DISCLAIMER: I don't own Marvel or any of its characters.
Sam - After Lagos
The four Avengers are silent on their ride back to the U.S. Natasha's flying the Quinjet, and Sam, Wanda and Steve are strapped in behind her.
Wanda studies the floor, her hands folded firmly in her lap. What she does with her hands, Sam's noticed, is indicative of her moods (It's really strange what you notice when you spend hours in a Quinjet with someone; after consecutive hours spent flying around with the other Avengers, Sam's learned to read them pretty well). When she's relaxed or happy, they're always in motion, and he can see the red glow that means she's playing with her rather vaguely defined powers. When she is stressed or upset, they are always completely still.
He wonders how she Wanda will ultimately react to what happened. She's young, she has not been fighting on the team for very long, and she's the only current Avenger aside from Vision who had no previous experience fighting before joining the Avengers - and Vision likes to stay out of fights, if he can. Sam's pretty sure that this is her first time seeing collateral damage first-hand, with the exception of Sokovia, most of which she was not responsible for at all. This time, she pretty much caused the deaths of those people in Lagos, and she doesn't seem to be dealing with it well. He knows she's always been worried about making mistakes.
Steve hasn't even tried to speak to her. Over the past year, he's been instrumental in helping Wanda learn how to understand and curb her power - not because Steve himself understands it, but because he understands feeling lost. At least, that's what he's told Sam, although Sam hasn't seen and can't envision a time when Cap didn't know exactly where his moral compass was pointing and wasn't following it.
At the moment, Steve is also unresponsive. Sam didn't hear the entire conversation between Steve and Rumlow, but he knows that Barnes was mentioned. Lately the search for that particular person has grown completely cold; Steve refuses to give up, but Sam's convinced they'll never find the guy. He's begun to think that maybe Barnes is dead, whether by his own hand or someone else's. If he isn't, he sure does know how to hide.
At any rate, he knows the debriefing isn't going to be fun.
Wanda - A few hours later, Avengers facility
She's listening to every word that they all say as they argue over the thick document in Steve's hands. But she doesn't join in the discussion. She hears them, but her mind is far away. There are images planted in her brain, images of dead people who'd never done anyone any harm, who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Wakandans in Lagos, her parents in Sokovia. What is the difference?
When she was very young, she never wanted to hurt anybody. She just wanted to survive, to be happy. But life was never fated to be that way for her.
Everything that she cared about was taken from her. It started when she was little, when things she loved had to be sold so that they could eat. Then her parents died. Now Pietro is dead, and she is still grieving him, although she has hidden that from everyone.
Well, almost everyone. You can't hide things from an omnipotent being. Oddly enough, she's never minded Vision knowing what she was thinking, because it also means that he knows what not to say to her. Everyone else means well, but sometimes they say things she doesn't want to hear.
Besides Vision, Steve is the only member of the team that seems to really care about her, aside from Clint. But Clint's retired, and Steve is spending less time with her now that she can handle herself competently in the field. So she's found herself leaning on Vision more than on anyone else.
Grief and anger have always been her constant companions. Over the years, they helped fuel her, helped drive her. But guilt is a new and different feeling; whatever Steve says, it is in part her fault that those Wakandans died in Lagos.
So as they all sit and talk, she wars with herself mentally. If it were not for what happened in Lagos, she would never sign. Tony and James Rhodes can't see it; they have never had to be under a government that was too controlling, or they wouldn't even consider it. Americans. They would always rather give up their civil liberty so that they can feel safe. They have not considered the impact of these laws on the rest of the world, for the people that don't live in the ivory towers like Stark and the rest of the Avengers. Ever since S.H.I.E.L.D. was dismantled and their records spilled onto the Internet, the world has known that there are plenty of other enhanced people in the world besides the Avengers, living quietly among their families and friends. With this law, all that would end, and whether they liked it or not all those people would either have to agree to be under the government's close scrutiny 24/7 or else be jailed.
Still, as much as she might hate the idea of the Accords, Lagos did happen, and she is responsible, no matter what Steve says. And yet what if these laws had been in place then? They still would have been in Lagos because Rumlow would still have been there, and she would have done the exact same thing she did then. What difference does signing a piece of paper make? It does not bring back those who have died, and it does not help anyone else in the future that will be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She looks at Tony, and she sees the same guilt in his eyes that she feels roiling inside her chest but ten times magnified, can practically feel it emanating from him, even without using her power. That's why he will sign, because he feels guilty for the mistakes that he has made.
But the battles will still have to be fought, will they not? Accords or no Accords, there will always be threats to fight. Stark is deceiving himself if he thinks that he wouldn't have completely ignored the laws and built Ultron anyway if they'd been in place then, just like he ignored Bruce's warnings and deceived the rest of the team. He is the kind of man that acts first and thinks later.
Even after the discussion has ended, after Steve and Sam have gone to pack for their flight to London and Stark has gone to inform General Ross of the decision that everyone else has come to, she sits alone in the common room. Every time she feels justified in deciding she should not sign, she remembers the image of the dead Wakandans in Lagos, and feels overwhelmed by her guilt.
Sharon - Two days later, London
When Aunt Peggy's mind started to crack, Sharon knew that she was close to the end. Even when her body started to fail, her mind was always as sharp as a whip.
And then...it wasn't.
Aunt Peggy used to hate reminiscing, but when she became bedridden and entered the early stages of dementia, that was almost all she did. Every time Sharon visited her, Peggy would talk at length about her past missions, her married life, World War II...and Steve.
The world has been hearing about Steve ever since his presumed death in the 1940's as a war hero, as the first super-person, as Captain America, as the man in the red, white and blue. But Sharon has grown up at her aunt's knee learning about him as Steve Rogers, a brave, empathetic, loyal man who would always and only do what he thought was right. Of course she'd fallen in love with him a little - okay, a lot; one could hardly do anything else, if they heard the way Aunt Peggy talked about him. At the age most little girls dreamed of Prince Charming, Sharon dreamed of Captain America; he was her hero. But he was no more real to her than Prince Charming; he was an ideal, a character, someone so legendary they might as well be a myth.
But then Steve Rogers was discovered to be alive, which made everything a great deal more confusing; suddenly the man of her childhood dreams and the ideal to which she unconsciously compared any man was not a character in a story, but a real flesh-and-blood person. Sharon still has a vivid memory of being at Aunt Peggy's house one day and seeing Steve show up for a visit. Apparently this happened regularly, but that was yet another thing that slipped Aunt Peggy's mind, so Sharon hadn't known. She'd taken care not to disturb the two of them at the time, made sure Steve hadn't seen her there.
She wasn't sure if it was irony when she was assigned by the S.H.I.E.L.D. director, Nick Fury, to "keep an eye" on Steve when he moved into an apartment in Brooklyn. She lived next door to him for a few months, until that fateful week when Nick Fury died, S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, and HYDRA was uncovered all at once. Maybe it's crazy, but amidst all that, Sharon's clearest memory is that one time Captain America asked her out.
Now she's starting to think irony is a bitch. Aunt Peggy has died, quite suddenly; neither Sharon nor anyone else was aware of her condition worsening, but one morning one of her caretakers found her in her bed, lifeless. Sharon remembers hearing the news of her death and feeling incredibly lost. She loves her parents fiercely, but Aunt Peggy was her inspiration, the reason that she does what she does.
Aunt Peggy was her role model, the one she's looked up to for years. Ever since she was little, when Aunt Peggy would see her, she would take Sharon by the hand and make her sit down and say, "Tell me what happened to you today, Sharon." She told Sharon in later years that she saw the makings of an agent in her, the same spirit that she herself had had as a young girl.
Even days before her death, Aunt Peggy's mind was never completely lost. There was always a time, every now and then, when Sharon would see her return to her normal state of mind. Her eyes would clear, and her hand would grasp Sharon's, and she would always say, "Tell me what happened to you today, Sharon." And she would listen attentively to the answer, sometimes for hours.
One thing that Sharon never discussed with her was her assignment regarding Steve. At first, it was because she couldn't figure out how to say it. But as time went on and, and she had to listen every time Aunt Peggy talked about her latest visit with Steve, she began to feel that it would be incredibly unfair to make her aunt keep that secret from him. She wasn't sure what the two of them talked about during their hours together, but she did know that Aunt Peggy was no longer holding back, that she was finally telling Steve everything, all the things she couldn't say to him for years and years and years.
Now she will have to see his face, speak to him, in just a few hours. The strangeness of the situation is almost too much for her, but so is its inevitability. There is nothing normal about a man being frozen for 70 years and then returning to life, and consequently there can be nothing normal about the way she feels for him.
Now here she is, dressed in black and clutching a small sheath of notes in her hand, sitting in a pew in the empty church, waiting for the hours to pass before the funeral service begins. She will miss Aunt Peggy, but she knows better than to wish her back. Those few times when her aunt had her wits about her, she always expressed her hatred of her confinement in her old, useless body, her desire to be free of it. Sharon wouldn't wish her back in that misery for the world.
Natasha - A few hours later, Vienna
A funeral in the morning, a death in the afternoon. She can feel that the evening will bring with it something much, much worse.
Natasha stands alone several feet away from the still smoking building, watching the activity numbly. Miraculously, she was untouched, unhurt. It's been hours since the attack, and everyone can be helped has been helped; and the twelve people who could not, including the king, have all been taken away. And Prince T'Challa - soon to be King T'Challa - is grieving, hurting and angry. And he is on the move.
Her chest is heavy with foreboding. If she was on her own, she probably wouldn't sign the Accords; the very idea of answering to the US government, let alone Ross, rankles her. But the Avengers, such as they are after Clint and Tony's retirement, need to stay together, and Tony's right when he says that they need to pull their punches. Part of that is playing nice for now, and anyway, Tony's not going to change his mind.
But then again, neither will Steve. She should have expected from the beginning that Steve wouldn't sign; he's become incredibly disillusioned and trusts the U.S. government even less than she does herself since S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. But this will not end well. It can't. And both Steve and Tony are too blind to see that. Both Steve's voice on the other end of the line when she mentioned Barnes and he asked if she'd arrest him, and Tony's face when Steve argued against him are stuck in her mind, worrying her. Neither one of them are going to give an inch, and this whole thing is going to turn into a shitstorm.
James Barnes couldn't possibly have picked a worse time to blow up the U.N. if he'd tried.
People are noticing her presence now, recognizing her; she's been in one place for too long. So she walks to her car, showing nothing as she always does, because there are now cameras pointed at her and voices calling to her. She ignores them all, as she always does, and doesn't break countenance until the car door is closed and they're moving away.
Bucky - Several days later, Berlin
He never got the fucking plums.
Sometimes, he's noticed, it's easier to focus on the nonsensical things. The little things. Now that he can remember so much of what's happened to him over the last few months (...wait, no, not months...it feels like months, but in reality, it's been decades….) he can remember being strapped to the chair, waiting for the procedure to happen, and thinking of the smallest things because that's what his mind could grab onto to keep him from being swallowed up by his terror. Now here he sits, locked in an impenetrable box, surrounded by guns and men and metal, and so he does it again.
He's got a dirty secret: he's a coward at heart. It's why he's been running for all this time even though he knows Steve has been trying to find him. It's why he never entered a fight, in the old days, without there being a high likelihood of him coming out on top. Steve was his best friend, but he was never like Steve; Steve would stand up to anyone, no matter how big they were.
Anyway. Plums. He likes them, he's discovered. He doesn't remember if he ever ate them back in Brooklyn. There's a difference between eating in his life then and eating in his life now. He chooses what he eats; he doesn't have to worry about not affording it. His first attempt at buying something had been very unsettling - things are so different now; there are fewer people involved in the process and more machines, and things are shinier, and faster. He can't keep up.
He's lost too much damn time. For him, a few months have passed since his presumed death, a few months have been spent in the living hell that was HYDRA; falling from the train is, for him, a memory of only several weeks past. But for the rest of the world, it's been over seven decades.
Sometimes he wonders what it was like for Steve. Was he this disoriented, this surprised, at everything he saw when he woke? What did he think of the world? Did he take it in stride?
Steve, the man he used to know better than he knew himself, is now an enigma. Bucky pictures the man whose face he saw not five minutes ago. What internal battles is that man fighting right now? What does he see in this new, harsh world that they're in now?
Maybe Bucky would know, if he wasn't a coward, if he'd let Steve find him.
Then again, whose fault is it exactly that he's locked in this goddamn box? Maybe if Steve hadn't been there, he could've gotten out faster and that other guy, whoever he was, wouldn't have caught up to him. Bucky knows that isn't true, that even if he hadn't gotten caught that time, he was going to get caught eventually because he was just so tired of running, but he can't help but blame Steve just a little.
Clint - A few hours later, undisclosed location
The Accords? Ha.
Nat knew when she called him that he wouldn't sign, that he wouldn't even consider it. If he did, he'd be subjecting his family life to scrutiny, and there's no way he's letting that happen. He'd finally thought that he was done with all this Avenging crap, that he could spend his life with his wife and his children, like a normal husband and father, that they could lead a happy domestic life. He was perfectly fine with that; he didn't miss the glory, like Tony would; nor the battles, like Steve would. Everything that he loved and that he valued was right here, with him.
Well, that was apparently a pipe dream.
Laura is asleep, and Clint's suiting up in his basement. If he's lucky, he'll be back home in a few days. This fourth pregnancy is killing Laura, and so he's decided not to wake her up, as much as he wants to. He leaves her a note and a kiss instead. He hates leaving her and the kids, he always has. But he's needed, and as much as he wants to tell the Avengers to fight their own damn battles without involving him, he has to be there for Wanda. He will always have to be there for her, because there's no other way to repay the debt he owes her brother.
He unlocks his safe in the basement and retrieves his bow and quiver, snapping his string as he does so. "Hello, old friends," he mutters. "Looks like we'll be having some fun again."
"A note, Clint?"
He's losing his edge; he hadn't heard Laura's approach. She steps into the light of the single bulb on the basement ceiling. "Really?"
"Didn't want to wake you," he says, giving her a kiss. "Duty calls."
She gives him that sad half-smile of hers. "So much for being retired, huh?"
"It's Wanda," he says, by way of explanation.
Understanding floods Laura's face; he'd told her all about Pietro's death a long time ago. "Of course," she says. "Of course, you have to go."
"If it were anyone else, Laura, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves."
"No you wouldn't," she says firmly. "And I wouldn't want you to, either. For better or worse, you are one of them. You can retire, but you'll never really be done."
He kisses her again. "Whatever you say, boss. Tell the kids I'm sorry we couldn't go water-skiing."
"I will," says Laura. "Come back safe, honey."
"Of course," he says. "I'll see you in a few days."
"I love you," she says.
"I love you," he answers.
