CHAPTER XIII

(precursory A/N: the tape Bucky has been carrying around the whole time is of Prince's Do Me Baby, and I'm not saying that if you start playing that song at a specific point during this chapter (you'll know when you get there) it will make it a hundred times better, but... it will. Anyway. Continue.)

"A babysitter," Bucky said, "huh."

"No, Sergeant Barnes." T'Challa's face was placid despite the shortness of the man he was talking to. "Like you, Miss Kennings has sought asylum from Wakanda and, even if I did not know her personally, I would have trusted her to respect the immunity of this sanctuary. As it is, she is both one of the most excellent scientists of this age, particularly when it comes to biotechnology, and my friend. There is nobody better suited to your guardianship than her."

"I don't need a guardian," Bucky said flatly, and Steve grimaced.

"You need someone we can trust to keep an eye on your condition when you go under cryo," his friend said, "you need someone who can fix up your arm as best as we can get it. You need someone we can trust."

"Didn't she sell me out?" Bucky asked. He was enjoying this way too much, but no flicker of amusement made its way into his stony expression.

"And helped us find you, too."

"She decrypted the HYDRA files for Zemo."

"Without knowing what she was doing," Steve persisted, "Buck, c'mon. You know as well as I do that Alvie Kennings is our best option."

Bucky turned to stare moodily out of the window, marvelling at his stoic ability to hide his massive grin. "Fine. Just don't come crying to me when something goes wrong."

"I suspect that is the best we are going to get," T'Challa said solemnly. "I shall fetch her. It is only right that you meet." The king disappeared without a sound, not so much as the echo of a single footstep. Steve strolled over to Bucky, his face serious.

"I know you blame her," he said. "Don't. She hates herself more than you do."

You have no idea. "I doubt that," he said out loud, still glaring at the rainforest outside. "We can't trust her."

"If T'Challa does, then we do. And you were the one who reminded me to break her out of the Raft."

"That was before I knew you were adopting her," Bucky said.

"Don't exaggerate. Buck. Just give her a chance, okay? I can't stay here, it's too dangerous for us to be near each other, they'll figure out. But she's a civilian, and she wants to make some good after… after everything. One chance, that's all I'm asking. You don't even have to like her, just cut her enough slack to help you."

"The news said she was crazy."

"She's harmless. I couldn't imagine her killing anyone."

And I don't have to, Bucky thought, I've already seen her do it.

At that moment the doors opened and T'Challa walked in, shadowed by a woman in a bloody dress and bruises all up one side of her face. God. Had she always been that beautiful? There was something about the lines of her form, an infinite flow and grace to the way she walked and stood, even now with her posture making it clear she wanted to shrink like Lang until she was invisible. Big yellow-brown eyes met his, the eyes of a doe in a bear trap, impossibly epicurean eyes that drank him in even as they flickered in fear of what he would do to her.

"Bucky Barnes," said T'Challa, "Alvie Kennings."

Neither of them said anything. Alvie stood and trembled, Bucky remained statuesque. Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw Steve's eyebrows lower in concern, and T'Challa's posture shift in case he had to intervene, to drag a raging Winter Soldier away from the woman.

"I can tidy that up," she said at last, nodding at the wires dangling from his left shoulder. Bucky nodded, and glanced at Steve.

"We'll give you both a minute," said the captain, who could read his best friend's face like the dark-haired Maximoff girl could read minds. Or at least, he thought he could. The two men left the room, shutting the door behind them, and as soon as they were alone Alvie's soliloquy began.

"I'm so sorry," she said, "oh, Bucky, I had no idea what was going to happen to you. It's all my fault, it was me who told Ross where you were and it was me who helped Zemo and I didn't even think that maybe he would be dangerous. I ruined your life, I almost got you and the others killed because I was so stupid. God, you must hate me. I don't deserve your forgiveness. I'll fix your arm and keep you safe but I'll understand if you just, just kill me here and now because I screwed over everything and you have every right to just, just –"

Still with a straight face, Bucky reached into his pocket and threw something at Alvie. She caught it in her fingertips on reflex, shocked into silence by the unexpected action, and turned it over, the cracked plastic of the case fracturing her shady reflection in two. Then her eyes, still glistening, flicked up to meet his own.

Bucky grinned.

Slowly, tentatively, like the first thaw of spring, a smile crept over Alvie's face. Her eyes glazed over for a minute and the intercom speakers in the room began to play the languid, ridiculously 1970s song.

He met her in the middle, one arm more than enough to take her entire waist. The bruises on her face were turning green like saplings, her tear-filled eyes shone dark and gold like sap, and she was the most perfect thing that the Winter Soldier had ever seen.

"Here we are, in this big old empty room,

Staring each other down…"

She started to sway, still smiling, making him move with her. They danced; the kind of dancing with an ulterior motive to it. Her lips were so close he could feel her breath on his own…

Out in the hallway, T'Challa's eyebrows lowered as he heard the music coming from behind the door. "Is that… Prince?" he asked slowly.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place for Steve. No way, he thought, surely, there's no god damn way he...

He turned, looked through the window of the door, saw what was happening beyond it and immediately averted his gaze again, a blush creeping across his face as T'Challa echoed his movements and made a small, somewhat embarassed "oh" of comprehension as he saw what the two runaways were doing in his lab. "They... oh."

Steve shook his head. "Son of a bitch," he said under his breath, and laughed.

A/N every so often there comes a chapter that's just genuine, flat-out, satisfying fun to write. This was one of those chapters. It ties up so many loose ends, it's HAPPY, and for someone who doesn't laugh at their own stuff a lot, imagining the first couple seconds of Do Me Baby breaking out at full volume in a Wakandan scientific facility is hilarious to me.