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[redrooms]

"You've reached Natasha Romanov. Please leave a message."

Comments

[redrooms]

So tell us when he does. We need to be able to help you.

[advanced]

How can you help? By telling more people? By going to give away everything to Pierce to put yourself at risk? How does any of what you do help?

[By you, he means John. He's just more than annoyed right now, and the sting of the mistakes John has made have made him really regret letting anyone get involved.]

[redrooms]

Once you're done taking out your misplaced anger on me, let me know.

audio;

[advanced]

[He just hangs up on her. In fact, he hangs up on her by throwing the tablet across the room.

It takes several hours before he's calm enough to call back, ashamed enough that he'll use audio for once to give a more sincere apology.]

Sorry. That was out of line.

audio

[redrooms]

[It was, but at least he's apologizing. Using audio, no less!]

It's fine. I take it John showed you those messages.

[advanced]

Yeah.

[He doesn't really need to elaborate on that. He's so so angry with John right now. Voice tight and terse even in that one word.]

I should never have told him.

[redrooms]

He's doing his best, but he wasn't trained in this the way we were.

[advanced]

I told him not to contact Pierce.

[John outright didn't listen, that's not doing his best.]

[redrooms]

Did you?

[Natasha sighs. This is an absolute mess.]

We'll play damage control. We'll figure this out.

[advanced]

I told him he could try and build a rapport, but back off immediately if it became too risky. After what happened in that place, he had no business contacting Pierce again.

[If that wasn't the definition of too risky, Bucky didn't know what was.]

Now he wants to tell Sherlock everything.

[Antoher person in the know, and one that Bucky doesn't know or trust, it's probably obvious from the tightness of his voice how he feels about this.]

[redrooms]

And did you tell him not to?

[advanced]

No. I told him to do what he had to.

[What choice did he have?]

[redrooms]

[Natasha sighs.]

Pierce doesn't have the same power here that he did at home. Everything will be fine.

[advanced]

Do you even know him? Does he exist where you're from?

[Is she basing this on fact or optimism?]

[redrooms]

I don't, but I know how men like him work. Am I wrong?

[advanced]

[He makes a frustrated noise.]

No. But that doesn't make him not dangerous, just because he doesn't have his contacts and influence.

[redrooms]

I'm not saying he isn't dangerous, I'm saying he has less power. He can't bring an entire organization down around our heads.

[advanced]

No, but I'm worried about the allies that he'll make. He's good at that, and we can't warn everybody.

[redrooms]

There aren't that many of us here, Bucky. If you wanted to warn everybody, we could.

[advanced]

No, we can't. He's already said that if I tell anybody he'll trigger the Soldier, worse, he'll give the words to everyone to use.

[Does she want to imagine someone like the Joker able to control him?]

I've only told you because I trust you.

[That's probably the most brusque admittance of trust ever.]

[redrooms]

[Oh, Bucky.]

I know. There's no easy way to deal with this.

[advanced]

No, but that doesn't mean it can't be dealt with. Trust me, I've got it handled.

[And with that, he hangs up.]