Shuri knocked with her free hand. "Charlotte?"
No reply.
She slowly pushed open the door to the bedroom and a fresh breeze of air wafted to greet her. The doors leading out to the balcony were open and pale silk curtains fluttered in the breeze. A tangled mess of sheets were piled on the empty bed. Sitting against the wall with her arms wrapped around a pillow, Charlotte's glassy eyes looked up as Shuri entered the room.
The princess calmly walked over and sat next to her, curling long legs beneath her as gracefully as a crab. Her microbraids hung in long strands with a single bun at the crown of her head.
"You know what's going to kill you?" She spoke nonchalantly as she rummaged through a small metallic case she was carrying. "It's not going to be your seizures, or your pain, or some freak bolt of lightning." Her fingers produced two small beads the size of peas, each of which seemed to be glowing a faint, electric blue.
"It's going to be your stubbornness." She lifted her hand to Charlotte's mouth. "Under your tongue."
Charlotte let her friend slip the lighted globes between her lips. They sat together in patient silence for several moments, until Charlotte finally spoke up,
"What it feels like to chew 5 gum."
They both giggled. Shuri carefully examined her friend's face, pleased with the increasing clarity in her friend's eyes. "Better?"
Charlotte nodded. "What was it?"
"Jell-O shots." Charlotte quirked an eyebrow. "Pain medication. You should've asked for something sooner. There's really no point in suffering."
"It usually gets better on its own."
"Ok, but if 24 hours go by and it doesn't, it's time for help. It's a good thing Riba checked on your room –"
Charlotte waved her words away. "Yeah, I've been meaning to tell you it's nice, but I don't really need housekeeping."
"Apparently you do! And a baby-sitter. It's like having a toddler around; if it gets too quiet, I have to wonder what you're up to. No, you just lost all of your privileges. My country, my rules. From now on, I'm going to make you wear one of those backpacks with a leash."
The brunette laughed, blowing out strands of hair hanging around her face, before gently grasping Shuri's hand in her own.
"Shuri, I really am sorry for what I said the other night. I didn't mean to get so angry with you."
"I know. I'll send you a bill for the damage in my lab and we'll call it even." She paused. "Actually, when Barnes told me that there was still deprogramming to be done, I felt really relieved. Which made me realize you were right, and then it was my turn to feel shitty."
"I wasn't trying to be right," Charlotte said. "My head just hurt."
Shuri leaned in and pressed her forehead to her friend's. "All good?"
"All good." Then, as an afterthought, "Uxolo."
"What?" the princess pulled back, confusion marring her grin.
"Russian wasn't challenging enough, so I graduated to Wakandan," Charlotte joked, tossing aside the pillow she had been holding. "The children are teaching Bucky a few words. Bucky teaches me."
"Ah." Shuri stood swiftly and extended her hands down to help her friend to her feet. "Take a day to recover. Then maybe we can finish what we started. I know you probably miss each other."
Charlotte frowned, pissed at the sudden heat rising in her cheeks. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know, you tell me," Shuri started to tease before a smoothly synthesized voice interrupted her.
"Incoming transmission from Captain Steven Rogers."
Shuri beamed at her friend. "Hey, want to say hi to Captain America?"
An arrow of panic pierced Charlotte's chest as she saw Shuri start to answer the call on her Kimoyo beads.
"No, Shuri, not like this!" she hissed, frantically gesturing at herself in an oversized t-shirt and bare legs. "Take it outside!"
Ever resourceful, Shuri replied, "Fine, I'll just keep it on audio, then."
"I can't talk to him! I don't know what to say!"
"He probably just wants an update on Barnes. Here, just say hi—"
"No, I don't want to talk to him. Don't—Shuri, I swear to God—"
Words dissolved as Charlotte tried to shove a thoroughly amused Shuri towards the door.
"Captain Rogers," Shuri spoke into the air and Charlotte practically leapt out of her skin and across the room in a single bound. "There's somebody I want you to introduce you to."
The pillows flew fast and hard and after Shuri failed to block the third one from hitting her square in the face, she finally left the room, laughing. As she started to walk down the hallway, she unfurled her hand and a river of pixels amassed above her palm into a handsome bust of one bemused Steve Rogers.
"Sounds like they're not interested in being introduced," he said matter-of-factly.
"She's fine" she snickered. "You just caught her off guard. Sometimes I forget you're a bit of a celebrity.
"Yeah, well, unfortunately, people don't seem to forget you when your first job was parading around in tights."
"Right. I'm sure that's it."
It was another 3 days before Charlotte finally felt well enough to re-emerge into the world. Her headache persisted and while the meds that Shuri gave her stemmed the worst of the pain, it was always there, like a wall of water that was already trickling over the edge of its swollen dam. She hadn't been this sick for this long for several years. Was the vibranium mound messing with her head? Was the exercise of recalibrating Bucky's mind extracting a physical toll? Either way, leaving Wakanda was the only solution, which meant she should finish with Bucky sooner rather than later.
For both of our sakes, she told herself as she threw her hair up in a cascading bun. She donned leggings and an oversized earthy-colored poncho that hid the sporadic tremor in her right arm and headed out into the palace.
Charlotte ambled aimlessly for a while. Glancing out the windows, she saw bulbous white clouds building in the distance with large swathes of shadow beneath them. Guards and scientists and politicians flurried past in their colorful robes and uniforms. She could feel the threads of energy weaving throughout the hallways like vast tracks of ribbons streaming in the wind. Seeking out Shuri's current signature was usually easy; it was bright, erratic, and faster than most, but the approaching storms were complicating her compass. As the sky darkened and shadows began to chase away the sunlight in the hallways, Charlotte meandered downstairs to old haunting grounds.
As she descended into the panoramic medical wing, she found Hanta attending to a familiar figure.
"Hey there." Both men looked up, though Hanta quickly reverted his eyes back to the large syringe in Bucky's arm.
"Long time no see," Bucky mumbled.
Charlotte gave him an odd look. "You think a few days is a long time? Wait 'till I tell you how old you actually are."
He smiled lazily at her.
"How are you, Hanta?" Charlotte asked the physician.
"Doing well, Charlotte, thank you," he said, his richly deep voice seeming to pass through her bones.
"This looks familiar," she murmured, remembering the endless hours she spent with Hanta during her own rehabilitation. She watched as he quickly exchanged a blood-filled vial for an empty one.
"Don't worry," Hanta said, smiling at her comment. "Just routine bloodwork. Are you feeling better?"
"Much," she lied. She walked over to the other side of Bucky and lifted herself onto the metal table to sit next to him. He was wearing gray utility pants and a faded black sleeveless shirt that exposed the metal remnants on his chest and shoulder. Some sort of elastic black cloth covered the amputation site. From there, her eyes were drawn up to his freshly trimmed beard that left just enough shadow in all the right places.
Sensing her eyes on him, Bucky said, "Let me guess. I look tired."
"I was admiring your shave job, actually. It looks good."
"Thanks."
Hanta withdrew the needle and wiped Bucky's arm with a small gauze pad. The bleeding stopped almost instantaneously.
"All finished," he announced. He gathered his samples, gave Bucky a reassuring pat on the back of his shoulder and left.
Neither of them said anything for a few moments and Charlotte absentmindedly swung her dangling legs back and forth. A purple flash filled the room and an ominous grumble of thunder shook the panoramic window. As if on cue, the skies parted and the waterfall ravine quickly vanished behind a thick curtain of gray rain. Charlotte's legs stopped suddenly.
"Are you afraid of storms?" Bucky asked.
"No."
"Hm…just Captain America, huh?"
"Oh for—did Shuri—?"
"No, Steve did."
Charlotte blinked. "You talked to Steve?"
"Well, since you wouldn't…it's fine, though. I put in a good word for you."
His grin widened and she resisted the urge to shove him off the table.
"Maybe I'm a little intimidated by him, ok?" she argued, fiddling with her shirt. "He's practically a perfect human being and he makes some of us feel…inadequate."
Bucky chuckled. "He's still Steve. Still a punk. Just a bigger one."
Charlotte stared at him with a faint grin, trying to imagine two boys running through Brooklyn on the eve of a world war. Throwing baseballs in the shimmering summer heat and snowballs in the gray, frozen winters. Newspapers floating in the dirty streets with bold print headlines that warned of an impending doom. Even if Steve was still Steve, she could only catch passing glimpses of the other slick-haired, fast-talking, tough-love New Yorker. James Barnes was lost to a bygone era.
"What?" he finally asked.
Charlotte enjoyed his blue eyes a second longer before she playfully answered, "You missed a spot."
She reached up to tap his cheek, but Bucky winced at the motion before she even got close. Razor blades of guilt immediately tore at her insides.
"Sorry," she breathed and jumped down off the table, suddenly eager to put distance between them. She wrapped her arms around herself and strolled over to the window. You fucking dumbass, she scolded herself. Why would you just reach for his face without warning? What part of brainwashed, damaged soldier with PTSD do you not get?!
She stared out the rainy window and sighed, trying to hide the sound of her frustration. "What do you think? Should we finish this?"
Bucky stayed quiet for so long that Charlotte finally turned to look back at him. His lips twitched before he carefully concealed whatever surfacing emotion she had triggered.
He gave her a shallow grin that never touched his eyes. "Now or never."
The observation chamber was deathly quiet compared to the driving rain and wind outside. Bucky stood patiently by the window, watching her from beneath dark eyebrows as his one hand clenched and unclenched.
A cold line of sweat trickled behind her ear.
"Odin."
She could feel the channels dilating in response to the word, flooding his system with electrical activity. A single, strong pulse shook through her like a shockwave; his instinct to fight or flee.
"Odin."
Bright flares of energy reacted to the signal, but she struggled to focus. Instead, she watched as his eyes fluttered closed and his bottom lip quivered. Charlotte faltered. She didn't want to do this anymore. She didn't want to watch him come undone, again, and hope that at the end there was some fragment of a man that could be salvaged.
"Charlotte? What's wrong?" Shuri's voice summoned Charlotte back from her thoughts.
She inhaled sharply. "Odin."
Moving her current was like crawling through tar. She fought her way through to the corrupted cells and began to slowly, barely rewire their patterns. After only a few minutes, she could feel dampness at the back of her head. When her arm began to tremble, she clutched at her pant leg, determined to suppress her own unraveling. She had to do this. She had to finish this.
Several minutes could've been several hours, for all she knew. Sweat was pooling in the small of her back and waves of nausea were bubbling up her throat by the time she finished. She reopened her eyes. Bucky stood quietly with his head bowed. She counted his slow breaths.
On the third count, she quietly said, "Odin."
She withdrew herself as his current began to stabilize. The former soldier jerked his head up and ran his eyes across the room, searching for something that wasn't there. A few tears dripped from his eyelashes.
Charlotte ached to comfort him, to tell him it was ok and he was safe, but it was all she could do to remain upright. Her skin was burning. Bucky's wandering gaze came back to her and his wet eyes refocused with concern.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine."
"Your vitals say otherwise," Shuri spoke through the communication device on her Kimoyo beads. "Just stay there. I'm on my way."
"I'm fine," Charlotte repeated.
Anger started to tinge Shuri's voice. "No, you're not. We need to—"
Charlotte grabbed the bracelet off her wrist and awkwardly flung it to the other side of the room. An odd sound caught in her throat as she stifled the pain. Bucky started towards her, then stopped when she took a step back.
She swallowed hard. "Come on, Bucky. We're so close."
"It's not a race, Charlotte."
"Whatever it is, I don't want to do it anymore." Then, quietly, as if she were saying a prayer to herself, "I don't know if I can do it anymore."