Notes:

Trigger warning: mild mention of suicidal thought past-tense.


Shay took a breath, reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, she spoke over her shoulder as she stepped through the opening doors "James, don't die today and you can ask me anything you want, I promise I'll say yes."


Bucky stood stunned in the elevator until the doors began to close again. Pushing them open roughly he jogged after Shay, catching up just as she stepped over the threshold.

"Angel, White Wolf." Okoye nodded at them as they approached. "I need your help convincing this bunch of idiots to go back to the mountain." Her voice was filled with her own peculiar brand of disgusted admiration as a group of seven men stepped forward, each bore a weapon and wore a purple and gold Kenté across their broad shoulders.

"T'Kazu, Kamwele, N'Gazze…" Shay choked up before she could finish naming them.

Each man saluted her with a sign of respect. Bucky looked from them to Shay, dipped his head and melted into the background.

"The Merchant tribe has few warriors, but let it not be said that we would leave our sister to fight alone." T'Kazu spoke with authority, undaunted by the doubtful gaze of Okoye. He pounded his staff on the ground like a gavel and six others echoed his.

Azele, the youngest of the group stepped forward with a parcel wrapped in purple cloth. He laid it on the low table and carefully folded back the fabric to reveal a collection of small weapons and sheaths.

"For you." He said simply before folding himself back into the formation.

Okoye walked to the table and laid a small case beside the previous offering, "I also have something for you, Shuri would have brought them herself, but she is still working on the stone."

Shay sunk to her knees on the cushions, overcome with emotion, and opened the case to reveal a set of what looked like fingerless gloves, veins of gold on black. A tiny halo and wings decorated the side of each pointer finger.

"They will help you project your gift more easily." Okoye gave a subtle bow and left.

Peter had watched all of this ceremony with barely concealed wonder and now he grinned at Shay for a moment before his face went suddenly blank and he ran full speed out the door. "I've got something too, how could I forget, that's so stupid…" faded away down the hall as he left the range of her hearing.

T'Kazu settled on the cushion beside her and the warriors of the merchant tribe seated themselves on a side bench, ready and at ease. Bucky had joined Sam on the opposite bench and Sam elbowed him suggestively, whispering something in his ear that brought a fresh flush of colour to Bucky's face as Shay smiled at them.

The sound of slinging webs returned down the hall and Peter dropped a small briefcase on her lap, as he slowly lowered himself from the ceiling.

"What's this?"

"A suit."

"I don't have a suit."

"Well, no, you didn't, but now you do. I mean, if you want to wear it… Tony let me design it and I got a little help and well…" he shrugged, a move that looked strange where he hung still upside down. He gave a little flip and landed beside her looking eager and running a hand over the cloth on the table. "Now I know why Shuri said it had to be the right purple."

The case opened to reveal a beaded collar, holograms popped up showing how it was deployed and listing its capabilities. Primarily defensive, with a built-in sensor to monitor her energy and pain levels and a single use emergency button that would allow the suit to fly her out of danger, set to auto-deploy if she passed out.

"It's basically bullet-proof armor just way more lightweight, so no plasma guns or anything, but it should shield you from most projectiles and energy attacks and it's designed to spread and minimize the impact of any blunt force attacks just like your corset does. It's just the first prototype though so…"

"Wow, Peter, its incredible. This beading…"

"Frank sent me some pictures of his grandmother's old beadwork so I could incorporate it into the design."

The beads settled against her skin and warmed instantly, as though they were a part of her. She stood up slowly, not wanting to betray the emotion that quivered in her limbs. A simple double tap to the turquoise wolf that sat in the hollow of her neck and the purple fabric expanded from the beads, covering her from neck to wrists to toes.

"Tap that one for a helmet, and that one is just the headset." Peter explained eagerly, pointing to the schematic diagram in the case. "it's all Friday equipped as well."

Shay alerted to the soft steps of Ayo, and turned to see her approach.

"Time is growing short; I've been sent to tell all of you to be armed and ready in half an hour on the tarmac, if any of you need weapons, I will take you to the armory."

Steve stood in the doorway and raised his voice to address the entire room. "Avengers. Suit up."

Clint had his arrows spread out over two benches, checking each for flaws and stringing an extra bow.

Scott was eating again, trying not to get stains on his suit and stuffing packets of juice and candy in every available pocket.

Nat had been sharpening her own knives and testing widow bites, and now she came to look over the new blades on the table. She used one to shave a small patch of hair from her arm and raised an eyebrow in surprise, apparently satisfied.

Steve joined Sam, Bucky as they cleaned their guns and loaded extra clips on another table, their movements synchronized and mechanical. Rhodes stepped into his suit nearby, running a pre-flight test.

Peter was already wearing his suit but he heeded Nat's advice to pack extra web-fluid and make sure the backup suit he'd brought was fully charged and ready to self-deploy.

Shay could only assume Bruce was preparing elsewhere or making himself useful in the lab, and Wanda would of course be there, ready to blow the stone to vapor as soon as Vision was no longer entangled with it.

Time seemed to slow and the sounds around her swelled in her ears.

In a room full of warriors, no one spoke. The song was the song of whetstones and metal on metal, sequences of booted steps and the slide and click of loading guns accompanied by the charging surge of vibranium weapons.

Her fingers played over the beads on her neck, the wolf carved in turquoise.

Seventeen.

Shay had wandered into the woods alone. Her mother and brother had been gone for eleven years, her father for two. The depth of a Canadian winter cut through her clothes but she kept moving numbly on, following the big dipper until she found a clearing. There she lay in the snow, watching the northern lights play across the sky, alone, waiting for her family to embrace her.

Then the wolves had found her, instead of sharp teeth and pain they gave her life, laying across her cool body, warming her with their hot breath, tugging at her clothes until she'd finally obeyed the obvious command-bark of the matriarch. Move. She'd stumbled, only to find wolves on each side holding her frozen hands gently in their mouths, keeping her on a path they seemed to know well. They'd taken her home, and her first guardian wolf had stayed with her, bonded for the rest of his life. Two years ago, they had given Pippin into her care, knowing that she could heal the tiny puppy's failing heart.

The smaller beads in the intricate pattern of Franks Cree ancestors, a reminder of how he and Elaine had taken her to their hearts as a child. This heritage he'd laid upon her said her blood didn't matter; they chose her and she belonged to them.

The suit she now wore with the tiny A embroidered on each wrist proclaiming her identity. Angel, Avenger.

T'Kazu completed her meditations by tying the kenté of the Merchant Tribe around her shoulders so it fell down her back in a way that would not impede her movements. She'd been born half a world away, where her skin was a shade darker than most, but here in Wakanda she'd felt pale and uncultured, still they had given her a place among them. She'd saved T'Kazu's life in Lagos, but his cousin N'Daka's wounds were more than she could heal, so she had held him like a child, taken his pain on herself and comforted him as he slipped away. And for that act of love and mercy to a stranger, she had been adopted into a new family.

Shay fitted the gauntlets onto her hands, flexing her fingers and marveling as the resistance of the sense she usually felt in her fingertips was suddenly lifted. Light coiled easily from her fingers and she quickly pressed the little halo symbol on the side of her pointer finger, sighing as the resistance returned. Best to save that for the fight.

"Hey Pete, can you grab my pack?" Shay asked.

"Sure." A web shot across the hall to reach the strap of her bag and it flew back toward them. Peter caught it with a nonchalant grace, grinning as he handed it to her.

"Thanks."

She again sat cross-legged on the floor, but this time she worked on slowly stretching each group of muscles in her legs and getting used to the feeling of moving in the suit. Then she retracted it, and rolling up her pant legs, applied strength tape to her ankles. She stretched, satisfied with the support and applied another a single strip of brilliant blue across the inside of her left knee, and the outside of her right. With the suit on again she resumed stretching, testing and adding additional support wherever she felt tight or strained.

T'Kazu and his men watched with more interest as Shay first equipped herself with the blades on the table, strapping the sheaths over her usual clothing, the larger knives on each thigh and a few smaller ones around her ankles. More weapons were added from the depths of the backpack, a dagger was strapped across the small of her back, spring loaded sheaths strapped to inside of her forearms released one of three blades into her palm with the flick of a wrist, a widow bite waiting in reserve. Two pointed pieces, pale as bone, wickedly curved and tipped with steel were twisted into her hair, pinning it up and out of the way so the helmet would fit.

She tested the suit again; it was ridiculously intuitive and gave her access to any blade she chose if she just brushed the hilt through the reinforced nano-fabric.

Lastly, she extracted from the pack several small packets which she slipped into two different pockets The yellow ones would dull her pain, the red ones provided a burst of adrenaline.

The orphan had walked into the wood alone.

Now she stood proud among warriors, wearing the declarations, the history of many nations into battle. Different tongues, skins and continents, they all bled the same. She would bleed in their place.

Ready.

Pippin, who had remained with Peter, now seemed to respond to the unspoken thought, giving a single bark and snapping to her side like he was magnetized. The merchant warriors rose with him, standing at attention as though they'd been commanded.

"Wow." Peter whispered to Nat from his seat at the table where she had been encouraging him to eat a little more. "Did you feel that? It was, like a surge of static charge through the whole room, it felt. Felt like standing on the edge of a storm."

Nat tilted her head, trying to parse the sensations that buzzed in the air around them. "I felt something, but I couldn't have told you what it was." She shook her head a little, "but I think we'd better get going Spiderling."


Meanwhile on Titan,

Peter- Starlord- Quill, Drax and Mantis found Tony Stark and Dr. Strange on Titan, standing over the dead body of Ebony Maw.

The fight had been short, ending when they realized they had a common goal.

Kill Thanos.

Strange looked through the future timelines for a chance that they could defeat the mad titan as the others discussed how they might stop Thanos from utilizing the gauntlet the way he had on Knowhere.

"How many possibilities did you see?" Peter Quill asked.

"Fourteen million." Dr Strange answered, trying to catch his breath.

"How many do we win?" Tony asked.

"Two."

"Better than one." Tony quipped back sarcastically to hide the ramping anxiety he felt.

"The second chance option… it'll cost us." Strange cleared his throat, and locked eyes with Stark. "It'll cost you- everything."

"Great, so let's not screw up plan A." Tony said, folding his arms.


Notes:

Shay finally gets a superhero suit! I never thought I'd write her in a suit, but it felt right in the context.
I know not a lot of people are still reading, but I encourage you to continue and to comment your reactions, the next several chapters are in my opinion some of the best I've ever written.
p.s. don't worry, I'll post any trigger warnings at the top of the chapter whenever they're needed.