Laura was flying the jet over Siberia towards the Hydra base where Bucky was kept.
Under the canopy of dark clouds.
Flying over the snow capped mountains.
Sinking back into the pilot seat sighed.
She had fought T'Challa!
Fought Tony and Rhodey.
Nat.
All for a guy who killed her… well she couldn't say her husbands father anymore.
Looking at her barren finger sadly.
And then there was the fact that her friends Clint and Sam were more likely in jail.
Along with Wanda and Scott.
"Laura…" she heard Steve's voice snap her out of her thoughts.
She arched her head back to narrow her eyes at him.
"I'm sorry." he apologized.
She frowned.
"I don't want your petty. You just better be right about these soldiers."
She landed the jet a few minutes by the entrance to the subterranean bunker.
Spinning her seat around, she got out and walked down to grab a semi-automatic rifle in the back.
Meeting Steve and Bucky at the end of the ramp.
"You ready?" Steve asked her.
She loaded the gun with ammo and turned on the light on the barrel of the gun
. "Going dark…" her HUD on her glasses switched to infrared.
"That's kinda cool…" Bucky murmured.
She ignored his comment.
Shoving between them and walked towards the bunkers entrance.
Seeing a tracked vehicle by the entrance.
The door already opened for them.
"He can't have been here more than few hours." Steve alerted.
"Long enough to wake them up."
They travelled down hundreds of feet below in the bunker in a caged elevator.
Stopping in the basement and Laura heaved the door open.
She and Bucky gripped their guns.
Steve rose his shield.
Walking down the darkened corridor along the wall and up a staircase.
A loud thud suddenly echoed the hall from behind.
The trio spinning around instantly.
Laura looking down the scope.
"You ready?" Steve asked them.
"Yeah." Bucky nodded.
Double doors at the end of the hall opened up, revealing Tony in his suit.
Laura raised an eyebrow, her HUD switching off.
Still aiming his gun at him as he retracted his helmet.
"Tony…" Laura said surprised.
"Watson, you seem a little defensive." he said sarcastically.
"Well, we are wanted criminals now." she quipped.
Still her and Bucky aiming their guns at him.
"At ease, I'm not currently after you." he reassured them.
"Then why are you here?" Steve asked him suspiciously.
"Could be your story's not so crazy. Maybe. Ross has no idea I'm here. I'd like to keep it that way. Otherwise, I gotta arrest myself." he joked.
Laura smiled slightly. "We can't disappoint Ross now can we?" she joked back. Lowering her gun. "Thanks for coming Tony. How's Rhodey" she said and walked up to hug him. He hugged her back.
"The doctor said he's looking at some form of paralysis. He's being transferred to Columbia Medical tomorrow so, fingers crossed." he said and she shifted on her feet uncomfortably, memories of her past filled her mind but he noticed her missing rings.
"I'm sorry Laura." he apologized.
She sighed.
"It is what it is." she said, not wanting to talk about.
"It's good to see you Tony." Steve nodded.
"You too, Cap." he said but saw Bucky still aiming his gun at him.
"Hey, Manchurian Candidate, you're killing me. There's a truce here. You can drop…" he asked the soldier to drop his gun and Steve signaled his friend to drop it who did.
The four walked down the corridor to the bunker.
T'Challa was following them a ways back, hiding around the corner, watching them.
Tony put his helmet back on,
Laura renegaded her HUD and led them farther inside.
A person like figure suddenly appeared on Laura's glasses.
"I've got a heat signature." she warned.
"So do I." Tony confirmed.
"How many?" Steve asked.
"One…" Laura said, expecting six from the soldiers and therapist.
They entered the chamber and the lights were turned around.
Revealing five capsules that contained a yellow mist that descended.
Showing each solider being shot in the head.
Laura frowned in confusion.
"If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep." they heard a Sokovian accent over a P.A. system announce.
"Did you really think I wanted more of you?" the voice sneered.
Laura looking around the capsules.
"What the hell?" Bucky asked in horror.
"I'm grateful to them, though. They brought you here." a light turned on in the control room behind a blast proof concrete wall, revealing the "therapist"
Laura fired her gun at the window and Steve tossed his shield at his face but it was bounced back to his hand with no affect.
"Please. The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets." the therapist dismissed.
"I'm betting I can beat that!" Tony shouted.
"Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark. Given time. But then you'd never know why you came." the therapist hinted.
"You killed my husbands father to bring us here! Innocent people to bring us here! Why?" Laura demanded.
Her and Steve walking up to the slit.
"Ah, I'm glad you particularly asked me that. I've thought… there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes. How nice to find a flaw." the therapist mocked.
Laura hearing his accent clearly.
"Your Sokovian, aren't you?" she asked sadly.
"Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell. No. I'm here because I made a promise." he threatened.
She sighed, knowing what he was talking about.
"You lost someone." she realized.
"I lost everyone. And so will you…" he played an old VHS from a TV to the side of them.
She and Steve glanced over to see "December 16, 1991" on it.
She knowing what that date meant.
"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumples from within? That's dead… forever." the tape began to play.
Laura hitched a breath as a Cadillac crashed into a tree.
Watching as The Winter Soldier rode up and got off his motorcycle.
Laura watched Tony's increasing unease.
The driver lied on the ground beside the car.
"Help my wife. Please. Help." she heard Howard Stark beg.
The Winter Soldier walked over and hoisted him up by his hair.
He starred at Howard's bloody face.
Howard starred back pleadingly.
"Sergeant Barnes?" he asked in shock.
"Howard!" Maria pleaded.
In grief, Tony closed his eyes for a moment.
On the TV his father slumped dead.
The Winter Soldier put him in the driver's seat with his face against the steering wheel.
Tony watched in horror while Maria sat in the passenger seat with blood streaked down her face.
The Winter Soldier walked around and gripped her throat.
Expressionless he strangled Tony's mom.
He watched the screen horrified.
The Winter Soldier walked up and aims a gun at the surveillance camera.
Cutting off the footage.
The chamber was dead silent but Tony lunged towards Bucky.
Steve grabbed him.
"Tony, Tony." Steve pleaded.
"Did you know?" he demanded, tears streamed in his eyes.
"I didn't know it was him." Steve lied badly.
"Don't bullshit me, Rogers! Did you know?" he asked forcefully.
"Yes." Steve admitted.
Laura was trying to make herself invisible but Tony glared at her.
"Did you know?" he asked, stepping up to her.
She thought back to Zemo and the old SHIIED base in New Jersey.
"Not… particularly…" she said awkwardly.
Tony clenched his fist.
"But Tony, please. I didn't know it was him I know what you're going through. My birth parents were murdered remember! My actions had nothing to do with Barnes…" she rambled pleadingly but his anger snapped.
His suit fist slammed into the side of her face, flinging her backwards on her back across the floor.
Her seeing stars.
"Laura!" Steve shouted in horror.
Tony put his helmet back on and swatted Steve away.
Deflecting gunfire from Bucky, he grabbed him and flew across the chamber.
Slamming him against the floor, then jumped on his arms.
Steve's hit his shield, distracting him.
Steve barged him backwards, slamming his shoulders him to the floor and shackles his ankles.
Bucky punches Iron Man who just lifts him and slams him against a machine.
Tony raised a fist but Bucky twisted it.
Tony fired a shoulder mounted rocket but a fireball blew up above them.
Steve sliced his shackles as a towering structure of pipework collapsed on top of them.
Laura's head was still pounding from the punch but she saw the pipework falling towards her.
She raised her arms to protect herself but T'Challa leapt on top of her.
Using his body to shield her smaller frame from the pile of pipes that piled around them.
She saw him protecting her as the pipes eventually stopped collapsing on them.
He used his strength to toss the pipes aside.
Helping her up carefully, Laura grabbed his hand and steadied herself against him.
Gripping his arm, he saw her broken glasses on her face and right eye beginning to swell shut and the large bruise forming.
Frowning behind his mask, he nodded towards the bunker where the therapist was and she nodded faintly.
Clenching his arm, he led her back down the hall, her hearing the explosions from back in the chamber.
T'Challa led her outside on the snowy tundra where they saw the man sitting on a rock.
Facing away from them as he listened to a message on his phone.
T'Challa took off his mask and placed it on the ground.
Seeing a pistol in his hand, he held Laura back with his arm.
"I almost killed the wrong man." he admitted.
"Hardly an innocent one." the man argued.
"Who are you? Why are you doing this?" Laura demanded.
He turned back to glare at her.
"My name is Zemo. My father lived outside the city. I thought we would be safe there. My son was excited. He could see the Iron Man from the car window. I told my wife, "Don't worry. They are fighting in the city. We're miles from harm." When the dust cleared... and the screaming stopped. It took me two days until I found their bodies. My father… still holding my wife and son in his arms. And you and the rest of The Avengers? They went home. I knew I couldn't kill them. More powerful men than me have tried. But, if I could get them to kill each other… I'm sorry about your father. He seemed a good man. With a dutiful son. But you…" he narrowed his eyes at Laura who stiffened under his gaze.
"Watching Tony Stark punch you in the face… made it all worth it." Zemo declared.
She reached up to caresses the large bruise with her fingers.
T'Challa glanced down to her.
"Vengeance has consumed them. It's consuming them…" he said and she looked up to him.
T'Challa retracted his claws.
"I am done letting it consume me. Justice will come soon enough." he said and Zemo held up a gun.
"Tell that to the dead." he tried to shoot himself in the face but T'Challa leapt and grabbed him, putting him in a chokehold before the gun fired, the bullet bouncing off his hand.
"The living are not done with you yet…" he said while Laura walked up to him.
"I'll, uh call Agent Ross. Explain all of this and turn myself in."
The next day. Laura was sitting on a bench in a holding cell at back at GSG-9 headquarters in Berlin.
Leaning up against the wall.
They explained the situation to Ross, turned Zemo in and she awaited her fate.
She had still refused to sign the Accords.
She also heard what happened to Tony, Steve, and Bucky.
The fight.
The Avengers being broken apart.
Zemo had won.
She had tried calling Tony to explain herself but her number had been blocked.
He hadn't made an attempt to help her out legally.
Which hurt her.
But she did send Rhodey the designs of her old legs she made herself so he can retrofit them for himself.
So here she was.
Sitting in the cell for a majority of the day.
She wasn't sure what T'Challa would do.
Even though he knew the truth now.
She heard footsteps and got up to see him with Agent Ross.
Ross typed in a passcode on the control panel, opening up the glass door.
"King T'Challa has explained the situation to me and, considering you've turned in Zemo, his demand was for you to be released. I've agreed." Ross said.
"Really?" And my charges?" she asked surprised, stepping out of her cell.
"All of them dropped." Ross answered.
"He also promised to keep my suit out of the record." T'Challa added.
"Yeah well, consider it a favor." Ross muttered before he walked out to leave them alone.
"So what's going to happen to me regarding…" she asked, hinting at the council.
"I have already informed them what has happened. You are not in trouble. But I want you to attend Baba's funeral if that is okay with you?" he asked and she nodded.
"I wouldn't miss it. I'll be there for you."
They returned to Wakanda but before the funeral there was unfinished buisness to attend.
In one of the labs, Bucky was being strapped into a hydrochronic chamber.
Doctors were prepping him as Steve watched on.
"You sure about this?" Steve asked his friend.
"I can't trust my own mind. So until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head I think going back under is the best thing... for everybody." he answered.
The doctor closed the latch and Bucky closed his eyes before he froze.
Steve walked over to where Laura and T'Challa were standing by the glass wall.
"Thank you for this." he thanked T'Challa.
"You're friend and my father. They were both victims. If I can help one of them find peace." T'Challa replied.
"Don't worry Steve. Your friend is in good hands." Laura reassured him.
"Thank you Laura. You've been a good friend." he said and hugged her.
She hugged her back.
"It's the least I can do."
"You know if they find him here. They'll come for him." Steve warned.
"Let them try."
The funeral took place a few days later.
It was a grand affair.
All of Wakanda turning up to mourn and celebrate their fallen King.
Laura felt out of place, aware that everyone knew what had happened and had seen YouTube videos of her fighting T'Challa at the airport.
She only spoke when spoken too.
The couple walked back to the throne room.
The Dora leaving the alone outside as the sun began to set.
Laura was dressed in a traditional white Wakandan funeral dress.
The bruise on her eye had almost faded away.
"The service was nice." she said softly.
"It was…" T'Challa said but leaned on her.
She caught him and held him.
Hearing his soft cries.
"It'll be okay… It'll be okay…" she said comfortingly.
Scratching the back of his head soothingly.
Resting her chin on his shoulder while she held him.
He eventually leaned off her.
"So, uh I'll go pack my things…" she said and began to walk out but he grabbed her hands.
"Why would you leave?" he asked surprised.
"Because after everything I had done. What just happened. I didn't think you would want me here." she explained.
"Laura, it was I who was wrong. I should have listened to you. I shouldn't have fought you. I'll never forgive myself for hurting you. I hope you will forive me." he pleaded her.
"There's nothing to forgive T'Challa. You did what you thought was right. So did I." she said and got on her toes to kiss him.
He smiled and revealed her rings.
"I don't want you to take these off again." he asked with a smile.
She smiled back as he placed them back on her finger.
He then handed her, her spear back.
"If that is what my King wants." she said and leaned her head on his chest.
He grabbed her waist and rested his chin on the top of her head.
"I do like the shorter hair." he said lightheartedly.
"It is less of a hassle I will admit." she joked back.
"I want you to be my Queen, Laura. I can't do this without you." he said seriously.
The couple stared at each other.
"Throughout all of this. I never stopped loving you. I'll never stop you T'Challa."