Her head felt as though it had been cleaved in two and her lip was oozing something warm and sticky. Her stomach hurled its way up into her throat and she gagged on regurgitated air, which made the pain in her head worse. She tried to push herself up, noting the string of blood and spit that tied her to the floor, and collapsed, breathing hard as her head spun sickening shades of gray. Behind her, she could hear heavy footsteps thudding towards her.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

She thrust one hand forward and clawed at the slick floor, inching herself forward, until a fierce grip seized her by the hair and lifted her effortlessly from the ground. The artificial hair ripped easily from her scalp as he dragged her to the nearest wall and slammed her against it.

When the world stopped swirling, Charlotte rolled over onto her side and watched him throw his fist into the window. The glass hummed but didn't break and Charlotte clenched her eyes shut against his frustrated scream.

She blacked out long enough that when she woke, he had her pinned to a wall and the sharp edge of his arm pressed painfully against her collar bone, threatening to snap it if he so much as leaned forward. Charlotte could feel his breath on her face. Her right hand began to tremor. With no choice to look anywhere else, she lifted her dark eyes to his striking blue ones.

"You're…you're bleeding," she stammered.

He said nothing.

"Do you know me?"

"You're Charlotte."

She did her best to nod and winced as a fiery pain shot down her neck. "Do you still trust me?"

His nostrils flared and she noticed his lip trembling slightly. She caught herself wondering if he even remembered how to cry. The pressure on her chest eased a little.

"I'm trying," he whispered.

"I know."

Her left hand wasn't shaking as badly, and she slowly lifted it up towards him. He stiffened, but didn't move, even when her fingers were hardly a few inches from his mouth. She used her fingers to gently wipe above his lips and under his nose, cleaning away what she could of the blood. His skin was warm and prickly.

A bright burst of electrical energy shattered her senses. Bucky vanished with a grunt, the crushing support he was providing left her and she crumpled to the ground. Her vision was suddenly horrendously blurry; everything looked like runny paints, but she could see his dark robes twirling as he fought to subdue Bucky.

"T'Challa!" Charlotte yelled. "T'Challa, don't!"

Her cries went unheeded. Neither man was willing to yield and while Bucky snarled in frustration at his one-armed disadvantage, his flying kicks managed to catch the king off guard more than once. T'Challa swung a heavy fist, missed, then used the chance to link arms and hurl Bucky across his back and onto the floor. The former assassin used the momentum to roll himself back upright and the two collided again.

The pain in her head was becoming unbearable. The world flickered and sputtered like a dying candle and she was vaguely aware of someone was pulling at her underarms.

"…lotte!' Shuri hissed. "Charlotte, get up!"

"T"Challa," she felt the words fall out of her mouth like heavy marbles. "He has…to stop."

"Charlotte, you'r…seizure! …need… out of here."

She shook her head and nearly vomited from the pain. Shuri glanced behind her at the two entangled men. Even if she intervened, she decided, the two of them would live, however damaged or confused. Her friend, however…

Bucky began to feel that tickling, spiderlike sensation at the edge of his mind. He blocked several more blows against T'Challa until the distraction proved too much and his opponent pinned his arm behind his back, thrusting him forward. Bucky located Charlotte across the room, his eyes drawn to the bright blood that had leaked from her lip down onto her pale neck. Their gazes met, that irritating itching just beneath his scalp intensified, and he frowned at her in disbelief. There was no way she would—

"Pech."

The purple sky, streaked by rivers of darker blue and black, was full of white, dancing stars. An impossible dome that stretched from one black horizon to the other, like a celestial blanket that is both veil and gateway. Faint silhouettes of skinny trees stuck out against the midnight colors, like stencils etched into the night canvas. A soft, warm breeze blew across the large pond, rippling the reflection of the heavens.

Bucky crouched and dipped his hand into the watery stars. He watched them tremble for a moment, then cupped his hand and lifted it to the back of his neck, letting the cool water spill down his bare back. He couldn't sleep. He could never sleep. Aside from the night terrors and disjointed memories that plagued his efforts, there was that unsettling feeling, like the world was uncomfortable. It was too small, too big, too foreign. Maybe being kept unconscious for the better part of the past 70 years meant he was no longer entitled to sleep, but he craved it like nothing else. More than food, more than water, or warmth.

"I'm not sure I would sneak up on me," Bucky said calmly, still crouched by the water's edge.

"That is because you are afraid of you," he said, his voice confident and resonant in the still night air. "I am not."

Bucky stood and turned halfway to see T'Challa standing slightly uphill in the tall grasses, his black collared tunic rippling in the breeze. It had been days since their fight and Bucky had hidden himself away from the others, returning to his solitary home on the outskirts.

Bucky wiped his hand on the dark robes wrapped around his lower half. "Are you here to ban me from Wakanda?" he asked wryly.

"And why would I do that?"

Bucky huffed. "I figured you'd only tolerate me trying to kill people so many times."

"I have seen you attempting to kill your targets," T'Challa said smoothly. "That was not what happened back there."

The dark-haired man looked up at the Wakandan king, waiting for the pit to settle in his stomach before asking,

"What…how is she?"

"Charlotte will be fine. Shuri is keeping a close eye on her until she recovers." A pause. "What was it she said to you at the end?"

Bucky took a slow breath. "It was the next word in the sequence. She was still trying to break down the code."

"Ah. I apologize if I interrupted…prematurely."

He shook his head and looked back down at the small beach beneath his feet. "No. You did the right thing. If you hadn't of interfered…" Bucky unconsciously licked his lips, remembering the soft sensation of her fingers gliding across his mouth. "I don't know what would've happened."

T'Challa grinned. "I must say you had me well-fooled."

"How so?"

"For a moment, I thought the Winter Soldier had returned to Wakanda. But an illness often seems gravest just as the fever breaks."

Bucky thought for a moment, then nodded solemnly. T'Challa dipped his head, clasped his hands behind his back and began to walk away with all the regality of a lion, the grasses hissing as he brushed past.

He watched the dark silhouette retreat for a moment. "So, you forgive me for trying to kill you?" His reply made Bucky grin.

T'Challa chuckled in the dark. "Sergeant, to kill me you would need at least both arms."

"You're an idiot."

The first thing she saw was the familiar bag of fluids hanging over her head, like a rectangular, clear bubble. The rest of the world had not come into focus yet, but she could hear Shuri's voice as loud and clear as the chimes that used to hang on her mother's front porch.

"Am I?" Charlotte tried to focus on breathing slow and deeply, noticing how the two-word sentence seemed to exhaust her air supply.

"Yes," Shuri fiddled with a few of the medical readouts as she spoke, expertly twirling and pinching her fingers to direct the digital displays. "You were the one who insisted on being locked in a room with a dangerous man with no real exit strategy. You also failed to use your kimoyo beads as a defense mechanism like I asked you to. AND you proceeded to utilize electromagnetic energy while compromised and your brain experienced several seizures. Several! You're an idiot!"

Charlotte turned her head enough to look out the giant bay windows of the medical wing. Giant waterfalls plunged on the other side of the ravine. The sun was setting or rising, she couldn't tell which, and the pink-orange light it cast upon the cascading water reminded her of…something. She couldn't remember.

The room was restored, as far as she could tell, to its normal appearance. Clean, sharp angles and white, sterile walls were warmed by gentle lighting in the ceiling. The various machines around her hummed almost harmoniously, without the annoying beeping that came with regular hospitals. The air, always kept slightly cold, smelled like new carpet. She had spent so much time in this room, it was like a second home.

"I'm sorry, Shuri," Charlotte said slowly. Her lips felt heavy and full. "I'm an idiot."

"Thank you." Shuri clasped her long fingers around Charlotte's wrist and looked down at her friend with kind eyes. "How are you feeling?"

"Fuzzy."

"Are you in pain? One to ten?"

Charlotte thought for a moment. "Five."

Shuri pursed out her lower lip. "Not bad, considering. I was really worried for a moment there. Luckily, he didn't do any permanent damage, so you should feel fine in another day or two. He did give you a pretty lip, though."

She smiled and held up a reflective panel from her kimoyo bead. Charlotte peered into the makeshift mirror and groaned. Her chin was the size of a small water balloon and her bottom lip had a dark red fissure tearing across the blistered skin.

"No wonder I can't talk," she said. Her breath hitched. Wincing, she reached up to touch the hairless swathes across her scalp.

Ashamed, Shuri quickly collapsed the mirror projection. "I know, I know, I need to redo your hair. I was busy trying to keep your brain from going up in flames."

"And I appreciate that," Charlotte said, feeling as though the fizz of bubbles in her head was beginning to clear. "What happened to T'Challa? Where's Bucky?"

"They're both fine. T'Challa made sure Barnes was neutralized before he helped me get you to the medical wing. When he—Charlotte?"

Charlotte's eyes squeezed shut and her teeth audibly ground together as a tremor shook her body. The veins in her neck bulged and her feet and hands shuddered violently. The scar that snaked across her skin almost seemed to glow a translucent pink-red, as if someone were shining a dim flashlight from within. Shuri glanced up at the display screens but stayed by the bedside. She reached out towards one of Charlotte's shaking hands, flinching when her friend painfully seized it.

The episode lasted no more than a few seconds. Charlotte released her grip on Shuri, her white knuckles slowly returning to their natural pink. She left fingernail marks on the back of her hand.

"Ugh," Charlotte moaned. "This sucks."

"How often is this happening back home?" Shuri asked quietly.

"Does it matter?"

"Charlotte," Shuri sounded disappointed. "Yes, it does."

The brunette took a deep breath and sighed. "The surges happen a few times a year. I usually end up in the hospital for those. Some days the pain is tolerable, some days it's unbearable. No better or worse than my first year."

Shuri leaned over the bed and adjusted something on the bag of fluids. "In the world of science, consistency is a good thing."

"Right." Charlotte said flatly and decided to drop the subject. "You said T'Challa is fine. Where is Bucky?"

"Back at his hut, I presume. I have not seen him since the last session, but my brother spoke with him yesterday. He says he is recovering well."

Charlotte looked back out at the enflamed waterfalls again. The sun was definitely rising. What was that word? Hot, fire, ember, glow…

"T'Challa thought he had relapsed, didn't he?" Charlotte asked. "That he had reverted into the Winter Soldier."

"Well, when he nearly broke your jaw in half, it seemed a reasonable conclusion," Shuri said with a hint of a smile in her words.

Vivid blue eyes framed by dark hair flashed in her mind. "But if T'Challa hadn't intervened—"

The tumbling waters outside were a white-hot yellow now. Gold, light, lava, heater—

"Furnace."

Shuri frowned and waited for her friend to elaborate. Charlotte caught her friend's confused expression and laughed as hard as her throbbing temples would allow. "I was trying to think of a word I couldn't remember. It just came to me."

Shuri shook her head, caught somewhere between amused and hopeless. "I'm ordering you another brain scan."

A/N: Good things come to those who wait ^_^ This is definitely my favorite chapter by far, with the T'Challa + Bucky scene my proudest moment yet. Hope you're enjoying!