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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Bucky strides after her, to all appearances ignoring the frantic activity around him, although someone who knows him well can see that he's taking in every nuance. Once they reach the medical suite, he goes to stand by the table and looks down at the arm. He glances at the prototype he's wearing, then down at the new arm, and his eyebrows rise.

"You've done a lot."

"We have been working on this for a long time now," she tells him, and directs him to lie down so she can begin detaching the prototype arm. "This design is a culmination of that work."

"Well, it looks great," Steve says, sincerely. He's taken up a position nearby but out of the way, while T'Challa has turned back into the lab proper to direct several attendants with their arms full of items towards the train platform. "Thank you again, Princess. We'd be sunk without you."

She waves him off, impatient as she works. "I should have seen it sooner," she mutters. "That is the last time I will believe a recording sent from Nicholas Fury."

He remains perfectly still as he lies on the table, a near-lifetime of training taking over while she works.

"Don't blame yourself," Bucky tells her -- tells them both. "Fury's a good liar."

The acid bitterness in his tone could etch steel.

She nods, but it's tight. She could have seen it, she knows, but she hadn't wanted to watch the explosion over and over, to see her friend go from alive and well to gone in an instant over and over.

"He is," Steve Rogers agrees, from behind her. The leashed anger in his voice is at least a little soothing: he doesn't blame her and neither does the White Wolf, who lies carefully still as her fingers fly over his arm and shoulder joint. She removes the prototype and sets it aside, then begins making the necessary adjustments to the joint itself.

(It's difficult to do this without hearing Sharon's jokes about the things she should add to the design, without seeing the brightness in her eyes each time the White Wolf said it was a little better.)

"I have kept the design simple," she tells him as she works, "but there are several elements that may be useful. An EMP in the palm, compartments which will hide anything from a metal detector."

"Thank you." Very quietly. He doesn't even glance at his shoulder as she works, not at first -- but after a moment it's almost as though he realizes he should, and he turns his head to study what she's doing.

"It's kind of elegant," he says, after a moment. "Trying to dress me up, Princess?"

It's the first joke he's aimed for in weeks.

"Me?" she says, smiling slightly through the pang as she takes in his washed hair and shaved face. "Well, perhaps. She has not seen you in weeks; we will try to help you make a good impression, yes?"

Behind her, Steve Rogers' expression is going through a complicated series of changes, from worried to something nearly sore as a corner of his mouth tugs. She thinks she understands how he feels: this is the most the White Wolf has sounded like himself since...

Well. Before. "Captain, will you please lift the new arm for me?" she asks, and he nods in instant acquiescence, lifting it easily from its bed of foam to lay it next to Bucky on the bed.

"I'll do my best," he promises, and holds himself immobile as Steve sets the new arm down beside him.

"Think she'll yell at me for not coming to look for her before this?"

He hopes she does. He hopes she's alive to do so.

"Maybe you should bring some flowers, just in case," Steve tells him, doing his best to join in on the light joking as Shuri manipulates the arm to the socket, where it connects automatically. She steps away to tap at her tablet, then looks at Bucky.

"Please sit up, White Wolf," she tells him. "And rotate the arm at the shoulder to make sure the connections are complete."

"Might be hard to reconcile with the cover," Bucky says, dryly. "The Winter Soldier's not really a flowers kind of guy."

With a few notable exceptions, none of which have any place here.

He swings his feet to the ground and sits straight, first shrugging his shoulder, then getting to his feet and swinging it through a full rotation.

Plates shuffle with the ruffling ease of a bird's feathers or a fish's scales, and Bucky flexes and moves each joint from shoulder to fingertip with a smooth, deft motion that perfectly mimics that of a flesh-and-blood arm.

"It's perfect."

She is more critical, having him move through a series of motions and positions to test the arm before she is satisfied.

"Good," she says, then purses her lips and moves away to touch a cabinet, revealing a shallow drawer. She reaches in and pulls out a small object. "Not flowers," she tells Bucky, then turns and walks over to him, opening her palm to reveal the gold bracelet that contains Sharon's suit.

"Bring this for her instead."

He stares down at in silence for a few seconds before he takes it from her hand, closing his fingers around it with great care.

"I will," he murmurs, and looks up at Shuri. "We'll bring her back. I won't stop until we're sure... one way or another."

There's an old, old ache that pangs at Bucky's words, at the look on his face. They've talked through it, and it's been so long, but there are times when Steve is right back there on the train, staring at the yawning chasm below, feeling so desperate the only thing that kept him from pitching himself off to follow was the mission they had to complete.

He'd let it happen once. Never again. Never again.

He waits until Bucky looks to him, then nods, firmly. "We won't stop," he says. "We'll find out what happened. And we'll bring her home."

"We will." It's affirmation and understanding all in two words. Bucky tucks the bracelet into an inner pocket and comes to stand by Steve, touching him on the arm.

"So we better get going, huh?"

"Not yet, White Wolf," Shuri tells him, and goes to another drawer, taking out a long flat box.

"You will need something more protective to wear. Take this, change on the flight if you wish to leave now."

Bucky turns to look at her in visible surprise, then comes to take the box from her. He balances it easily in his left hand, studies it for a second, then flips the top open and lets out a low whistle.

"Give me a second," he tells them, and goes to the small changing room located on the side of the medical suite.

When he steps back out, he's wearing the new body armor.

Steve smiles and even Shuri looks pleased. "Looking sharp, old man," he says, coming to pat Bucky on the shoulder before he turns to Shuri.

"Thank you again, Princess. I hope we'll be calling soon with good news."

She flutters her hand at them, smiling wryly. "Go," she says. "Go! So you can come back all the sooner."

Steve tosses a quick salute her way and nods to Bucky. "Okay. Let's go."

He moves to Steve's left side, unthinking, as though he'd never been anywhere else, and walks with him back into the main lab. T'Challa turns to look at them, and his eyebrows rise slightly before he gives a sharp nod.

"I see my sister has been busy. Good." He beckons to one of the technicians, who brings over an oddly-shaped package that she holds out to Steve as T'Challa continues. "She made this for me a couple of years ago, after seeing news coverage of Captain America -- it does not work well with the way I fight, but I think you might find it useful."

Steve gives him a close look, then accepts the package and lays it carefully on a table before opening it. When he does, his eyebrows go up and he looks from the thing in the package to T'Challa, then to Bucky, before reaching in.

A shield. Not like hi – not like the shield Howard had made for him, but a shield nonetheless. He straps it to his left forearm and rotates his wrist, and whistles, low and impressed, as the shield expands, arrow-shaped and gleaming.

"This'll work," he says, and looks back at T'Challa. "Thank you, your highness."

"You are welcome," T'Challa tells him, and hands them both the tiny distance-communications buttons. Bucky adheres his to the spot at his ear first, so that Steve can see where it goes, then nods to the king of Wakanda.

"We're ready when you are."

Steve mirrors Bucky, applying his comm button, then nods, twisting his wrist again to retract the shield.

T'Challa gestures towards the train. "Then let us go," he says, somehow just as calm and polite as ever, despite the way Steve feels as though he's humming with impatience.

"Nakia will meet us with Mr. Wilson and Ms. Romanoff at the flyer," T'Challa tells them as they head back to the train. "Agent Ross is on his way to rendezvous and will meet us at a pre-determined point outside the city. We will use the flight to plan our approach."

"Uh-huh. I notice," Bucky starts, as he moves back to his usual spot and keeps an eye on the train's windows, "that you didn't tell Ross about who he's going to be working with."

T'Challa keeps his expression carefully martialed as he stands, swaying gently with the motion of the speeding train. "I did not think it would be productive," he admits, without a shred of guilt.

"It would have been his duty to not only refuse to help but also to attempt to apprehend and arrest not only you, White Wolf, but Captain Rogers and the others as well."

Peaceably, he adds: "Ms. Romanoff and I agreed that she would instruct her sister not to offer any sensitive information until they arrive."

The corner of his mouth twitches in something that might once have been a smile.

"Probably a good idea." He shakes his head. "Well, he didn't arrest Sharon before, so I guess we'll see. If nothing else, we nefarious criminals can vanish after the op if that'd help."

"Is this going to cause problems for you?" Steve asks, but T'Challa shrugs him off.

"Only if Agent Ross is not the man I judge him to be," he says, calm but firm. "In fact, I suspect it may prove the opposite. He had hoped to use our work in finding and removing the weapons smugglers to legitimize Ms. Carter once again; I believe he will see the benefits to working alongside a team of this caliber."

Agent Ross is a man who will change his mind when proven wrong; T'Challa has seen it before. "Please do not concern yourself over it, Captain."

"Besides," Bucky tells Steve, "He was mostly pissed at you before for screwing up the JTTF op to get me, right? What with the Accords and all." He's careful to not let his true disdain for the Sokovia Accords show through, mindful of the fact that T'Challa's father had been a strong supporter.

"Maybe this mission could show that the Avengers - the secret ones, I mean, you and Natasha and Sam - can work with others just fine. Without the Accords."

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