for infligere

[tookthewheel]

[Months have passed since the Asset's leash was cut. Since he stumbled away, dazed and confused, from the ashes of Project Insight and the broken body of the man who called him friend.

In that time he discovered a name and a history for himself, one that had been stolen by those who he'd called master and the fallout had not been pretty, for anyone. The first emotion that had followed the confusion and sense of loss had been fierce and sudden anger, a feeling of rage that was directed at a single target. He'd wanted more answers than the museum could provide him, he wanted to know what they'd done to him and he wanted those who were responsible, the one's not already dead, to pay for it.

Since that day the former Asset, now going by James when he had to give a name to anyone, had dedicated himself to tracking down what pieces of HYDRA had escaped the Black Widow's revelation to the world. It's easier than he initially expected; there's more information buried inside his own mind than he can ever know and between intuition and the very skills HYDRA had given him he's been cleaning up their remains even faster than the governments of the world and the Avengers could.

Yet for every den of serpents he burns down there are always more, to the point it feels never ending. There are never the answers he craves, there are never the revelations, no feeling of triumph, no... nothing. Just echoes of memories he can't make clear.

By this point he's ready to take on any possible lead and so when he hears that Brock Rumlow has gone missing from the custody of the US government he quickly turns his attention to tracking the man down. He has no clear idea if Rumlow has the answers he wants but he knows he was of a high enough rank to run missions with the Winter Soldier on more than one occasion, as well as to be there on the day that was to be HYDRA's triumph.

With singular purpose he moves through the rain drenched city streets, a hunter in search of its prey.]

Avatar AU for honeyibrokeharlem

[tookthewheel]

[The city is far behind him now.

For an undefined period of time he has wandered aimless, lost in name and identity, torment by fragments of memory. He has stayed alive through theft or begging, sometimes even the kindness of strangers to a bedraggled man obviously down and his luck and not all there. Sometimes there were fights, always over quickly and forcing him to flee the scene. Mostly he simply wandered, trying to survive and find some clue as to his identity.

He remembered fields of snow and ice, an endless expanse of water. He remembered going sledding, someone small and blonde by his side. He remembered water dancing through the air between his fingers.

Bits and pieces. Fragments. The Equalists, those people he did remember with certainty, were broken and disbanded by the Avatar now. He had no orders or purpose from them anymore, the structure of his life had vanished.

All that was left to him was to keep moving.

Eventually his feet carry him to a forest and he goes deeper and deeper, eating through the last of the food he'd stolen and scavenging what edible plants he knows of from among the trees. Before long he's completely lost, even more than he was before and there are... things... creatures. Something unknown and beyond strange.]