"Speaking"

:Thoughts:

Izuku's POV

Snakelady's Nightly Annoyance

Carboy: Damn it, Delta. Did you make it to your hideout okay? Let us know you're okay.

Sleepyhobo: Damn it. Tsukauchi I lost him again. Any luck on your end?

Carboy: Nothing. None of my officers have seen any signs of him. Where could he have gone?

Sleepyhobo: I'm sure he's still in Musutafu. The question is where?

Carboy: Escapedvigil let us know you're okay.

It would be half a day before Izuku would see the panicked messages. After he and Kavar had dug out the bullet and stitched him wounds he passed out. It was almost evening before he came to. By which point Kavar had been on the verge of panic thinking he was going to die.

After some food and water he checked his phone expecting the chat to be in a frenzy. He got exactly what he expected. It made a small smile cross his face at the sight. In the previous timeline he hadn't found anyone who truly cared about him until he was nearly an adult. Now he was barely 11 and they cared more than all of his childhood adults combined.

Carefully he chose his words and he messaged them back.

Escapedvigil: Sorry it took so long to reply. Kitsune and I had to dig a bullet out as well as stitch up my injuries. After which I passed out but I made it back okay and am alive.

Carboy: Thank God. What were you thinking running off like that? A hospital would have been better than a DIY bullet removal and stitch job.

Escapedvigil: And risk jail? No thank you detective. Besides this is far from the worst injury I've received and treated myself.

There was a pause for a long moment. He could practically see the detective staring at him phone in shock. What he had said was true. There were hundreds of injuries he had received in his childhood alone. The ones from his time chasing Carlos had to be the worst by far.

Flashback

A scratch! A scratch in the darkness! He spun, terrified at the tricks being played on his mind. But it was not a trick! There was a diamondlike flash in the air, light bouncing off steel.

A knife was slashing up at his face. He barely dodged in time to avoid being blinded.

The hand! The skin … the dark eyes in the thin shaft of light. Carlos! Bourne whipped his head back as the razorlike edge of the blade sliced the flesh under his chin, the eruption of blood streaming across the hand that held the knife. He lashed his right foot out, catching his unseen attacker in the kneecap, then pivoted and plunged his left heel into the man's groin.

Carlos spun, and again the blade came out of the darkness, now surging toward him, the line of assault directly at his stomach. Jason sprang back off the ground, crossing his wrists, slashing downward, blocking the dark arm that was an extension of the handle. He twisted his fingers inward, yanking his hands together, vicing the forearm beneath his blood-soaked neck and wrenched the arm diagonally up. The knife creased the cloth of his field jacket and once above his chest.

Bourne spiraled the arm downward, twisting the wrist now in his grip, crashing his shoulder into the assassin's body, yanking again as Carlos plunged sideways off balance, his arm pulled half out of its socket. Jason heard the clatter of the knife on the floor. He lurched toward the sound, at the same time reaching into his belt for his gun.

It caught on the cloth; he rolled on the floor, but not quickly enough. The steel toe of a shoe crashed into the side of his head—his temple—and shock waves bolted through him. He rolled again, faster, faster, until he smashed into the wall; coiling upward on his knee, trying to focus through the weaving, obscure shadows in the near total darkness.

The flesh of a hand was caught in the thin line of light from the window; he lunged at it, his own hands now claws, his arms battering rams. He gripped the hand, snapping it back, breaking the wrist. A scream filled the room. A scream and the hollow, lethal cough of a gunshot. An icelike incision had been made in Bourne's upper left chest, the bullet lodged somewhere near his shoulder blade. In agony, he crouched and sprang again, pummeling the killer with a gun into the wall above a sharp-edged piece of furniture.

Carlos lunged away as two more muted shots were fired wildly. Jason dove to his left, freeing his gun, leveling it at the sounds in the darkness. He fired, the explosion deafening, useless. He heard the door crash shut; the killer had raced out into the hallway. Trying to fill his lungs with air, Bourne crawled toward the door. As he reached it, instinct commanded him to stay at the side and smash his fist into the wood at the bottom. What followed was the core of a terrifying nightmare.

There was a short burst of automatic gunfire as the paneled wood splintered, fragments flying across the room. The instant it stopped, Jason raised his own weapon and fired diagonally through the door; the burst was repeated. Bourne spun away, pressing his back against the wall; the eruption stopped and he fired again. There were now two men inches from each other, wanting above all to kill each other.

Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain. Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Kill Carlos! And then they were not inches from each other.

Jason heard racing footsteps, then the sounds of a railing being broken as a figure lurched down the staircase. Carlos was racing below; the pig-animal wanted support; he was hurt. Bourne wiped the blood from his face, from his throat, and moved in front of what was left of the door.

He pulled it open and stepped out into the narrow corridor, his gun leveled in front of him. Painfully he made his way toward the top of the dark staircase. Suddenly he heard shouts below.

"What the hell you doin' man? Pete! Peter!"

Two metallic coughs filled the air.

"Joey! Joey!" A single spit was heard; bodies crashed to a floor somewhere below.

"Jesus! Jesus, Mother of—!" Two metallic coughs again, followed by a guttural cry of death.

A third man was killed. What had that third man said? Two wiseass stiffs and now four crumbballs. The moving van was a Carlos operation!

The assassin had brought two soldiers with him—the first three crumbballs from the shape-up. Three men with weapons, and he was one with a single gun. Cornered on the top floor of the brownstone. Still Carlos was inside. Inside. If he could get out, it would be Carlos who was cornered! If he could get out.

Out! There was a window at the front end of the hallway, obscured by a black shade. Jason veered toward it, stumbling, holding his neck, creasing his shoulder so to blunt the pain in his chest. He ripped the shade from its spindle; the window was small, the glass here, too, thick, prismatic blocks of purple and blue light shooting through it.

It was unbreakable, the frame riveted in place; there was no way he could smash a single pane. And then his eyes were drawn below to Seventy-first Street. The moving van was gone! Someone had to have driven it away … one of Carlos' soldiers! That left two. Two men, not three. And he was on the high ground; there were always advantages on the high ground.

Grimacing, bent partially over, Bourne made his way to the first door on the left; it was parallel to the top of the staircase. He opened it and stepped inside. From what he could see it was an ordinary bedroom: lamps, heavy furniture, pictures on the walls. He grabbed the nearest lamp, ripped the cord from the wall and carried it out to the railing. He raised it above his head and hurled it down, stepping back as metal and glass crashed below. There was another burst of gunfire, the bullets shredding the ceiling, cutting a path in the plaster.

Jason screamed, letting the scream fade into a cry, the cry into a prolonged desperate wail, and then silence. He edged his way to the rear of the railing. He waited. Silence. It happened. He could hear the slow, cautious footsteps; the killer had been on the second floor landing. The footsteps came closer, became louder, a faint shadow appeared on the dark wall.

Now. Bourne sprang out of his recess and fired four shots in rapid succession at the figure on the staircase; a line of bullet holes and eruptions of blood appeared diagonally across the man's collar. The killer spun, roaring in anger and pain as his neck arched back and his body plummeted down the steps until it was still, sprawled faceup across the bottom three steps. In his hands was a deadly automatic field machine gun with a rod and brace for a stock.

Now. Jason ran over to the top of the staircase and raced down, holding the railing, trying to keep whatever was left of his balance. He could not waste a moment; he might not find another. If he was going to reach the second floor it was now, in the immediate aftermath of the soldier's death. And as he leaped over the dead body, Bourne knew it was a soldier; it was not Carlos. The man was tall and his skin was white, very white, his features Nordic or northern European, in no way Latin. Jason ran into the hallway of the second floor, seeking the shadows, hugging the wall. He stopped, listening. There was a sharp scrape in the distance, brief scratch from below. He knew what he had to do now.

The assassin was on the first floor. And the sound had not been deliberate; it had not been loud enough or prolonged enough to signify a trap. Carlos was injured—a smashed kneecap or a broken wrist could disorient him to the point where he might collide with a piece of furniture or brush against a wall with a weapon in his hand, briefly losing his balance as Bourne was losing his. It was what he needed to know. Jason dropped to a crouch and crept back to the staircase, to the dead body sprawled across the steps. He had to pause for a moment; he was losing strength, too much blood. He tried to squeeze the flesh at the top of his throat and press the wound in his chest—anything to stem the bleeding. It was futile; to stay alive he had to get out of the brownstone, away from the place where Cain was born. Jason Bourne … there was no humor in the word association.

He found his breath again, reached out and pried the automatic weapon from the dead man's hands. He was ready. He was dying and he was ready. Get Carlos. Trap Carlos … Kill Carlos!

He could not get out; he knew that. Time was not on his side. The blood would drain out of him before it happened. The end was the beginning: Cain was for Carlos and Delta was for Cain. Only one agonizing question remained: who was Delta? It did not matter. It was behind him now; soon there would be darkness, not violent but peaceful … freedom from that question.

Within the next few minutes, thought Jason, silently checking the clip in the automatic weapon, he would fulfill his promise to that man, carry out the agreement he had with men he did not know. By doing both, the proof was his.

Jason Bourne had died once on this day; he would die again but would take Carlos out with him. He was ready. He lowered himself to a prone position and crept hands over elbows toward the top of the staircase. He could smell the blood beneath him, the sweet, bland odor penetrating his nostrils, informing him of a practicality.

Time was running out. He reached the top step, pulling his legs under him, digging into his pocket for one of the road flares he had purchased at the army-navy store on Lexington Avenue. He knew now why he had felt the compulsion to buy them. He was back in the unremembered Tam Quan, forgotten except for brilliant, blinding flashes of light.

The flares had reminded him of that fragment of memory; they would light up a jungle now. He uncoiled the waxed fuse from the small round recess in the flare head, brought it to his teeth and bit through the cord, shortening the fuse to less than an inch. He reached into his other pocket and took out a plastic lighter; he pressed it against the flare, gripping both in his left hand.

Then he angled the rod and the brace of the weapon into his right shoulder, shoving the curved strip of metal into the cloth of his blood-soaked field jacket; it was secure. He stretched out his legs and, snakelike, started down the final flight of steps, head below, feet above, his back scraping the wall. He reached the midpoint of the staircase. Silence, darkness, all the lights had been extinguished … Lights?

Light? Where were the rays of sunlight he had seen in that hallway only minutes ago? They had streamed through a pair of French doors at the far end of the room—that room—beyond the corridor, but he could see only darkness now. The door had been shut; the door beneath him, the only other door in that hallway, was also closed, marked by a thin shaft of light at the bottom.

Carlos was making him choose. Behind which door? Or was the assassin using a better strategy? Was he in the darkness of the narrow hallway itself? Bourne felt a stabbing jolt of pain in his shoulder blade, then an eruption of blood that drenched the flannel shirt beneath his field jacket.

Another warning: there was very little time. He braced himself against the wall, the weapon leveled at the thin posts of the railing, aimed down into the darkness of the corridor.

Now! He pulled the trigger. The staccato explosions tore the posts apart as the railing fell, the bullets shattering the walls and the door beneath him. He released the trigger, slipping his hand under the scalding barrel, grabbing the plastic lighter with his right hand, the flare in his left. He spun the flint; the wick took fire and he put it to the short fuse. He pulled his hand back to the weapon and squeezed the trigger again, blowing away everything below.

A glass chandelier crashed to a floor somewhere; singing whines of ricochets filled the darkness. And then—light!

Blinding light as the flare ignited, firing the jungle, lighting up the trees and the walls, the hidden paths and the mahogany corridors. The stench of death and the jungle was everywhere, and he was there.

Almanac to Delta. Almanac to Delta. Abandon, abandon!

Never. Not now. Not at the end. Cain is for Carlos and Delta is for Cain. Trap Carlos. Kill Carlos!

Bourne rose to his feet, his back pressed against the wall, the flare in his left hand, the exploding weapon in his right. He plunged down into the carpeted underbrush, kicking the door in front of him open, shattering silver frames and trophies that flew off tables and shelves into the air. Into the trees. He stopped; there was no one in that quiet, soundproof, elegant room. No one in the jungle path. He spun around and lurched back into the hallway, puncturing the walls with a prolonged burst of gunfire. No one.

The door at the end of the narrow, dark corridor. Beyond was the room where Cain was born. Where Cain would die, but not alone. He held his fire, shifting the flare to his right hand beneath the weapon, reaching into his pocket for the second flare. He pulled it out, and again uncoiled the fuse and brought it to his teeth, severing the cord, now millimeters from its point of contact with the gelatinous incendiary. He shoved the first flare to it; the explosion of light was so bright it pained his eyes.

Awkwardly, he held both flares in his left hand and, squinting, his legs and arms losing the battle for balance, approached the door. It was open, the narrow crack extending from top to bottom on the lock side. The assassin was accommodating, but as he looked at that door, Jason instinctively knew one thing about it that Carlos did not know. It was a part of his past, a part of the room where Cain was born. He reached down with his right hand, bracing the weapon between his forearm and his hip, and gripped the knob.

Now. He shoved the door open six inches and hurled the flares inside. A long staccato burst from a Sten gun echoed throughout the room, throughout the entire house, a thousand dead sounds forming a running chord beneath, as sprays of bullets imbedded in a lead shield backed by a steel plate in the door. The firing stopped, a final clip expended.

Now. Bourne whipped his hand back to the trigger, crashed his shoulder into the door and lunged inside, firing in circles as he rolled on the floor, swinging his legs counterclockwise. Gunshots were returned wildly as Jason honed his weapon toward the source.

A roar of fury burst from blindness across the room; it accompanied Bourne's realization that the drapes had been drawn, blocking out the sunlight from the French doors. Then why was there so much light … magnified light beyond the sizzling blindness of the flares?

It was overpowering, causing explosions in his head, sharp bolts of agony at his temples. The screen! The huge screen was pulled down from its bulging recess in the ceiling, drawn taut to the floor, the wide expanse of glistening silver a white-hot shield of ice-cold fire. He plunged behind the large hatch table to the protection of a copper dry bar; he rose and jammed the trigger back, in another burst—a final burst. The last clip had run out.

He hurled the weapon by its rod-stock across the room at the figure in white overalls and a white silk scarf that had fallen below his face. The face! He knew it! He had seen it before! Where … where? Was it Marseilles? Yes … no! Zurich? Paris?

Yes and no! Then it struck him at that instant in the blinding, vibrating light, that the face across the room was known to many, not just him. But from where? Where? As so much else, he knew it and did not know it. But he did know it! It was only the name he could not find! He spiraled back off his feet, behind the heavy copper dry bar.

Gunshots came, two … three, the second bullet tearing the flesh of his left forearm. He pulled his automatic from his belt; he had three shots left. One of them had to find its mark—Carlos. There was a debt to pay in Paris, and a contract to fulfill, his love far safer with the assassin's death. He took the plastic lighter from his pocket, ignited it and held it beneath a bar rag suspended from a hook. The cloth caught fire; he grabbed it and threw it to his right, as he dove to his left. Carlos fired at the flaming rag, as Bourne spun to his knees, leveling his gun, pulling the trigger twice.

The figure buckled but did not fall. Instead, he crouched, then sprang like a white panther diagonally forward, his hands outstretched. What was he doing? Then Jason knew. The assassin gripped the edge of the huge silver screen, ripping it from its metal bracket in the ceiling, pulling it downward with all his weight and strength. It floated down above Bourne, filling his vision, blocking everything else from his mind. He screamed as the shimmering silver descended over him, suddenly more frightened of it than of Carlos or of any other human being on the earth.

It terrified him, infuriated him, splitting his mind in fragments; images flashed across his eyes and angry voices shouted in his ears. He aimed his gun and fired at the terrible shroud. As he slashed his hand against it wildly, pushing the rough silver cloth away, he understood. He had fired his last shot, his last. As a legend named Cain, Carlos knew by sight and by sound every weapon on earth; he had counted the gunshots.

The assassin loomed above him, the automatic in his hand aimed at Jason's head. "Your execution, Delta. On the day scheduled. For everything you've done."

Bourne arched his back, rolling furiously to his right; at least he would die in motion! Gunshots filled the shimmering room, hot needles slicing across his neck, piercing his legs, cutting up to his waist. Roll, roll! Suddenly the gunshots stopped, and in the distance he could hear repeated sounds of hammering, the smashing of wood and steel, growing louder, more insistent. There was a final deafening crash from the dark corridor outside the library, followed by men shouting, running, and beyond them somewhere in the unseen, outside world, the insistent whine of sirens.

"In here! He's in here!" screamed Carlos.

End of flashback

Lurching forward he came back to himself. Fear, anger, and phantom pains coursed through his veins. A significant amount of time must have passed for Kavar was pacing nearby. Worry lines marred his face. At least he knew better than to try and grab Izuku.

The greenette shuddered at the thought of what might have happened. Lost in the memories of when he took on another identity he might have accidentally killed Kavar. There were few things that were considered worse than that in his mind.

Gruffly he said, "I'm okay now Kavar. I'm sorry that I worried you. All I can say was that I got lost in my memories."

Kavar breathed a sigh of relief, "You had me worried their Izuku. Your eyes went a kind of grey color and your hands were shaking. I wanted to help you but I remembered what you said about having violent flashbacks. So I waited."

Izuku rubbed his temples tiredly as he said, "That is for the best as bad as it sounds. I would likely unintentionally hurt or even kill you."

Kavar nodded but still watched him intently. It took a few seconds for him to remember what he had been doing when he was lost to his memories. Internally he winced not wanting to see their worried messages. Finally he worked up the courage to look at the chat again. And winced.

Carboy: We won't just throw you in jail when your injured.

Sleepyhobo: Handcuff you to the hospital bed yes. Make sure you received PROPER treatment most certainly. Immediately but you in jail. No.

:Kinky... wait no bad Izuku. You're now in a child's body. You're not the 30 year old you were before.:

Carboy: Delta?

Sleepyhobo: It still shows him as online. Did we run him off?

Carboy: I'm worried. This isn't like him. If he didn't want to speak to us he would just go offline.

Sleepyhobo: It's the early evening. Too early for him to be going on patrol. Is there anything out of the ordinary happening on your end?

Carboy: Nothing I can find. No villains are out and about. So far only regular low level criminals are being brought in.

Escapedvigil: Sorry got lost in a flashback. Tonight I'll leave you a package detective. Inside there will be a bullet that you should run all the tests you can on it. It was the reason why I didn't want any backup last night.

Carboy: I'll be watching for it.