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27/6/13 22:02The bar deposits him back in the spot it took him from. The cabin is the same, rolling as the ship does, and filled with the distant hum of great engines somewhere below. It smells of oil and metal, and there’s a pervading chill that the portable heater doesn’t quite manage to overcome. There are no other voices. The only other people on this freighter are a skeleton crew that sleep half a deck away. After a minute or two, he half-turns to check the wall behind him. There is no door.
He'd looked into various ways of getting to the Far East. The only viable options are flying or boat, and while a plane would be easiest, it's not that simple. If something triggered Him, then everyone on board would die. Some days he thinks he's got a decent handle on it, or anyway, better than he used to. But then there are the days he can feel it under the surface of his mind, only a few fragile layers of skin away from bursting through. It’s obvious there are elements he can't predict, and quite a lot he can't control. So flying went out the window pretty quickly, especially when he figured planes would make life easier for anyone tracking him.
And they have to be tracking him. Whoever 'they' may be. Ross isn't likely to give up that easy, though with Blonsky acting as a huge neon sign of guilt, the man should have enough to be dealing with at the moment. But if not Ross, someone else. Governments don't let things like him walk around free.
He walks to the cot, and lies down. The bar falls away with more ease than he thought it might. It was a strange few months – agonising, at times – but it wasn’t his real life. This is real life. An oil-stained box in the depths of some tanker, out in the middle of the ocean.
It probably shouldn't feel like such a relief. But that's OK. He'll take relief where he can get it, and anyway, it's bound to go away soon enough. It'll do for now.
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21/5/13 23:51His head jerks in rhythm with the bus. When it’s smooth, it lowers gently, a slow arc towards sleep. And then the wheels hit a pothole and he’s upright again, blinking painfully in the light reflected off miles of endless sand. He stays alert long enough to register how awful it feels to be sticky all over, his clothes twisted and damp, and glued to his skin. Then the heat takes over, and he drifts. Until the next bump, and he’s awake, and it starts all over again.
He lost count of the hours somewhere in Tunisia. He has been on buses forever, and will never be able to get off. Cairo seems like a mirage he’ll always be reaching for. People talk incessantly here, and chant, and shout, and there are animals in cages everywhere. It’s what he expected, but it’s been days, and he hadn’t realised how frayed he was. Every elbow he catches in the ribs makes him grit his teeth, every shout too close to his ear makes him want to put his arms over his head, and scream at it all to go away. His pulse monitor flashes steadily. He tries to ignore it.
Just when he thinks he can take no more: Cairo.
It’s good. He’d been about to leave the bus, and start walking. Not that the city is much better, but at least he can find a cheap room, and close the door on it all for a night. Which he does, with relief so strong it nearly knocks him down.
The next morning, he starts scouting. There’s a Starbucks on the outskirts of the city, set in a tiny piazza that has a few alleys running off it. He checks them out. Most of them end up in open space, away from houses and shops. It’s probably the best he’s going to get, so he finds a café, and sends the email.
He tries not to think about it too much the night before. The man’s on his way, there’s nothing he can do. And it should be routine enough, if he can make himself accept that they’re not about to turn up with gunships and smoke bombs. Surely they wouldn’t dare with this many people around. That’s why he chose it.
The morning of: he almost doesn’t go. But, to hell with it. If it’ll get SHIELD off his back, it’ll be worth it. So he climbs to the spot he found yesterday, and waits. He’s willing to bet, this far out from the tourist traps, the guy will stick out like a sore thumb.
He’s not wrong.
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OOM: Release
29/11/12 01:20He'd woken up tempted to just give it another day. He was OK with that. He'd stay as long as it took to make sure nothing happened.
But after a couple of hours, it's become obvious that isn't going to work either. He can't stay focused on the book he's reading, and his legs are twitching from lack of activity. He tries to go back to sleep, but it's hard enough to drop off at the best of times. There's nothing for it. He's going to have to get out there and face it, if only for enough time to get some fresh air.
So he's really glad to see Molly when she comes in.
It's been a couple of days. He's glad of it, though the boredom that's setting in is starting to worry him a little. Truth is though, sitting here reading has made him lethargic, to the point where he's not sure even the Other Guy could fight his way through.
Though that's ridiculous. So far, there hasn't been anything the Other Guy couldn't fight his way through. Still. He's supposed to be making an effort to live normally, isn't he? If only to prove to himself that he can. So he probably can't hide himself away in here forever.
OOM: Haiti
20/11/12 09:48In the end, he'd had to fly. Days of hanging around the port was starting to look suspicious, and the couple of people he approached weren't interested in selling passage to a guy with no passport. It figures, really. Shipping along the canal is watched, and he was stupid to think that it'd be easier to hop on a boat just because there's a lot of them here. He thinks about stowing away, but it's not as easy as it sounds - or maybe he just hasn't mastered the unsubtle parts of criminal behaviour. Stealing someone's uniform and creeping into a hold, not being noticed long enough for the ship to leave, dealing with what might potentially happen if he were discovered - he recoils from it. It might be something he'll have to get used to.
Not today. Today, he takes all the money he'd had wired to the Western Union office from his black transactions, as well as the cash he earned from helping a few people who weren't feeling well at the port. That wasn't as hard as he'd thought; when deckhands don't speak Spanish, or English, it seems they're quite willing to give a few bucks to a guy who can help, and save them a trip to a hospital in the city. He'd stitched a few cuts, reset a shoulder - it added up to enough to persuade a down-at-heel pilot with a rickety plane to make the flight to Haiti. He'd objected at first, thinking Bruce was asking him to fly without a destination, but he convinced him that he could file a flight plan. Just not ask for a passport. The guy shrugged, and took his money.
Getting out of the tiny airfield was more difficult. But hiding out, and slipping away unnoticed, wasn't so much difficult as time consuming. And the week was up; he had to get to the hotel today. That was the easy part - the difficult part was resisting the temptation to use the room reservation. No way was he going to stay in a place where S.H.I.E.L.D knew he'd be. But he needed the phone held there, and they would only do that for a guest. He got enough strange looks because of the state of his clothes when he appeared; not a chance would he hang around to answer questions. The most pertinent being, how would you like to pay, sir?
So he took a room in a boarding house, little more than a bed with four walls around it. That was yesterday. This is today.
The floor is bare boards. The sink has a split basin that pours water on to the floor, and the whole place stinks of the crack someone's smoking on the floor below. He's slept, woken up, packed to go. Just a phone call to make first.
He dials the number, and waits. A childish part of him he didn't know he had, hopes this is waking Nick Fury up.
Not today. Today, he takes all the money he'd had wired to the Western Union office from his black transactions, as well as the cash he earned from helping a few people who weren't feeling well at the port. That wasn't as hard as he'd thought; when deckhands don't speak Spanish, or English, it seems they're quite willing to give a few bucks to a guy who can help, and save them a trip to a hospital in the city. He'd stitched a few cuts, reset a shoulder - it added up to enough to persuade a down-at-heel pilot with a rickety plane to make the flight to Haiti. He'd objected at first, thinking Bruce was asking him to fly without a destination, but he convinced him that he could file a flight plan. Just not ask for a passport. The guy shrugged, and took his money.
Getting out of the tiny airfield was more difficult. But hiding out, and slipping away unnoticed, wasn't so much difficult as time consuming. And the week was up; he had to get to the hotel today. That was the easy part - the difficult part was resisting the temptation to use the room reservation. No way was he going to stay in a place where S.H.I.E.L.D knew he'd be. But he needed the phone held there, and they would only do that for a guest. He got enough strange looks because of the state of his clothes when he appeared; not a chance would he hang around to answer questions. The most pertinent being, how would you like to pay, sir?
So he took a room in a boarding house, little more than a bed with four walls around it. That was yesterday. This is today.
The floor is bare boards. The sink has a split basin that pours water on to the floor, and the whole place stinks of the crack someone's smoking on the floor below. He's slept, woken up, packed to go. Just a phone call to make first.
He dials the number, and waits. A childish part of him he didn't know he had, hopes this is waking Nick Fury up.
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