"Shuri, you are truly a miracle worker." Steve exhaled when she told him that Bucky would make a full recovery and it was actually Tony's tech, although rudimentary in design but commendable in concept, was what kept Barnes from bleeding to death.
"You think I would let the man, who I spent so much time on reconstructing, die?" She teased the former Avenger. Steve blushed under his beard. "He is worth every minute of my effort."
"I don't know how to thank you." Rogers responded, his voice low, "He just means so much to me."
"Then just say thank you. Stop tripping over yourself." Shuri laughed lightly reaching to hold his callused hands calmly in hers in a gesture of friendship. Rogers had to smile in spite of himself. "Go. Go see him."
Rogers squeezed her hands with a twinkle in his eyes like a kid at Christmas and turned to enter Bucky's suite. The sliding door opened soundlessly. Barnes was propped up with pillows behind him, a nasal cannula perching below his nostrils. His eyes were closed, and he had an expression of repose on his face.
Steve took a chair next to the bed. Surprisingly, Barnes turned his head and cracked an eye open. "Punk." he said softly, a small flinch on his face as his ribs moved with breathing.
Rogers didn't realize he was holding his own breath, but he responded automatically, "Jerk."
"I love it here." Bucky sighed contentedly.
"Yeah. It's nice. We are lucky as hell."
"Tell me about it."
There was a long pause. Bucky broke it with an understated question in a gravelly voice, "Stark ok?"
Rogers blinked, "Him? He's fine. Not happy but ok."
"The rest of them ok?"
"Yeah."
There was another silence. Bucky shifted a little in his bed and winced. Finally, Steve broke the quiet, "Stark says he might understand your past better."
"Is that so?"
"He said something about understanding you better after being trapped with you, but he can't quite forgive you yet."
"Don't blame him."
"Bucky-"
"No." Barnes held Steve's gaze with his eyes sporting shadows under them. "See it from his perspective."
"That's kind of hard when you were not responsible." There was an edge in Steve's voice.
"But it was me."
A nurse chimed at the door and then entered. "I'm sorry Mr. Rogers. Visiting time is up."
Steve nodded and then glanced at Bucky looking like he wanted to keep talking. Instead he offered, "Rest up. We need you."
"Take your own advice." Bucky snarked back weakly. Rogers smiled a halfhearted smile and departed.
Natasha rolled the glass of vodka in her hand lost in her thoughts as the clear liquid pirouetted in the light. Bucky's ghost-like face when Vision brought him up, the lightening crackling between Steve and Tony still like a hurricane just looking for some more hot water to feed on, Vision and Wanda's clear desire for each other. Parker was just flattened by realizing the world truly sucks in ways he couldn't imagine. The only three who seemed to be ok were her, Sam and Rhodes. Who was she joking ...What a mess they all still were. When Nick was around, this would never have happened. A quick glance from that singular eye and everyone would snap to. Who knew where he was now, but either he needed to come back or Tony and Steve needed to square up.
Peter sat nearby on the couch in the Avenger Tower lounge trying to relax. He glanced over at the Russian for something to do.
"What's on your mind, kid?"
Peter blinked and looked away, a disturbed expression on his face, "Nothing."
"Something."
Peter leaned forward and put is head in his hands to stare at the carpet, "I can't believe… I just can't believe that …."
"That my mother country did those things to a human being?"
Parker said nothing but shuddered slightly.
"It's ok, Peter." Natasha stopped swirling her glass, "That was a lot for you to hear."
"I feel like I should be handling this better. I know there is evil in the world! That's why I want to help fight it!" he sat up, his cheeks red in temper, justice sparking in his eyes.
"You're a kid. Cut yourself some slack. You have a whole lifetime to become hard. Don't do it too soon or you'll regret it." Oily memories the color of blood leaked out into her consciousness.
"Will I?" Peter snapped back tired of being told he was just a kid.
Natasha sipped her vodka and leveled a look that could kill, emptying her eyes of all emotion and compassion as the bloody memories drained her, "You will."
Peter sat back dumbfounded, his temper cooled by her icy stare. He hadn't seen that side of Natasha ever before. He quickly got the hint she was trying to convey and decided to look out the window at lower Manhattan instead of the assassin.
Tony sat alone in his basement. It was probably the worst place and best place to be after they returned home from the botched mission. His drink of choice was bourbon as it sat chilling in the highball glass. Stark watched the ice melt and dilute the liquor as he reflected on the communique that had come in a few hours ago from Ross that the missile was a misfire from bad intel.
"Let me get this straight. You tried to kill us because your satellite can't tell a terrorist from an Avenger. Must be god-awful tech."
Ross frowned in the hologram, his mustache bristling, "That is not what I meant nor what happened, Tony."
"Is that so? Well, I have a different view of things that made me and my team see it a bit more lethally."
"We thought they were with you."
"Oh, you mean Steve 'I'm not Captain America anymore' Rogers and his merry band of America's Most Wanted?"
"C'mon Tony. I understand you are angry- ."
"Angry doesn't even cover it." Tony pointed an annoyed finger at the hologram desperately wishing he could blast the projected image with his hand thruster. "When you risk our lives to do your dirty work in the name of the United Nations, and then shoot a megaton missile on us at a target who wasn't even there, you got a lot of nerve to ask me to calm down."
Ross gave a large sigh. "You didn't see them? We have footage."
"Do you?" Tony frowned. He had had Friday scrub any record of Steve or his group from all levels of surveillance shortly after they began the flight home.
Ross looked off hologram at someone as they whispered in his ear. Tony smiled internally as Ross began to look more perturbed. Maintaining his angry ruse, Stark pretended to fume, even though he was truly infuriated for almost being killed.
"I know you, Tony Stark. I think you're covering up something." Ross concluded plainly.
Tony scoffed and threw his hands up in the air, "For crying out loud, Ross. You got some nerve telling me I'd willingly protect the one person I'd like to see deader than a doornail."
"But he's Steve's best friend."
"And that is one shield he can't hide behind anymore."
"We'll review that full report."
"You can review my ass."
Ross made a face and then blipped out of sight.
The ice kept melting in the glass as Tony stared at the shield his father had made and that Steve had abandoned after almost killing him with it, that now hung on the wall. Absently, he picked up the glass. Somewhere inside of himself, he saw his father looking down and feeling sorry that his son was torn between his friendship and his loyalty to an absentee dad.
"What do I do now?" he said out loud taking a small sip of the bourbon. Instead of soothing, it was a fiery lance down his throat.
Tony pulled out the flip phone with one preprogramed number on it. Taking another sip of the drink, he shook his head lightly. "Not yet. Sorry Dad. Not yet."