"What the heck did he even do to you? Repeatedly smash bottles over your head?" Liesel asked while tentatively brushing hair out of the way of one rather gory looking cut to the back of his head. She had finally managed to disentangled herself from Erik's arms and after giving him a stern look and pointing to a nearby chair, she managed to persuade him to let her look at his injuries. With some trepidation he allowed her. First aid and Liesel was something which never had crossed his mind. Honestly, he wasn't at all certain she even knew any; though yes, that was a rather unfair statement to presume on.

"Mirrors." He answered slowly and at length, wondering really how she would react to this information.

"Sorry?"

Erik sighed and moved, she frowned at him. She was clearly just about to start cleaning the cut and him moving had disrupted her. She lowered the gauze in her hand which had a few dabs of antiseptic fluid on it. "You saw that room, right? There were mirrors everywhere. It just so happened that I became rather acquainted with them in a rather short amount of time."

"You're lucky."

He had turned back to look at the things scattered on the table only to whip around and look at her with a frown. "Sorry?"

"You're lucky." She repeated. "I imagine you don't feel it. Your head must ache, if it doesn't then wow, you have a harder head than myself." She said while gently pushing him back around. He was making first aid a lot harder than it needed to be! If this was anyone else she would snigger about them possibly being apprehensive about the sting which would come from the antiseptic fluid, but this was Erik. She honestly couldn't really remember the last time he looked pained, let alone in pain.

"Do tell."

Liesel blinked rapidly and took to finally doing the task at hand. "You know these suits aren't exactly all that protective, right?" She looked briefly at the blue and yellow suit she was still in. "Especially around the neck." Which was true, there wasn't really much of a collar. "All it'd take is a shard to slip here," she traced a nail along his neck which caused a sudden shudder to come from him. "Or here," she moved elsewhere but didn't get the same reaction again. "And you would've bled out."

"Charming. Have I ever told you that you have brilliant conversational skills? Especially when trying to do first aid? Really, you could've chosen a better time to inform me of a possible death."

"It would've been slow, and painful. You would've just ebbed away on that mirrored floor." Liesel said lowly, leaning her hands on his shoulders so she could whisper in his ear.

"Stop sounding so wistful." Which she did as she quietly spoke away to him, he turned his face and saw her face tilted to the side, a small smile on her face, though it was a hollow look. She wasn't being serious on her joking, or rather she didn't mean what she said.

"I don't want you to die. I'm not thinking about you dying."

"I think you're lying."

"I'm merely dwelling on the fact that you could've, and that you are very lucky that a mirror shard didn't cut you somewhere fatal." She paused and ran a hand down and through his hair. Noticing how he suddenly tensed she reckoned she had found another injury. Seeking it out she cleaned it and stood back. "Did I really sound wistful?"

"Disturbingly, yes."

"Oh," she was silent for a few moments while merely taking to leaning her chin on the top of his head, which was easy to do seems he still sat in the chair, she made sure to avoid any cuts, as she simply placed her arms over his shoulders. She linked her hands together and sighed quietly. "I really didn't mean to. I am sorry there." Feeling him shift about, she quickly kissed the top of his head and stood back as he slowly moved to stand. "Say! I forgot to mention, I think Azazel is going to help me with my teleporting problem."

This seemed to get his attention, he looked at her curiously. Looking slowly up at the ceiling he nodded slowly like he was thinking over something before smiling lightly and nodding again. "That's good."

Liesel raised an eyebrow. "That's all?"

"I don't know what more you could want." Erik walked passed her and placed a hand on her shoulder as he passed. He had it in mind to find where the sleeping areas and showers were in this place. He really needed to rid himself of dried blood, dirt and get out of this damn suit. And when that was done, he intended on sleeping for a while.

"Erik!" Liesel called out and trotted after him. "You left this," he stopped in the corridor and turned to look at her. She held the helmet out to him in her hands before disappearing back in the room to pack the first aid things away.

"Are you sure you're up to it?"

"Hm? Oh! You're still here," Liesel was seemingly lost in thought. She hadn't realised that Erik had taken to leaning against the door frame watching her. He wasn't certain if she knew how serious looking she was when packing things away. She looked deep in thought about something, he wouldn't pry. More often than not she came out with her thoughts anyway.

"You know he isn't going to go easy on this training, right?" Erik furthered on while stepping to the side to let her out of the room.

"But..." Erik just gave her this look which caused her to shut her mouth and pout. She had to easily admit, she didn't really know the last time a Russian was going to take things simply. She wasn't being rude, but determination was one thing she had always picked up on. "You're right," she hung her head and whined when he decided to patronisingly pat her on the head. She reached up and nudged him, "Do you mind?"

Erik smiled and shook his head slowly, of course that didn't really surprise her. "This place is quite the surprise. I have to agree with you, house hunting would be an inconvenience." They turned out of the corridor and walked back into the main space. By now everyone else seemed to have disappeared to their own little places. Most likely to the sleeping area. "Give him credit for hideouts. He knew how to pick them."

Liesel frowned in thought. "He had years to build an underground empire."

"What're you thinking?" Erik looked at her curiously as they walked towards the nearest set of stairs.

She smiled and looked up at him. "Wonder how many more of his little hidey-holes are around, hm?"

"Could ask." Erik said pointlessly. To be honest, he wasn't too sure how much trust was amongst them yet. Yes, sure, they were altogether, but did that mean they all trusted each other yet? Most likely no. If the topic of other hideouts got bought up, Erik was rather sure Azazel would not answer. "Find out, somehow." Erik stopped and looked at her as she looked thoughtful. "Wouldn't hurt to possibly merge some of them." He mused, he wasn't totally certain where this hideout thing was leading to really. But he always liked having the upper hand and knowing things before others.

Liesel smiled slowly, "Back to information gathering."

"You are quite good at it." Erik admitted, which she was. It was an odd skill she seemed to own. "But try and do it on the sidelines. It isn't a top priority because we have this place." He turned away noticing the rooms to either side of this new corridor. From the voices he could hear, he presumed they'd finally found the sleeping areas.

"What...what is the top priority?" Liesel walked after him and watched as he entered an open doored room, he turned and looked at her with a troubled look. "What is it? I don't like that look...I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"Depends."

"That's a no then."

Erik smiled, at least she was honest even before she had heard what he had to say. "We get Emma." Liesel's expression went blank at this. "We find where she's being held. We get her out. Shaw seemed to find her to be quite the asset, let's do the same." He took a step back and went to close the door, only to open it again and smile at her. "Find where she is, Liesel. They'll have moved her about, covered their tracks, even doubled back to confuse people."

"Fine." Was the one word which slipped out quietly.

"I already know you don't like her. But we can't leave her. Surely you can see this?" Erik asked while Liesel frowned slowly and turned away. "Don't look at me like that. You don't trust her, fine, we will all need to learn to. We're all together in this now."

----

"Does it work?" Liesel opened her eyes slowly and looked up at the owner of the voice. Standing cross armed, looking down at her with curious dark eyes was Riptide. Liesel opened her mouth, "Janos." He said before she could bring up the fact that she still didn't know his first name. It was a running thing which was coming to an end now.

Uncrossing her legs slowly, Liesel stood. She rubbed her legs to get feeling back in them. She was sitting cross legged, meditating as it were. Not that her mind could find any peace. Her thoughts were all jumbled about and it made clearing her mind very hard. She was trying to list the things she needed to do. The top priority was clearly Emma; finding her, breaking her out of wherever, returning here all in one piece and then whatever next. "No." She replied at length realising that Janos just continued to stare at her. "It doesn't." Rubbing a hand down her face she looked to him curiously. "Don't suppose you're any good at information gathering? I need help." Her being the lone one to undertake this task seemed rather cruel.

"What do you need?"

"Emma," Janos turned to a table and looked over his shoulder at her when she spoke this. "Yeah, we're going on a jail break." He nodded at this and took to rummaging through papers, Liesel walked over and rested her hands against the table and looked over everything. "Woah...extensive." She said while eyeing up the reports and clippings of things which had been eavesdropped.

"Your people took her. Don't you know where she is?"

"One thing to clear up: they weren't my people. And no...I don't. If I did, do you think I'd be wasting my time here?"

"You could just be lying. Wasting time."

Liesel raised an eyebrow. "I won't lie, I don't particularly like the woman. But I would not want anyone to suffer being locked up. It isn't pleasant." She paused and punched him in the arm, Janos glared, yet rubbed his arm and took a step away from her. "I am not withholding information, idiot." She said irritated by the mere notion of the inclination. She wasn't clueless. Liesel was more than certain that it'd take more than a couple of days to all bond and become best friends. They had been within this hideout now for about three days. Everyone had rested, recovered, and any injuries were now rather healed to the point of no longer being problematic. "What we need is to level out the playing field." She ran a hand through her hair before resting her hands on the back of her neck. "You've reported finding several bases used by the CIA. We can't search them all, we don't have the manpower. By the time they catch onto what we're doing, the more people they're going to send to counter us." She groaned quietly and hung her head, this was annoying.

"You've forgotten something, someone, very useful when it comes to reconnaissance." Janos said while leaning against the table and looking to her with a smirk. Liesel perked up and looked to him with a raised eyebrow. "You're still thinking in the way of a small team, one that was minus a teleporter."

"Azazel." She whispered his name, she hadn't seen the teleporter for a small while. She didn't know what he did in his spare time, and she found herself not wanting to know.

"There you go." Janos said with a nod.

Liesel looked about with wide eyes as she was attempting to formulate a successful plan in her head. Lifting up a hand she pointed a finger at Janos, "We could do a few bases in a day."

"Or all of them. Keep in mind that if we don't find what we're after, there's no point being there."

She shook her head slowly. "I have a feeling that the bases won't be left intact."

"Why do you say that?"

Liesel turned to look at him. "Because to cover ones tracks, you have to do things which may not be wholly pleasant. To avoid conflict...those in the bases are going to have to be dealt with, one way or another." She said as simply as she could, which was hard. She wasn't up for harming or possibly dealing lethal damage to innocent people. The CIA probably had skeletons in its closet like any organisation, but the people working at these bases had done nothing to her; unless they suddenly decided to try and shoot her down. Rubbing a finger against her temple, she tried to ignore the niggling headache. All this contradiction was really doing her mental health in. "Can you find Azazel while I find Erik, please?" Liesel asked while stepping around Janos who merely gave a silent nod before walking off. 

Clapping her hands she darted off and ran out of the main room. Sliding around a corner she stopped at a doorway and looked in, seeing the room empty she ran off again. She ended up running up the stairs and towards his room. Knocking on the door she waited outside as approaching footsteps sounded quietly on the other side. Pushing away from the wall when the door opened she smiled at Erik. "I have a plan!"

He raised an eyebrow at her enthusiasm. He wasn't bought. That wasn't to say that her plans weren't good, it was just that his were always much better. Whatever she'd schemed up he'd have to seriously calculate and reassess, and even change no doubt. Yet despite of this, he inclined a hand to her. "Go on then." Erik turned in the door and waved over his shoulder, it was a little cruel to leave her rambling about in the corridor. Truth be told he couldn't remember the last he'd seen Liesel talk so quickly. Which meant that she was evidently proud of her moment of planning. Leaning back against the desk in the room, he crossed his arms and watched as Liesel finished her lengthy explanation in one breath. She gasped in a breath after she'd finished and smiled at him. "Right," he said at length, looking about the room he dwelt on her plan for a moment more before frowning and shaking his head. "I don't foresee it working."

Liesel's shoulders sagged and she looked visibly saddened. "Why?"

"How do you propose to get information out of people?" He asked curiously.

"Who said anything about getting near the people?"

"I don't follow." Erik frowned again, he really didn't get where she was coming from.

"People lie. Even if you inflict pain on them, they'll still lie no doubt. To keep someone as dangerous as Emma locked up, they'll lie no matter what." Liesel said while walking forwards and jumping to sit on the desk by his side. He looked to the side at her, "Hacker," she pointed at herself.

"You're not a hacker." He scoffed and rolled his eyes. But then, he looked slowly back at her. She smiled and kicked her legs simply, "Yes, you are, aren't you?" She nodded slowly, she could easily interfere with electrical things, monitors, systems, computers; she could sift through things. Any safety precautions would get taken down, just as long as she didn't overload things and it blew up on them. "If that is the case then we only need to get into one of the bases. They should all be linked and share information, if that's so then Emma's whereabouts will be logged."

"So?" Liesel prompted while nudging her shoulder gently against his. He'd seemingly zoned off and into his own thoughts.

"Well done." Erik smiled, he was surprised actually that her plan was almost full proof. She had always had the habit of rushing headlong into things without much thought. Yet no, she had taken the time to try and put something effective into place.

"So...when do we start?"

"Does everyone else know of this plan?"

"No, just Janos."

"Get everyone together," Erik moved away from the desk and glanced at her as she slid down. "Meet downstairs, the sooner we do this the sooner we can get Emma. Then the sooner we can leave the government alone, for the time being."

----

Edited: 13/June/2019

Reedited: 24/August/2021