Roxanne Eliza Harrington | 24
Matthew Murdock | 29
Hannah Threnton | 27
James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes | "29"
December 1st, 2016 at 08:56pm
you're not alone.
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Roxanne Harrington | The Fugitive Mutant
Roxanne had grown up watching the world change. She had grown up with the bitter taste of fear clogging your lungs, an effervescent taste forever burning her mouth like hot ash. You see, she had been born different. Like her father, but she hadn't known at the time. No Roxanne Harrington hadn't known until she was older. When she was a child the girl had watched heroes fight against villains and unimaginable odds. She had always been in awe of the heroes she'd seen on the television. When Roxy was a child the world had been simple. But then it changed, and Roxanne with it. She began to change when she was fourteen and flush with hormones. It had been the pattern she noticed first. She'd get upset with someone, and they'd become disoriented. Sick. When she was in public people were simply drawn to her. It took Roxanne awhile but with each new aspect of her power that manifested, she finally pieced it together. Pheromone Manipulation, and Roxanne's ability to trigger social responses in other living things.
She thought it had been cool at first. She hadn't understood her mother's worry. She assumed her mother was being overprotective as she always was. Roxy was sixteen when she finally understood her mother and father's worry. Beyond the Harrington's door lay civil unrest. The people, the ones without powers, begun to resent the people who did. She's not sure she can entirely blame the regular's either. Because with the hero's came the villains. The ones that would burn the world if they could. Humans saw people with powers fighting one another, taking down cities and buildings, and human lives. So they demanded action from their governments. Roxanne had been eighteen when the first legislation was passed beginning to regulate those with abilities. It started small, banning vigilante work. That had been enough to quell the public's unrest for a few months. But again, things began to reach a fever pitch. Tensions between normal people and those gifted with some form of abilities began to rise.
So the government passed more laws. Roxanne is twenty when the government dedicates a task force with the purpose of rounding up ''rogue'' gifted. She'd been lucky enough to never have been detected- but her father wasn't so lucky. She's twenty when they come for her father. He had used his mutation to save a child. But the task force hadn't cared why he'd used his powers. That night Roxy's father had packed a bag for his wife and daughter, telling them to run. They had. They hadn't stopped until they were halfway across the country, in New York. The blonde's mother reasoned that it would be much easier to blend in there. To hide. For a couple years the two women had hid, hid themselves well. Still, the world kept changing. Roxy watched in horror as more and more laws were churned out against mutants. By the time Roxanne was twenty-four, all people's with mutations were rounded up. Shipped off to prisons specially designed to hold people of the mutant variety. Children were tested for the genetic markers betraying them as mutant. As dangerous.
Three months ago, Roxy had made the choice to run. She knew her mother could go to prison if she was found harboring Roxy. So, she had run in the the middle of the night and hadn't looked back. Roxanne had left with little direction, no idea what she was doing. Within the month she found herself living on the street. Never staying very long in one place. Never allowing herself to. It had worked at first. She had managed to evade detection for three months. Until last night. It was her fault really. Roxy was tired. Tired of running, mentally, physically, and emotionally just tired. She'd gotten careless. Had used her abilities to... persuade a cashier from a local grocery store to give her some free food. It had been noted and reported by someone and a couple hours later she had found herself surrounded in a back alleyway in Hell's Kitchen, surrounded by police with guns being pointed at her. Roxanne had thought she had met her end, scared and alone in a narrow alleyway that reeked of urine and She'd closed her eyes, knowing she'd rather die than go to their super-prison.
While Roxy wished she could of reported she didn't feel frightened, she would of been lying. No, as she stood with her back pressed against the cold metal of the link fence, she shook. Trembled, cerulean orbs wide with fright. This was how she was going to die. Cold, frightened, and alone in an alleyway in New York. So she had closed her eyes and turned hr head. Roxanne was going to try to go with at least some dignity. When she expected to hear gunshots, feel her body being ripped apart. What she heard instead were the sounds of scuffles. The blonde had snapped her gaze open, to find a figure clad in red, doing their best to dispatch the group of mutant taskforcers. Roxy had been in a state of shock, of disbelief as one by one the taskforce was taken down and when the last one had fallen her masked rescuer turned to her. Beneath the silver of the cold December moonlight, Roxy could make out a red suit, horns crowning the top of his head and baton like... things dripping scarlet clenched in his hand.
From her chase with the taskforce, she could feel her skin bruised in some places, bleeding in others. She'd been hit with rubber bullets at first when they first cornered her on that damned corner street. It felt like her ribs were cracked, breathing wasn't an easy thing. Her hands and arms were scraped from tripping at some point during the chase and Roxanne finally began to feel the cold winter air bite viciously against her face. With a soft noise leaking from the back of her throat, she slid down. Dizzied by the loss of adrenaline, the aches and bruises of her body began to catch up with her. Roxanne could feel her world pitch about her, and she wasn't quick enough to catch herself against the fence. Rather she slid down to the cold wet pavement, the black asphalt rushing to meet her like a black and unyielding sea. She knew she was on the verge of fainting, though she fought hard against it. Her last sensation as her world faded was ones of strong arms, scooping her up; and perhaps a voice ringing powerfully, though the words indiscernible to the svelte blonde mutant.
Now, currently the little mutant was coming 'round. She stirred, an aching in her body radiating enough to make Roxanne groan. For a moment panic clouded her lungs and she gasped trying to sit upright but finding herself tangled in... Sheets? Heart still pounding and chest heaving with fright the girl's blinked rapidly to clear the mist from her gaze. Slowly a room swam into focus, simple and plain. Sunlight was streaming in from one of the windows Immediately Roxanne became guarded as she sat up. ''Hello?" She called, voice hoarse and small. Last night was still a blur to the poor thing, though she shuddered as she recalled her close brush with the taskforce. With careful hands she pushed the blankets off her form, and silently her feet touched the wooden floors. She couldn't hear anyone about, so she decided to head towards the door. She wasn't sure who had saved her last night, and often mutants brought other gifted to the authorities to try to bargain for family members or their own immunity. She noted she was still wearing her raggedy outfit of jeans and some college sweatshirt she'd nicked from the subway, though her parka was nowhere to be seen. She'd steal a new one if she had to.
Roxanne paused at the bedroom door and still hearing nothing pushed the creaking door open. Tentatively she peered around the door frame to find a living room, plain and simple as the bedroom with no one in it. Forcing herself into a light jog, though her body groaned with protest, Roxy was nearing the door when it swung open without warning; revealing a dark haired man with dark glasses. Sure something about him seems warm. Unassuming, but it's not enough to assure Roxanne she's safe for the moment, afterall a mutant is never safe in this world. It was instinct as she threw her hands out, a sort of wildness creeping into her eyes. "Don't come any closer." Roxy warned, taking a step back. It doesn't occur to her that perhaps this person isn't simply out for their own gain, it's just not something that happened these days. It was mutant, versus everyone else in the world she'd learned. "I don't know who you are, or what you want but if you're trying to turn me into the authorities- I... I won't let you. I'm not going to that prison, I won't." She warns, though her voice wavers. She knows her abilities aren't as strong as others, but it doesn't matter to the government. She'd still be thrown in a jail cell and left to rot for the rest of her days should they get a hold of her and Roxy won't let that happen.
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Bucky Barnes | The Used Soldier
There had been a time in his life when James Barnes felt like a hero. Back in Brooklyn, when he was always looking out for the little guy- though in most cases Steve. When he went to war and was captured, and survived. He felt like a hero when he fought along Steve, and he felt like a hero when he picked up Steve's shield, trying to distract their enemy from a vulnerable Steve. Yes when he had been Bucky, he felt like a hero. The kind of good man he wanted to be. But then things changed. Namely, hydra. They captured him. Picked his brain apart until he was no longer Bucky. Until he was the Winter Soldier. More animal than man. A creature who acted solely on his own survival. Who had no higher emotions than fight or flight. Any sort of good that he'd done as Bucky was wiped out the moment he became The Winter Soldier. The things he had been forced to do haunt Bucky. They always will. For years, HYDRA did as they pleased with him. Had him hurt his country, his friends, and innocent people. Sometimes Bucky thought there was so much blood on his hands- the world truly would be better off without his kind of monstrosity living in it.
But then Steve found him again. Fished him out of the mind control he'd been under. Did his best to fix him up. Hadn't disavowed him like so many had. He had seen the good in Bucky, right til' the end where he had just lain there and taken the beating that Bucky had dished out onto him. And Steve still hadn't fought back. There had been something in Bucky, the old Bucky that woke up that day. Felt like coming out of a crimson mist. So he did what he could to save Steve. Dove in after him, pulled him to shore and then took off. He'd been so confused and lost. And from there he just tried... Tried to piece his life together. Got the hell away from HYDRA. Started dreaming again; and it was horrible. Night terrors really. He'd wake up drenched in cold sweat and screaming. Sometimes with the sheets all ripped off the bed from his thrashing... But he kept it. The good, the bad, the ugly- all of it. Because it was his. For the first time in years, Bucky Barnes wasn't just the remorseless killer. Don't get me wrong, he was also positively one other thing, and that was not the Bucky that Steve had known. He was the broken Bucky, shattered and lost.
It got to the point that New York felt like it was suffocating. He needed to get away. From Steve, and the other avengers that he'd enlisted to help find him. So he did what was becoming second-nature. Flight. Yes, Buck ran. Got on a plane and barely looked back. There was just too much that hurt in Brooklyn. In New York. So he got a one way ticket to Romania. He didn't think anyone would look for him there. Not even his childhood friend. It'd been easy enough to find a job that didn't ask anything too personal, and paid in cash. It wasn't hard either to find a place. Within the week he'd unpacked his box of notebooks filled with cloudy, broken bits of memory- his treasures in this world; and then Bucky Barnes tried to settle into his new home. That was the hardest part. He never felt more alone than he did in Romania. But he knew it had to be like that. Every waking second was just a battle. A constant itch, a reminder of his blood-soaked path. Of his darker personality. But he dealt with it. He didn't kill anyone, blended into his surroundings. Bucky Barnes for the third time in his life- disappeared but this time it was for everyone's well being.
The months wore on, summer came and went. Bucky couldn't help but noticed most his neighbors stayed far, far away from him. Perhaps they sensed he was dangerous. Or just another shattered soul, irrevocably broken and worth no one's time. He couldn't say he minded. He preferred it that way even. The less people he associated with, the less of a chance he could hurt anyone else. Yet, there was... There was one who didn't seem frightened or apathetic of him. His neighbor of all things. Most people on his floor hated the scruffy looking brunette. He didn't blame him, the night terrors were not something that had gone away yet. More nights than most he'd wake up twisting and hollering, chest heaving and body slicked with sweat as he struggled into consciousness. He'd calm his shaking nerves with a bottle of whiskey, curl up on ugly green sofa in the middle of his tiny living room and try to distract himself with something usually either white noise from his television, or jotting down the things he'd seen in his dreams. This was his routine those first few months- until she came into the equation. The first time she happened it was three light taps against his door, about thirty minutes after his night terrors. Bucky recalls being annoyed because he thought someone was coming to complain, again.
You can only imagine his shock when he threw the door open to find a slender redhead, holding a cup of tea in her hands and looking quite worried. "I heard you screaming- are you okay?" She had asked, doe-eyes wide as she held the tea out to him. It had been complete shock that drove Bucky to automatically take the offered tea from her. Though he quickly regained his senses. It wasn't safe for him to have friends. It had been that thought when he'd quickly given the tea back and slammed his door. He thought that was going to be the end of it. However, the next time he had a terror those three dainty knocks came again and this time Bucky was prepared. He'd stomped right over to that door his best agitated expression darkening his gaze and gruffly announced he was fine before quickly shutting his door and retreating back into his small apartment. Yet it didn't stop. No matter how many times he he had turned her away- she without fail showed up with tea after one of his terrors. But he'd always try to forget about their brief encounters. He knows, he just knows in his heart of hearts, that he's no good to anyone. While he loathes to admit it- Bucky knows the winter soldier in him isn't gone. The last thing he wants is to let that... part of him take over and hurt more innocents.
But tonight was different. He wakes up, voice raw, and to his shame tears drying on his cheeks. Buck goes through his routine, rather violently throwing the covers off his form to get up, snatching the bottle of gin next to his bed. It's nights like this when his lonliness truly hits him, when he feels so lost and disconnected from everyone. Nights where he doesn't know who he is anymore, or how much Bucky is left in him; versus how much killer is left. His head has become the newest battleground for the discarded, forgotten, disgraced soldier. Buck only downs a few swigs of his amber poison when the knocks on the door come. Three, soft knocks. For a long minute he hesitates. Stares at the door from his ugly, old, uncomfortable sofa before he sighs under his breath. He doesn't know what the hell compels him to do it, but the brunette male is on his feet moving towards the door. He probably looks like a wreck but he doesn't bring himself to care as he flings the door open. Sure enough there she is, it's this moment Buck remembers he hasn't exactly asked for her name yet. For a moment he says nothing and he's contemplating shutting the door again but he sighs, and opens the door a little wider. "Who are you?" He finally asks, cross his arms over his chest and looking down at her petite figure. "I'll... I'll take you up on that tea." He finally grumbles, jerking his chin to the cup in her hands and stepping aside to let her into his shambles of an apartment.December 2nd, 2016 at 06:32am
