daughterofliberty | [616] ground zero for trouble

[616] ground zero for trouble

"Remember, Nick," she calls, buckling the utility belt of her suit. "I've got years of vacation time saved up. You owe me. After this, I'm taking five whole days in Virginia with Steve, and no one is going to bother us. Right?"

Fury scoffs, and she turns a gimlet eye on him. "Right?"

"Right," he says, holding up his hands in surrender. "Hell, Carter, it's not like the rest of the Avengers and SHIELD aren't around to pick up the slack. Go! You crazy kids have fun. Send a postcard. Let your hair down a little. You've been tense as a wire ever since – "

"I wonder why," she snaps, and he shakes his head.

"Just saying," he says, as Tony Stark sniggers behind him. Sharon waves them both off, an unruly smile tugging at her mouth.

"I'll check in once I've made contact," she says. "Steve should be waiting for me at the rendezvous."

"Good luck, Agent Carter," Tony says, and she tosses him a crisp half-salute, then heads through the hatch towards the hangar that holds her vehicle: not the Quinjet, not for a mission this small, but the cherry-red convertible that hovers as she enters and taps out the activation code. "Come on, baby," she tells it. "Let's go for a ride."

But when she reaches the rendezvous at Avengers Tower and strides through the door, Steve's nowhere to be seen.

And, honestly? Neither is the Avengers Tower.

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"Up to you," he says, quietly, as they leave the train. Bucky hesitates before taking the side path, looking to see which way T'Challa wants to go.

"He's going to be mad as hell when he finds out you've been sheltering the Winter Soldier."

"I have done no such thing," T'Challa replies, calmly joining him on the side path.

"The Winter Soldier has not been seen or heard from for over a year now."

Bucky glances over at him.

"You know he's not going to see it that way."

"Then we will see if Everett Ross is truly the man I believe him to be, or if he will disappoint me," T'Challa says, walking at Bucky's side.

"But I believe his concern for a woman who was previously his most trusted subordinate and his friendship with myself will prevail."

Bucky nods. "Your call." He'll stand by it.

And if the price of this is that he ends up back with the JTTF as Ross's prisoner, to protect Wakanda, to save Sharon, he'll pay it.

"White Wolf," T'Challa says.

"I will not risk you while attempting to save Sharon Carter. Whatever Everett Ross decides he must do, I will deal with it."

Soft and certain: "I know." Bucky looks over at him as they draw near the hut by the lake.

"Steve told me what you said to him, after I went under the first time here."

"And it still stands."

He halts a little ways from the hut to look out over the lake, thinking back to the terrible day weeks before when he had last stood here, grim news hanging heavy on his head and heart. "It will be a little while before Captain Rogers returns," he notes, gently.

"I suggest you take this time to rest and prepare yourself, White Wolf. We will gather to plan once all have arrived."

“I know. Just like you know I don’t want to cause trouble for you.”

He stops beside T’Challa, looking at the hut. “I won’t be able to sleep. But I’ll try to rest, at least.”

T'Challa nods and puts a warm, firm hand on Bucky's shoulder.

"If she is there to be found, we will find her," he promises. "I give you my word."

He pats Bucky's shoulder and lifts his hand away. "I will send for you when Captain Rogers approaches. Until then, rest as well as you can, White Wolf. Things will move quickly once we begin."

He nods back and makes his way into the hut. For the first time in weeks it doesn’t cause a stab of pain to do so.

Bucky sits down on the bed and picks up the neatly-folded green throw he’s been using as a pillow and presses it to his face. “Hold on, angel,” he whispers. “I’m coming.”

He doesn't begrudge the extra time it takes to return, pick up Nat and Sam, and turn around again, but it thrums through him anyway: what if we're already too late?

Of the three of them, Natasha is the most calm; she spends a good part of the flight in conversation with Nakia, discussing the best angles of approach, the various teams they can put together and the pros and cons of each. If she's feeling hopeful, she has it tamped down hard; her voice is as steady and even as ever.

For his part, Sam sticks with Steve, keeping him from falling prey to swirling worries and impatience. They stay busy by taking inventory of every thing that might possibly be useful in the jet, by fiddling with Redwing's controls, trying to get the most out of its range.

When they land, King T'Challa, Nakia, and Okoye are there to great them; Sam and Natasha head off with the king, already speaking low and fast, but Steve waves them off.

"I'll get him," he insists, when T'Challa offers to send a Dora down to the hut by the lake. "Start without us; we'll be right there."

He's hardly finished and doesn't wait for T'Challa's nod of acquiescence before he's heading at top speed for the hut by the lake, arriving slightly out of breath before he knocks.

"Buck? You here?"

He’d been right; he hadn’t been able to sleep. Instead, Bucky had taken the time to wash his hair, and to shave, thinking through possibilities and angles all the while.

He does finally lie down, staring at the roof of the hut, only to be on his feet the instant he hears Steve’s voice.

“I’m here.” He pulls the door open and looks at his best friend. “Thanks for coming.”

The hut by the lake has been a quiet, grim place for the last few weeks. If Steve had been haunted by memories of laughter and games and warm candlelight, he could only imagine how it must have gnawed on his best friend. He's not sure what to expect when the door opens: Bucky had been exhausted and drawn this morning; had been wild and insistent during their short call.

It's a relief beyond words to see the freshly-washed and shaved man who opens the door, and if Bucky's eyes aren't quite as clear as Steve might want, at least they've lost the hopeless bleakness that's all he's seen in them lately. "I couldn't have stayed away," he says, honestly, and draws his best friend in for a brief but crushing hug.

"Sorry I'm late. I ended up going all the way back to pick up Sam and Nat; they refused to be left out of it, once they heard."

“I’m glad they’re here.” He pulls back from the hug and looks at him. “Did T’Challa tell you? Looks like the recording was faked. Shuri took a closer look at it.”

Steve looks a little abashed.

"I came down here as soon as we landed," he admits. "But he was saying something about Shuri to Sam and Nat – that must have been it."

He gives Bucky a close look. "She's sure? It's definitely been tampered with?"

“She couldn’t tell for sure,” he admits. “Unless she found something else since I left. But she spotted some things that looked suspicious.”

Bucky’s voice is low and taut. “I’m not crazy, Steve. I’m not gone around the bend on this. There’s a chance, and we have to take it. I have to take it.”

Steve shakes his head. "I don't think you're crazy, Buck."

He manages a slight smile. "Hell, I came after you once before on less, remember? If there's a snowflake's chance in hell, we're taking it. Come on."

He tilts his head toward the Citadel. "T'Challa's gathering everybody together. Time to come up with a plan."

“Yeah, I do. It’s a pretty vivid memory,” Bucky tells him, managing a smile. “Let’s go.”

They don’t lose any time getting up to the Citadel, and Bucky leads the way to the planning room.

“By the way,” he tells Steve, “be ready. T’Challa suggested pulling Everett Ross in.”

"Everett Ross?" Steve says as they walk into the room, with mixed surprise and chagrin. "Why the hell – "

"Because he knows Madripoor, Captain," says T'Challa, rising from his seat. At the table, Nat smothers a tiny smile. "He knows the mission. And he knows Sharon Carter and her methods." The king of Wakanda gestures to two empty seats at the table. On either side of his, Nakia and Okoye watch, tense and anxious.

"Shuri is in the lab, making preparations," he explains as he sits back down. "But will join us by conference call."

Bucky pats Steve on the shoulder and walks to the further chair. He nods to Sam, then meets Natasha’s eye. There’s a grateful expression in his.

Once everyone is seated, T'Challa taps on a Kimoyo bead and one of the empty chairs fills with a hologram of Shuri, seated in the lab.

"I am grateful to you all for being here," T'Challa begins, looking around the table and meeting each person's gaze with his own level on. "We have reason to believe that ex-SHIELD Director Nick Fury has lied to us all and that our friend Sharon Carter is in fact alive and possibly in danger in Madripoor. Shuri?"

Shuri nods and the air above the center of the table fills with a frozen image taken from the security camera recording. At his side, Nakia flinches, her hand tightening on the arm of her chair until he takes it gently in his. She gives him a grateful glance and he smiles, slightly, before turning to the others, who are studying the image. Natasha Romanoff alone seems unmoved by fear or worry – she is practiced at hiding her emotions and putting them aside for later, he notes.

From her seat in the lab, Shuri tells them: "I have isolated several areas of the recording which seem to have been tampered with, and while I can't say with 100% certainty that this image is fake... there are enough discrepancies to make me believe it is."

He’s still wearing the prototype arm that Shuri had coaxed him into testing earlier in the day, which he realizes as his left hand clenched tight. Bucky forces himself to flatten his fingers against the tabletop, his glance settling on Natasha as Sam speaks.

“But why?” Sam looks around. “Thought Fury was one of the good guys?”

"He is," Nat murmurs, before meeting James' gaze unflinching. "For the most part."

He found out about James and Sharon, somehow. He must have. It's the only explanation. "Probably he wanted to avoid something exactly like this happening if we got word that something had gone wrong and she was in danger."

She'd said we but everyone around this table knows exactly who Fury would have wanted to keep away from Sharon and Madripoor. Sam glances at James, then shakes his head.

"That's cold, man."

It's Steve who answers. "The why doesn't matter right now," he says, firm. "All that matters is what we're gonna do about it." He looks at T'Challa, who nods.

"Agreed," he says. "And I think we all know exactly what we are going to do: we will go to Madripoor and find Sharon Carter... if she lives."

Edited 2021-09-12 22:55 (UTC)

Of course it would be Natasha who saw so quickly to the heart of it; to the reason for it. After all, the two of them have been here before, in their own way. His eyes meet hers again, and they trade a long look in silence, each of them aware of their own memories.

"That was a mistake," he murmurs - to her, to the absent Sharon, to anyone who might care. His glance flicks to Steve and T'Challa in turn.

"Yes. We have to. Not just for her sake, although everyone here knows what I think about that. But because Fury doesn't get to pull a stunt like this, endangering someone who laid her life on the line time after time for SHIELD and the cause it served. If she's alive --"

He forces his voice not to crack on the words. He can't afford to let emotion rule him.

"--if she's alive, then she's cut off from everyone but him. That's not acceptable. We have to get her out."

A beat of silence falls. He lets it hang in the air before he breaks it. "As far as planning goes, I've already told T'Challa that the Winter Soldier is known in Madripoor. We can use that."

Only after he says it does he let his glance return to Steve.

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