead then let her go answer Steve’s call of her name. Once she turned her back, he walked to the edge of the cage and opened the compartment where the sedatives were kept – this was a Hulk cage, after all. Tony took special care to choose a syringe containing a sedative meant for Bruce, not the Hulk, and coming from behind, applied it to Pepper’s thigh just as she opened the doors to Steve. “Just in time, Cap,” Tony said as he caught Pepper in his arms when her body went limp. He avoided her eyes. “We’re going down to the workshop. You, go ahead of me, JARVIS will let you in.” he said to Kennedy and Echo. He would try to leave Pepper lying down comfortably on the ground of the cage, she would be safe in there. “Oh, and the first person who utters a comment will be taking a shortcut to the lobby,” he added as he stepped away from the door, carrying Pepper.

Tony: [eew sorry this got long, tony had.... stuff to do]

Pepper joined the chat 12 seconds ago

Kennedy said nothing as Steve arrived. She just let her gaze sweep over him once before her brows furrowed together at Tony's actions. "Not my business," Kennnedy said and lifted her hands as if to proclaim her innocence. With Tony's 'permission' she swept out of the room wordlessly and without a second glance at Steve to head down to the workshop. She had more important things to focus on right now. Like finding Sin. And bashing Sin's face in until there was nothing left but goop.

Echo joined the chat 29 seconds ago

Echo was about ready to greet Steve when Pepper suddenly dropped. "Pepper?!" she asked, hushed, eyes jumping between her and Tony before locking her jaw up tightly. Offering a side-glance to Kennedy, she started out with her bags and kept watch on the hallways ahead. Sin had eyes on the tower before -- or so she said. Could she even believe someone as batshit as her, though? Bucky seemed to. Echo wasn't about to take it hook, line, and sinker just yet. "So how long were y'all planning to play secret clubhouse until?"

Kennedy joined the chat

Echo joined the chat 6 seconds ago

Rogers: The second Steve walked into the tower he wished he hadn't. Kennedy was obviously still pissed at him, not that he'd expected any less. Bucky looked lost in his own world, definitely not up for conversation. And given that Pepper was passed out in Tony's arms that left Stark or Echo to fill him in. Not up to the aggravation he turned to Echo, "Have I missed something?"

Tony handled Pepper’s body with clinical care, not romantic or remotely emotional as he put her down on the ground. He would keep his heart out of this one for as long as he could, and was glad that no one decided to press on the matter. He caught up with everyone in the hallway and led them to the private elevator that would take them directly to the underground workshop. He held the door open with his arm as he motioned with his head for people to get in the car. “We should probably start this conversation by sharing what versions of this each of us has. SHIELD loves to give different spins on things depending on who’s listening.”

Kennedy "I'm here for as long as it's necessary or until three days are over," Kennedy replied to Echo with a loose roll of her shoulders as she slipped inside of the elevator. Her weight shifted once inside, one hip bracing against the wall while her arms folded across her chest. "And all I know is that she's not in SHIELD custody. Somehow, those dipshits didn't know until she popped up online. Fury gave me access codes to the databanks so I can get into what I need."

Echo glanced at Steve and half-considered ignoring him, but eventually she leaned and murmured, "You're not gonna like what you have to hear. I don't account for Tony's shit." As Tony opened the door, she cautiously moved into the car and cleared her throat. "SHIELD's bein' really tight lipped about all this shit. Somehow Synthia Schmidt managed to get out of what you could consider a holding cell, still haven't known how long she's been out. The only ways she could get out would be through outside help. I checked that Mickey O'Doherty was still in custody, completely untouched. He'd be the only double agent that could pull this off. That's all they're gonna give you for now."

Rogers: Was Echo tick at him now too? Great. That left Tony as his only ally; he was screwed. He walked into the elevator feeling like he'd just slipped a noose over his neck. "I know nothing, I'm only here because Bucky made me come."

Rogers: *ticked

Tony actually didn’t know what the hell was up between Steve and Kennedy, but once he was paying attention to something other than Pepper, he could feel the tension between them right away. He got in the car and stared at the screen that indicated what floor they were in until it reached one of the restricted sublevels. “All Fury told me is that she had help. We should start my accessing the SHIELD personnel files and see who had clearance to the area where Sin was being kept.” He was the first to walk out of the elevator so he could punch in the access codes and run the retina scan at the door of the workshop. “And you three will have to talk decently to one another, I refuse to be the middle man here,” he said as he held the door open for the others.

Kennedy "Decency is my middle name, sugar," Kennedy replied dryly as she led the way into the room. She chose a counter over a seat, hopping onto it in one fluid motion once she was sure the area was neat enough and let her legs dangle over the side. "If it's someone in SHIELD, that'll be fun. They don't exactly have to have official clearance to get to her. They just need the right information to get through the doors. Not that hard to do if you've got somebody with deep pockets backing you."

Echo "Decency to one another? Only person that doesn't work for with me would be you, Mr. Stark," she replied simply before following the group yet again. "I don't have access to any real files, didn't get access to the floor for the weeks she was supposed to be here. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this mess." Demotion. It hurt to even imply it out loud. "I honestly do not believe SHIELD would've let her sit in a cell that easy to break out of-- hell, I mean, O'Doherty's in a harder place to crack and she's a bigger threat. It has to be around the week Cross and I retrieved Barnes from the airport."

Rogers: stood near the elevator listening. "We're sure this isn't Fury, it wouldn't be the first time he played us," he suggested giving Tony a meaningful look. At least the girls were willing to play at being civil, and he wasn't looking to start any fights either. This didn't make any sense; if Sin had been in a SHIELD facility, there's no way she would have made it out without a full team of deep cover moles.

Tony walked directly to the mainframe of his systems. He got through his own security softwares, rolling his eyes at Echo’s comment, then beckoned Kennedy to join him once he was in. He didn’t really have a problem with letting her into his system as long as he was watching it, and if she didn’t have to blast through his firewalls, thus gathering information about them. He lifted his eyes at Steve’s suggestion. “SHIELD does have a thing for bigger agendas they won’t tell anyone about. Maybe releasing Sin is part of a bigger ploy. Anyone else wondering why the heck we’re only hearing about her escape /now/?”

Kennedy "We're hearing about it now," Kennedy began, hopping down from her perch and popping up beside Tony, "because SHIELD can't fix their fuck up as internally as it gets. They need other people to get involved." She rolled her eyes as her eyes skimmed the screen before her fingers began sliding across the keyboard. "You people give SHIELD too much credit sometimes. They're easy to get the jump on if you know what you're doing. Or, like I said, you've got someone with deep pockets backing your plays. She's Schmidt's daughter. There's someone backing her. Finding them is the hard part. Find the people that helped her get out, you'll get there eventually."

Echo placed her bags on the ground and stared wide-eyed at Steve. "Fury playin' us?" Shaking her head, she moved away and flicked through her phone. "Releasin' Sin after what she did to Pepper? I mean the bitch tied her up and beat the shit out of her. Unless if we have a tracker--" Rushing to lean onto the back of Kennedy's chair, she squinted. "If she's posting on a computer for a goddamn blogging site, then fuck SHIELD, we can grab her ourselves. I don't need a bigger agenda, not when she's already done enough to warrant lockup for life." Licking her lips, she read parts of the files briefly. "Brock Rumlow's her only confirmed partner but no one's even seen him. I'll grab a visit with O'Doherty tomorrow."

Pepper joined the chat 13 seconds ago

Rogers: "It was just something to think about, we can't leave out any possibilities." Steve moved behind Tony so he could look over his shoulder and try to make sense of what was going on on screen; he made sure to stay as far from Kennedy as he could while still being able to see. "If they did have a tracker on her could you get a lock on it?", he asked absently in Stark's direction staring intently at the computer.

Tony ’s jaw clenched at Echo’s remark about what Sin had done to Pepper. “Keep the unnecessary reminders to yourself, all right, sweetheart? We all know the situation.” He snapped at her. The second he let this get personal, he would lose his grasp on everything. He tried his best to focus on the screen again, keeping the shakiness off his voice. “It’s not about /us/ needing a bigger agenda, it’s about figuring out /their/ agenda. We might not know about SHIELD, but that girl certainly has one. She wouldn’t just randomly reveal herself like that, she’s after something. As for that tracker, try to get deep into those files, Kennedy. See if you can find anything about that. Jarvis will try to find the computer she posted her stuff from, I tried to run a trace from my cell when I first saw that she was out, but the data was well masked.”

Kennedy "I was gonna do some online shopping. I need a new set of tomahawks," she replied dryly even as her fingers moved across the keyboard. "Already know what she's after." With a pointed glance in Steve's direction, Kennedy dipped her shoulder to let the bag slide down her arm. Pulling her hands from the keyboard briefly, she pulled the tablet from inside and booted it up. "And Brock's the only one that SHIELD knows of which means he's the only one that most of you have heard of him. Not that most of you had heard of either of them until a month or two ago. She's got more than just him. Think bigger picture here, kids." Sliding two fingers across the tablet, Kennedy pulled her gaze down from Stark's screen to it before returning both hands to the keyboard.

Echo "God, again with the sweetheart..." she groaned with a dramatic eye roll. "Can we please not? Steve's right, we can't leave out any possibilities, but you're forgetting she's absolutely batshit. She doesn't need a reason to act coy online, she does it for the jerk off." Looking down at Kennedy's head, she bit the inside of her cheek and gestured to Steve. "She's right. Pep was an opening statement, Bucky..." Trailing off, she shook her head and pointed a finger at the screen. "We let her simmer any longer and we could be lookin' at dozens of HYDRA agents crawlin' out of the woodwork. Avengers boy band seems to be the popular target this year."

Rogers: Why was it always him? Steve found himself wondering if he couldn't crawl back into his nice peaceful iceberg and have someone wake him when the world finally achieved Utopian status. "Okay... we know what she wants so why don't we let her come to us?" Maybe it was hubris, but he considered himself durable enough to hack it out as bait. "Unless your having any luck," he tacked on, addressing Kennedy directly for the first time.

Tony opened his lips to protest to Steve’s suggestion, but he closed his mouth again as he considered it. “Why /hasn’t/ she tried to get to us? It’s not like people don’t know where we are, we’re front page news!” He was trying hard to keep it together, but this was getting too touchy for him. He hated to think about Pepper’s torture as just the “opening act” to something that wouldn’t even involve her if it weren’t for him, even though he knew that was exactly what it was. “Tell you what, Steve’s right. She was trying to lure us in today. How about /we/ reel her in? Stop making it so damn difficult for her to get what she wants… and be prepared for it when she /does/ come in.”

Kennedy pressed her jaws together tightly in the moment before she stopped typing and peeled her gaze from the screen to stare at both of them. "Do you know what happened when Bucky played bait? Do you?" Her head cocked to one side, eyes narrowing as the stare that she leveled first onto Tony lifted to Steve's face. "Nothing good happened. He almost died. And she really, really hates your guts, Steve. You wanna reel her in, find someone else to play bait." Turning back to the screen, Kennedy's fingers returned to what they had been just a minute before and did so as if she hadn't stopped.

Echo 's face dropped at the mentioning of bait, but she looked away and walked back to her bags to shuffle through when the subject got back to Bucky. She didn't want to remember how scared he was, how he asked her if all of this had been a game since day one. Sin was a monster, but they were running out of options. "Ned, bait didn't work last time because it was only me and Bucky on the op. You put the entire force behind it and it can't go wrong like it did for him. It'd have to be Steve or Tony who goes. She's made no passes at anyone else."

Rogers: "Echo's right. Bucky's op didn't go well because there wasn't enough of a backup plan." Steve was amazed he was getting this much support on this, having expected to be shut down and have to fight for this. He wasn't sure if it was better or worse that Tony and Echo were so ready to dangle one of them in front of a proven psycho. "No offence Tony, but I'd feel better taking this one if for no other reason then that I'm a bit less... breakable," he offered, trying his darnedest to avoid Kennedy's stare.

Tony snapped his fingers, pointing proudly in Echo’s direction when she agreed with the idea. “The brains behind of the beauty finally make an appearance,” he teased, moving away from Kennedy. To him, it was pretty obvious who was going to play bait – himself – so he couldn’t help but to look a bit shocked when Steve offered himself up. “Hey, that /does/ offend me,” he said, switching into his fake-nonchalance mode. “You’re the golden boy. Once she gets to you, she ain’t stopping. Me, I can stall her. Plus, I have good reason to go after her, she won’t suspect anything. You guys just stay hiding behind a bush, ready to strike.”

Echo joined the chat 12 seconds ago

Kennedy snorted, loudly. "You get in a suit, she'll get it shut down somehow. You got without a suit? You've got a target glowing from your fucking chest." Kennedy shook her head and continued typing, wading through the screens as her eyes scanned for anything useful. "Pepper would fucking kill you, to top it off, if you played the bait anyways." Her fingers never slowed as she worked and listened and talked all at once. "Steve, you being bait is a bad enough idea in and of itself. Because if something goes wrong and she decides it's not worth it, that serum doesn't heal a bullet to the skull at point blank range. Worst case scenario for her, one of her biggest threats is dead. If you want to play the bait game, find someone that she hates but it also expendable. Find someone that'll rip her goddamn throat out when everyone else is worried about the political bull shit of whether or not they should pull the trigger." Her fingers hit the last few key strokes heavily before she stepped away from it, scooping up the tablet and returning it to her bag as she went. "You know where to find me if you figure it out who it is you need."

Echo cocked the handgun sharply for the obnoxious effect and nothing more before switching out the decocker. "I like Steve more so I'm second vote on Tony in case it goes just as bad as the first try." As an afterthought, she shrugged and pouted out her lower lip, blinking up at Tony. "Sorry." Though Kennedy had another completely different target in mind. Still crouched at her bag, the agent let the gears in her head turn as she let out a humorless, breathy laugh. "Kennedy, you can't go. You're not even a prime target, you go in and she'll flat-out kill you because you fucked up the tires of her getaway car or maybe because you called her a bitch or somethin'. I--" Looking between the two men, her brows raised expectantly.

Rogers: "Why don't you just vote for yourself Echo, seems like that's the theme here," Rogers commented dryly. It was just like Kennedy to try mission suicide and he wasn't even going to acknowledge it because it was such a ridiculous idea. "Are you sure about this Tony?" He didn't like letting Tony go into this naked, but he couldn't argue with their logic. "You don't have to do this just- er," he stopped himself before bringing up Pepper again, knowing Tony was on the edge already, "I only meant that you should make sure this isn't a revenge thing. If you're going in, we need you to have a clear head about this. I don't want you getting hurt because of some stupid mistake."

Kennedy: [i'm going mobile because i've only got one more post in me so brb]

Tony chuckled at Echo’s comment, sparing her a quick glance. “No, you’re not,” he remarked, not losing his small condescending smile. He wanted to look at ease about this. “Sin’s pulled the ‘hurt the spouse’ move already. She won’t do it again. She wants to get to the Avengers, I /am/ one that’s lower on her priority list than Steve,” he further argued against Kennedy, turning to Steve now. “This won’t turn into a revenge thing. I swear cross my glowing heart.” Again, he tried to sound as nonchalant as possible, placing a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Just get me out. All right? And before dinner time. Pepper will be /pissed/ if I miss dinner.”

Tony: [casually throwing in the word "spouse" for the sake of being a little shit eheheheh]

Kennedy joined the chat 5 seconds ago

Echo: [gdi tony making her feel guilty]

Kennedy let her brows raise but said nothing else as she turned and walked out of the room. She'd expected that response after all. She knew better than to not expect that. But it didn't bother her. After all, she was the one with the permission to go after Sin. The other three could do as they pleased. Kennedy wasn't concerned with what they did so long as no one died. Fury wanted no casualties.

Echo "Somebody's gotta break a three-way tie." Running a hand through her ponytail, she blew air out, puffing her lips until she stood and places her hands behind her back. She wanted to argue that they were way past the revenge point, that her main conquest to beat the shit out of Sin would be solely that, but she kept her mouth closed and stuck with a much less personal script, especially now that Kennedy was no longer in the room with her. "We'll be watching you every step of the way. You need backup and I'm there. For Pepper's sake." Yeah, telling them would be the fun part.

Rogers: couldn't worry about Kennedy walking away, they had bigger things on their plate than a lover's quarrel. "We'll get you out, don't worry. I'd cross Sin before Pepper any day," he tried to pick up Tony's easy manner but it didn't sound quite the same. "We need details on how we're going about this; first thing's first, who can we count on to help us out with this?" Obviously the three of them were in and Bucky would be recruited by default (not that he'd want to miss this fight anyway).

Pepper was timed out 6 seconds ago

Tony followed Kennedy with his eyes, but returned them to Steve once she was out, shooting him a knowing look. He didn’t know what exactly was going on between them, but the fact that they needed to talk some closure into that was pretty obvious. He nodded at Steve’s reassurance (Echo’s didn’t mean much to him, really) then walked towards the mainframe Kennedy had abandoned. “I think we can count Barnes in, Clint and Natasha as well. Kennedy’s obviously out. I’m… not sure if Fury should know,” he frowned, still uneasy about SHIELD’s possible involvement in this. “We don’t know who else to trust in SHIELD, do we? Oh, and one more thing,” he hesitated, bringing up the SHIELD database on the screen again. “We don’t tell Pepper.”

Pepper joined the chat 6 seconds ago

Echo "Fury's gotta know after the last couple of times. You don't want what happened the first time happening to you." Walking to situate herself in the chair Kennedy once sat in, she dragged it away from Tony, crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back. "Pepper's gonna find out by someone eventually. You get the entire city involved, somethin's bound to drop, but that's up to you if you keep her in the dark. Can trust my dad, too."

Rogers: was liking the way the team was shaping up until Echo wanted to bring in Fury. Steve put very little trust in SHIELD and it's leader; they were the ones who let Sin get away in the first place. "I don't know about him, better to ask forgiveness than permission in my opinion. Whose to say he'd even okay this op?"

Tony cocked his head in Steve’s direction to is agreement when it came to the Fury matter. “Fury stays out of it. Sorry,” he told Echo, mimicking the tone she’d used on him earlier. “We keep this as covert as possible. Pepper doesn’t have to know, I shouldn’t be off communication range for more than a few hours. If it lasts more than that, you guys are doing something wrong,” he commented with a grim chuckle. “Basics of this thing. I’ll go in, pulling the raged loverboy who’s after revenge, which, honestly, won’t be too hard to fake. Kennedy’s right, Sin should be able to disable the suit I’m wearing. I’ll leave some of my modular armors on stand by just in case. Anyway, once my shell cracks, everyone else better be ready. /That/ is when she’ll lower her defenses thinking that she’s dealing with an untrained desk jockey with a heart problem. And she’d be right.”

Echo "I learned the hard way about not getting Fury involved. You get rid of him, you fuck up everything-- fuck, you might as well sit on your ass and wait for her to pull the trigger, Stark," she argued feverishly. "Sides, dropping any further from a level one to a zero mark is not my idea of a good time. If he's not okay with the op, then it says there's something going on behind the curtains. New York's completely isolated behind the scenes, she can't get any farther than our perimeter." One arm outstretched, she gave a light shrug. "You can't do this by doin' some elaborate blueprint expectin' six possible outcomes. She'll blindside us with a seventh. I don't like bringing in head honchos but I'm suggestin' it for your own safety."

Rogers: "So when Fury shoots this down, what are we supposed to do? Let this woman run free through New York? She's a threat to everyone in this city, not just us. I can't with good conscious leave her to cause chaos where civilians could get caught in the cross hairs." Steve was starting to get a bit irritated with Echo, bringing up her rank like that was a factor in this. If HYDRA was anything like it used to be, they don't care about the body count and New York was not going to be leveled by another superhero grudge match. "I don't see why you're set on this, what help is Fury going to bring outside of being able to tell us if SHIELD already has a game plan?"

Tony narrowed his eyes at Echo’s suggestion, considering it for the first time, albeit hesitantly for the very same reasons Steve was quick to elaborate on. He left his spot in front of the screens and lifted himself with his arms so he could take a seat on top of one of the workbenches. “It’s important to have a back up plan, in case this does go awry. Fury would provide us with that. But we can’t risk him shooting this down, or trusting the wrong agent and giving the plan away before it starts,” he summed it all up, looking down in consideration for a moment. “Someone give him a call while I’m already with Sin. If SHIELD’s any set on finding this woman, then he should be able to set up a perimeter at a moment’s notice. If we’re killing any of /SHIELD’s/ plans with ours, well, that would be too late for them. We keep someone electronics savvy on stand by in case we need to block out Sin’s external communications, then we keep going.”

Echo "If he shoots this down, Rogers, that's when we go in on our own. Going completely blind without even trying to get backup from SHIELD is just being reckless," she replied sharply. Though keeping quiet for a little while longer, temper simmering on warm, Echo reclined her head back on the chair and stared at the ceiling. She was finally getting her shiny new apartment and now her job would be blown to bits. "You're gonna have to be prepared to hear her talk shit about Potts. Her whole thing is making you act first, not the other way around." Growing quiet, she flicked out her phone and stood. "I think we oughta get a weigh-in from Barton and Romanoff before we dive head-first."

Rogers: "Tony's got a good point; we still don't know how she got out and if Fury alerts the wrong agent, Tony's dead." Okay, that might have been a bit blunt but they had to realize this possibility. "You're right though, it wouldn't be a bad idea to confirm our team before we get to far." Rogers moved to lean against the nearest counter, wrapping his fingers around the edge for something to hold on to "Just know that since Tony's the one going in, I think he should have final say."

Echo shortly nodded. "Then we'll figure it out tomorrow morning. Tony gets seventy percent of the final say, but for now, I gotta go check on a few things." Like Bucky. She was already in and out of that cell that she barely got to acknowledge he was there. Taking her bags, she slung them over the same shoulder and walked away. She could only hope the second time would be the charm.

Tony “If shit talking is all I’ll have to deal with, then we’re golden.” He didn’t know if he was lying or not. He tried not to let his expression change at Steve’s honesty, and as far as he was concerned, he thought he was successful. He was, however, caught by surprise when Steve gave him the final say. “Well, I – think we should have a text message saying ‘Hey Fury we’ve got Sin’ or something, and then we hit send once I’m in. You guys take it from there. And Steve, I’m giving you a spare arc reactor, just in case.” He paused for a moment, wondering if he trusted Steve that much. He found that he did. “Who can get ahold of Clint and Natasha faster?”

Rogers: could see how hard Tony was trying to keep on his easy going face, what he was hiding underneath he could only guess. And then there were two. Steve wondered if they could consider this meeting a success, then thought maybe it was a bit less black and white than that. He nodded at Tony's suggestion, wanting to be able to appreciate what he'd just given him and knowing this wasn't the time to have a 'moment.' "Honestly I think we could leave contacting them up to Echo. I don't know about you, but I haven't kept very close tabs on those two."

Tony followed Echo out with his eyes just as he had done when Kennedy walked away. That left him and Steve in the room, and even after all this time, that still made him nervous. He was secretly a bit of a Captain America fanboy, and even more secretly self-conscious about his every movement if Steve was watching. “Yeah. SHIELD agents know other SHIELD agents better, I guess,” he nodded scratching the back of his neck. “It’s official, then. We’ll settle on a day once we hear from Clint and Natasha.” He hopped down back to the ground, then walked towards the door. “I need to go now. Got my own share of girl trouble to deal with,” he said, casting a knowing glance at Steve before he left.

Rogers: And then he was alone in Tony's workshop. He waited for the elevator to take Tony away before calling it back down for himself. It seemed to easy to ride up to the main floor and walk out of the building. It flt like there should be something more than this, like meteors should start falling from the sky any second, but he made it the whole way back to his flat and nothing. This was the calm before the storm and it scared him to death.