Legend says a malicious dragon lies coiled around the sleeping castle. But are dragons vicious beasts to be vanquished, or powerful guardians to be revered?
It makes sense, Sam thinks, that a king like T'Challa should have such a queen.
Despite what Steve says, Sam is not pining. He is not lovelorn, and he does not stare after the object of his affections with starstruck longing. He is merely observing.
Sam does not know the full history; T'Challa has not confided in him, and Sam has not pried. But he has the gist of it. He knows that T'Challa fell head over heels in love with Ororo Munroe, knows that he married the mutant against the wishes of the tribal elders, knows that distance eventually led to divorce.
Yet there is the former Queen of Wakanda, her arm threaded through her ex-husband's as though she had never left, as if she belonged. Which she does; of course she does. Ororo is descended from Kenyan priestesses; she retains Wakandan citizenship. She was T'Challa's wife, and according to Shuri is still one of T'Challa's most trusted friends and advisors. It is nothing to Sam if she has come to visit.
Once upon a time, Sam was actually able to lie to himself. He misses that ability.
Lying, he muses, would be more comfortable than the hot burn of jealousy lodged in his chest. He has no right to feel this way, he knows; no matter what he might wish, he has no claim on T'Challa beyond friendship, and even that bond is shaky in the wake of his drunken mistake. He would be a fool to confuse wishes with reality.
Part of Sam is startled by the fierce, relentless burn of jealous anger. He has always fallen in love easily; his mama used to worry that her boy was giving away too much of himself. But he has only gotten possessive a very few times; the loves that really meant something.
To be honest, Sam is not sure he is ready to admit just how deep his feelings for the Wakandan go. He is not sure when or how this even happened. And why could he not have remained ignorant of this helpless infatuation? He would have happily lied to himself, called his feelings camaraderie or admiration and avoided this exact situation. To be brutally honest, Sam is not sure he is ready to be in love again. Not after Riley. He is not certain he can bear loving a hero again; the constant tightrope of adoring their dedication to ideals and simultaneously fearing the day they were inevitably sacrificed to those ideals.
Sam's heart, as usual, had left his brain's very logical fears in the dust. His heart was already fully invested, and dearly wanting to throw Ororo off a cliff somewhere.
"Sam?" Steve asks in his very best now you listen here, son voice.
"Yeah," he answers absently, trying to refocus.
"You're my best friend, and I love you," Steve says, clearly gearing up to say something unpleasant. "But you're a fuckin' idiot."
There it was.
""I'll agree with that," Natasha nods sagely, a smile hiding in her eyes.
"Thanks," Sam huffs, sinking back into the sofa. "Really feeling the love right now."
"If you wanna feel the love, I'm sure T'Challa would be happy to comply," Natasha smirks.
"Oh my God," Sam rolls his eyes. "Can we drop this, please?"
"Just… I don't want you makin' my mistakes," Steve says, annoyingly earnest.
"Steve," Sam cuts him off, very much not wanting to face this discussion right now. "I know you're just trying to help. But I am a grown-ass man and I do not need the pep talk right now, alright?"
Steve and Natasha exchange a Look, and if Sam did not know better, he would assume they were speaking telepathically and making plans to gang up on him. But praise Jesus, they agree to drop the topic, and leave Sam to sulk in peace.
He is not quite ready to face the truth of his feelings. But he will hold a sulk like a champion.
He should not have kissed T'Challa. He knows this. He wishes he could blame it solely on the alcohol; downplay it as a drunken impulse. But Sam knows himself better than that; it was not the rum, it was just T'Challa. His lazy smile, his relaxed sprawl, his unexpected generosity and passion for a subject Sam had never expected them to have in common. Sitting half in T'Challa's lap, close enough to drown in his warmth and his laughter, Sam had never wanted anything more.
But just because he wants does not mean he trusts himself to have. He does not know if he can do this again, and so is it not better to keep his distance and his own counsel? What does he have to lose, except his own heart?
Steve has never been comfortable asking for help or acknowledging his limits. It stems, he thinks, from having been sick so often in his youth. Sickness equates to weakness equates to helplessness; he has never wanted to be a burden on anyone.
It used to drive Bucky crazy, he remembers fondly. You ain't an island, Stevie, Bucky used to snap when he got fed up with Steve's stubbornness. There's no shame in needin' help now and then. Needin' folks is what makes us human.
It had been a miracle to come out of Howard's infernal machine with Dr. Erskine's serum flowing through his veins. Finally, a chance to stand on his own two feet; a chance not to need help anymore. Now he could be the one to help; now others could lean on him; now he could repay the massive debt he owed others for his continued life and health.
He had learned quickly, in the field. Out in the heat of battle, no one was holding a mental tally of favors and debts owed and earned. You cared for the man beside you, and he cared for you; that was the only way to survive. Refusing help got you killed quickly.
Steve has always wondered, in the darkest depths of his psyche, whether his punishment for accepting the miraculous serum had been to be stripped of his main support and help. He had never wanted Bucky to be the price he paid for independence.
It was funny, how the lessons of war had fallen away and been forgotten when he arose from the grave and rejoined the modern age.
He hated the fuss SHIELD had made over him. He understood they were ecstatic to have an asset such as him in their arsenal, and going on missions was a decent way to distract himself from his trauma. But he did not want to be beholden to anyone else ever again, or dependent on them for a sense of belonging in this strange new world.
If there was one truth Steve knew, it was that everyone left you in the end. Nothing lasted forever, and so it was dangerous to depend on anyone.
In retrospect, Steve may have leaned on the semi-deified image of courageous, noble, untouchable Captain America just a little too much. The mask of the Captain had been an excellent shield for a very long time, but now…
"Who is Steve Rogers, without Captain America?" Doctor Ndzaba asks him. "Without Bucky Barnes?"
Steve shakes his head. "I don't know," he admits, helpless.
He does not have long to find out. Bucky remains in a medically-induced coma, but he is responding well to Doctor Mgebe's treatments; he could awaken within days. And when he wakes, Steve must be whole and stable enough to be the strong one, to hold Bucky together while he tries to rebuild himself.
After all, he owes Bucky more than a few times over.
Steve will not be allowed to see Bucky, at first. At T'Challa's insistence, first Bucky will be taken through an intensive deprogramming process designed by Natasha. Only when the psychologists - and, more importantly, Natasha herself - deem him stable will Bucky even be given the option of seeing Steve. It is a condition Natasha insisted upon before she agreed to help.
"I know you, Steve," she had said. "If it was up to you, you'd hold Barnes' hand through this whole thing. But if you ever want a chance of seeing the man you remember, you have to let him find his way back alone. He can't be dependent on you for any bit of his progress, or things will never be equal between you."
Steve had bitten back the instinctive denial, the argument that he knows Bucky better than anyone in this world and that they will endure this trial together. He forces himself to remember the file, and Natasha's initial debrief, and his own memories of last May. The Bucky he knew is dead; hell, the Steve that Bucky knew is gone as well. They are different men now; they must rediscover each other.
Who is Steve Rogers without Bucky Barnes?
Steve is afraid that the answer is, nobody.
That answer used to make him grin. When faced with an overwhelming egomaniac like Johann Schmidt – or, to be frank, Howard Stark – it was a comfort to be nobody special, just an ordinary kid from Brooklyn. But now, with no one and nothing but himself to hold onto… It is rather terrifying to be nobody.
Who is Steve Rogers?
He has all the time in the world to find out, now. He cannot return to America while there is a bounty on his head. He does not even know if he wants to return to America. There is nothing waiting for him, after all; he gave up his friends, his job, and everything else in order to have Bucky. And Bucky is here in Wakanda. He is no longer Captain America, and while he does not know how to live without a war it is enough, for now, to help build houses, to herd livestock out of the road, to spar with his friends.
If there is a place in this world for him and Bucky, Steve will find it.
Who is Steve Rogers?
It is a daunting question, and not knowing the answer makes him uneasy.
But there is a challenge in the question, and Steve has never been able to back down from a challenge.
The winter wind howls in fury, whipping the snow into a frenzy beneath a blood-red sky. The blizzard is ferocious; a living, snarling beast that shrieks with rage and pain and memories.
The ferocity of the storm cannot compete with the relentless battle happening below.
The two figures move in perfect tandem; tornadoes of deadly limbs and attacks. They have been fighting for what feels like an eternity, neither able to maintain an advantage over the other.
It is fitting, the Shadow thinks, that he be locked in eternal conflict with himself.
The snow swirls and drifts, creating patterns and pictures - a large soldier throwing a shield like a frisbee; the swirling skirts of a dancing, laughing girl; fireworks on the fourth of July; a band of brothers standing shoulder-to-shoulder for propaganda photographs. The falling snow stings his face, his frozen, bloody hands; and as the flakes melt into his skin, memories blossom in his veins.
The Soldier continues to fight as singlemindedly as he had been trained; but he is a ghost, a shadow, and he is fading. He is the winter storm, and the Shadow is absorbing the storm into his skin.
His teeth chatter, his muscles freeze as his nerves numb and he is submerged in the storm. The cold is in every part of him; there is no him, there is only the cold and the howling, screaming wind…
What have I done. What have I done?!
The red sky rains down blood, and the Shadow's hands are soaked, saturated, stained. He will never be clean. He sees their faces in the sky, hears their dying moments in the wind. He screams with the pain and the fury of his victims, shoulders bowing with the burden of knowledge.
He was never innocent, but he was clean once. He fought in a war, and he killed for his country, but he was still a man, still whole.
He has become a monster. The atrocities he committed for his masters, the empty, stunted thing he allowed himself to become… He should have fought harder. Should have tried to escape, should have sought death before dishonor, should have should have should have… But he did none of those things. Instead… The Shadow shudders as the blizzard howls inside him and he remembers exactly what he had done. Hydra's rabid dog.
Someone should put him down.
Perhaps he should put himself down.
The Shadow watches, beleaguered and weary, as two paths appear before him. He blinks, glances between them; how does he choose which way to go?
"You have a choice now."
He whips around at the low, accented voice, blinking in confusion at the young, dark-haired woman, whose slight frame is surrounded by a halo of soft, undulating red.
"Who are you?" he asks, searching through the blizzard and the blood to remember if he has seen her before.
"My name is Wanda," she replies. "I am a friend of Steve's. We met, briefly, before… well. Before this," she says, waving a beringed hand at the surroundings.
James tilts his head, sifting through the snowbanks for the memory. It comes slowly; a Sokovian teenage sorceress, who looks so harmless but who can rearrange his mind so profoundly that he will never recover…
"How did you find me?" he asks, settling his body in a wide-legged defensive stance.
"Peace," the Scarlet Witch says, raising her hands in surrender. "I will not hurt you. I've come to help you."
"Help me? How?" he asks warily.
Wanda catches her lower lip between her teeth, her fingers twitching anxiously before she laces them together at her waist.
"What would you like me to call you?" she asks.
The simple question catches him off-guard. He is called… He is the Asset. The Shadow. The Soldier.
He shivers as the wind wraps around him – not the harsh winter blizzard, but something softer and warmer, a spring breeze that is refreshing rather than damning.
My Bucky… Hephaestion… your name is James Buchanan Barnes…
"James," he whispers. "My name is James."
The Asset had no name; monsters are only shadows and whispers, substantial as the wind. If he accepts this name he has given himself, does that mean he is not a monster? Or, perhaps, not just a monster?
"James, then," Wanda nods, before looking at him intently. "Do you remember where you are?" she asks carefully.
James blinks, looks around aimlessly. He feels the gentle kiss of a snowflake on his cheek, and nods.
"Cryo," he replies. "I'm dreaming."
"Yes," Wanda nods. "The doctors have been doing their best to treat and repair what they can. Your brain has been… very damaged."
They both pause, looking up as a forked bolt of lightning arcs across the sky.
"They brought you out of cryostasis for an experimental drug treatment," Wanda says quietly, gently. "Things were going well, but… Your heart has stopped. The doctors are trying to revive you."
James watches the lightning crack overhead again. His dreamscape goes very quiet and still.
"I'm dying," he says softly, unable to drum up much fear or indignation at the thought.
"Yes," Wanda replies, as softly as he.
He nods. Turning, he faces the paths again.
"So what are these?" he asks.
"A choice," she explains, remaining behind him. "I was asked to find you, if you were still to be found."
"And drag me back?" James asks, smiling humorlessly.
Wanda looks up at him. "I do not like removing others' wills," she says, her voice no less serious for how quiet it is. "I wanted you to have a choice."
James nods again, silenced and daunted by the choice before him. The Asset was allowed no choices, and now he was being given this monumental decision, before he had even sorted out what was real and true and what was lie.
"Life, on one side," James surmises. "And on the other…"
"Peace," Wanda answers. "It will be gentle, like falling asleep."
James nods, staring at the left-hand path longingly, unconsciously moving toward it. The path was broad and well-paved, moving steadily toward a gently pulsing white light. One step, then two; the blood-red sky and shrieking wind melting away into blessed silence.
Bucky…
James pauses, his brow furrowing. That name, that voice… Why does he know that voice? And why is he listening to it, seductive as the Sorceress' spells, when his chance for Peace is so close at hand?
Buck, please… don't leave me… end of the line…
Shit. What the hell is he doing?
Death, while peaceful, is a cop-out. Peace, while tempting, is not what he truly desires. It does not seem fair, to escape the consequences of all that he has done. Peace will not bring redemption.
Bucky…
And it is horribly selfish of him, but he is not ready to let go of his Light. If there is even the smallest chance that he can be warmed by Steve's beautiful warmth, that he can atone for his innumerable sins… Is that not what his Light would have him do?
Drawing a deep breath, James takes Wanda's outstretched hand and starts down the narrow, overgrown, rocky path toward Life and Light.