bakerstreet | apprenticeshipping.

apprenticeshipping.

APPRENTICE-SHIPPING

From the moment we begin our lives, we're learning. It's imperative to surviving, to growing - don't walk in the shadows, it's dangerous, don't touch the fire, you'll be hurt. These days, most continue to hone this natural instinct with formal schooling, but that's certainly not the end all, be all of knowledge. If you go to school or not, if you have the opportunity or otherwise, you won't stop sharpening your mind after those formative years. That's just not the way our incredible brains work.

You, specifically, have actually decided to something equally incredible: you want to really dedicate yourself to learning a skill, and what better way than an apprenticeship? Formal or informal, you're under someone's tutelage, absorbing everything they can teach, growing closer to them in the process...

...unfortunately, though, you've gained a little something extra with that bite from the fruit of knowledge. You've fallen for your mentor.

Do you realize this pitfall immediately, or will you have to learn the hard way?

Comment with your character, preferences, what role you'd like them to fill, and any information you'd like to include.
Like it says up there, the situation or setup can be strict or loose, and there may or may not be an age difference involved. Be specific in your preferences.
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[ mutual feeling shipping ok, one-sided crush on mentor ok, cross-canon/media would also be awesome. sam's probably the mentor but if you can think of a skill he'd be able to learn from your character, i'd be happy to do it ]

[Interested in mentoring a 'mutant' recruited into the Avengers?]

[ holy shit, yes?? jack's free will spirit vs sam's... well... sounds awesome!

he can even teach him flying manoeuvres and everything I DIG IT. could you start us off? or i could as soon as i get to a pc! ]

[Jack had believed he had a fairly decent grasp on his abilities since they first manifested within him a few years back. That was before the Avengers recruited him into their training program and showed him just how wild and unfocused he was with just about every aspect of his technique.

Sam had been the obvious choice for a mentor. He may not have been able to use 'magic' like Wanda, but he knew a thing or two about flying and his military background gave him more patience and discipline than many of the others.

Anyone hoping to teach Jack anything needed a good deal of patience.

He loved the idea of joining the Avengers, but at the same time didn't listen well to orders and often argued when someone corrected his way of doing things. Although he was an adult now, Jack had run away from home a few years back when his mutation first triggered, turning his hair white and eyes bright blue while trails of frost and ice followed him everywhere he went.

Needless to say, he couldn't live with the horror that followed. Really, he was damn lucky that, rather than throwing him in jail, the group of heroes took him in after finding him provoking an unseasonable blizzard in Central Park. He owed it to them to attempt some level of patience, even if he was probably giving Sam a headache with all of his failures to remain focused.

Like now, when he was standing barefoot on top of the Avengers' Tower instead of where he and his mentor were supposed to meet for that afternoon.]

( sam won't say he's best friends with jack frost (and isn't that hilarious? that his last name is frost and his powers involve snow? when he brought that up with steve he got a look, but still), but he will say that he knows enough about him to find out where he is when he isn't at the compound by four in the afternoon.

the things that kid makes him do, honestly.

it's almost seven by the time sam finds jack, standing like he usually does on this godforsaken tower. and, yeah, it's not that the tower sucks or anything, but the giant A on the outside, its brightness and height, the fact that it sticks out like a sore thumb; it's never been sam's speed. then again, not much seems to line up with a guy who prefers sleeping on rocks as opposed to pillows. )

Frost. ( if he sounds angry, it's because he's not one for unhonoured commitments. sam stops a certain ways' away from where jack stands, his arms crossing over his chest and his lips pressed into a thin line. ) Here again, huh?

( but for all the anger that might sound in his voice, sam isn't as cross as he should be. the stern, strict thing usually just happens beyond his control. )

You know, I don't care if you'd rather we do our exercises here, but I'd 'preciate it if you texted or called first.

[Jack thought he was clever picking that last name. Since he was trying to keep away from his family, it only made sense to make up a new one to keep out of sight, so why not something that fit his new abilities?

...Okay, he probably could have come up with something else, but he happens to like it. The others don't need to know it's made up either.]

Huh?

[He turns, blinking when he sees Sam standing by the door looking extremely unimpressed. What time is it? Had he really lost his focus that much?]

I guess I forgot. [Great going, Jack, he silently berates himself. He really likes Sam, maybe even a bit too much, and wants to impress him. Really, he does! He just doesn't have a very good relationship with clocks and never sets alarms, something that might have to change if he keeps messing up. What if the Avengers kick him out of the training program because he's too unreliable?]

Sorry, Sam. Could we do the exercises here today?

Mmhmm. ( the hums are long and drawn-out as sam lifts both brows this time, but it's obvious that's what he had in mind to begin with--given by the fact that he's wearing his pack and all. ) Sure, vanilla.

( walking over, the pound of his boots in concrete lead him all the way to where he can put a hand on jack's shoulder and give it a definite squeeze. )

But you're staying out here twice as long, so I hope you didn't have any plans tonight. Follow me.

( his wings make a whooshing sound when they open just enough to force him up to take-off, then spread brilliantly and fully when sam's in the air to keep him there. he knows there's no need to look back. jack might be absent-minded sometimes, but he knows when to listen. )

Quick speed test! You ready? ( his neck cranes, fingers curling into fists. ) Try and keep up!

( and with that, sam starts accelerating. )

Me? Plans?

[He laughs, not particularly bothered at the prospect of spending longer out here with Sam. He has no plans, never does, and flying is one of his favorite activities.

Combat training? Not so much, especially when it involves hand-to-hand and not his ice. He knows he needs to learn it since his powers are, for now, far too dependent on having a focus such as his staff. That doesn't make it any less of a pain.]

Ready!

[While Sam uses his pack and wings to fly, Jack manipulates the wind to send him soaring through the sky. That might seem easy enough, and alone it is, but with companions he has to be careful not to send them off course. When they first started, he nearly send Sam flying into a tree.

By now he's better able to focus the wind more narrowly, though that makes accelerating more difficult. So when he takes off after Sam, there is some delay as he lags behind.]

I hate calm weather days!

[ Probably the mentor. Her specialties are pretty much healing and ghosts. ]

[ most probably the apprentice ]

[ooc: Most likely the apprentice.]

[Could be either.]

Every now and then HYDRA plays nice depending on their relations with the KGB: apparently this decade is one of those temporary truces where there's the usual espionage but they're more or less on the same page. Willing to share resources here and there, keep their hands out of the other's pies. Someone suggests pairing up the Winter Soldier program with Red Room, have him as an instructor. Someone else gives it the stamp of approval. There's the usual slaps on the back. A few months later a black, unmarked truck enters the Red Room's “campus”, pulls around the back with its tinted windows, and the guards roll out a man-sized crate with the HYDRA emblem printed on the side. They set up shop in one of the rooms, suppression chair and everything, and one day later, the Winter Soldier is inspecting the facility. Meeting the candidates, his eyes sliding from girl to girl to the women and then, finally, to Natalia Romanova.

He remembers how to smile and shake hands thanks to his new, improved deep cover programming. They exchange their aliases – hi James, hi Natasha – and a month later he's in a hotel bar with Natalia halfway across the world and working on her English over cocktails. It's the longest conversation he's had in decades.

“'Go big or go home',” he says, making sure his English is slower, easy to pick out the consonants and the vowels. There's still a hint of Brooklyn in there. The Winter Soldier slips into Russian without pausing, glancing over Romanova's shoulder, bared through her evening dress, “It's almost half past eight. Our friend is taking his sweet time.”

He leans in closer with the Russian-English dictionary spread open on the table. Today they're posing as a couple, sitting closer with knees bumping against each other under the table, closer than anyone's ever been to the Winter Soldier without a knife between the ribs.

Natalia couldn't really remember what her life had been like before the Red Room. She'd been young, there had been a fire... This was who she was. She was one of twenty-eight dancers being groomed for the Bolshoi Theater. She was one of twenty-eight operatives of the Red Room program. She was both and she was neither. The top of her class, a quiet point despite the grueling training, but there's a sort of rhythm to it. Guns, pirouettes, hand to hand... She learns how to smile again, except now those red lip smiles are as deadly as daggers.

And then he shows up. James. The Winter Soldier. There's something about him that makes her smile, sharp and dangerous, an edge to her green eyes as they exchange names. She wants to make him flinch, to get under his skin, a feeling that just builds when she finds out that he's going to be her teacher. Advanced combat training, working on her English, so on. She's a good operative, however, and she buries it.

For the most part.

She did toss a smoke grenade at him during a training exercise. He caught it, didn't blink. He's a different caliber than the men they usually have around the training facilities. It makes him interesting. Not just another piece in the rhythm and rituals of brutality that make up the Red Room program.

It's hardly any time at all, and they're sitting in a hotel bar, Natalia sipping at a vodka martini with a curl of lemon and a smile on those redred lips. "Go big.. or go home," she echoes, trying to match his pronunciation. She's still working on it, to erase that way that the Russian colors her tone, how she still rolls the r. She leans in close, dragging one slender finger against the page with a murmur.

"If he's not here soon, we're going to have to find another way. Could get messy," she comments. There's very little emotion to her pronouncement, however. Just a lift of an eyebrow. That almost flirtatious touch, like she's asking if he can keep up. He's her teacher, but Natasha doesn't like having anyone above her, just makes a new mark to try and surpass.

She's getting there. Romanova's a quick learner, just like she should be, and he wouldn't be surprised if she can pass for an American in a few months if she keeps it up at that rate He can see why she was hand-selected.

“It could,” he says and he’s a little surprised by her tone from the slight cock of his eyebrow. Usually when people are gearing for trouble, there’s a hint of fear or something else, like they’re giving themselves a pep talk before the blood and guts start coming out. Romanova makes it sounds like they’re going to take this into a room and...well. It’s been awhile. He can’t even remember the last time he was with a woman. Usually he does ops by himself and it’s point and shoot and back to base. Simple.“Intel said he might’ve been approached by another group. Here, try this one.”

He turns the page with a gloved hand, the special lining of his jacket muffling any sound his arm makes. While his student’s working at a martini that’s more vodka than vermouth, he has a tumbler of whiskey that he’ll nurse every now and then. Alcohol doesn’t do much for him these days. There’s a general impression he used to drink with a group but when he thinks about it, he can’t remember names; the faces are blurs. The one guy who drank him under the table? All he remembers was that one was blonde but he can’t remember if he was a handler from HYDRA or some field agent.

At least he isn’t trying to have a drinking contest with Romanova. The Soldier gets the whiskey so he’ll have even more of an excuse to sit here with his “girlfriend” and pretend like he’s busy teaching her English, not casing the place out. The bar itself is about half full: a few seniors, some college kids. It’s the middle-aged, dumpy business man with the newspaper that he’s keeping tabs on.

Some of the best field agents were the dumpy ones. They slipped in places he couldn’t, go in close enough to lace the right drink with poison, swap out medication. His eyes flick away from the man to fix on Romanova’s beautiful face.

“Repeat this one with emphasis: ‘I’m walking here, buddy!'"

His knee shifts to brush against Romanov’s under the table, denim against skin. Lingers. A slight tip of his chin targets the business man as a possible operative.

Edited 2016-06-03 22:35 (UTC)

There's that lift of his eyebrow and she laughs with a curl of her lips, a glint in her eyes. There's what looks like surprise in his eyes, and it just curls her smile a little warmer, a little more openly suggestive. She took to her lessons very well, whether it was a knife in her fingers or the smile on her red lips. Their cover is as a couple, so it's hardly even anything that would draw attention, the same vague flirtation as how close she leans into him as she looks at the Russian-English dictionary that's open between them. "If that's the case, we might be working on a limited time frame. And we'll have to find another way to get the information," she comments softly. Definitely messy.

She watches him as he turns the page of the book, leaning close with studious interest as she sips at her drink, smiles like she's enjoying the little game of the phrases from the book he's teaching her. In truth, alcohol doesn't do much for her either, given her metabolism, but there are few things that men underestimate like a woman with a drink in her hand. Natalia is very good at hiding hard strength behind her soft curves. And the Russian in her likes the bite of the vodka on her tongue.

She nods as he gives her another phrase, and she tries to copy him, echo that intonation, the easy way the syllables roll off his tongue. She learns quickly, but it's still very different from Russian. "I'm walking, here, buddy!" She attempts, the way that she stresses the syllables a little bit off and that accent coloring her words, but she is clearly improving the more that he has her speak. "That is good?" She questions, looking up into his eyes.

His knee brushes against her leg, and she tilts into the contact, slender legs prolonging that subtle contact even as she eyes the man that James indicates. She doesn't look at him directly, but catches him in the mirror behind the bar under the guise of considering her next drink as her martini glass stands mostly empty between her slender fingertips.

"How do you want to handle this?" She was the student here, so she was willing to follow him on this. She was also interested in seeing how he worked first hand, when they weren't running practice routines.

The Winter Soldier doesn't have much of a sense of humor. Hard to when you spend a good chunk of your waking life having your brain turned into jelly by the chair. That said, hearing Romanova's accented "I'm walking here!" complete with exclamation point actually drags out a genuine smile from him, small but there, and it's a good thing his handlers don't have a direct feed. Anything out of the ordinary with his behavior tends to throw up all kinds of red flags.

If he had a choice between going back to his handlers or scoping out the bar with Romanova, he knows which one he’d go for.

"Very good. You're gonna love New York, Natalia," the Winter Soldier says. Her knee bushes against him to show that she's on it and she's probably already sized up the man, come up with her own idea of how to approach it. That's what he tells himself. There's a small part of the Asset that's distracted (too strong a word) by the human touch, one of the more intimate ones he’s had in awhile. Usually when people touch him, they’re trying to fight him off, go for his eyes or his throat as if that will save them.

Which is probably what will happen with their businessman here.

Looks like Romanova will get a front row seat to a HYDRA-style interrogation. Consider it field instruction.

The Soldier covers by aping what he saw the college kids do a table over: he reaches and gives Romanova's hand a squeeze, like he’s reassuring her that the flight to the states isn’t a big deal. Her hands are softer than his, fingers elegant like an artist, and there’s a distinct lack of knobbing to betray old breaks.

“Get our new friend to our room so we can catch up. I’ll check for our other friend but I think his schedule probably changed .”

Which means their contact’s probably not coming if he’s been intercepted. Considering his file said the man was very much in line with HYDRA – and the KGB (for now) – it’s unlikely he defected. The SSR or some other agency probably frogmarched him away. If his hunch about the guy who’s been reading the same page for the last twenty minutes is right, then they might have a lead. Emphasis on “might”. The Winter Soldier finishes his whiskey and stands, reaching down to collect his scarf.

“Practice on your own, I’ll catch up. Spoil us with some room service.” He smiles, the expression looking almost real except for the part where it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Edited 2016-06-06 00:24 (UTC)

She smiles at him as he tells her that she's going to love New York, the way it curves her mouth and glints in her eyes almost sparkling by the low bar light. There's something pleasant about the moment, brief as it is, as much as they both know it's just a cover, but there aren't a lot of people that touch her without violence in their hands. There's something about the proximity and the contact, the way that his hand catches hers and squeezes in what might be a false sort of reassurance.

She likes the touch regardless.

She smiles and nods as he speaks, a low murmur of agreement and softly voiced words that she offers in return. "I'll go offer him an invitation," she says with a coy look as her green look into his blue eyes.

She's very good at this part: the seduction. Sometimes, like tonight, it's not overt, not the straightforward implication of men and women and bodies, but it's still a seduction. She plays the part of the wide-eyed doe, and so very carefully hides her teeth. Wolves and girls. They both have claws. Outright seduction is a tool, but sometimes a bit blunt when there were always things people wanted more or understood better. Given the suggestion that her cover was involved with James, it would be too easy to see through, and so it was easier to keep her smiles chaste, let the world seem to overwhelm her. And then there were drugs, and no one notices as she helps the swaying man who seems to have drunk too much.

She's been raised in the Red Room since the fire she doesn't really remember, and this is hardly her first lesson. But this is different, somehow.

Somehow, with the Winter Soldier, James, there's a different tenor to the lessons. When she gets the man up to their room and ties him to the desk chair, gags him as she waits for him to come around, it's like the cat that brings home injured prey like looking for approval. Meat dangling from animal teeth like an offering, like platitudes of I saved some for you.

Maybe she is.

She does order room service, because she appreciates the theatrics in this line of work if nothing else, and it plays to the persona she's wearing. She had something of a talent for making the mundane seem sinister. Not that she expected him to crack on the first blinks of his eyes... But, she did enjoy the theatrics.

She proceeded to lay on the bed with the book of English phrases, eating her chocolate ice cream with a twinkle in her eyes, a gun in her free hand. She can multitask. She does like the taste of blood on the air, and there's no way this doesn't end bloody. Maybe it ends with him, maybe it doesn't. Maybe he's the link they need for the missing piece of their mission, maybe there's more to it than that.

"We all sk.. scream for ice cream," she attempts. The words harder, her accent more obvious when she's not mirroring James' pronunciation.

When "James" comes back to a man gagged and tied up in his hotel room, he shows a grand total of zero surprise.

There's always been something off about his eyes, a flatness to them that certain moments with Romanoff softened. When he closes the door behind him and locks it with a click, that almost dead look's back as he drops all pretense of playing American tourist showing his Russian girlfriend the ropes. Some agents would maintain deep cover as long as they can. When you're already planning out how you want to dispose of the body, it seems like a waste of time - the Winter Soldier is anything if not efficient.

He pulls off first his gloves and then his jacket to reveal the metal arm, the red star that most people are lucky enough not to see. Their business man's awake and making muffled sounds around the gag that could either be threats or maybe he knows who he is. How screwed he is. Maybe he's even begging for his life, saying they got the wrong man: you’d be surprised at how often that one comes up. The Winter Soldier doesn't immediately rip off the gag and get to work. Not when they have cover to maintain, a hotel room to keep clean, and his own student who has stopped studying to watch from her spot on the bed, idly stirring her spoon through the last of the overpriced ice cream. Her legs stop kicking in the air.

"Help me with the bathroom."

It's a big bathroom, one of the reasons why they went for this hotel: comfortable, private, access to multiple exits and there's a perfectly good parking structure a jump away if he wants to commandeer anything. The big bathroom could fit two people into the tub, with high walls that limits blood splash. The Winter Soldier might be effective but he's also aware that time isn't on their side if they're trying to chase after their contact. Less time spent cleaning up the blood means more time sniffing out where their guy went. Motioning for Romanoff to follow, the Soldier clears the bathroom of anything that could catch splatter - he removes the curtain and the towels and puts them neatly, all folded, to the side before they drag their prisoner into the bathroom. Despite their operative weighing a good chunk, he hefts him chair and all into the tub, chair back to the floor. The nice thing about the chair is it’s all wood, easier to clean than upholstery. Nice to see that when Romanoff was picking chairs for their guest here, she didn’t go for the fancier one by the window.

After that, he strips to his underwear. Beats having to buy new clothes or launder them – too many questions asked – and he nods for Romanoff to remove the gag and hand him that knife she stashed above the mirror like she’s a KGB squirrel. She has more tools hidden around the hotel room. He assumes she’ll remember where she stashed them all so she doesn’t forget one when they leave.

The interrogation’s efficient, almost robotic. He does everything by the book until it gets answers and there’s no hint of pleasure at having power over someone’s life, he doesn’t get off on it like other agents. It’s deeply impersonal, something in James’s face shut off. He isn’t unnecessarily cruel or impatient. He’s relentless, as if he could go on forever and that’s what gets their operative to talk. When The Winter Soldier stands with blood streaked across his chest, the rest swirling down the drain after he stabbed the man in the gut, about where a mugger would probably hit, he’s not even breathing hard.

Facing toward Romanoff, he sits on the edge of the tub, hands resting on his knees.

“So we’re dealing with the SSR,” the Asset says. “And either we have a mole or they cracked our coded communications within the last month or so.”

Honestly, she likes the look in his eyes now almost as much as she likes when they shift and soften in those rare moments, the way he looks at her like something's different. It makes her feel something and that's a rare feeling. But, she likes how that flat grey is like the blade of a knife, hard and sharp and cutting.

He drops all pretense, divesting himself of the role they'd been playing, and she appreciates that. Even if she herself tends to play at the edges of it, it's for the show, the tension of ruined expectations. And she has found that she enjoys her work, and she's good at it, if you listen to her Red Room instructors. Good enough that she's sitting here, legs swinging, lapping the last bits of melted ice cream from her spoon as she twirls it through the soup at the bottom of the bowl. But her attention shifts to him, and her legs stop swinging and her eyes are almost as sharp as his.

She nods at the instruction, slipping from the bed, her spoon making a soft clink against the rim of the bowl as she abandons the dramatics for the pragmatic. She slips from one to the other as easy as anything, all business as she follows him into the bathroom. It's a better space for this sort of thing than a lot of hotels in this city, but, you get what you pay for, more or less. She watches him as he works, as he strips the bathroom of curtains and towels, anything that will catch the blood -- tiles are easier to clean -- and sets him and the chair into the tub. She almost tries to pretend that the way that she watches him as he strips is just as clinical, but it's not, even if she hides it well. There's a certain touch of weight to her gaze, the way that her eyes trace over exposed skin. The quirk to the corners of her mouth say she's not trying to hide it as well as she could be.

She obligingly removes the gag from their guest and hands him the knife she'd slipped against the mirror. Call it a quirk, but she likes having things stashed around the room, makes it so if something goes pear-shaped and she gets attacked that she always has something in arms-reach if she needs it. Not that she does, but there's a sense of security to it. And no matter how fast her reflexes her, she likes a weapon in her hands when people are shooting bullets.

However much she enjoys dramatics, there's no particular thrill for her in torture. Natalia is a lot of things, but she doesn't take pointed pleasure in that sort of cruelty. But she doesn't blanch, either, she doesn't look away as James tortures the man until he gives them what they want to know. Her gaze is cool, but tinged with something that isn't as he stands there, blood-streaked and in his underwear, objectively gorgeous, even missing an arm.

"Either way they've been busy bees," she comments quietly with a click of her tongue, and her eyes flick up to meet his greys as she leans into the sink with the curve of her hip. "Which do you think is more likely?" She almost hopes it's a mole. If they haven't been in place too long, it shouldn't take long to clean up the mess. But if they cracked their codes it will take a while to get new ones implemented and piece together the damage done.

But either way, they still have a mission, and a contact to track down.

Before the low grade conditioning, introduced just before he met Romanova, the Soldier wouldn't have noticed anything special about the way she watches - he would've assumed it was just making sure he was fighting fit, assessing the way he assesses her like any other potential threat. Now that he's operating as "James", the Soldier does notice the way her stare lingers in places that can't possibly hide a weapon, her eyes roving over his shoulders, his stomach; down. It's open. Unafraid.

The surprising thing is he doesn't mind it - in fact a part of him, unused to that kind of appreciative look, maybe even likes it.

The Winter Soldier pauses to glance back at their dead man. "I'm thinking mole going for the codes: our guy here had some. Not all, but enough."

Enough that he was in the right place, not enough to realize that he had the KGB and HYDRA sharing the bar. After a moment the Asset gets up and moves toward the sink. He purposefully brushes against Romanova, his shoulder cold against hers, as he washes his hands, the gesture almost innocent if it wasn't for the corpse in the bathtub. He glances at his trainee as he massages soap along his fingers and while he doesn't need to worry about his left side, he does that one too out of some unconscious habit.

"Make some calls. We need to track down our contact before he's out of the city." The Winter Soldier lingers, though, not immediately jumping into action. Unaware that he's displaying a bug in his programming, he reaches up to touch Romanova with his fingers curled around her upper arm. They've sparred. He's put her in a neck lock, felt her thighs squeezing around his throat before she pitched her weight and flipped him to the mat at the Red Room. Somehow this feels different even though he can't put words to it.

The Winter Soldier doesn't do dates or fraternizing with others, outside of direct orders. Sex is a goal, a way to get to a target and usually they send in a specific, qualified agent for that, not him. This feels like brand new territory, almost alien, something that isn't just a few changed details on a file.

"Do you have a problem with how I do things?" It's just an excuse from the Soldier, an invitation instead of the accusation it sounds like to anyone else. At this point he's winging it, indulging the rare freedom even he knows he doesn't get all that often. The handlers aren't here. He leans in close, grip around her arm tight but not enough to bruise. "You're staring."

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apprenticeshipping.

sam wilson | mcu / ota

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Let me know if I should change anything!

so sorry for the delay!

No problem!

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Liling 'Lily' Yang | World of Darkness OC | OTA, m/f for shipping & smut

Elizabeth | Bioshock Infinite | OTA

Rey | SW:TFA | OTA

Sauron | Tolkien | Open

Bucky Barnes | MCU

for natalia_vdova

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Could you timeskip us to interrogation? :|a

Timeskipping, go!

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