Chapter Text
This close to the window wall, T’Challa could almost feel the coolness of the glass. He watched the wind rake through the jungle foliage outside, and the indifference with which the leaves resettled into their familiar patterns.
How often had his father stood in this precise spot, contemplating the responsibilities forged into the symbol of kingship upon his finger?
The snick of the latch opening bid him turn to greet his most welcome visitor. “W’Kabi.”
T’Challa found himself offering at least a faint echo of W’Kabi’s ready smile. Although they were a handful of years apart, they had forged a friendship in the schoolroom. And on the training field in conversations that filled the air with their thoughts as their sweat dried.
His mind flashed an image of Rogers and Barnes, helping each other through the snow. Would T’Challa’s own bond with W’Kabi strengthen or fail in the crucible of peril and adversity?
As king, he could only hope that Wakanda would be spared such a test.
W’Kabi prowled to his side before offering a bow. “Majesty.”
T’Challa twitched his hand, the gesture pushing air as he meant to push away the barrier of rank between them. In looks, they held some similarity, short hair and tall, strong builds. Stubborn chins and watchful eyes.
He would need W’Kabi’s watchful eyes even more in the coming weeks. “My friend, what news?”
“Preparations are under way to mark your father’s passing and your own ascension to the throne.” Brows lowered in one of W’Kabi’s rare frowns. “There is much talk in the marketplace, of T’Chaka…and T’Challa.”
T’Challa tilted his head in invitation.
W’Kabi pivoted slightly to face him more fully. T’Challa would call his gaze considering. “T’Chaka is properly lauded as the king who made Wakanda take her first steps into the world. And mourned as those steps led to the end of his own journey.”
A dozen unformed thoughts, shaded dark with grief, passed through T’Challa’s mind faster than the zephyrs darted through the fronds. “That is no more than deserving.”
A grimace further twisted W’Kabi’s features. “Less respectful are the speculations about what you, T’Challa, deserve.”
T’Challa’s shoulders tightened under his tunic. He had suspected as much, but confirmation did not sit lightly upon him. “As reward or punishment?”
“You have earned no reward.” The blunt assessment was delivered with the cast of W’Kabi’s eyes to his. “Your pursuit of the wrong man is the source of much discussion. Along with your failure to deliver justice to the true killer of our king.”
W’Kabi lifted a shoulder. “Both your wisdom and your will are called into question.”
T’Challa considered. Should he confide to W’Kabi the tale of his confrontation with Zemo? His own decision to step off the path of vengeance after witnessing so painful a lesson in its cost?
Instead he lifted his chin. “By M’Baku?” It seemed the ambitious warrior lurked like a serpent, hissing invective and darting out with poisonous bites upon the unwary.
“His voice is the loudest.” W’Kabi shook his head. “But he is not alone in…expressing concern. The coming weeks will be a test for you, my friend.”
W’Kabi dared take the steps laid in their youth, rested a hand familiar with the shape of T’Challa’s shoulder. His gaze reflected the weight of his own thoughts. “Take care that you do not fail or falter. For all will be watching to see if the son of T’Chaka is worthy of our great king’s legacy—and the Black Panther’s power.”
********
Steve removed the locking device from the panel and pocketed it as the door to Wanda’s cell slid open.
Wanda hadn’t moved from where the soldiers dumped her on the bunk. Steve’s gut clenched at the familiar sight of a bully’s victim. But this was so much worse. He knew Wanda. Knew what she had suffered and overcome to take her place on the Avengers. And here she was—confined in ways that would spark shouts of outrage if a dog had been found trussed up and shock-collared.
He glanced at Sam and Clint. He’d given them a brief sit-rep on what he’d witnessed on the camera feeds. The bulge of muscle at Clint’s jaw and the whitened knuckles of his fists matched the glint of anger in his eyes.
Sam’s gaze was that of the counselor he'd been. More assessing, taking in Wanda and the cell before giving a nod. They were following his lead on this. “I know that we’re on the clock, but let’s take this as slowly as we can. Steve, you go first—maybe she’ll be more responsive to someone she knows was still on the outside.”
With a quick breath, Steve squared his shoulders and moved forward. He dropped to his knees and settled back on his heels. This close, Wanda’s…diminishment shocked. The blankness of her eyes, the pallor of her skin and slackness of her expression. The pallor that put her skin somewhere on a palette of gray, unhealthy tones. The frailty that seemed to shade the air around her. “Wanda? Can you hear me? It’s Steve—I’m here with Bucky, Natasha, Maria, and a new friend, Sharon. We’re breaking everyone out. Scott, Sam, and Clint are already free.”
Sam leaned against the doorway, keeping a watch on the area as he waved Clint into the cell. “That’s right, Wanda. Clint and I got the primo gig of helping you bust outta here.”
“Hey.” Clint’s voice softened along with his expression as he eased a knee onto the end of the bunk. “How you doin’?”
Wanda continued to stare.
Steve remembered empty gazes. A war’s worth of them. Men curled tight or sprawled lax, looking into remembered horrors or escaping to more pleasant times. His fists clenched in familiar helplessness. So many battles, so many aftermaths. Where those men went, no one could really follow.
But here and now, they’d do what they could to reach Wanda. He glanced over his shoulder. “Sam, think we can get her out of the restraints?”
“Go slow, and talk to her the whole way.” Sam’s eyes hardened. “Get that damn jacket off first.”
Clint nodded, pulled gloves out of his waistband and slid them on. He put one finger on Wanda’s shoulder to ease her forward. “Just shiftin’ you a little. Gotta get at the back to get at the buckles.”
Wanda lolled toward the floor. Steve leaned forward—practically leapt forward—catching her arms to prevent her from tumbling off the bunk.
She pitched and settled, all of her weight obeying gravity and pressing on his hands. But she felt like hardly anything at all in his grip, more ghost than the complex young woman he’d come to know. Part of him wanted to hug her, tug Wanda close and let her know that she was with them and safe. Part of him wanted to shake her, wake her from this spell.
Instead Steve waited, watching the material at Wanda’s shoulders slacken as Clint worked his way down the fasteners. Clint’s frustration erupted in half-heard curses as he tugged and adjusted.
Steve glanced at Sam, then beyond into the room. The darkness somehow seemed more oppressive here, in Wanda’s personal prison of solitude and silence.
As Sam glanced into the cell, he caught Steve's gaze and tightened his grip on his weapon. Perhaps also feeling the sense of oppression.
With a last grunt, Clint rolled into an upright position at Wanda’s side. He laid fingertips—so gently, so lightly—on Wanda’s shoulder. “Ready?”
Steve nodded and eased Wanda back to sitting. “We’re going to take off the straitjacket now.”
He set his hands under Wanda’s forearms, lifting them up and forward one at a time to loosen the long sleeves bound around her body.
He kept watch for any sign of discomfort—any sign of anything at all—as he accepted the edges of the straitjacket from Clint. He pulled slowly until Wanda’s arms flopped free onto her lap.
“Damn.”
Sam’s curse could have come from his own mouth. Wanda’s hands, her wrists shone with a layer of sweat and funk that came from being trapped inside. Like the people he'd seen in the hospital after their casts were cut away. Skin somehow appearing both dehydrated and bloated, limbs limp and corpse-like under the unforgiving glare of the cell lighting.
Steve peered at the collar. The device blinked steadily, confirming it was operating normally or counting the steps of whatever cycle it followed.
He set aside the straitjacket and reached to unleash Wanda. Paused. Glanced around the cell. “Clint, Sam, step outside.”
Clint’s eyes flicked to his, awareness twisting his mouth. “If it’s the worst-case scenario, you really think that’s gonna help?”
Steve shrugged. Maybe not. But maybe it would give Sam and Clint that extra moment to get out of range—in the worst-case scenario.
Sam shuffled closer. “Wish I thought it’d be better on the jet, but fact is we can’t risk our ride, and that thing's been on her too long already.”
“Fuck.” Clint flung himself off the bunk and through the doorway. Paced ten steps, then whirled around and settled against the edge of the opening. “Hey, Wanda? Remember where you are and who you’re with, OK?”
Sam nodded and moved to mirror Clint on the other side. “Yeah, I know you’re not fond of this place but try not to punch a hole in it—or any of us. You got this.”
“We’re removing the collar.” Steve spoke for the other team members’ benefit. Knew they were pausing and bracing with escape plans in place. Hoping to avoid a breach.
He took a breath in, let it out. Let himself believe in Wanda. She was capable of so much—so much power rested in her hands.
Right now, their lives depended on her mastery of that power.
“Wanda, I know that collar is doing something—dampening your abilities, messing with your head.” Steve leaned in, let his arms drift up to run fingertips along it. No traps that he could sense.
And none that Clint saw, or he’d nix this plan in a heartbeat. “And I’m going to get you out of it. But you have to keep control, Wanda. Stay strong.”
Steve tried to catch her gaze. Failed. “We’re here for you. We’re right here with you.”
With a deep breath, Steve leaned in and pressed against the back of the collar. It clicked open and slid from around Wanda’s neck. He drew back, letting the collar hang from his fingertips as he watched. They watched.
Steve waited a heartbeat. Two, five, twenty. No explosions, no red fire dancing in the air. Wanda’s eyes remained a glassy, distant brown.
The air seemed to clear. Sam and Clint stood down from red alert and entered the cell: Clint half-kneeling on the bunk and Sam taking up a position on Wanda’s other side.
Steve slowly—so slowly—moved his fingertips to Wanda’s chin. With the slightest pressure he lifted her head. Her face still declared her youth, but her eyes…
He wanted—knew that Sam and Clint also wanted—to sweep Wanda up into his arms and carry her away. Far away from the collar and the straitjacket and all it represented. Away from this little corner of hell.
But Steve also held the memory of concrete and asphalt under his cheek, grit in his palms and blood in his mouth. Understood what it was like to feel beaten, weak, helpless. To know that the only power you had was to struggle back up to your feet and prove this wasn’t the blow that would break you. He stood and reached out in invitation. “Ready to get out of here, Wanda?”
After an eternity of anxious breaths, Wanda raised her arm and slipped her hand into his. Cold, clammy, fingers still glossy and pruned. He closed his own around them. Held steady to let her work own way up. Tottering, trembling. Half-supported by Sam and Clint.
But her gaze returned to his. She was back with them. “Yes.”
********
Sharon slipped past the door, the nose of her gun leading her sweep around the room. She stepped aside to let Scott enter. “Clear.”
He moved in, wide eyes doing his own assessment. “Well, it’s not so bad. I was half expecting jars of body parts or piles of bloody rags.”
She silently agreed. The lab—it was definitely a lab. With humming equipment, test tubes, beakers, and burners, even if nothing was filled with dry ice or colored water like the TV depictions of “science” she’d grown up with.
A few steps brought her to a glass-fronted cabinet stacked with petri dishes and assay trays. Another revealed containers bearing names she half-remembered from her training to pass as a nurse. “This is definitely a biolab.”
Sharon drifted over to the equipment: Hood, thermocycler, incubator. “I think they’re doing some kind of DNA work. Definitely whole cell culturing.”
“Human?” Over the comm it sounded like Steve bit out the question.
Sharon shrugged. “Can’t tell without a slide or a report. Looks like this is a paperless office.”
Scott made a triumphant noise muffled by the lower cabinet he'd jimmied open and that his head was currently buried in. He tugged out a laptop and laid it on the counter. “Maybe this will tell us something.”
Sharon glanced at her watch. “I don’t think we have time to get this up and running to make a copy.”
“I could pull the drive.” Scott flipped the machine and scanned the bottom. “Twenty screws—this might take a while.”
“Can you just grab the thing?” Maria sounded a little less than unflappable. Sharon’s face scrunched at the wrongness.
“Is there any chance that this is bait and we’re being very cooperative mice?” Clint’s question straightened both Sharon’s and Scott’s spines as they looked around the lab with more suspicious eyes.
Natasha’s voice came through. “All computers assigned to the network are accounted for. Whatever’s on that laptop, we didn’t get it in our batch copy. I also did a couple of searches. There’s no mention in the system of science experiments, legitimate or otherwise. Starting the final erasures.”
Sharon pulled out her detector. “Resetting for tracker sweep.”
A hard restart of the device and Sharon was good to go. She moved around in a careful arc. “All clear.”
“Let’s be thankful for small favors.” Scott’s mutter seemed more reflex than anything. He caught Sharon’s eyes as he spoke to the others. “If we do this, they’ll know we know—and we’ll know they know we know—I mean—” He waggled his hand. “They’ll know we’ve been in here.”
Sharon’s jaw tightened. It would definitely cost them their carefully constructed illusions of a simple breakout.
Wanda’s voice came as a whisper of breath through the comm. “Please, if there’s the slightest chance… Don’t leave anything of me here…with them.”
Sharon nodded with Scott. “We won’t leave anything.” And they would keep that promise—no matter who was the source of the sample.
She straightened her shoulders and moved to the incubator. With a swallow, she opened the door. Tray upon tray greeted her. Sharon looked over at Scott. “Remind me how your discs affect living tissue.”
********
Steve could mark their progress in each slow, painful step. Wanda’s jaw clenched tight. Her fingers twisted Clint’s and Sam’s shirts as movement stretched muscles and shifted joints made stiff with disuse. She’d needed help getting out of the tagged clothing now slung from Steve’s shoulder in a small suppressor bag. He’d stuffed the collar in there as well. They needed to know exactly what it did to Wanda—and how to counter its effects
Another two junctions and they would reach the quinjet. Sharon and Nat already signaled the wrap-up of their assignments.
Bucky’s warning interrupted the silence. “We have movement—heading toward you from the security center.”
Footsteps sounded on the deck—faint, but clear to super soldier hearing. Steve drifted behind the others, passing off his bag to Sam on the way.
“Go.” Steve jerked his chin, signaling the others forward.
Clint pulled Wanda closer as Sam took the lead. She looked over her shoulder, holding Steve’s gaze a long moment as she limped down the corridor.
Steve pressed tight to the bulkhead, gun pointed in the direction of their pursuer.
Another moment the footsteps paused. A head ducked around the corner, drew back. Steve’s shoulders tightened at the sight of his personal Trojan Horse. Jeffrey Benson, Corporal. Twenty-three years old, four years of service. No medals, but clean records and satisfactory reports. Single. Lower-level security clearance, but enough to be assigned to the Raft.
Benson’s beret was off-center. Maybe knocked loose when he woke on the deck of the security center and rushed out to find whoever had disabled his teammates. His scalp through the close-shorn black hair caught the light in the corridor as his head reappeared. So did his pistol, aimed straight at Steve’s heart.
In his head, Steve counted the steps to the launch bay as he and Benson watched each other. “Corporal.”
“C-Captain.” The waver of Benson’s voice seemed to snap the man tighter. He lifted his arm, adjusted his grip on the pistol.
Bucky’s voice sounded in Steve’s ear. “Quinjet ready to launch. We’re closing main access doors.”
Before Steve could react, Buck proved he still had Steve’s six. “Remember, there’s a ladder to the topside hatch in the launch bay. If the main entry is twelve, you’ll find it at 4’o’clock.”
"You broke them out." It wasn't a question. Benson’s gaze seemed to linger over Steve’s shoulder as his brow furrowed. “Will she—will she be all right?”
Steve didn’t know, so he didn’t answer beyond a nod. Mainly he focused on Benson. The sweat gathering on his upper lip. The grip firm on his gun but the minute waver of the barrel. And his eyes…so uncertain and so damn young… Had Steve ever felt that young?
Steve debated, then straightened. “I had a chat with Captain Gonzalez on the way out to the launch site, Benson. He wanted a few words with you. About whether you had what it takes to do this job.”
He breathed with Benson. In, out. Remembered the endless days and nights when every breath was a battle. A victory. “I had to answer for you—told him that you would do your duty.”
Watched Benson’s eyes dart around, refocus on him. Steve offered a slow nod. “Right here and now, you get to figure out what that duty is. Following orders, or… You have choices here, Benson. You can go back to security and lie down where you were and keep our secret. You can rouse your commanders and report everything you’ve seen. Or you can try to prevent me from leaving.”
Steve set his jaw. “I won’t surrender. Not here, and not to Thaddeus Ross. So you shoot me in the back if you have to.”
With one more moment of unwavering stares, shared breaths, Steve raised his hands and turned on his heel. Began to march down the corridor. Didn’t turn his head, but listened for the betraying sound of bootsteps pounding on the deck or a trigger being pulled.
He heard nothing.
As he dropped his hands and turned a corner toward the launch area, he found Nat lounging against a bulkhead. He cocked an eyebrow. “Forget the way to the exit?”
Nat tilted her head with a hint of a grin. “Just making sure your boy made the right decision.”
She shrugged and flicked a wrist as she fell into step. “I figured a Widow’s bite and a quick trip to put Sleeping Beauty back in his bower would be quicker than dragging your heavy, bleeding ass to the jet.”
Steve swept his arm in an invitation to precede him as they reached the ladder to the top hatch. “But he surprised you.”
Nat paused with one hand on the railing and one foot on the ladder. Her eyes held something secret and warm. “No, he didn’t.”
He shook his head as he followed her up and out. The hovering quinjet stirred the air around them as Nat slammed the hatch lid.
With a shared look, he was squatting and cupping his hands. A step and boost and Nat was launching onto the lowered ramp. He leapt up a moment later.
The others greeted their arrival with tired nods.
Maria’s voice echoed through the cabin as the ramp began to lift. “You made it just in time.”
As she looked over her shoulder, Steve could see the clench of her jaw. “President Ellis’s announcement is all over the news. The Sokovia Accords are now the law of the land.”