Chapter 40: Yori and Erik

When the boy they'd taken from Auschwitz disappeared into the room where Josie was kept, Steve kept a weather eye on him. He trusted Josie with his life, even after what he'd just seen, but he didn't know if she'd trust herself. He used his enhanced hearing to eavesdrop on their conversation and smiled at the knowledge that no matter what had happened Josie was still a sweetheart.

"Got it!" Dugan said triumphantly as he sat back from the barren fireplace. Now it blazed with light and sent a wash of warmth through the room that was deeply appreciated. The cold chill of Auschwitz didn't want to leave.

Bucky passed through then, a determined glint in his eye and a stubborn set to his jaw. Steve almost felt bad for Josie. He had no doubt she'd be feeling bad about what had happened but his best friend wasn't going to let her.

The boy crept form the room as Bucky shut the door behind him. He peered around, looking distinctly uncomfortable as the youngest person in the room surrounded by strangers, one of which wore stars and stripes and another of which had wings. Steve opened his mouth to say something to the boy, to try and make him feel more comfortable, but Yori beat him to the punch.

"Come here," she ordered.

The boy seemed almost eager to go to her. Steve assumed it was because she was like him. He was a little worried though. Given Yori's disposition he wasn't sure she could be trusted with a boy who'd just escaped from the hell their newest addition had. Gentle and caring were not words usually applied to her.

Then again, Yori didn't look like she was up to being very contrary at that moment. She was sitting on the couch, slouched into the plush cushions like she would very much like to sink into them and sleep for a few years. Her hair was ratty and tangled and blood speckled her entire body. The firelight did menacing things to her, highlighting the angles of her face and shadowing the crevices.

With the thoughtless instinct of years as an artist, Steve reached into the bag by his feet to pull out his sketchpad and pencil.

"Yori," the boy said as he approached her. "Josie told me your name."

"And who are you?" Yori asked, tilting her head at him curiously.

"Erik Lehnsherr," the boy replied. Yori nodded thoughtfully as if Erik's name merited intense contemplation. She patted the cushion next to her. Erik sat down by her side, his eyes lingering on her sword with the interest any little boy would have when presented with a gorgeous weapon like Yori's.

"Do you know what I can do?" Yori asked him conversationally. Erik shook his head. Yori's fingers glowed green and Steve stiffened, his pencil inadvertently poking a hole in the page. Erik watched in fascination as Yori reached over the arm of the couch and lazily traced her glowing finger over the wood of the end table. The wood smoked and burned as she worked. When she drew her hand back, three characters were carved into the table. The boy leaned over her a little to see. Steve traced the vague outline of the couch under Yori and added Erik into the sketch, looking at her curiously.

"Can't read," Erik admitted a bit sheepishly.

"Your name," Yori said, pointing to the characters in turn. "E-ri-ku." The boy's mouth mouthed the syllables after her, looking intrigued. Yori raised an eyebrow at him. "Tell me, what can you do, Erik?"

The boy was obviously hesitant. He looked around at the other Howling Commandoes, all of whom immediately tried to look disinterested. Falsworth straightened his cuffs and Dugan brushed off his hat. Morita let out a belch and Jones hastily dove back into the pages of a small book he'd pulled from his bag.

"You're among friends," Yori assured him.

Erik looked at them all a bit more critically. "Like us?" he asked.

Yori shook her head. "No, but they understand more than the normal human."

Erik was still obviously uncertain. Steve gave him a smile, trying to make the boy feel a little more comfortable. He was surprised by both of them, in all honesty. Erik was clearly a very strong boy, to have come through what he did and still be functioning as well as he was. He was talking and conversing with Yori just fine. He held himself stiffly and he was obviously guarded, but he was doing pretty well, all things considered.

Yori was a surprise as well. Steve had known Yori mentored young children in her travels. He even knew that she had met and begun working with Josie when the scientist was only thirteen years old. But he'd never actually seen her with a child until now and he was impressed. Maternal wasn't a word he'd ever thought to apply to Yori but there was something blatantly protective in her posture as she sat by the boy and affection gleamed in her eyes.

Erik raised his hand, eyes glued on the fire. Yori's eyes widened. For a moment she thought he was going to start making pictures in the flames like Adairia used to and she wasn't sure if her heart could take that after seeing one of her students dead and another dissected alive in the span of a few months. But the fire didn't move. The fire poker did.

The boy's hand guided the poker off the hook by the fireplace. The other Howling Commandoes sat up and paid attention as the boy's hand guided it forwards. It prodded at the logs and as one slipped it sent up a puff of cinders and smoke.

It was the boy's face, though, that worried both Yori and Steve. He was scowling thunderously and while Yori had seen young mutants who had to intently focus on the task at hand to use their powers when they were still learning, this was not that. This boy, if her guess was correct, was using anger and rage to fuel his powers. And judging by the way the poker never wavered, he was channeling those dark emotions well. It was a warning sign she always hated to see and longed to fix.

"Well done," Yori praised the boy as he hung the poker back on the hook and looked to her, his expression clearly waiting for her opinion. "You're very powerful and very skilled for your age," she continued, laying a hand on his shoulder proudly.

"Danke," the boy muttered, looking like he was suppressing a flush and a smile.

"Do itashimashite," Yori replied with a smile. "Tell me, Erik, when did you find out what you could do?"

The boy's hands fisted on his knees and his expression darkened, shark-like eyes fixed on a spot on the wall over Yori's shoulder. "They take mama. At the camp they take mama. I bend gate."

Yori's eyes darkened as well. "And what happened?"

"They hit me with gun so I stop. They take me to doctor," The boy's eyes were wide but blank, his voice hoarse as he remembered. The men in his audience hung on every word.

Steve looked to Yori. "Don't make him-" She cut him off with a firm look.

"And then?" Yori asked, and her eyes blazed with rage. Steve had no doubt that if Yori were up to it she'd walk back into Auschwitz at that exact moment and do her damnedest to tear apart every Nazi she could find just to make sure she got all of them who ever so much as gave the boy a dirty look.

"He want me to do again. Doctor Schmidt tells me to move coin." The boy's hand shifted towards his pocket, unnoticed by the others. They were too distracted by the name Schmidt. It wasn't the Red Skull but they were all quickly realizing that they'd found the base for their number two enemy: Klaus Schmidt.

Yori's eyes blazed with rage. "You couldn't do it, could you?" she guessed. Erik nodded.

"Now how'd you guess that?" Falsworth asked her incredulously.

"Usually powers are triggered for the first time because of extreme emotional stress, particularly in children as old as Erik is," Yori explained. "Very rarely can they immediately understand and effectively use their abilities after that. Sort of… beginner's luck."

"He brought mama," Erik continued to talk, the words pouring out of him. "He say if I can't move coin, she die. I couldn't move coin." He swallowed thickly, tears rising in his eyes. "She die. I scream. I crush the heads of soldiers in their helmets. I crush bell on desk. I make walls shake. I make knives shake, table shake, everything shakes…"

Everything was shaking then as well. The fire poker rattled on its hook and nails that once held treasured family photographs vibrated in the walls like tuning forks. Their guns begin to rattle disconcertingly and stray pistols lifted up slightly. In the tiny kitchen they could hear pans and pots beginning to rattle.

Yori was the first to react. She flared her wings. The gesture was dramatic and eye-catching and had the effect of making the fire dance and lash in the grate, tossing wild shadows on her features. Steve turned the page and began to try and capture that image on the reverse of the first.

"Iie," Yori said simply, and Erik didn't know the meaning of the word but the sound of it and the hand she placed over his was enough to make him settle down enough to stop the rattling. The tears still fell though. Yori blinked once and then wrapped an arm around Erik, drawing him to her side to cry on her shoulder. He sniffled and sobbed as Yori draped her arms and wings around him, shifting them so that she lay against the arm of the couch and Erik was draped against her side.

Yori hummed, her head swaying slightly. Closing her eyes she began to sing a lullaby. "Sakura sakura noyama mo sato mo mi-watasu kagiri. Kasumi ka kumo ka?"

With a jolt, Steve realized this was the same song Yori had been singing when they found her at the HYDRA base.

Soon Erik's tears faded away and dried on his cheeks. He fell asleep next to Yori as she continued to sing softly for him, her voice beginning to go weak and scratchy. Steve stayed awake sketching as Yori slowly but surely sent all of his men to sleep.

Steve rose from his chair and tucked his sketchbook away. The water in the kitchen still worked, so he found a glass and filled it with tap water. He carried the glass back into the room, stepping carefully over the sprawled form of Jones and toeing Dernier in the side so that the man would roll over and stop snoring. He made his way over to the couch. Yori had stopped singing, her head tilted back over the arm of the couch and her hair streaming towards the floor. She breathed evenly, Erik snoring gently into her shoulder. She still held onto the boy with her arms and wings in her sleep and as he watched she coiled her tail around his waist.

Steve smiled at that, glad to have seen a softer side to Yori. He set the glass down on the night table and tilted his head to examine the characters burned into the wood. They were so far from being letters he wouldn't have any idea how to begin figuring out what they meant if Yori hadn't already told them. Vaguely, he wondered if Yori would write out his name for him to see one day.

"You should sleep."

Steve jerked slightly. Yori hadn't moved but her eyes were open, red burning from the darkness. She raised an eyebrow and looked from him to the water. Her eyes narrowed.

"Thank you for that," she said, reaching for it. She took several large gulps and closed her eyes when she set the empty glass aside. She looked Steve over and sternly ordered, "Sleep."

"You're still awake and I think you've had a worse day than me," Steve countered. Yori shook her head.

"I'd rather not attack this boy if I dream, so I'll stay awake," Yori replied simply. "And today is not new for me, if you recall. Well…" Pain covered her face. "Seeing Josie taken apart is."

Steve felt ill, recalling seeing Josie sprawled on that table with her organs sitting around her. "I can't even imagine-"

"No, you can't," was Yori's swift reply. "And I'm glad of that. You seeing the aftermath was enough. I would prefer you didn't see the event itself."

"Because I'm not a mutant? Because I can't understand?" Steve asked, a little offended. Yori teetered on a superiority complex sometimes.

"You are a mutant, just not like me," Yori disagreed. "And you've been someone's experiment before. The only difference is that you volunteered. No, I'd rather you didn't see it because I'd really rather not look at you ten years from now and see Josie screaming reflected back at me in your eyes." Yori's eyes closed and she sighed. "You are innocent, Steve. Hold onto that." The last sentence was nearly a plea. Yori's eyes opened a slit and she stared down at Erik in her arms. She reached up and stroked strands of hair from his face, kissing his forehead softly.

"Some of us don't get that option. Thank you for the water."

"You're welcome," Steve replied. He smiled slightly. "Hey Yori?"

"Yes?" she asked wearily.

"Oyasuminasai."

Yori stared at him incredulously for a moment before a wide smile broke over her face.

"I'll teach you to speak my language yet," she said with a small laugh before her eyes drifted closed and her breathing evened out for real.


"I'm not amused," Colonel Phillips said shortly as he stared at the group sitting across his desk from him. Yori and I were in chairs, Steve and Bucky leaning against the wall behind them. Peggy sat in the corner with Erik standing awkwardly by her side. Howard stood on Erik's other side, looking the kid over curiously.

"Are you ever?" Howard sniped from the corner. Phillips glared.

"Why are you even here? Last I checked you weren't part of this hare-brained scheme to break into Auschwitz all for the sake of one little boy!" Phillips said pointedly. Erik flinched and winced in his little corner and Peggy patted his hand comfortingly.

"I heard his screaming. I had to do something," Josie replied smoothly.

"No, you didn't. All you had to do was follow orders and haul your rear end back here to make your report!" Phillips disagreed hotly. "Because of you I now have to explain to the president why we launched an unauthorized attack on a concentration camp just for one kid kicking up a fuss!"

"He was doing more than that!" Josie said sharply, eyes flashing.

"He was being experimented on by Schmidt," Steve agreed. "We couldn't ignore that. He was part of our assignment, right?"

"Yes, but this kid's already said he doesn't know anything," Phillips countered. "All he can do is… is make some aluminum foil stand up and pay attention!" Phillips shook his head wearily and glanced at Erik. "Imagine what I could do with ten of him on the front lines instead of one of you," he said, nodding to Steve.

Yori's tail snapped and her hands clenched so tightly on the arms of her chair that the wood creaked and groaned. "You so much as hand that boy a uniform hat and I will take your hand off," she hissed fiercely. "He is a child, not a resource for you to use or a puzzle for you to pull apart! Homo sapiens," she sneered. "When will you understand that you are not, in fact, the superior force on this planet?"

"Yori," I snapped, placing a hand on her shoulder. "That's not helping."

"I could have you arrested for threatening an officer," Phillips pointed out, narrowing his eyes at Yori, who smiled viciously in reply.

"Please do, I'd love to watch your men scramble."

"Yori!" Steve said sharply. Yori flinched and looked more chastened than when I'd grabbed her. I sighed. It seemed Yori hadn't gotten rid of her crush yet. I felt bad for what could never be but at the same time I couldn't deny it was a good thing to have someone in charge that Yori would listen to.

"Whether it was a prudent action or not, it's happened," Peggy interjected. "What remains now is to decide what to do with Erik."

"Well we're not keeping him," Phillips said firmly.

"I don't know, he's kinda cute," Howard said, and ruffled Erik's hair. Erik straightened his hair and glared at Howard. The filing cabinet closest to Howard vibrated warningly. Howard held up his hands innocently.

"We're not a day care," Phillips said shortly. "So unless you've got a plan for somewhere to send him, I've got no choice but to haul him to the nearest orphanage."

"Nein!" Erik protested, but quickly bit his lip and settled back down. I looked at him sympathetically.

"Don't worry, that won't be happening," Yori said, and Erik obviously believed her because he was visibly relieved. I smiled. It seemed Yori had found someone to take under her wing, even if only for the few days it had taken us to get back to London.

"And you're saying that on what authority?" Phillips asked her. Yori raised an eyebrow.

"My own, of course."

Phillips snorted. "Of course."

I leaned forwards. "May I use your phone?" I asked Phillips politely. He threw up his hands.

"Sure, why not? It's not as if we're having an important meeting."

"Thank you," I said, and dragged the phone closer. Phillips rolled his eyes and settled back in his chair, crossing his arms with a huff as I dialed a number. The phone was answered a moment after the first ring, unsurprisingly.

"Granny Nevade," I greeted fondly.

"Josie! It's wonderful to hear from you! What's going on, you usually write unless it's important."

"I've just come across a young boy that I may or may not have liberated from Auschwitz without orders," I explained. "Charming young man named Erik Lehnsherr. The problem is that we don't know what to do with him now that we've got him."

"And you're asking me?"

"Well I was thinking. What's the best private school in Europe?"

Nevade considered for a moment. "I believe that would be Heathewood Preparatory."

I nodded. "That's what I thought too. Would you mind calling them and telling them that Erik will be arriving there soon? All of his expenses are to be billed to me."

Erik looked like he might pass out at any given moment, he was so stunned.

"Don't have to-" he murmured, face red.

"I want to," I said firmly. "Tell them to call me with any further questions," I added to Nevade.

"Will do!" Nevade chirped, not questioning my decision even for a moment. I smiled brightly.

"Thank you, Nevade."

"You're welcome, dear. Call more often, it's good to hear from you!"

"I'll try. Good bye."

"Bye dear."

Phillips groaned and rubbed his palms across his face. "Never demand an Ealum woman pull a solution out of nowhere, because she will," he said to the room at large.

"Noted," Bucky chirped.

And that was it.

Howard had graciously taken Erik shopping for a new wardrobe and three days later he was sent off to get an education with mine and Yori's contact information and told to get in touch if he ever needed anything or just wanted to talk. He'd been beyond grateful and had even hugged Yori and I before leaving, the Howling Commandoes waving him off.


Do itashimashite – you're welcome