[616] ground zero for trouble

[daughterofliberty]

"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.

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

"You have to come back. Now." Bucky has no idea how wild with hope the look in his eyes is. "Steve, she might not be dead. We have to find out."

[marvel_npc]

The look in his best friend's eyes hits him like a flurry of bullets; he looks nearly feral. "Bucky," he says, helplessly.

"I saw the recording from the security camera. I know you don't want to believe it – I don't, either – but I saw it. Sharon's gone."

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head, hair falling around his face. "It could have been faked. She might still be alive. And if she is - if she's on her own there, alone, she needs our help."

Shuri had hovered at first, worried, until he managed to coax her to leave. He glances down the hallway just to be sure, then looks back at Steve.

"I know it sounds crazy, I know. But Steve... I just came from the local. And I met someone there. From a parallel universe."

He swallows, hard.

"I met Sharon Carter."

[marvel_npc]

"... You're right," Steve says, slowly. "It does sound crazy."

But it's the local. 'Crazy' is usually the order of the day, there. "You met Sharon from a parallel universe? Are you sure?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm sure. God, Steve, I know how it sounds, I know, but I'm sure. She recognized me. And she knows you. And Natasha. And Sam, and Tony Stark, and--"

His voice hardens into flat, deadly ice.

"--Nick Fury."

[marvel_npc]

If he's being honest, he'd started calculating the return route the second Bucky said you need to come back. It's not a plea he could resist in even the best of times, and this is as far from that as a pin prick is from a black hole.

He punches in the coordinates and looks back at Bucky, frowning at the chill in his best friend's voice. "What about Fury?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"So this Sharon, this other Sharon, she told me about something that happened to her," Bucky tells him. He tries to keep his voice even; he has to sound sane. Steve's worried enough as it is, he can tell.

"She was on a long-term undercover assignment. For Fury. And evidently he was concerned about her attracting too much attention ... so he planted a bomb. And showed you a recording of her walking toward it. So you thought she was dead. And instead she was out in the cold -- for years."

He shakes his head. "I hadn't told her what happened to our Sharon. But it's too much like it. You know?"

[marvel_npc]

"Yeah," he says, slowly, mind racing.

"Yeah, it sounds pretty familiar. But, Buck – faking her death? That's pretty underhanded, even for Fury. Do you really think that's what's going on here? Why would he do that?"

Except they're talking about Nick Fury, who successfully faked his own death for years and who has lied to and manipulated Steve on more than one occasion. He thinks about the grainy security camera footage he'd seen, the way he'd felt as the explosion ripped through the scene, and his jaw sets. "Years, huh?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Yeah. Years. And I don't know, but I have to find out. If there's a chance--"

His throat tightens around the words and a humming silence sits between them.

"I have to go to Madripoor. I have to know. You see that, don't you?"

[marvel_npc]

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, Buck, I do. But you're not going anywhere without me. Just hang tight, okay? I'll be back in – "

He glances at the navigational readings. "A couple hours, if I punch it. And then we're making a plan. Okay?"

He watches Bucky intently, wishing he could reach through the screen, teleport himself back there right now, in this instant, when Bucky needs him more than ever. Steve doesn't know how likely any of this is, but it doesn't matter: Bucky's right. He'd have to go.

So Steve is going, too. "Okay?"

[nerves_of_ice]

The relief cascades through him. Steve doesn't think he's crazy. He's going to help. They're going to look for Sharon, and if they're lucky, luckier than he has any right to be--

Both of you were believed dead and lived, a tiny voice whispers. Why not her, too?

"Okay." He swallows, hard, and nods. "Okay."

His mind is already racing ahead. "Should I call Natasha? She knows the local, and Fury, and--"

[marvel_npc]

"I'll call her," Steve says, firmly. "Get her read on the situation."

He studies Bucky, the nervous energy in the way his friend holds himself, the deep shadows beneath his eyes that have gone nowhere at all ever since T'Challa came to him with the terrible news that Sharon Carter was dead.

"Talk to Shuri," he decides. "If we're going in to Madripoor, you might want to go in with whatever the best version of your arm she's got. And then – maybe try to get some rest, Buck. I know it'll probably seem impossible, but you need it."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'll talk to her," he promises. "And then I'll go back to the hut. Find me there, okay?"

He doesn't promise to rest, but Steve's not wrong, he knows. Maybe he'll try.

[marvel_npc]

"Count on it."

He gives his best friend as strong a smile as he can muster, under the circumstances. "See you soon, Buck. And then we'll get those answers."

[nerves_of_ice]

"See you soon," he echoes, unable to answer that smile, but the look in his eyes says it all.

Bucky disconnects the call and goes to the main lab to find Shuri. It's not hard, as she's settled herself at the bench nearest the corridor to the communications room, and looks up at him as he enters. "Is everything all -- has anything happened?" she amends.

"Maybe," he tells her. "I put a couple of pieces together today. Shuri, there's a chance Sharon's still alive. Steve's coming back, and then we're going to go look for her. I need whatever the best version of an arm is that you've got for me."

Shuri stares at him, stunned speechless for a moment before sympathy creeps into her expression. "Bucky." She says it so gently, so very gently. "My brother said there was evidence. He is sure. He would not have brought you this news if he were not."

"I know. I know," he tells her. "But when Nick Fury's involved, evidence like that isn't good enough."

[marvel_npc]

She thinks it is no coincidence that the White Wolf put these pieces together today, after Captain Rogers had taken his leave, but it would be cruel to say such things out loud. If he has convinced himself there is some hope in this hopeless situation, she finds she cannot be the one to take it away from him, not when there is a spark of life in him again for the first time in weeks.

"All right," she tells him, and calls up her design file. It is not complete, not perfect, but – "I must fabricate the arm; it will take some time."

But it will take Captain Rogers some time to return, also, will it not? He must be nearly back to the rest of his team by now.

But the White Wolf is nearly thrumming with the need to go, go, go, and so Shuri begins the fabrication pre-checks, starts running a final analysis of her designs so that this newest version will have everything they've determined it needs thus far, with none of the quirks or problems they've discovered.

"Would you like me to call my brother?" she asks, looking back up at him and taking him in: he is exhausted. It is more than possible this is some delusion.

T'Challa will know what to do. "I am sure he would wish to know."

[nerves_of_ice]

“I - yes,” he decides. “Call him. Nakia, too.” She’s one of Sharon’s closest friends, and she’s been mourning as well. And T’Challa needs to know, not only for help, but because if Bucky’s going to leave the sanctuary of Wakanda for this, risking exposure, Wakanda’s king has the right to be aware.

He drums his fingers against his thigh, thinking. “Steve’ll be back in a few hours. It’ll take some time to plan the reconnaissance, but your brother should know right away.”

Hold on, Sharon. We’re coming.

[marvel_npc]

“I will call my brother,” she tells him. “He may decide what to tell Nakia, until we have learned more.”

And they will; there’s a determined look on her face as she lifts her wrist and taps a bead. “Brother,” she says, a little ways from Bucky, “I need you in the lab. The White Wolf says he believes Sharon might be alive; will you come?”

On her wrist, T’Challa’s expression is one of shock, complete and entire. “I will come,” he says, when his pragmatism wins out.

“Good,” says Shuri, and then, grimly: “Send me the recording you received. I would like to give it a much closer look.”

[nerves_of_ice]

He manages to keep himself from pacing by going to Shuri's coffeepot and brewing a cup, while she talks to T'Challa and then starts muttering at something on her tablet, frowning at it as she makes adjustments to whatever it is.

Bucky stares at the coffee and focuses on marshaling his arguments for T'Challa, as well as initial plans. He can't talk about the local, not to them, so how else might he plausibly have come up with this suspicion?

Those things occupy him for several minutes, long enough for the next train to arrive from the Citadel.

[marvel_npc]

The White Wolf says he believes Sharon might be alive rings in his head over and over as he strides towards the train platform.

Nakia had watched him with a sad, shadowed glance as he kissed her forehead and told her he was going to the lab; despite the crash of desire to tell her her mourning might be in vain, that her friend might yet live, he doesn't dare.

Not yet. Not without some more solid proof. He refuses to make her lose her friend all over again, to give her hope only for it to die a second time.

He loses little time in making his way to the train; takes long, quick strides to the lab. The only thing that keeps him from running is the sinking feeling that perhaps... the White Wolf's pain has created a new delusion for him, one that will surely hurt him dreadfully once more when it dissolves.

"Shuri," he says, entering the lab. There's sympathy in his dark eyes as he looks to the other man. "White Wolf. Tell me what you have learned."

[nerves_of_ice]

Shuri waves an impatient hand at T'Challa without looking up from her tablet. "Not now," she snaps. "Five minutes."

Bucky gives her a curious look, then turns to him. "It's more of a suspicion than proof, yet," he admits, making himself meet the other man's eyes without evasion. "But I was... thinking. About how it happened. How it supposedly happened. And the thing is, T'Challa -- Fury's done this before. Hell, he faked his own death in a hospital so well that Natasha bought it. And there's no question that he's not a fan of interference with his plans. Having us think Sharon dead would ensure he had freedom from -- call it what you want. Accountability. Oversight. Interference."

[marvel_npc]

T'Challa listens in attentive silence, nodding as the White Wolf concludes. "I have had only a few dealings with Fury," he says, dryly, "but you and Ms. Carter always described him as a man for whom the ends often justified the means."

Manipulative was, he thinks, the word used. "But if she is in fact alive, why have we received no word? Surely she would not leave her friends in agony, grieving a death that never occurred?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head. "I don't know," he admits. It tears at him to think that all of this might be false hope, that she could be dead after all, but he can't let himself dwell on that. Not now.

"Maybe she tried. Or, depending on how deep undercover she is, there might not be a way for her to get word out safely."

[marvel_npc]

Despite his better judgment, he finds he himself has not truly accepted the outcome of Sharon Carter's mission to Madripoor; he is all too ready to cling to the White Wolf's reasonings.

Even if he did not count her as a friend and trusted ally on her own merit, the part of him that would stop at nothing to assuage Nakia's pain and grief is much too eager to call this vanishingly small chance a real possibility. "Shuri," he says, sharply, and looks at her.

"Four more minutes," she says, and he shakes his head.

"You have one. Tell me you've found something. Anything."

The smallest flaw or slightest inconsistency in the recording. Anything at all to give him the excuse, to call this a mission and not just the rationalization of a grieving man.

[nerves_of_ice]

Shuri makes a frustrated noise and flings her hands up, filling the air in front of them with a frozen video image. Bucky goes as still as the image hanging there before them, grainy security footage showing an explosion ballooning, showing Sharon--

The sudden ringing in his ears is so loud he almost doesn't hear Shuri say, "Look. There. Do you see?"