It's been an insane last few months for me, and I appreciate your patience in the interim. This ended up becoming one of my longest chapters to date, and I'm excited to dig into this precarious situation Barnes has gotten himself into!
I am also thrilled to share an original gouache painting by HardWiredWeird (hardwiredweird on Tumblr), as well as an illustration that Kaite_xyxy (kaite_xyxy on Twitter) created to accompany a scene from a prior chapter!
Please check out this chapter on Archive of Our Own to see the art, video, and links to everyone's social media!
Simply search for: "KLeCrone Ao3 Winter of the White Wolf"
Winter of the White Wolf
Chapter 90 - Modus Operandi
Summary:
As pain threatens to overwhelm Barnes, he takes matters into his own hands in a search for answers…
Deep in the back of a darkened electronics repair store, the silence tightened around Barnes, constricting every part of him until it was as if time itself stood still.
Some part of him registered that he was still conscious. Still alive. But each booming heartbeat resonated through him like a clock's wary toll. Like a primal warning. The painful fog surrounding his mind made it difficult to think, no less diagnose if he was even still capable of pushing air in and out of his disobedient lungs. The sensation burned deep in his chest, and it took every bit of focus he had to remain upright despite the searing electric current locking his body in place like a personal prison.
It was impossible to know how much time had passed since he'd attempted to reply to the haptic pulses of Yama's coded message with a crude attempt at signing 'pain' with his hand. He didn't have any idea what might happen in the wake of his confession, no less if it had even been received. Under the circumstances, it seemed altogether unlikely that even advanced Wakandan tech would be able to distinguish the faint tremble of his fingers as dire attempts at communication. Even still, the silent exchange had a way of reminding him that he wasn't on his own. That there was reason to hang on and fight.
Amid the almost deafening pounding in his head, Barnes could just barely make out the thrum of his target's racing heartbeat pulsing through his leather gloves. The slender man he'd been interrogating shuddered in his grip, and Barnes struggled to steady his hands to keep from inadvertently crushing him where he stood.
That wasn't who he was. Wasn't who he wanted to be.
He fought to remain conscious against the torrent of all-encompassing pain like he had so many times before under Hydra's shackles. He was no stranger to their cruel "enrichment," but such tests were usually carried out in containment or stark sensory deprivation tanks, not live on the field as he was with another man frozen within his grip.
Although the windowless room basked in darkness, the fading assassin's field of vision was scattered with disorienting flashes of light caused by the ceaseless electrical current hammering through his nervous system. Try as he might, it was growing increasingly difficult to tell them apart from the faint flickers of overloaded surge protectors and the trickle of light spilling out from around the edges of his target's overturned cellphone.
The subtle falloff of the torch light trickled over the worn carpet and cluttered corners in the darkened workroom, but it couldn't extinguish the similarities Barnes's haggard mind drew to the depths of the enigmatic Dark Place he'd glimpsed in his waking dreams. The comparison churned up lingering discontent and confusion at not being able to make sense of what he'd seen and felt there. The strange chilled currents pushing and pulling against his body, and the formless shadows lingering around his bare feet.
He hadn't been forced to hold his breath when he'd last glimpsed that surreal place, but the muted ambiance now muffling his senses and locking his body in place had a way of swiftly pulling him down to that mysterious seabed like a used tire pushed over the side of a midnight pier. Amid the weight wrenching him under, he could feel a rigid edge of the vibranium star sheltered in his back pocket, reminding him that even now, he was no closer to understanding what it all meant.
"Ey… you…?" the man clutched in front of him strained to form complete words as he wheezed out half-formed syllables that Barnes's static-filled mind struggled to translate from Symkarian to anything useful, "You having… a…a seizure… or?"
Barnes opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was so tight from the all-encompassing pain that he wasn't able to rally the strength for anything other than a hollow croak. It was like his whole body was being twisted by an invisible boa constrictor. All the while, the man he was struggling not to crush pleaded with him, his voice barely audible over the pounding in his head and the electrical hum of the room, "...If you… get… my phone… I… I can… get you… help… Please…"
Through it all, Barnes was aware of his captive's words, but regardless of the underlying plea strung through the heavily lurched syllables, he found himself struggling to not only piece together the meaning behind the consonants and vowels, but the sincerity of the haggard declaration. It shouldn't have mattered, but something in the timbre other man's voice stuck with Barnes. He was distressed, yes, undoubtedly eager for release, certainly, but there was something else too. An empathetic edge Barnes strained to quantify and diagnose.
The limited information available to him offered only more questions than answers, and grasped at the fringes of his mind where a cacophony of haunted voices clawed at his skull. Their raw, indistinct cries overlapped with one another, driving the nails across his scalp deeper and deeper in. He could feel their sharp bite as the echoes pleaded for their lives, and some buried part of him strained to recognize each one and match them to a cascade of faces and wide eyes.
Barnes strained to keep his eyes open and felt a gulp of movement beneath his gloved palm as another increasingly desperate voice repeated, "Pl…lease…"
He didn't know if was even still capable of scrying the other man's words for truths, but it didn't matter because Barnes wasn't sure he could have released him from his grip even if he'd wanted to.
Though he did everything he could to fight it, Barnes could feel his body fading. Try as he might, he couldn't pull air through his lips, and the pounding in his head drowned out all conscious thought beyond a singular intent to remain upright and not crush the man in his grip.
Just when the unbearable pressure gave a final tug and pulled his heavy eyelids towards the welcoming abyss of unconsciousness, the ceaseless jolts of electrical current suddenly fell away.
Barnes's breath hitched as he used the brief opening between pulses to choke in a mouthful of musty air, holding it tight in his lungs while he braced himself for the next wave of constricting pain to come crashing down around him. Instead, a second passed. Then another. He gasped in another breath of stale air. A cacophony of haggard wheezes and racing heartbeats filled his ears, but the space between was no longer filled with the thrum of electrical current.
Was this just the prolonged space between the node reactivating itself? Or had the Wakandans done something? Perhaps they'd managed to repair the malfunctioning contingency appliance remotely? He was still unclear about the inner-workings of the vibranium arm. Perhaps it possessed an override of some kind?
Barnes remained motionless as his pain-addled mind struggled to uncover any viable explanation, but short of repairing the electrical node, the only other possibility he could think of was that they'd chosen to disable it altogether. Considering his decision to silence his comms and pursue his target against orders, that particular possibility seemed altogether unlikely, and a stretch of trust under the circumstances.
Was there something else he didn't know?
Although the sharp searing edges of the white-hot pain receded, Barnes was left with residual echoes of sensation and spiraling light shows across his vision as his frayed nerves strained to stabilize and ground themselves after being stretched to their limits. His whole body shuddered, offering more than a passing familiarity to the many times he'd struggled to reacclimate himself after wave after wave of dark trials by HYDRA's hands. Something about the sensation tugged at him, reminding him for just a fleeting moment of what he'd seen on the opposite side of the wall of water in the Dark Place the last time he'd glimpsed it. How the pale golden light from his arm had briefly illuminated shadowed forms beyond the veil of rough, churning water.
Panels of deep, living water branched away from him like the viewing glass of a monotone kaleidoscope. Forms and figures. He could see them. Their faces.
And he could see his own. Or a face that looked like his. Pale. Keeled over. Bruised and bleeding as he knelt on the floor and opened his mouth to silently scream.*
The surreal images and the many lingering questions they conjured up rolled around his tired mind in the darkness, teasing him with answers just beyond his reach. He could taste blood on his tongue, but he didn't have time for this now. Not when so much was at stake. He had to concentrate. Focus. The images he'd seen were just echoes of a past life he was no longer strictly tethered to. His might was ailing, but it wasn't stricken back to a blank slate like so many times before.
He did what he could to focus on that. Not the eyes he'd seen from the countless people he'd killed. Not Steve's terrified eyes at the side of the train, or the flare of anger he'd glimpsed in Ayo's from a time he didn't remember.
Prolonged exposure to electrical currents had no doubt done a number on his body's systems, and while the residual pain wasn't insignificant, it was manageable. His stiff body protested but it responded to his summons like so much bitter rust. Barnes knew that his baseline was no longer strictly managed by cocktails of unknown chemicals and painkillers, but he found some buried part of him longed for the sweet allure of their pain relief all the same.
Even still, his system struggled to stabilize after coming off an adrenaline high that'd barely managed to keep him from shutting down completely. He was certain that in the process he'd torn or at the very least strained a muscle along his right arm, but the dull ache throughout his body and his throbbing head returned to being familiar, welcome companions.
He could work with that.
He wasn't sure how long he had before the electrical node might reactivate, but around the time he was working to establish his new baseline and confirm which of his fingers were fully functional, the man clutched in front of him suddenly tensed his body and dropped his weight in an attempt to break free. Barnes caught his hostage's wrist before it could slip through his fingers, and instinctively adjusted his grip around the other man's neck and torso before the slippery man risked pulling them both onto the ground in a heap. The attempted maneuver was hardly elegant, but it wasn't like Barnes was operating at 100% either. Although the two of them were still surrounded by near-darkness, he was well aware that his own haphazard recovery was sloppy at best. He did what he could to draw a sense of threat into his voice with a firm, "Stay still," but it wasn't nearly as intimidating as he'd hoped to manage under the circumstances.
To his credit: Barnes's words momentarily stilled the fight out of the slender man, but he also had the nerve to casually lean his weight from one side to the other in a poor feign that he wasn't still actively trying to suss out a viable means to escaped the man restraining him.
In response, Barnes summoned what strength he had and straightened his back so that he was standing fully upright before he used the elbow surrounding the other man's neck and torso to physically lift him up off the ground.
The man in his arms abruptly stiffened and stopped trying to press his luck. "Stay still. Got it got it," he parroted obediently. When Barnes lowered his feet back to the thin carpet, the man thought to whimper, "Can't blame me for tryin'."
Barnes growled something into the inches between them, but decided against arguing the point. He wouldn't give the man credit for much aside from the fact that his first instinct hadn't been to go straight for the handgun concealed in his front right pocket. With a twinge of effort, Barnes forced intention into his strained fingers and willed them to obey. It would be impossible to take inventory of them individually without potentially offering the man in front of him an opportunity to escape, so he had to work with what he had.
Although Barnes's vision was still spotty, he could feel a steady thrum of sensation returning to his right hand. It was far more difficult to evaluate the responsiveness of his prosthetic under the circumstances, so he opted to try another approach. "If you so much as think of testing my patience or raising your voice…" he warned through gritted teeth. The heat of his threat was heavy in the undercurrent of his voice, but he didn't have to strain as much to release the volley of words.
"Yeah. Got it." the slender man choked quasi-obediently into the crook of his vibranium elbow.
To Barnes's best guess? He wasn't lying, but the trained assassin was wise enough to not put it past him. If his target saw a possible weakness, he was liable to take advantage of it.
Barnes grunted an affirmative and shifted his weight, doing his best to calculate the relative positions of their bodies within the near-darkness. Since it was unclear how long it might be until the burst of debilitating electrical energy returned, it was critical he secure his target in case of complications. With rigid intention, the trained operative slid his left hand over the other man's nearest wrist and folded it behind his back, well aware of the reek of perspiration and fear radiating from the disheveled slender man. Barnes repeated the maneuver on his target's over arm, and once he had both of them secured behind the man's back, he cinched the opening of the jacket's sleeves tight around his wrists, preventing him from squeezing his hands back through the openings in any future attempt at escape.
Using the hem of the thick fabric as leverage, Barnes gripped his target's wrist in one hand and used the crook of his injured foot to pull the leading edge of a metal folding chair towards them, quietly sliding it into the space between them, "Sit."
"Sit?"
"On the chair."
The other man craned his fingers around, attempting to feel for the nearest edge of the unseen object. "I don't know how you can see anything in here," he complained as Barnes angled the other man's hands so that they made contact with the back of the chair. When it seemed as though he was debating the merits of sitting versus continuing to stand, Barnes applied firm guiding pressure to his shoulders, forcing him down into the seat without any further delays. In response, his target whimpered miserably, but Barnes quickly classified the sound as an exhalation of complaint rather than an indication of injury.
With calculating intention, Barnes stretched out his left arm to retrieve a stray extension cord he remembered seeing nearby and pulled it back to him. It was difficult to determine the exact gauge, but he plied it between his fingers and applied pressure on the length of it. Satisfied, he quickly wove the cable into a well-practiced series of handcuff and constrictor knots he tightened around the man's wrists before threading the far end under and around the legs of the chair, securing his hostage's wrists and ankles to the chair itself. The arrangement would prove invaluable if the electrical current returned and Barnes became physically disabled again.
"...So we're just gonna ignore whatever was going on with you a minute ago?"
Barnes disregarded the question, choosing instead to use the fingers of his right hand to investigate the status of his prosthetic. Cloaked in darkness as he was, it was easy to confuse the chrome plated one he'd known for so long with this more intricate one. Although his ring finger remained locked in place, the other four digits were tight but responsive. With a quick jerk, he released the ornery finger and folded it open. A slightly-concerning intermittent tremble reverberated across the interlocking metal plates beneath his gloved hand, but the relative grip strength appeared unaffected.
Satisfied, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the thin scarf he'd been previously wearing over and around his left shoulder – the one he was told King T'Challa had once gifted to him in a recent past he didn't remember. In quick intentional motions, he efficiently folded the embroidered cloth into thick sectional layers that he wrapped around the man's head in a makeshift blindfold. "Overkill, don't you think?" The man under his fingers complained.
The feigned casualness of his posture instantly straightened the moment Barnes turned his attention to the hidden contents of the man's pockets. "Hey!" The mild protest was firm but short lived. Barnes had no desire to prolong the contact, and he made quick work of efficiently slipping his hands in and out of the pockets around his hostage's hips to retrieve first his gun, then his wallet, then a keychain and keys. From the sound of the other man's lips smacking together, he'd considered further objections, but thought better than to argue against the abrupt invasion of privacy.
His hostage's breathing briefly spiked in the wake of being disarmed. Even though Barnes didn't have any present plans to involve the gun in the next phase of his interrogation, he did his due diligence to inspect the firearm beneath his gloved fingers, double-checking that the safety was secure and approximating the make and model from the size and shape. A 9mm semi-automatic most likely. Possibly a Glock G42. He couldn't pinpoint how many rounds were in it from weight alone, but he deemed the details inconsequential to his investigation. He couldn't risk getting distracted when so much was at stake.
There were benefits to keeping the gun in his own pocket, but it also potentially put the weapon within range of his hostage, and if the electrical node in his shoulder surged back to life at any moment, it was possible it could be taken from him and used against him. The risks such an arrangement posed felt altogether unnecessary given the unusual circumstances, so he opted to store the firearm well beyond the man's reach atop a filing cabinet just behind them.
Barnes pocketed the man's wallet and keys, focusing on his own breathing and bidding it to stabilize like Ayo'd once showed him. This wasn't like the other times. This man's actions were deserving of investigation, yes, but beyond his confessions regarding petty theft, Barnes had no confirmation that he'd hurt anyone or was working with HYDRA. That he knew of. Hadn't killed anyone.
That Barnes knew of.
He frowned, trying to clear his aching head enough to think back to the last words they'd exchanged before the malfunctioning electrical node had all-but disabled him. It wasn't clear how much time they had until it risked firing again, so Barnes ground his teeth and kept his voice low, "You were telling me about what you were planning here." For emphasis, he threaded his right hand around the man's nearest wrist, pressing three fingers into the soft exposed flesh with motivational intention.
His hostage made a short squeak of alarm, "Like I said: Just tech." His words came out in a rush, like he couldn't get them out fast enough. "That's it. I was here a few weeks back too. Easy enough spot to hit again. In and out after hours. No one saw me."
"Then who were you talking to on the phone?" Barnes leveled.
"Just one of my mates. His last message was all jumbled, so I was trying to give him a ring. See if his phone was on the fritz. Honest truth."
From what Barnes could scry from his vitals, it was the truth to some degree, "So if I look at your phone, that's what I'm gonna see?"
"Yeah. That's right."
"For your sake, I hope you're not lying." With that, Barnes briefly released his wrist so he could take a few steps forward and reach down to pick up the other man's overturned phone. He lifted it off the floor and promptly used one finger to toggle off the disorientingly bright flashlight component on the opposite side. Unsurprisingly the home screen was locked, and a faint green interface illuminated the darkness, requesting a FaceID or passcode to proceed. "What's the passcode?"
"C'mon man. There are like a dozen phones here. Take one of them. You don't need mine."
They didn't have time for this. Their exchange was growing far too cordial for Barnes's tastes and he silently closed the gap between them and wrapped one hand completely around the man's nearest wrist and leaned in close to his ear, threading a well-cultivated undertone of threat to his voice, "Remember what I said about testing my patience?"
The man shuddered once and shucked in a breath of air just as another shimmer of morse code tapped along the beads surrounding Barnes's wrist:
–
..
-.-.
..-..
"Mic?"
He blinked twice and glanced down at his Kimoyo strand. His mic? Although his head was still pounding and his vision was littered with distorted pockets of ephemeral light, he was able to diagnose the root of Yama's inquiry. When he'd originally thought to silence his comms, it was only to strip away the excess audio so he could focus his attention exclusively on his surroundings and the target he was silently tracking through the city streets. Barnes hadn't even considered the possibility of decoupling the audio streams so that he could keep his mic hot and allow the others to listen in as he proceeded with his mission.
…Or had he considered it? He wasn't so sure now.
Barnes frowned and retracted his hand from the other man's wrists while he stood in the darkness and considered Yama's request. He was far from proud of some of his more recent decisions, and while the idea of others overhearing his interrogation was anything but a salve to the complex situation he found himself in, it was a fair request. More than that: while he assumed something had gone awry with the electrical node on his shoulder since the EMP blast on the other side of the river, he wasn't sure of its present status. Sight unseen, he supposed it was reasonable that his allies would want to listen in on his interrogation, potentially to ensure that he wasn't gravitating towards violent impulses that could necessitate manually toggling the electrical node back on.
Rather than waste further time with deliberations, Barnes manually enabled the outgoing microphone control channel on his communications module, but kept the incoming audio stream muted so as to not risk distracting himself during the upcoming interrogation. His head was still spinning as it was. If he didn't know better, he'd swear someone had plunged nails back into his skull at some point.
He leaned forward and wrapped one hand firmly around his hostage's exposed wrist again, well aware that anyone on the other end of the audio channel would now be able to hear the words he spoke next, as well as the uncomfortable whimper the younger man shuddered into the darkness.
"Passcode," Barnes repeated, no-nonsense. "You don't want me to ask again."
"Okay okay," the slender man squirmed, "It's 8 - 0 - 0 - 8 - 5."
Barnes used his thumb to input the code. Just as he was entering the last two digits, the man thought to add, "...Get it? Ah… nevermind."
The non-sequitur remark when unacknowledged. Instead, the home screen unlocked and Barnes immediately sought out the message history, thumbing through the latest message exchanges as he searched out anything of interest. The most recent text exchanges were with someone named Davi. At first glance, Barnes thought maybe the two were speaking in some sort of code, until his headache-stricken mind realized that the loose Symkarian words were frequently absent key characters. A series of typos and missing consonants dominated Davi's side of the exchange, supplemented with an excess of emojis and a detailed account of the contents of his stomach.
[Text Messages Between the Phone's Owner and Davi]:
Davi: My heds poundng
Phone Owner: What happened?
Davi: Musta 8 bad suhi
Davi: I tink somethigs rong wth m phone 2
Davi: Blwn audio
Phone Owner: U ok?
Davi: Yeh
Phone Owner: Where r u?
Davi: Sme cornr we splt
Phone Owner: Lost track of those 2 girls
Phone Owner: I'll head 2 u after I pick up some new phones$$
Phone Owner: What specs u want? ;)
Seeing nothing of substance, Barnes backed out of the screen and glanced over the other message threads, noting that they were hours old. The exchanges nested within contained mostly idle chatter and emojis with the occasional photo. Barnes thumbed through the photo album and scrolled through the recent photos. The latest timestamp was from this morning and featured a poorly framed photograph of a name-brand sneaker and a blurry hand making an inconclusive sign with his fingers from the corner of the screen. There were no photos of Shuri or the others, and while the camera roll contained a number of street-level photos of buildings including some exterior shots of the building they were presently in, none of the photographs contained any locations that had associations to the newspaper clippings or entries from his journals or the residence with the unreported breakin.
But the ratio of exterior photographs of buildings to selfies was higher than Barnes might've otherwise expected.
Although he'd only recently come into contact with the young man, seeing photos of him smiling with his half-formed goatee alongside his friends had a way of calling attention to a far removed portion of his life away from their present purview. It wasn't as if Barnes had intrinsically hoped that the phone contained damning evidence, but things might've been more straightforward if they had. If anything, the messages and photographs all appeared to corroborate the kid's claim that he peddled in secondhand tech, and potentially footwear.
But why so many photos of buildings, then?
"So you and your 'mate' split up, and you don't know anything about it?"
The man's pulse jumped at the question. A clear signal that there was more to the story – that much Barnes already knew, but it was better to play it like he was unaware of any details beyond what his hostage had already divulged and what was shared within incriminating texts.
"I dunno. I just– look, it's just gonna sound bad, but nothin' happened."
Barnes forced his expression into a tight neutral even though he was well aware the man in his grip couldn't see his face in the darkness beyond his blindfold, "In the texts you said you lost some girls."
There was an uptick in his target's vitals, "I'm not one to turn down a quick buck while someone's busy lookin' the other way, that's all. But confrontation's not my bag."
Barnes narrowed his eyes, doing everything he could to moderate the complicated surge of emotions bubbling up inside him. He'd seen the kid stalking the others over countless blocks. It hadn't been a simple coincidence that they were headed in the same direction and they both knew it. But Barnes also knew that it was imperative that he not show his hand and make it readily important that those women were important to him too.
"Then what was the play?"
"It's not like th–"
Barnes tightened his grip, "You're claiming you were just after tech, so why not go straight here together? This reads more like you and your 'mate' were after human game."
The man seated in front of him immediately backpedaled, "Whoa whoa! It's not like that at all! I don't don't do any trafficking. And Dav—" he stumbled over his words in a poor attempt to protect his friend's identity and continued, "my friend, he wouldn't get involved nothin' like that. I've known him for the better part of five years and he might be awkward around girls, sure. Who isn't? But he's never hurt 'em. Honest."
The man's steady pulse and respiration implied he believed the words rushing out of his mouth, but the skilled interrogator opted to feign otherwise, "That's not what those receipts show."
The glorified teen tensed and swallowed once before responding, "Look, sometimes I've been short on cash and owed the wrong person money, and I've taken my shot at a wallet or purse. I'm not proud of it, but sometimes you've gotta make ends meet."
"Which is why you have the gun," Barnes deadpanned. He was tempted to wrest the kid's arm further in an attempt to pull further details from him and speed this interrogation along, but he was well aware that not only were other people listening in on their exchange, but both his mind and body were operating in a suboptimal state. If he wasn't careful, it was entirely possible that he could accidentally cause permanent damage to his hostage.
"I've been robbed too, you know," he defended. "Circle of life and all'a that. And like I told you, I've used it a time or two to intimidate people. That's it. Small game. No one got hurt."
"And that's what you were up to with your associate tonight? 'Small game?'"
"That came out wrong," came the immediate backpedal. "I mean chance opportunities. They're dicey, but they can pay off big, and I prefer playin' it discreet."
"Discreet?"
"Yeah. No contact, like this was supposed to be. Scopin' out folks and their digs. Seeing if it's worth the trouble comin' back and makin' my way in when they aren't home so I can take my time. If I do it right, sometimes I can come back around another time or two. Plan things out, especially when it comes to larger stuff."
His target's story was passable at best, but there were enough lingering holes that Barnes wasn't about to accept it at face value. He was working his way towards a follow-up question when the man blindfolded in the darkness more tentatively added, "Look… I didn't see your face. And I told you everything. If you let me go, I'll keep all this on the mum. Swear on my mother's life. Let you get back to… whatever it was you were…" he trailed off. "...Wait, were you after tech too?" The young thief's voice dropped to a whisper, "Was it for more 'Vigilante' stuff?"
Barnes narrowed his eyes. There was something in the way the other man articulated the syllables that made it out to be a formal title, and a blood-drenched moniker doubling for the assassin currently on the loose within Symkaria. Barnes had no interest in associating himself with the title, regardless of the respect it appeared to carry with certain individuals who preferred the grand allure of conspiracy theories.
When Barnes didn't immediately respond, the kid swallowed hard, abundantly fearful that his latest inquiry had gone a step too far. "Nevermind, nevermind, I shouldn't've asked! I just don't want to die. I swear I didn't see your face. You've gotta believe me."
Rather than acknowledge the young man's latest remark, Barnes leaned in and growled out a firm counter, "We're not done yet."
Stillness was not a singular emotion, and in the wake of Ayo's decision to disable the electrical node, Shuri kept her eyes laser focused on Barnes's live data. If Yama's theory were correct, the cautionary node her brother had placed on his shoulder was malfunctioning and alive with white hot energy. They could not know what Barnes might do when freed from its bite, but under the circumstances, it was the best option they had.
That was… assuming the maimed device could still register the remote signal to incapacitate it. If it could not…
Shuri frowned and let her deep-seeded fears go unspoken whilst she surveyed the incoming datastream, hoping to pinpoint the exact moment their underlying theory bore fruit. If the node had been successfully deactivated, she should see an immediate change in his vitals.
Any time now…
There it was! A sudden drop in the modularity of his pain matrix!
"It's working!" Shuri announced, relief flooding through her chest. She spared a quick glance to Yama in her grey knitted cap, who was still wearing Shuri's augmented frames. Yama took a deep breath and clasped her fist against her chest in a sign of solidarity and appreciation for hearing her out, while Nomble's silent lips formed 'thank you.'
Shuri bobbed her head to acknowledge her steadfast Doras just as Ayo's slightly winded voice came through their shared communications channel, "Keep us apprised of updates. We are still minutes away from his location."
Shuri glanced at the vibranium augments projections above her fingertips comparing the estimated arrival time of her drone to Ayo and Sam's locators. It was likely her drone would arrive ahead of their reinforcements, leaving Barnes on his own to deal with the suspicious man who'd been following them.
For all the good that disabling the node might've done, they were hardly out of the fire yet.
In the wake of deactivating the electrical node, the audio channel shared by Shuri, Yama, Nomble, Ayo, Sam, and M'yra had gone eerily silent as they awaited any crumbs of updates.
"I've sent a message asking him to turn his mic back on," Yama offered, carefully removing her augmented spectacles and thrusting them back in Shuri's direction with a gentle shake.
"You think he's gonna listen?" Sam inquired a distance away.
Shuri took the lenses from Yama and put them on. Whatever low-key evening she might've once envisioned had long-since vanished beyond a cascade of digital readouts, surveillance footage, and yet another unread communications message from the Design Center peppering the periphery of the lenses within her thin black, gold, and silver frames. Her Dora's idea of utilizing the low battery notifications on Barnes's Kimoyos to generate makeshift haptic pulses and send short coded messages to him was a clever play, even if her request to listen in was a compromise at-best.
No sooner had Shuri recalibrated her display than Barnes's encrypted audio channel began transmitting again. Apparently Yama'd successfully coaxed Barnes to toggle his microphone back on after all. The active noise canceling prioritized voices, so Shuri manually adjusted the attenuation so that they might hear the more subtle noises on the other end of the communications channel.
An ambient hum permeated the incoming audio, broken up only by the sound of cycling electronics equipment far in the background. Shuri could make out haggard breaths, but it was impossible to pinpoint who they belonged to. A sharp metallic creak punctuated the gaping hole of their worries.
If only they could see what was going on!
Barnes's gritty voice resonated over the channel in harsh Symkarian. Even without being able to parse his words, Shuri could feel the underlying threat in each syllable. There was a brief delay as Shuri recalibrated and prioritized Griot's systems to offer a live translation of the words into English for Sam's sake.
"Passcode," Griot obediently repeated. The AI's voice was eerily absent of intonation, "You don't want me to ask again."
"Okay okay," the younger voice on the other end — their pursuer — responded in fluent Symkarian followed by Griot's more cheerful translation, "It's 8 - 0 - 0 - 8 - 5."
Unheard by either Barnes or his hostage, Sam cut in "Seriously?"**
"—sst!" Ayo interjected, swiftly shushing Captain America's commentary without a second thought.
From either side of her, Shuri caught both Yama and Nomble glance towards her, well-aware that they'd all been bracing themselves for the possibility of overhearing a much more dire distant conversation altogether. Barnes's captive sounded surprisingly young, and not at all the conniving man she might've been expecting.
She was relieved at once to hear both men were still conscious and presently not in as much combined distress as her overactive imagination and Barnes's vitals might've led her to believe. His readouts were still erratic, but his respiration and blood oxygenation had both increased substantially, and though his heart rate was elevated, it was no longer as highly variable as it had been minutes before when the electrical node was presumably active.
While it was far too premature to take comfort in Ayo's decision to disable the electrical node on Barnes's shoulder altogether, the exchange between Barnes and his captive gave Shuri hope that Barnes was not so far gone as she once feared. And that moreover, there was not lasting damage from what had happened beyond her view. She twisted her face in thought and spared a glance across her augmented field of view to pull up his latest cortical scans. The devices appeared to be functioning normally, but isolated portions of his brain were still inexplicably hyperactive. Why? The readings were still showing unusual variability that she'd hoped would have leveled out once the electrical pulsed ceased.
Ah, another message from the Design Group! They must've picked up the shift in his vitals since the electrical node was disabled too. She'd circle back to read their message when she had a free moment.
"...Get it?" the man that had once pursued them halfway across the city casually added in Griot's translated voice, "Ah… nevermind."
Shuri felt her jaw tighten in palpable distaste. She wasn't sure just what she'd expected to overhear when Barnes's outgoing audio signal was reactivated, but she tried to take comfort in the fact that she had not entered into a more dire exchange already in progress.
Still, after all the trouble this silly man had caused, she found she would have preferred there was less humor on his tongue.
A fresh wave of uncomfortable, lingering silence permeated the channel once more. "So you and your 'mate' split up, and you don't know anything about it?" Came Barnes's unnaturally even reply after a time.
Although she would have preferred the convenience of two-way conversation with Barnes, hearing the men on the other end was far better than the silence of not knowing what was going on at all. It was clear Barnes was seeing fit to interrogate the other man — she suspected as much — but as their exchanges continued, it was clear he was not merely negotiating with words alone. Muted creaks of leather and the whine of metal accented their exchanges. As time went on, the slender man's humor quickly faded away and his voice grew increasingly strained, frequently pitching up in short bursts of pain. Shuri assumed his discomfort was a direct response to whatever Barnes was doing to him. She could only hope his methods were not as extreme as she knew him capable of.
Shuri checked in on the status of her drone: it was still enroute in navigating to Barnes's location. With a frown, she resumed multitasking and searched out answers in her charts, but her overactive mind did double duty, seeking to draw out any details she could from the sharp exchanges proliferating the other end of their communications channel.
An audible grunt permeated the open audio channel and Shuri winced as their pursuer's voice sprang up in pain, "You don't have to squeeze so tight. I already told ya everything I know."
"I don't think so," that hauntingly familiar voice deadpanned. "Not yet."
The patterns of his speech were no stranger to her, but it was particularly unsettling hearing them from a distance absent of context as they were. The voice was unmistakably that of the James she knew, but the timbre and intonation were seasoned with a far more testing undercurrent, one that served as a swift reminder that the man on the other end wasn't explicitly him, even if they shared the same face.
And apparently some of the same memories.
Eager for some scrap of reassurance, Shuri's fingers flew over charts and diagrams offering renewed credence to the belief this was still fundamentally Barnes in their presence. While the fact carried some thin thread of relief, she was well aware that many of the strands of memory closest to him were coated with the ichor of his time under HYDRA's cruel thumb. Even those memories from the time after he'd escaped their clutches in Washington D.C. were red with the blood of others he'd admitted to killing with his own hands – including Hydra operatives who'd sought to reclaim and subjugate him.
That alone was reason to give her pause, but there was something else too. Something unspoken that she caught along the concerned edges of Nomble's expression that was mirrored in Yama's frown.
The lot of them had seen James through all manner of trials, including those edged in crimson. The times he was himself, and the times the waters of his mind stalled or surged in tumultuous bursts of violence. In her mind, it was easy to separate which was "him" and which were the triggers thrust upon him. In practice she was well aware that unraveling the complex pathways of a living mind was a fool's game. But this? This was not a matter so easily sorted into convenient boxes and classifications. Hearing her friend's voice deepen in threat had a way of making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. It was as if she were being forced to listen into an immensely dark and private part of his life he'd taken great efforts to not only distance himself from, but to shelter away from polite view.
And she hated that this was the position they found themselves in. And that her own decisions had inadvertently contributed to Barnes thrusting himself into such a dicey and potentially life threatening situation. Every muffled sound and quiet whine that crept through her communications nodule had a way of making her fearful for what she might overhear next. That tense words might suddenly give way to screams and the crack of bone.
And worse? If Barnes went too far or if his mind underwent a sudden shift, they would be unable to intervene since they'd chosen to disable the electrical node placed on his shoulder as a contingency.
They couldn't know for sure, but the longer Shuri had to review the data, the more certain she became that the dramatic pivot in Barnes's vitals after she'd remotely disabled the node supported Yama's theory that it had begun malfunctioning and was growing far worse with each passing minute. While there was no singular sensor that tracked the origins of his pain, the parts of his brain most closely tied to such sensations quelled in the aftermath of the node's remote deactivation.
The sudden change was pronounced enough that the Design Center had immediately caught onto it too. Shuri knew she could not ignore their messages at length, and so in the wake of such findings, she found herself dancing between truths to avoid hinting at the precarious situation they found themselves in, no less that they'd opted to disable the cautionary device that reassured others that Barnes's actions would be kept in-check. Such news would only entice further questions and needless complications.
Shuri told herself it was not that she was withholding information – only that she was delaying sharing her findings until a more opportune time arose. Preferably not when Barnes might have his hands wrapped around a man he'd taken captive.
Across the board, Barnes's neural pathways were lit up with fireworks of activity that Shuri struggled to translate into anything conclusive. While the cognitive markers didn't indicate a Black Hole Event, they clearly corroborated the theory that Barnes had experienced a growing number of newly accessed memories similar to those he'd experienced during the 'Sunrise Exercise' up on the mountain. While Ayo had not gone into detail, her tight-lipped Ibhondi Yomgcini*** was clearly aware of at least one recent occurrence that might've corresponded to an exercise they'd partaken in whilest Shuri and the others were across town in a highly inconspicuous reconnaissance mission.
Shuri still had a host of questions about what the others had been up to, but she knew now was not the time to press for details. Ayo would've offered them up if they were relevant. If she knew more. Instead, Shuri found herself worrying about what memories might've recently resurfaced that were once hidden to him. Were they from a time in Wakanda, when his mind was clear? After the Decimation? Or from years before?
It was anyone's guess, and the only person that knew for sure had cloistered himself away in the singular pursuit of drawing information out of a stranger that'd sought to pursue them through downtown Aniana.
Shuri briefly glanced at the rounded camera view from her diminutive drone. It was still minutes away from Barnes's present location. Without it, she was left guessing at the scene playing out inside the electronics shop a half a dozen blocks away. Minutes earlier when a flicker of light briefly illuminated an interior room where M'yra'd caught sight of Barnes and his hostage, she'd said that Barnes was not armed and clutched the man in front of him in a modified chokehold. But they'd heard other scrapes and muffled sounds since then, casting concern over if things on the other end had escalated. Shuri didn't need to imagine the methods he knew to force information out of someone, and she only hoped he was not pressed to pursue such grim means.
"My Princess!" M'yra's urgently cut in, toggling a new window to dominate the corner of her screen. Shuri couldn't determine the purpose of the black rectangle edged in active timecode at first, but then she caught the edge of something in the shadows. Instantly, a supplementary augmented overlay kicked in, making quick work of interpolating the flickers of what must've been the darkened camera feed of the room Barnes and his hostage were presently occupying.
The figure Shuri took for Barnes stood behind a bound man seated in a chair. Barnes held one of the captive's wrists in one hand while the other navigated a small device — a cellular phone. The faint green light of the screen offered the camera at the far end of the room just enough local illumination to scry out the broad strokes and little else.
The image abruptly faded back to blackness before Shuri could diagnose if the captive had suffered injuries.
Had Barnes?
She cursed something under her breath — even Griot's advanced systems were unable to pull out substantial details of their surroundings, no less their individual expressions. They were still flying blind.
"What's going on?" Sam's winded voice interjected, concerned and out of the loop as to why M'yra had called for Shuri's attention.
"The security camera caught another glimpse of Barnes and his hostage, who he's bound to a chair," M'yra supplied.
"Bound like…?" Sam pressed.
She wished for not the first time that she had more reassurances to offer him, "The view was obscured, but he was sitting upright with his hands stretched behind him."
"...Well, I'll take that over what my idle mind was cookin' up," Sam admitted through heavy breaths as he ran beside Ayo from the south. "They look okay?"
"The illumination was faint as it was brief, providing little insight even with augmented analytics," Shuri apologized. Her eyes scanned over the display in a fruitless pursuit of critical details, "The system detected no readily apparent injuries, but the view only accounted for one angle, and both men are clothed in long pants and thick jackets that might easily obscure bruising as well as fractures."
She'd no sooner finished speaking than a high-pitched cry of pain shot through the other side of their shared comms, "Hey hey! I'm being compliant, you don't need to—"
"Then stop trying to slip away."
Shuri winced as the restrained man made another sharp vocalization. In response, her own adrenaline and cortisol-infused bloodstream pulsed through her as she struggled in vain to rapidly diagnose the root cause of the man's sudden distress from audio alone. Her attention shot back to the holographic overlay of the last known position of the two men inside the used electronics shop. While the slender man was bound, his body didn't appear to be stretched to extremes or twisted cruelly out of position.
Had Barnes decided to change up his methods and push the other man's body to its limits in order to coax further information out of him? Or had he opted for another route of approach altogether? Shuri frowned as she regarded the previously captured footage again, taking note of the indistinct shadows lying across the surrounding tables. Tools, most likely. Barnes hadn't chosen to take one as a weapon, had he?
"...Please…" the slender man on the other end of the line whimpered. While the man's sly actions certainly hadn't endeared him to Shuri, some part of her would have confided that it did not bring her peace to overhear his palpable distress. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Nomble's expression sour as her guarding Dora shared in her concern on what was transpiring in the darkness a dozen blocks away, just out of reach.
Should they have gone to him, rather than staying put as Ayo had requested of them?
"We clear?" Barnes's hard haunting voice interjected.
"Yeah," the other man meekly replied through sharp, heavy breaths.
"What do you know about the vigilante?"
An uncomfortable silence hung over the communications channel before the slender man stumbled over his words and quickly found his voice again, "I mean, not much. Just what they say on the news."
A short creak of metal was followed by a muffled shriek from their pursuer, who added more rapidly, "Just that he's been taking out some big wigs in the government! The types that insist they got their yachts from honest elections, and then never leave 'cause all their opponents end up dead. I don't get involved in none'a that, but if it's half as corrupt as they say, then it's hard to buy into the sob story of them gettin' what was comin'. Wasn't like they were sharin' their spoils with the rest of us."
Shuri was well aware that the man wasn't speaking about her own political family, but she found herself holding her breath and tightening one fist at the man's callous disregard for the many lives that Symkaria's rogue assassin had prematurely smothered out. A whole royal family and their children: gone. Before she'd left Wakanda, she hadn't shied away from searching out information about them. Not only their names, but photographs of their faces and snippets about their interests. Even if she did not know them as individuals, the callous disregard shown to their senseless loss stirred something deep in her chest.
"Shame about the kids though," the bound man added more tentatively. "Not like they had anything to do with the pies their parents were stickin' their greedy fingers in. Hope the rumors about them are true."
"Rumors?"
"The Tribune published a blurry photo online of someone they're claiming might be one of the royal lot. Could just be somethin' to get 'em clicks, but it makes ya wonder if they're playin' at a ruse. Might be there are other bodies in those coffins they paraded around on the news. Not that I'm askin'," he rapidly clarified. "Not my business." Barnes and everyone listening in on the audio channel from afar waited out the silence together as the squirrely more tentatively added, "…Can you let me go now?"
"It's unsubstantiated at best," M'yra's voice was quick to clarify even though Barnes could not hear her. "The photograph he's referring to began circulation this evening, though it appeared hours earlier within certain niche messageboards. I was unable to track down its original source ahead of… recent priorities."
Shuri found the out-of-focus photograph in question thrust into the corner of her augmented field-of view. The low-light image had already been run through a number of post-processing enhancements in an attempt to excavate details out of the grainy image of the rear of a dark car with a single open door. Hunched just inside, a figure grasped the hand of the nearest of the two young children donned in thick winter coats. The limited falloff angle made their faces impossible to parse, but a second image with a translated caption claimed the children to be of matching age and physical description to two that had been buried the day before.
Shuri was no stranger to gossip and conspiracy theories, and unlikely as the claim was, the sight of the children tugged at something within her. It reminded her of a time not long ago when she'd been forced to seek shelter away from the eyes of those who had overthrown Wakanda's throne.
She did not know these children, nor the details of the politics surrounding their royal families, but she found herself hoping that they were not yet with their ancestors.
Before Shuri could make further inquiries of M'yra, Barnes pointedly ignored the other man's request for release and continued his interrogation, "And you don't know anything about that?"
Shuri imagined Barnes carefully gauging the man's vitals for the truth in his answers, well aware of how the other man's voice was growing increasingly strained, like Barnes was escalating his approach, "You asked about gossip. That's all I got. Like I told you: I don't hurt people, and I'm not involved in any of that crazy stuff. I just move a little tech and the occasional fancy broach. Keep my head down. Honest."
The short staccato of pain that came through the microphone implied Barnes didn't believe his claim, and Shuri found herself regarding blank visual feed, fruitlessly searching for any shred of insight into how far Barnes was intending to press his hostage for answers on questions that bore little relevance to why he'd sought to pursue them in the first place. Or was Barnes after something else? Her overactive mind strained to identify the origins of each groan, scuffle, and harried breath and who they belonged to, and she wished for not the first time that she had a reliable visual on them.
Her urgent fingers flew over Barnes's charts, scouring the latest rounds of vitals and comparative analyses supplied by the Design Center for clues. There was precious little in the way of fresh information that shined a light on what had transpired within Barnes's mind, but the analysts' best guess was that he'd experienced three or more throws of vivid flashbacks akin to what he'd seen during the 'Sunrise Exercise.' She already knew that, so why did—
Then she saw it. Subtle as anything. One of the neurologists had discovered what appeared to be a correlation to other scans. Old ones, from the time when he first arrived in Wakanda and the hidden nails he'd carried with him.
The scientist's observations didn't offer any insight into just what he'd seen, but they offered hints, focusing on the change in flow of Barnes's brain activity during periods of recent shifts. There it was! The timestamp that took place when he was traveling with Ayo and Sam showed shadows of select nails embedded in the grey and white matter of his brain, but not all of them. It indicated that what he'd experienced likely called back to a time within HYDRA before all of the nails had been driven into his skull.
Encouraged, Shuri's bright mind looked at the next timecode scan which was said to have taken place shortly after he jumped across Aniana's river. The scan there showed no shadowed signs of nails at all! Might it have been from the time before they'd first been struck into him? Or perhaps after they'd been removed? The flow of activity was far too nebulous to diagnose at a glance. It would take time.
She frowned as she scoured the third scan, which had been taken on the streets whilst he was in pursuit of the slender man. It was logged as sharing faint similarities to the second scan, but there was nuance absent of that postulation. It scratched at the fringes of Shuri's genius mind, and she threw open a catalogue of his scan data and rapidly searched for a closer match to the key area that stood out to her as an outlier. She needed to know how his recent experiences might be flavoring his actions even now.
While the tense interrogation continued a distance away, Ayo offered a short update, "We're not far. Has your drone arrived?"
It couldn't get there soon enough, "Not yet. It's a little over a minute out." Shuri glanced at the countdown in the upper right-hand corner of her augmented display that put Ayo and Sam's arrival time at three minutes and forty-two seconds.
"You're… real strong…" their pursuer's voice strained over the shared communications channel.
Shuri's eyes darted to Yama, seeking some measure of reassurance that Barnes was not straying too far. Yama merely responded with a faint tilt of her head and a few quick movements of her agile fingers that Griot silently translated and overlaid onto her screen in subtitles, 'I've been privy to more aggressive techniques.'
It wasn't… exactly what she'd expected for a reply, but Yama's honest words had a way of swiftly reminding Shuri that the Dora Milaje and their War Dogs each had been taught methods meant to spark truths in others. Though Shuri had not witnessed their use firsthand, she was not blind to their existence and remained confident they were a far cry from whatever grim methods taught by HYDRA.
Unfortunately, Yamas words of reassurance did not make the tension Shuri felt in her chest any more tolerable.
"Let's try again," Barnes breathed through his microphone in that slightly unsettling tone of his that was James and not at the same time. The sound of plastic tightening curdled through the audio channel – or was it leather? "And this time, don't lie."
"I'm not involved in any of that crazy stuff goin' on after dark. I keep my head down. I just… I hear what people say."
"And what do they say?"
"That maybe the cops aren't sharin' all they know neither. That nothin' this big goes down without at least some of 'em being in the loop. Gettin' their pockets lined by folks that want 'em to look the other way 'bout that powered vigilante they've been rilin' folks up about. But maybe he's not real at all? Damned if I know. But like I said: I haven't seen your face. Don't want to. I never wanted trouble. I was just here for the tech."
Shuri was so busy listening in to the world's worst podcast and cross-comparing charts from James's past, that the last thing she expected was to finally locate a brain scan that shared substantial similarities to her reference scan when Barnes potentially experienced a third surge of memories. It was hardly ancient at all, in fact: it closely correlated to charts taken just before his mind had experienced an Event and James had woken up as the man they'd come to know as Barnes.
But what had he seen?
While the three key timestamps represented the most pivotal changes in the flow of his mind, there were countless others in smaller measures, particularly once he'd entered the vacant electronics shop. Shuri only wished she knew what they all meant and moreover what dangers they posed. She was well aware that many of the most recent ones showed shadows of activity surrounding nails that were no longer present.
Meaning his mind was most likely dredging up waves of new memories from his time under HYDRA's thumb.
Not good.
Shuri swallowed hard. Had they chosen poorly to disable the electrical node? She knew it was important to relay her findings to the rest of the group, but as she listened to the strained noises echoing through the other end of the line, she found her worries only amplifying. "While it is impossible to pinpoint what he's recently experienced through scans alone, it seems likely that new memories have taken hold, and that the ones that recently washed over him span many years of his life, potentially before, during, and after HYDRA got ahold of him."
"But Barnes claimed he had no memories of a time before his servitude," Ayo reminded her, her voice faintly weary from running.
"He may now," Shuri clarified. "But of what? I do not know. What sharpens my worry is the number of indicators centered around his time with HYDRA. The rate has only increased once the electrical node was deactivated."
A jumble of muffled sounds interrupted her, causing her shoulders to jolt in surprise. The noises were far too tangled to generate anything concrete into her mind's eye, but some part of her felt certain there'd been a scuffle on the other end of the call.
Before she could say another word, a brief flicker of blue light pulsed once in the corner of her viewport. At the same time, the normally pitch-black live camera feed inside the makeshift interrogation room pulsed too — the one she'd manually adjusted to try to piece together anything remotely useful from the abysmally low ambient light.
But for a moment, just a moment, the camera's lens caught sight of enough that Griot's algorithms engaged, overlaying a three-dimensional holographic approximation of the scene: The slender man sat tethered to a chair with his legs bound and his hands twisted behind his back. Behind him, Barnes stretched sideways, with one hand clutched tight around his captive, while the other—
A quiet chirp accompanied a pop up along the left hand corner of Shuri's vision. She blinked and cocked her head as M'yra's curious voice filled her ear, "He's… initiated a request to utilize his Kimoyos to pull information off the other man's phone?" What began as a statement transformed into a question.
"Wait he can do that?" Sam interjected.
Perhaps his mind was even sharper under duress than she'd given Barnes credit for? None of the women on the channel offered Sam the courtesy of a direct reply, but Shuri found herself musing aloud, "Strange how displays familiarity with such rare augmentations." Her words came faster than her decision, but as her fingers idled over his link request, she found herself sharing in Barnes's curiosities for what additional information might be tucked away into the slender man's device. On what clarities it might contain.
"It might be beneficial to know if there is greater conspiracy beyond his claims," Yama noted.
"I am not opposed to indulging our curiosities."
"Clone the data and route it through," Ayo concluded aloud. "M'yra, focus on pulling intel. Use his Kimoyos as a tether, but do not grant him direct access. It is not for him to decide on its use."
"Yes, my Chief."
Shuri's ears caught the melodic chime of the digital pairing being made followed by an overlaid progress bar that cloned her once pursuer's cell phone data within seconds. While part of her wished to scour it for information herself, she knew M'yra was more than capable of such investigations, and it was instead up to Shuri to continue to search for answers among Barnes's scans and the latest round of comparative analyses awaiting her.
Yama sent a series of quick haptic pulses through to Barnes's Kimoyos in morse — "Processing. Standby" — which was followed by a low grunt from Barnes over the audio channel that served as a shorthand for confirmation.
While M'yra scrubbed the data for information, Shuri took note of her drone's rapid approach to the corner building, and she enlarged the video feed of its forward-facing camera. The five story brick building had a first story crammed with narrow commercial businesses, and was layered with four additional stories of dilapidated residential housing peaked with steep precipices.
Were it Wakanda, they would have also been topped with any number of air exchange vents, but it appeared such structures were not commonplace here, and the drone veered from side-to-side in frantic search of a viable entrance to the building's interior. "The drone's arrived, but I'm still searching for a way inside."
"Can you see anything?" Ayo implored.
The drone coursed down the alleyway where they'd lost sight of Barnes and the slender man before doubling back to the storefront for another look. "There's no windows along the first floor save for the store entrance, which is barred up." Shuri took over manual control and veered the tiny vibranium drone back towards the side entrance, pausing a few meters back to conduct a scan. The door was secure – locked from the inside – but the thermal scans didn't indicate anyone directly behind it. The drone hovered closer as Shuri fine-tuned the scans in an attempt to get more depth out of her readings which were muted by the localized electromagnetic interference generated from the host electronics just inside. "Nothing yet. I — there! I think I…"
"You think you…?" Sam urgently coaxed.
It wasn't a clear visual, but the thermal imaging scans locked onto something. Someone. No, two of them. One was sitting, though Shuri couldn't tell if he was closer or further away than the form standing behind him. The two figures were nested between a sea of boxy electronics and overheating laptops, but one of them had a left arm that ran slightly cooler than his left.
Barnes.
The subtle difference between his limbs gave her some frame of reference for their positioning, and she coaxed Griot to further extrapolate the layout of the room by combining the new data with the latest visual from the interior security camera that M'yra'd hacked into. Considering all the unnecessary heat being generated by the many electronics locked inside, it wasn't an easy task, but after a few seconds, Shuri had managed to clear away the noise surrounding them.
On the other side of the brick wall, perhaps 4 yards in, Barnes's thermal figure clutched one of the bound man's wrists at a sharp angle to inspire cooperation, while Barnes's other hand grasped what must've been the slender man's phone close to his Kimoyos. The view wasn't precise, but it was a breath of fresh air all the same. Perhaps it was better to keep her drone where it was so she could keep an eye on him from just outside? "I have a visual with the onboard thermal readout. He's—"
Her words were cut off by a sharp cry of pain through the audio channel that bridged smoothly into a renewed threat from Barnes, "Davi wants to know about the girls. If you lost them. What girls is he talking about?"
"No one I know! They just seemed like they could'a had some nice jewelry. That's it, I swear. It didn't go anywhere."
"The cloning is complete," M'yra chimed in, being mindful to keep her voice lower than Barnes's own so that everyone on the call could all keep tabs on the remote conversation taking place just out of view. "The user – Ayrthon – participates in a great deal of chatter and excessive use of emojis that imply he does indeed peddle in electronics. I see no mention of weaponry beyond that the 9mm firearm he carries was gifted by one of his friends. It's registered under another name. Stolen, most likely. His phone and apps lack suitable encryption, and his correspondence is often highly immature."
While the man strained in the background of the communications channel, a continent away, M'yra continued her apprisal, "There are no patterns that would constitute he's using coded language, and while I have not evaluated all of his device's contents, my preliminary impression is that he is likely the petty thief he's claiming to be, and not a professional. His close associates appear unremarkable, and of similar caliber."
"Any mention of our princess or Wakanda?" Ayo pressed, still minutes away.
"I've come across no indication he recognized Princess Shuri or was sent to pursue her. There's occasional reference to Wakanda, but it is fleeting. The most recent mention is days before. Those conversations largely center around popular rumors surrounding our people and the wealth they claim we keep from them, but such discussions do not occupy the bulk of his communications."
It was promising news, though of course Barnes couldn't hear their words because he'd stubbornly chosen to silence the incoming audio feed on his communications nodule. Before Shuri'd even had a moment to breathe a sigh of relief that they hadn't been targeted or recognized, Barnes's rough voice cut into the channel and leveled a sudden raw accusation towards his hostage, "You're lying."
The man on the other end of the line started to say something, but his words were cut off as the thermal image of Barnes lunged forward and grabbed him by the throat.
Barnes's head was still pounding from the aftermath of being subjected to prolonged electrical current, and while some amount of his focus had returned, he was well aware he wasn't operating at optimum performance, especially on account of the whispers from the past continuing to haunt the thoughts lingering at his periphery.
It wasn't clear how much longer it would take to clone and review the data from his target's cell phone, but he spared a glance at his Kimoyo strand and the faint indicators that signaled Ayo and Sam were close by. They'd arrive within a few minutes, giving Barnes limited time to finish his interrogation. While he didn't know what they'd do when they got there, some part of Barnes was compelled to get to the bottom of things ahead of their arrival. To determine if his hostage or his associates were marked as a threat.
It was critical he complete the mission he'd set out on. He couldn't fail.
And although Barnes was far from clear headed, the trained operative knew one thing for certain: the other man was continuing to string him along with half-truths. On a surface level, the slender man made himself out to be merely a non-confrontational amateur thief, but he was hiding something. The man interrogating him was certain of it.
He only had to squeeze it out of him.
Barnes adjusted his grip and plied his gloved fingers around his subject's throat. The change in tactics had proven to improve compliance and offer a more precise measurement of rapidly fluctuating vitals. It would be easier to get precise if he took off his gloves, but there was something about the thought of skin-on-skin contact that gave him pause. Reminded him too much of past interrogations, including what he'd done to Sam.
If only his fingers would stop trembling intermittently, he could finish his work here.
As he held the confiscated phone against his Kimoyos, the beads pulsed to life in coded letters:
"Reviewing data. No mention of our Princess."
That was a glimmer of reassuring news, at least. Just as Barnes started to reach behind him to release the phone so that both of his hands were free for the next phase of his interrogation, another string of long and short haptic pulses interjected:
"Mind your strength."
Although the message was absent of a voice, Barnes found himself attributing it to Yama. It wasn't as if he was unaware that he possessed superior strength to the man seated in front of him, but the message had a way of making him increasingly self conscious of the position of his body relative to the other man. With a frown, he carefully adjusted the pressure of his fingers around the other man's neck – enough to maintain his grip and be able to read the changes in his pulse and respiration, but angling it in such a way to avoid inciting unnecessary pain or bruising.
He used his left hand to clasp the other man's nearest wrist to make sure he knew the exact location of his hands, and to ensure he didn't try to slip free. "What were you trying to accomplish?"
The other man swallowed hard, his words oddly cautious, "Like I said, I was just scoping out their jewelry."
It wasn't the whole truth. Barnes was certain of it. "Davi said you lost them. Who were they?"
The kid adjusted his jaw and licked his lips nervously, "Look, they were well-dressed and seemed 'out of place.' I was just tryin' ta get a better look at their jewelry. I'm sure you've heard the rumors. 'Bout how some Black folks carry especially valuable ice. I was thinking I could scope out their digs and see if they were normals or…" he trailed off uncomfortably just as his pulse and respiration increased. Without missing a beat, he squirmed in place and quickly added, "Look, they were with a cop when I last saw 'em. I don't hurt women, man."
The rapid change in vitals was unmistakable, but it was difficult to diagnose the root cause. Was his body indicating that he was lying outright? No. Reacting to an internal thought? Perhaps. Or Maybe some combination of the two.
It would be a whole lot easier if people told the truth without trying to obfuscate their motives.
Barnes did what he could to tune out the static in his mind and focus unilaterally on the subtle shifts in the other man's respiration. Although his throat was unobstructed, the pattern was even. Heightened. Passive in nature. Like his attention was elsewhere. Perhaps he believed he'd said too much and let something slip? But on what front?
His hostage's body stayed eerily still and absent of the will to fight when he more pointedly added, "C'mon man. I don't know anything about all'a that. They weren't a part of any'a this. I cracked in here on my own like I told you. I was just after some easy tech I could move."
And within that one single rush of words… his vitals tracked as truthful. But more than that, there was a nuance Barnes realized too: that the kid had intentionally changed the subject to what he'd been doing here as a misdirect or sorts. As a way to call attention back to his own transgressions… perhaps because some part of him had begun to worry if Barnes himself might go after the women he'd mentioned. To hurt or pursue them to some unknown ends.
That subtlety mattered. That quiet empathy and self-awareness meant that the kid – thief as he was – had his own code of sorts. And Barnes found that he believed the words spilling out of his hostage's mouth.
"He worries you could mean us harm," the beads along Barnes's wrist tappedin morse code.
The statement mirrored Barnes's own theory, and the grim mirror it held up to him concerning his recent actions. Even though the other man had clearly misread the situation and Barnes's possible motives, a buried part of him was well aware that he'd once been a predator in the night. And one to be rightfully feared. As he held his hostage's throat firmly in his grip, he recognized that the muzzle and claws he once donned at HYDRA's behest didn't feel so distant as he wished they did.
He was aware of the silence that had enveloped the room, but Barnes found himself struggling on what path to take in his investigation. He didn't want to call further attention to the women his captive had mentioned, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to play into the other man's warped perceptions of him. Barnes wasn't the assassin that was on the loose within the city, but he was no stranger to such operations. Thanks to the cocktail of chemicals running through his veins, he was stronger and more resilient than most men, but he was no vigilante of Symkaria — if one even existed — and his only knowledge of the complex politics raging within the city were from news reports, M'yra's second hand recaps, and the dark, fractured shadows he'd glimpsed some fifty-or-more years prior.
Or were they more recent? It was hard to tell.
He didn't need to defend himself. To declare he wasn't the monster the other man believed him to be, because some part of him knew that clarity was so paper thin that it was all-but transparent if he dared hold it up to the light. His past actions clothed him in a tapestry of poisoned threads strung together into a straight-jacket that kept him bound. Controlled.
He didn't know who he was, and with time running out on the stability of his mind: he wasn't sure he'd ever know.
Somewhere amid all the static-laced shadows, Barnes cinched his meandering thoughts. He might not have answers to his many questions, but as far as Barnes could tell, it appeared as though the slender man had merely tried to evaluate Shuri, Yama, and Nomble as potential targets for petty theft or a prospective break-in. He didn't know who they were, but he also didn't want his captor — the man who he suspected might be the Vigilante — to take interest in them, regardless.
He didn't want them to get hurt.
The silence penetrating the room was not calculated, but his hostage saw fit to further shift the subject away from women he'd once pursued, adjusting his weight slightly in his chair as he licked his lips and added, "If you're interested in tech, I unload the nicer stuff at Rod's Pawn a few blocks away. He looks the other way. Doesn't ask any questions. He's just an entrepreneur too. Tryin' to stay afloat with all the leasing hikes and rent bullshit. If there's a special piece you're after, he might be able to track it down for ya. Man's mind's like a steel trap, 'specially if you're talkin' rare or vintage."
Barnes listened to the latest deflection, loosening his grip around the man's throat as a subtle if intentional indication that he was interested in the breadcrumbs of low-value intel. He shifted his flesh and blood hand to firmly clasp his captive's nearest wrist, ensuring he didn't try anything daring that risked escalating the amicable arrangement they'd found themselves in. Wordlessly, Barnes reached his left hand behind him to examine the man's worn leather wallet that he'd stashed next to his cell phone, handgun, and keyring for safekeeping.
The bifold wallet was so bloated it was practically bursting at the seams, and when Barnes flipped it open to squint at the contents, he'd hoped to be able to decipher the inscriptions on the cards. Unfortunately the combination of persistent light auras and non-existant ambient lighting made the letters and numbers inscrutable to the degree that he couldn't make out anything other than the rough silhouette of the wallet itself. He could've switched hands and pulled off his glove to see if he could make out the raised digits by touch alone, but the risk wasn't worth it, especially since that would not only put his fingerprints all over the thin cards, but it would prevent him from continuing to monitor the other man's pulse. No: better to pull the cards out a little and take a quick glance at them under the light. Memorize what they said.
…All of which was easier said than done using only one hand. Especially one that was not fully functional. With trembling gloved vibranium fingers, Barnes carefully tugged at the tops of the cards and laid them out atop the wallet on the table behind him. When that was settled, he grasped for his captive's cell phone again and flipped it over so that the light from the locked screen illuminated the contents of the wallet.
Unsurprisingly, the first and last names on the cards varied widely, including not one but three IDs. It was a sight familiar to Barnes from his own time on the streets — a memory which felt only days old. He tried the name on the first ID card, keying into the man's pulse for a reaction, "Bradic?"
"Eh?" his hostage inquired.
Moments later, the Kimoyos around his wrist shimmered: "No."
He tried the card on the bottom, "Ayrthon?"
This time the man's heart rate hitched slightly at the sound of his own name. A second later, the person on the other end of Barnes's Kimoyo strand confirmed: "Yes."
His hostage was not so forthcoming, "...What's it matter to you?"
"The contents of his phone are clear. He is not a danger to us," the Kimoyos surrounding his wrist relayed.
It was reassuring news complicated by the fact that Barnes wasn't ready to let him go just yet. "Either I'm taking the wallet and everything in it, or you tell me your name and you get to keep what's yours," Barnes reasoned, noting that Sam and Ayo's locators were now only blocks away. They'd be at his location at any minute, and it would be better for all of them if they didn't find the two of them in this arrangement. It risked implicating them — and potentially Wakanda and the new Captain America — in something they hadn't signed up for.
And knowing Sam, he wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut.
Ayrthon sighed out loud, but decided better than to argue. "Fine, okay. It's Ayrthon."
Barnes slipped the mismatched cards free and pocketed them, leaving Ayrthon's ID card and bank card intact along with the few slips of folded paper currency. He had no way of knowing who they belonged to, but there weren't many of them.
"Does that mean… you're letting me go?"
Barnes was still actively evaluating his options. The kid's ethics may have been fraught with grey areas, but it wasn't necessary to kill or seriously maim him to prevent him from spreading further harm. One frontrunner possibility was that he could leave the kid bound and slip out into the street and bar the door behind him. Put in an anonymous tip to the police or find a way to let the shop owner know that there was a thief trapped in their store.
It'd be quick and easy. Too easy, maybe, especially since his associate Davi was probably still waiting for Ayrthon a distance away in that trashed alleyway across downtown. If Shuri or M'yra had found a way to backdoor a bug into Ayrthon's phone, it wouldn't do them much good if the phone's owner was rotting in a jail cell for petty crime while his associate remained uncontested.
And then, there were the police. Barnes had any number of complicated experiences surrounding armed officers, and the trust that had been beaten and programmed into him now conflicted wildly with his lived experiences. The police officers he'd encountered appeared no more or less moral than any other demographic, and even without Ayrthon's warnings, Barnes had residual misgivings surrounding officers in Symkaria.
In an era he couldn't pinpoint, he knew some patrols had a working arrangement with officials to 'clean up' the homeless and anyone they weren't inclined to favor by handing them off to HYDRA. The details were spotty, but damning. Even today, the homeless man he'd spoken with shared pointed distaste for the police. That combined with Ayrthon's clear distrust and shared gossip surrounding them made Barnes wonder if there were deeper issues that persisted into the present day.
Regardless, something in Barnes's gut churned at the idea of pursuing actions wherein the most likely outcome was that his hostage would be bound, caged, and marched into an indeterminate future of servitude as a punishment for petty crimes. Barnes frowned as he reached back and grabbed a hold of Ayrthon's 9mm: a weapon he truly believed that the kid hadn't actually fired. He tested the familiar weight of it in one hand, checked the safety, and holstered the firearm in the interior of his back pocket before separating the bump key the kid had used to rake the lock and gain entry from the rest of his keyring. It was far from a guarantee that he wouldn't simply buy another one, but at least he wouldn't have it on hand. "I'm keeping the rest."
For a moment, his hostage seemed like he might've been considering raising an objection, but instead he more cautiously added, "...Wait, so that's it?"
"You're gonna stand up, and I'm going to untie you. Then you're gonna listen to what I say. No surprises. If you try anything stupid, you're not walking out of here."
"So dramatic," the haptic beads around his wrist remarked with a needlessly teasing edge he credited to Yama.
"Yeah uh, okay?"
Barnes grunted an affirmative and pocketed Ayrthon's cell phone and wallet for safekeeping before leaning over and untying the cables around his ankles. It might've been easier to break them on account of how tight the knots were, but Barnes only had himself to blame for his attention to detail. True to his word, his hostage stayed motionless in the darkness, apparently intent to obey Barnes's demands for the time being and see where they led, "Are you gonna turn me in?"
He debated showing his hand, but if the kid thought he was being marched to the slaughter he was more likely to fight back, which was the last thing either of them needed right now. "No," the once assassin kept one hand firmly on the other man's wrists and the other on his shoulder as he hauled his hostage to his feet with a firm, "Now walk."
"Walkin'!" the blindfolded kid obediently repeated. His pulse was racing and he breathed in and out in short, self-conscious bursts. It was readily apparent he was still trying to figure out if this was too good to be true, or if he was walking into a trap.
Seven steady steps into directing his hostage towards the door dividing the back room from the storage room along the side entrance, right about the time Barnes was second-guessing if this really was the best plan of action under the circumstances, Ayrthon meekly tested his voice again, "Not implying you don't know how to take care of your own, but… they have meds that help with seizures and stuff. One of my friends has 'em. Nasty business, that."
The non-sequitur caused Barnes's footsteps to briefly stall as his aching mind struggled to chase down what could have possibly prompted the comment. While he was still in pain and anything but clear headed, upon further reflection, he remembered Ayrthon saying something about a seizure earlier. He couldn't have possibly known about the underlying cause of Barnes's full-body distress during their initial encounter, so he must've misinterpreted them as being symptomatic of the onset of a medical seizure.
In the wake of all that had happened, even though Ayrthon'd been pinned in Barnes's arms – potentially even at risk of being crushed outright – for some bizarre reason unknown to Barnes, he'd opted to share genuine medical advice with him.
Strange.
The emotions it pushed up inside him were confusing at best, especially when he was reminded exactly what Ayrthon had struggled to choke out at the time:
"...If you… get… my phone… I… I can… get you… help… Please…"
Barnes had been locked in pain and stretched to his limits to stay conscious at the time, so he'd assumed the statement was simply a play to distract him, but had his hostage been sincere? The most likely outcome was he might've chosen to run, but now… now Barnes wasn't so sure.
It was one of any number of things that he would never know.
Barnes wasn't sure what to say in response to Ayrthon's remark about the seizure, so he opted to stay silent as he guided his hostage the last few steps to the side entrance and came to a stop, trying to do his best to ignore just how close Ayo and Shuri's locators were to his present position. "This is how this is gonna go down. I'm gonna put your phone, keys, and the parts of the wallet that belong to you into your back pockets. Then I'm going to untie your wrists. If you know that's good for you, you're going to stay still and quiet. You with me so far?"
"Yeah," his young voice was cautious, but hopeful. Ayrthon did his best to stay still, but it was clear he was struggling to keep his nervous energy in check.
"I'll take off your blindfold when I open the door. Then you're gonna take one step down, turn left, and keep walking until the next block, make a left, and then don't look back until you count six blocks. We clear?"
The kid swallowed hard, "Yeah. We're clear."
Barnes slipped Ayrthon's keys, cell phone, and the wallet that'd been freed of stolen cards into his back pockets before pressing the tip of his most reliable vibranium finger into the center of the young man's spine, mimicking the nozzle of a gun. The once Winter Soldier kept his voice low as he leveled an added layer of threat, "If you do anything stupid from here on out… we're not gonna have a talk like this again."
Ayrthon's head bobbed up and down obediently, the motion tight and nervous. "I'll stay clean. Promise. Won't tell no one about you neither." That last part all but had the air of an oath to the enigmatic 'Vigilante' behind him.
"You'll follow through if you know what's good for you," Barnes agreed. This whole thing was risky. He debated letting the kid go outside wearing the blindfold, but while it might help avoid him getting eyes on Barnes — and potentially identifying him — it risked drawing unwanted attention and worse: potentially incriminating Wakanda. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that someone like that Pawnshop owner he'd mentioned might be able to identify the markings no less the vibranium weave running throughout the blue, black and gold silken threads.
That, and Barnes was well aware that the shawl itself possessed a sentimental value. One which was presently strictly at odds with its use as a makeshift blindfold.
He frowned and spared a moment to hold his breath and put his ear against the door and listened. Hearing nothing of concern, he went to work untying the grungy electrical cables that bound his hostage's thin wrists together. Once binding was freed and Barnes sat the spool of cable aside on a nearby rack, Ayrthon wiggled his fingers and looped his thumbs together, apparently intent to keep his hands firmly in place as they'd agreed.
"Keep them behind your back where I can see them," Barnes advised, no-nonsense. "Now close your eyes and keep 'em closed." So as to not make a sound, he carefully turned the lock and slowly pulled the door open, taking great efforts to brace the door with one foot to avoid putting unnecessary weight on the failing hinges.
The middling light of the dreary alleyway poured in, sending a burst of cold air onto his stubbled face. Thankfully there were no travelers along the narrow path between buildings, and he found himself squinting as his eyes adjusted to the sudden change in lighting. Then he saw it. Directly across from him about three meters up, a small silver beetle clung to a crumbled line of grout. Was it the same one he'd been tracking earlier? He couldn't know for sure, but he had his suspicions that it was Shuri's handiwork.
Like an antelope caught in the headlights, he was certain his own guilty expression must've faltered in the moment. How long had it been there?
Barnes had been midway through planning for reactionary measures if his hostage made a poor decision once he removed his blindfold, but the sight of the drone made Barnes take a second look at the scared figure just steps in front of him. When he'd last seen the kid on the dim city streets, he'd been a target, a destination. He was wearing the same clothes as when Barnes had first spotted him — the same disheveled dark green jacket, and black jeans that were a size too large, and a matted mess of light brown hair now sticking out from under the edges of a folded Wakandan shawl — but the sight hit him differently now. The pale skin around his wrists was blushed red from being bound by cables, and while the hem of his shirt hid the bulk of his neck from view, Barnes was well aware it was likely a matching shade of red.
They weren't deeply bruised, bleeding, or broken, but the sight stayed with him. Made him question if things might've gone differently if events hadn't spiraled as they had. They could've gone worse, sure, and there was comfort to be taken in the fact that the kid wasn't a part of some greater conspiracy against Princess Shuri, but those lingering patterns on Ayrthon's neck were marks of Barnes's own making. Hints of what he was capable of. What they'd trained him to do.
And he was pretty sure the drone and whoever was watching from the other end saw evidence of the marks too.
Barnes did what he could to still his thoughts and focus on the task in front of him. He didn't have much time until Ayo and Sam arrived, "One step down, turn left. Left at the next block, and keep walking for six more. Keep your hands behind you and don't look back."
The kid nodded a tight affirmative as Barnes lowered his voice to add, "And don't hurt people."
"I won't," Ayrthon promised, his pulse steady and true.
Barnes positioned Ayrthon in front of him in the doorway and pulled the makeshift blindfold up over his head. His hostage stiffened briefly from the contact and started to pull a hand forward — maybe to rub his eye or itch his nose — before he swiftly remembered his pact to keep his hands behind his back as he'd been told. Much to Barnes's relief, he didn't turn around, even though a part of him wondered how his eyes compared to the other haunted ones still floating around his periphery.
"Now?" he asked, voice tentative and frail as he nervously clasped his hands in place. Barnes didn't doubt that he was eager to not only put distance between them, but to take inventory of the thinned contents of his pockets.
"I don't want to see you again," Barnes warned without heat in his voice, directing him out the doorway by applying gentle pressure to his shoulder.
"Oh you won't," Ayrthon assured him as he kept his head forward and pivoted his whole body left as instructed. Apparently he couldn't help from sharing a last remark, "Told you confrontation's not my bag. Stress isn't worth this. I'm done."
With that, the slender man in the green jacket kept his shoulders rigid and speed-marched forward in a straight line down the dreary alleyway, tailed by a nonchalant beetle-sized drone. So as to not tempt fate or risk being seen, Barnes opted to step back into the darkness of the storage room keeping watch of the kid's progress by swiveling the tip of his cell phone camera around the corner of the doorway until Ayrthon turned the nearest corner and disappeared around it.
True to his word, the kid hadn't looked back even once.
The steady murmur of the city enveloped Barnes once more, fitting into the raw spaces between his patchy vision and lingering headache. For a precious moment, he found himself alone again, and the sensation — familiar as it was — was oddly unsettling. He wanted to find relief in the fact that he'd done what was necessary for the mission. He'd successfully tracked down the interloper and helped conclude that he not only wasn't part of some larger scheme, but he hadn't even recognized Shuri at all. But instead of relief, he felt discontent. Try as he might to justify each step of his actions, deep down he knew he'd blatantly disobeyed what he'd been instructed to do. And well-intentioned or not, Ayo and Sam would have words for him.
As he stood there holding the embroidered vibranium cloth that was meant to serve as a reminder of his friends and allies, Barnes knew he'd come up short. As he reached up to cup his ailing left shoulder, his exhausted mind couldn't help but replay the anger he'd glimpsed in Ayo's eyes from a memory he couldn't parse. One where he was not whole.
He frowned and felt his body tense as he glanced down at his Kimoyos, knowing the comeuppance that awaited him and his poor decisions risked not only tearing apart the fragile foundations of relationships he'd just begun to build, but potentially drowning out the impact of what he'd be able to accomplish in the mere days he might have remaining in his right mind.
He'd come so far, and now the reality of the situation hit him full force: because of his choices, it was almost certain that he wouldn't be able to seek closure for the men he'd captured at HYDRA's behest and dragged back to Symkaria for some unknown ends a lifetime ago.
And it was all his fault.
"My scans confirm the slender man has multiple mild contusions, but no broken bones." Shuri observed from afar through what Sam was guessing was the lens of the drone he didn't know she had. "He appears nervous, but that comes as no surprise. I'll follow him a while longer. See if he circles back. The two of you can deal with Barnes," Shuri's words were clear in his ear, but Sam didn't miss the undercurrent of frustration ebbing into her normally collected voice. "If he seems stable, I would ask that you refrain from probing too deeply on the matters of his mind until we reconvene. I wish to be present for such discussions."
Sam caught the subtext loud and clear: Shuri was willing to stay where she was as Ayo'd requested, but that didn't mean Ayo got first crack at getting to the bottom of things. It was a fair trade, even if the remark drew out a pronounced frown from Ayo beside him.
Someone – probably M'yra, judging by the quiet efficiency of it – was a step ahead of 'em and had thought to pass through the current location of the hostage Barnes had caught and released onto Sam's phone display, helping ensure that he and Ayo didn't run into the scared teen headfirst. M'yra hadn't volunteered his age, but listenin' in on his exchanges with Barnes had a way of shaving off a few years from what he'd initially pictured.
Since Sam'd been at a distance from where all the action went down, he'd only had his imagination to form a mental image of what this gun-toting, phone-stealing, green-jacketed 'Ayrthon' looked like in the flesh. While the kid's ethics were a mixed bag, Sam wasn't gonna lie: a part of him wished there were a quick and easy way to snag a glance at him from a distance and see who all the fuss was about.
Okay, that wasn't the whole truth: It wouldn't've hurt Sam's nerves to get eyes on him and confirm he was in decent shape after that wild goose chase through downtown and his recent one-on-one with a cyborg lie detector. He knew Shuri would've said something if he'd come out the door bloodied, but Sam's mind had a way of conjuring up images centered around his own lived experiences being at the pointed end of Barnes's quest for answers, and they were anything but comfortable. As he ran, Sam spared a moment to rub his hands together, self-consciously reassuring themself they were still intact after what'd happened less than three days ago when they'd been crushed and beyond recognition.
So yeah, Sam respected that this 'Ayrthon' wasn't exactly the priority right now, on account that they still had to deal with the steel-gripped livin' lie detector himself.
"We'll approach from the west," Ayo's tempered voice was all-business beside him. So much so that for a moment Sam wasn't sure if she was whispering for his sake, or maybe to dodge around Barnes's super-hearing. Her footfalls slowed as they approached the corner of the closed electronics shop and fell into step beside one another like they hadn't just hauled-tail across half of downtown and the biggest hills in Aniana all in one go.
"The slender man — Ayrthon — is about two blocks east and north of you now. He will not be in shared sight of the alley or main street lining the storefront," M'yra confirmed over their shared comms just as Sam cocked his head and glanced over his far shoulder, scoping out their surroundings. Never hurt to be too careful. Straight ahead of them, the sidewalk was nearly empty, and the thin trickle of passerbys in the distance kept their heads down as if they had better pieces to be. All around them, compact shops were crammed against the street level like they were doin' their best to crowd each other out. The businesses in this area were mostly boarded up, and the few that weren't were long past business hours, making the area feel uncharacteristically empty and positively unwelcoming.
"Act with caution," Ayo advised, her words clearly meant for Sam as she adjusted that localized audio-dampening field of hers.
Sam had a lot he wanted to say, maybe even a quip or two saved up from the jog over, but he knew it wasn't the time to let the tension in his gut make its way to his lips, so he opted for a tight nod and let Ayo take the lead on what came next. She looked remarkably collected considering the distance they'd just run, but Sam pretended not to notice the quick breath of chilled air she sucked in as she double-checked her Kimoyo strand, slid one hand to hover over the holster of her collapsed spear, and wasted no time in turning the corner to face whatever – moreover whoever – awaited them.
Her steps fell silently across the uneven cobblestones that made up the narrow alleyway, making Sam oddly self conscious of the sound of his own footfalls across the rain slick stones. Ayo made it about six calculated steps in before she came to a stop, and Sam took the hint and did the same. Not a soul was visible in the dark alleyway, but along the left wall maybe twenty feet ahead was an unlit open doorway that didn't need much in the way of accents to be in the running for the entrance to the world's worst haunted house.
Ayo wasted no time, her voice crisp and firm in its command, "Barnes."
A second later, the man himself slowly leaned forward and peered out from the shadows in a manner that held a little more likeness to the fabled Winter Soldier than Sam would've liked. He looked pale and a little rough around the edges, but there recognition in his bloodshot eyes all the same.
Though he was wearing the same clothes from when they'd last seen him, somewhere along the way he'd apparently opted to remove his Wakandan shawl — a first for Barnes — and stood with his shoulders hunched forward and embroidered cloth gripped in one hand. Sam did what he could to try to get a read on him, but his face was unequivocally locked in that eerie neutral expression that wasn't quite Buck. Guilty steel blue eyes met Sam's before they shifted in Ayo's direction and stayed focused on her before slowly volunteering, "I took his gun."
Those… weren't exactly the first words Sam'd expected out of his mouth, but altogether? He appreciated the heads up, especially since that electrical node King T'Challa had placed on his shoulder as a contingency plan was disabled. So if something went wrong…
Sam did what he could to avoid ruminating on any number of grim possibilities where that could lead.
"Where is it now?" Ayo pressed. Full credit to her — she managed to keep her voice surprisingly even considering his latest admission ran contrary to a number of earlier agreements explicitly forbidding him from handling weapons of any kind.
Although Barnes didn't appear outwardly irritated, something in his posture and tone were clearly off. Like they'd changed keys and gone flat since they'd last spoken. "Right back pocket. Left has my wallet and the bump key and cards that weren't his." Considering all that'd happened in the last twenty minutes, Sam found the complete lack of emotion in Barnes's voice more than a little disconcerting, even for him. Hell, he'd had more emotion in the aftermath of that mess earlier when they'd played pretend at reminiscing being led around by a HYDRA-themed entourage.
What'd changed? What wasn't he tellin' 'em?
"Outside. Now."
Barnes did as he was told and used his free hand to pull the door closed behind him before lifting both hands to waist-height so that they were visible and elevated in front of him. It was apparent he was doing what he could to make it abundantly clear that he had no intention of escalating an already tense situation of his own making.
Which hey? Sam could appreciate that the idiot had enough self-awareness to not test either of their patience about now.
When he ducked his head and stepped further out into the alleyway, the first thing Sam noticed was that his brow and the neck of the t-shirt under his vibranium-reinforced leather jacket were both soaked with sweat. He looked drained – even for him – and the bit of foundation Nomble'd applied to the bruises on his face to cover up the impacts from their impromptu morning training session a lifetime ago were caked and smudged, revealing the mottled purple skin beneath. Sam didn't spot any blood on him, which hopefully meant he hadn't taken a bullet himself when he'd been off comms. While he'd certainly looked better, the man wearing his partner's face appeared rough around the edges but none-the-worse for wear.
While Sam was relieved-as-hell to finally get eyes on him and reassure himself that Barnes hadn't lost himself while singularly pursuing a grim interrogation, Sam also knew that what happened here wasn't the sort of thing that was just going to blow over like a casual misunderstanding. No, this here was some serious shit they were standin' in.
Ayo didn't say a word aloud as she bridged the distance between them and promptly used her left hand to pull the gun from Barnes's pocket. She handed it to Sam without missing a beat, and without taking her eyes off Barnes. The submissive cyborg stayed eerily still with that positively neutral expression of his while he clutched that Wakandan royal shawl like a kid who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
When Ayo took a step back to reclaim her space, Barnes fidgeted with the trailing edge of his blue, black, and gold Wakandan shawl between his gloved fingers and resolved to fold it twice before discreetly tucking it into his now empty back pocket where the gun had been. Sam was dead certain Ayo'd taken notice of the shawl too, but she kept her eyes laser focused on Barnes rather than the sentimental fabric now trailing out of his pocket. The same one that she herself had secured with friendship knots.
Sam wasn't sure exactly how the next few tense minutes were gonna go down. He didn't think Ayo was ramping up to physically strike out at Barnes, but he wouldn't have put it past her to raise her voice with a few well-placed words. Hell: She wasn't the only one.
Still, Ayo was doing damn good job at maintaining her composure when Sam would've bet his suit she was stuck in the crossroads of relief that Barnes was okay, and irritated beyond measure that he'd run off in pursuit of a close-quarters, hands-one interrogation that she very much hadn't agreed to.
…Yeah… there'd be some words comin' 'bout that eventually.
In the meantime, Sam opted to keep his own hands busy and resolved to check the magazine on the firearm, puzzling his brows together when he realized it was… completely empty. Perplexed, he glanced up at Barnes who returned his attention with an eerily clinical, "It's dry."
Had there been shots fired inside, before Yama'd gotten him to turn on his mic?
A few steps away, Ayo plucked a Kimoyo bead free from her strand and placed it against the lock's keyhole. Sam wasn't sure what she was doing. Maybe checking if things were secure? "You good?" Sam asked the obvious. "We thought maybe the node on your shoulder was electrocuting you or something."
The brooding cyborg didn't seem particularly keen on engaging in polite conversation, and when he lifted one hand to reach across his chest to touch the shoulder in question, he stopped short, lowering his hand and sparing a glance towards Ayo before succinctly responding, "Yeah."
"You scared the shit out of us, you know."
The side of Barnes's lip twitched uncomfortably at the accusation, but he didn't debate the claim.
"You ignored and disobeyed our requests of you," Ayo's tone was measured, but Sam was well-aware of the irritation floating close to the surface of her words.
The man in question avoided her gaze. Instead he kept his eyes low on the ground like a guilty student while Ayo added, "You heard us, yes?"
"Yeah."
"Then why did you not listen?"
"I was trying to hear what he was saying. I couldn't hear it over the chatter on the comms."
Two could play at this game. "That's a straight dodge considering you knew you weren't supposed to keep on following him," Sam saw fit to clarify as he tucked the firearm into the inside of his coat pocket and crossed his arms.
That guilty expression nestled across Barnes's pale face stayed right where it was as Ayo made a short gesture and mimed tapping her ear in what Sam took as a clear signal for Barnes to fully re-enable his incoming audio feed. He didn't debate the request, and reached across to touch one of his Kimoyo beads, generating a gentle ping over their shared line which Sam took for confirmation that Barnes was fully reconnected to the group call. "We didn't know for sure," Barnes reasoned aloud.
"Know what?"
"Why he was tailing them. Who else might've been involved."
"That does not justify you taking matters into your own hands," Ayo's voice was clear but not hard. For a moment, Sam thought she might've been working up to press the matter further, but instead she pivoted the subject and more gently inquired, "How long were you in pain?"
Barnes froze, cultivating that distant expression of his while he fiddled with his gloved hands, "At the river crossing."
"Was the pain severe?" she pressed.
"Not at first…" he faded off uncomfortably, apparently uninterested in offering up anything the least bit conclusive.
"And you hid it from us? Why?" There wasn't anger so much as confusion in Ayo's tone. Sam might've missed the subtle plea in her voice if he hadn't spent so much time around Wakanda's Chief of Security. One that wished not to rush into condemnation, but to bridge the gap so she could understand the root of his actions, frustrating as they were.
But before Barnes could respond, Shuri's firm voice cut in, "We should discuss such matters in person."
It might've been masked as a suggestion, but Sam didn't miss the way the corner of Ayo's lips soured at the request. It was clear she wanted to get to the bottom of not only why Barnes had done what he had, but the root of his concerning behavior.
She wasn't the only one.
And Barnes? Barnes looked all kinds of guilty in the wake of his unauthorized, hands-on interrogation session. You know: the same one that'd driven 'em up the wall, but'd also bore fruit and provided some additional relief that the Wakandans hadn't accidentally entered into some kinda trap. That one.
Still. Listening in on Barnes grillin' that idiot thief had been anything but comfortable, and Sam found one of his hands idly trailing its way up to his beard to trace the nearest hairless line along his jaw where Barnes's unyielding hands had once sought to squeeze information out of him by force. All things considered? Things here clearly could'a been a lot worse, but it didn't make what happened water under the bridge, "Well I'm glad you're okay, and that you didn't take it out on that asshole."
Barnes started to open his mouth to speak, but one slow glance in Ayo's direction and he was back to looking at the ground in that uncomfortable, distant way of his.
"Would you prefer us to meet under the lamp we'd previously agreed upon, my Chief, or at the safehouse?" Nomble inquired in their earpiece, managing to make the question seem simple even if their situation was anything but.
Now that was one hell of a loaded question. Regardless of the bits of intel Barnes had managed to excavate, Sam wouldn't have been a drop surprised if Ayo opted to circle up and load everyone right back on that jet headed to Wakanda, no questions asked. For all Sam knew, it might be all-around advisable to do just that and let the dust settle. But before Ayo could respond to her Lieutenant, Princess Shuri's voice came in through their shared comms, "The safehouse is close by. We can meet you there."
A few steps away from Sam, Ayo was clearly evaluating the merits of Shuri's suggestion. "Directly there," Ayo concluded, using one hand to motion to Barnes to follow her back the direction they came. The brooding cyborg complied without debate and wasted no time in falling into a death march beside her. Sam took up position on his right, trying to ignore that part of him that was instantly reminded of how submissive Barnes had been when Sam'd led him around in that game of HYDRA-cultivated make believe.
Did any of this mess have anything to do with that particular bag of rocks? Barnes hadn't exactly been forthcoming about the whole ordeal, but Sam caught Shuri's repeated comments about there maybe being some raw part of Barnes's brain that had dug up a number of skeletons from the shadows while he'd been on that midnight run of his. If that was the case, he wasn't seeing fit to volunteer any particulars that might'a put 'em at ease, or at the very least explained his actions.
Sam wanted to ask, but this wasn't the time. Not when the three of them and the whole lot were still comin' down off one hell of an adrenaline high that could'a gone all sorts of sideways worse than it had. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to acknowledge that they'd made it out the other side intact?
So Sam did what he could and kept his voice low and conversational as they walked, trying not to worry about Barnes's distant expression, "We were worried about you."
Barnes kept his attention split between the rooftops and the rain slicked cobblestones at his feet, "Yeah. I know." It was like all the energy had been drained from him. After a dozen or more steps, he thought to add, "What happened to the bag?"
"The bag?" Sam repeated, realizing Barnes must've been referring to the plastic bag full of groceries he'd picked up from the corner convenience store on the other side of town. What an odd question. "The snacks? I tossed to it to that guy with the cat when you up and ran off." They walked another block in silence before Sam ventured, "You're actin' weird, even for you. Is there somethin' else goin' on? You know you can talk to me, right?"
Out of his periphery, Sam caught Ayo looking between them like she hoped his gentle coaxing might offer a breadcrumb of insight into what had happened. Instead Barnes stayed silent and just kept walking with his shoulders hunched.
Sam didn't get a response – not at first – but half a block later, Barnes turned his head just enough to meet Sam's gaze with those uncomfortable blue eyes of his. Then just as quickly, the man with his partner's face turned his attention back to the skyline. Something in those bloodshot eyes was different than before. Sam knew it. They were distant, like there were worlds between them all of a sudden.
But why now?
What'd happened? What had he seen?
Ayo kept her head forward but her keen eyes scanned their surroundings, ensuring that they were not being watched as they wove through an adjoining street towards the nearby safehouse. It wasn't far, but she was well aware her focus was not as sharp as she wished it was.
While Ayo did not think it likely that Barnes planned to make a feign and disappear into the night, she now had lingering doubts about his willingness to obey her instructions, and with it: the promises he'd made that laid the foundation of their travel to Symkaria. He did not know that the protective electrical node on his shoulder was now completely disabled, piquing her already jostled nerves with awareness of a completely different instinct that was hers alone to wrestle with. Were the node still functional, she needed only to be mindful of remaining vigilant enough to press the toggle on her beads or edge of her spear in order to coax the device to life and disable him. But now…?
Now if he chose violence — or his mind chose for him — Ayo would be forced to make far more deadly choices at a moment's notice.
Much as it was not a situation she desired to be in, it was a decision of her own making, and she was reminded of it with each step she took. She rested her hand on the holster of her spear, feeling the weight of it along her hip as they briskly walked through the fringes of Aniana's downtown district. Barnes had taken notice of it too, though he'd made no mention of it. The navigational array along her Kimoyo beads indicated that Shuri and her Lieutenants were almost to the safehouse and would arrive ahead of them. Good. At least they were not taking any other unnecessary detours. Ayo had a whole host of questions for what they'd been up to, and at least she could rely on her Lieutenants for exacting answers the Princess might otherwise dance around.
Barnes stayed silent but alert near Ayo's right elbow as his head wavered between checking the steepled buildings for signs of danger and taking uncharacteristic interest in his gloved hands. He fidgeted the fingers with purpose. "Are they malfunctioning?" she inquired, doing her best to tread lightly on a topic without heavy consequence.
His body went rigid at the inquiry, but he chose to respond without meeting her gaze, "Just tight."
She nodded once, not missing the quick glance Sam tossed her way across from Barnes. It was hard to miss the concern ebbing in the corners of his bearded face, and it was an uneasiness she shared. Ayo wished she didn't feel as torn with frustration as she did. She couldn't merely bask in some semblance of relief that Barnes was still himself and not only had he tracked and released the pursuer unharmed, but those actions Barnes had chosen did in fact offer significant confidence that the man did not appear to be some part of a larger scheme against their Princess. His request of them to access the data on the slender man's phone was a clever one, but such actions did not cast aside the other choices he'd made in the process.
Ayo was well aware that M'yra was no-doubt tracking them on pedestrian video feeds and following up on the kernels of intel Barnes had gained from his interrogation, but Barnes had not only disobeyed Ayo's requests of him, but he'd lied to her when he'd chosen to mask his pain with purpose in his solemn pursuit. In the wake of such actions, it made it difficult to parse the trust she had in him. It was like walking atop a frozen lake laced with cracks she could not ignore.
In her heart, she was relieved he was alive and well. That the gambles she'd made to let him sprint ahead of them and later to request Shuri to disable the malfunctioning electrical node on his shoulder hadn't ended in blood. But it was far more complicated than that too. His actions didn't carry with them the weight of a true betrayal, but she was quick to remind herself that her own conscience was hardly clear. She herself had once slighted the man that shared his face when she'd chosen to divest him of his arm in Latveria to prove a point of her own making.
And now? Now she found himself wondering for not the first time just what he'd seen back in the alleyway across town when Sam had been marching beside him. Should she have allowed such tests to proceed? Or should she have intervened and called a halt to them when she'd seen Barnes sink into himself? What had he experienced in the shadows of his mind? Had it been related to the memories Shuri claimed his subconsciousness might've dragged up during his sprint to catch up with the others so he could guard them? What other horrors might they have inadvertently drawn up?
And how much of it was Ayo's fault?
As the three of them walked in silence, it was easy to notice how much his behavior had changed from just twenty minutes ago. How he kept his eyes distant. Closed-off. Like his mind was trapped elsewhere. She knew it was not the time to press him for details, but she could tell something was amiss, and she wished it didn't have a way of reminding her of the hurt and confusion she'd seen more than once on that same face.
Had the man in the green jacket said something before they'd been able to listen in? Something that had stuck with Barnes? Or was it something else entirely?
Ayo was not about to pursue conversation that risked raising Shuri's ire from across their shared communications channel, but she found the silence between them was deafening beyond anything even Ayo could tolerate as a Dora Milaje. "We still have matters to discuss," she tilted her head to address Barnes and did what she could to keep her voice clear of frustration. To lay focus on the bright points that brought her pride rather than those methods that gave her pause. "I'm relieved you are safe and whole, and that you watched over Princess Shuri and the others as you said you would."
She'd hoped — perhaps naively — to draw him out of his shell like she had so many times before. Back when his mind was adrift and ailing and she had to cox him back to himself with gentle words and orange marmalade. To seek out connection, even if a cascade of questions remained and the days ahead still offered little reassurance that they would be able to find a sure way to stabilize his churning mind.
But this time, those eyes that once entrusted her with poisoned words to unlock his very will didn't care to grasp her olive branch or even glance her way. The man with her friend's face — the one she'd renewed her oath to at Barnes — adjusted his stubbled jaw and kept his attention fixated on the darkness in the distance. She wanted to think he'd heard her, and moreover the silent places between her words, but she wasn't sure they'd reached him.
Sam saw it too. She was certain of it. And when he leaned forward and looked her way with that empathetic, honest expression of his, she was appreciative for the painful camaraderie she witnessed in his gaze, and that he too sought out answers for the many difficult questions they had yet to broach.
As Ayo looked up at the sky and the dim stars overhead, she found herself wishing for not the first time that they had more time. It pained her to see Barnes retreat into himself. She did what she could to remind herself that these concerns — real as they were — were not as urgent as the ones that measured the future of the man they'd come to know as Barnes in mere days.
Unless they found a solution to the ailment plaguing his mind, it would not be long until he risked being once and truly lost to them. She would not surrender to such grim realities, but unless they found a cure, then minute-by-minute, the sand running through their fingers would soon run dry and leave only a shadow in their wake.
[Chapter 90 Chapter Art, by HardWiredWeird]
[ID: A gouache painting by HardWiredWeird showing a thigh-up portrait of Bucky standing against a greyscale Winter Soldier logo. He is wearing a blue and black leather jacket, pants, and leather gear on his right arm, and his left arm is exposed vibranium silver and gold. He stands with his hands balled into fists and looks intensely past the viewer. End ID]
I'd mentioned that HardWiredWeird (hardwiredweird on Tumblr) had created this beautiful gouache painting of Bucky awhile back, and I wanted to share it again here since the energy he's conveying really reminded me of the no-nonsense intensity of "Barnes" in this chapter (even if he's far more undercover in the current chapter).
Please check out his social media accounts to see more of his incredible art! His skill with portraiture is phenomenal, and there are loads of beloved characters across his art accounts! He's also just an all-around fantastic person and watercolor and gouache enabler.
[Chapter 29 Chapter Art, by Kaite_xyxy]
[ID: A vertical painting by Kaite_xyxy showing a landscape view from the top of Mount Bashenga. Nearest the viewer is a field of wild grass in which Sam and Bucky are situated as they admire the beautiful constellations high above them. On the left, Sam is seated and wearing a red shirt and blue jeans. He is looking up, and his hands are on his lap. Just to his right stands Bucky, who has on a grey t-shirt, blue jeans, and a blue, black, and gold shawl that hands across his shoulders and over his left shoulder, which is absent his prosthetic arm. Bucky has Kimoyo Beads around his right wrist and has his hand raised as he points to the stars above. His mouth is open in a smile as he speaks with Sam. A distance away is the Wakandan Design Center, and beyond that are a set of rolling mountains. The painting is awash with cool blues and purples, but the horizon is a warm red, as if the sun recently set beyond the mountains, and is casting light into the bottoms of the clouds above before the sky transitions to night. End ID]
When I originally wrote Chapter 29 back in July of 2021, I remember looking forward to having this heart-to-heart scene between Sam and Bucky, and how it offered them a moment of respite amid a lot of heavy stuff, and how it had a way of solidifying their bond of being "Partners."
This peaceful scene in particular really stuck with me, and I am humbled that Kaite_xyxy (kaite_xyxy on Twitter) was interested in lending her beautiful artistic style to illustrate this peaceful scene. It means so much to me to see it captured in such gorgeous detail.
This story is about a lot, but friendship, and the bond between these two is certainly a core part of it. And Kaite_xyxy captured that in spades.
Please check out Kaite_xyxy's social media accounts to see more of her beautiful and emotive art (especially if you are a fan of Moon Knight)! Her style is so vibrant and alive!
Once again: A *huge* thank you to her for lending her artistic talents to capture this peaceful scene between these two in her lovely style.
Please check out this chapter on Archive of Our Own to see the gorgeous art and links to the artist's social media pages!
Author's Remarks:
At long last, this chapter concludes Act 12 of Winter of the White Wolf, and also hits a crazy milestone of surpassing 800k words for this story so far, wow! Worry not: we still have quite the adventure ahead of us, and we'll be diving into the start of Act 13 with Chapter 91!
Time's come and gone, but we also just hit the three-year anniversary of this story, and it's still going strong! I can't wait to share everything ahead with you, including some incredible fanart that's been waiting in the wings for months, and in some cases: even years!
I hope all of you have had an absolutely wonderful last few months! Work's been going full-throttle for me, and in addition to a lot of unanticipated travel for work, I also had my yearly pilgrimage to Lightning in a Bottle where I take a little time to relax, rejuvenate, and take in every ounce of wonderful vibes surrounding art, music, creativity, camping, and some incredible experiences with friends.
This year was another great adventure, and I returned recharged and creatively reinvigorated! ❤ Here are a few photos, including a lion festival totem I made from scratch in the weeks leading up to the event!
Please check out this chapter on Archive of Our Own to see the photos!
[ID: A colorful photograph of the Woogie music stage at night, which is awash with vibrant crowds and colorful purple, blue, red, magenta, and orange colors In the far background is a full moon nestled behind a large tree. End ID]
[ID: A photo of a purple, pink, and blue iridescent low poly lion festival totem leaning against the side of a tan camping tent. Sunlight makes the features of the lion sing with color. Far behind it can be seen a tree-lined lake. End ID]
[ID: A photo of KLeCrone smiling and standing in festival attire while she holds a lighted iridescent blue cape and a purple, pink, and blue iridescent low poly lion festival totem. Behind her, groups of people gather on wooden bleachers awaiting an indigenous-led sunset ceremony. End ID]
[ID: A daytime photo of KLeCrone's lakeside camp at Lightning in a Bottle 2024, complete with some shade trees, decorated tents, camping chairs, etc. End ID]
[ID: A colorful photograph of the Lightning music stage at night, which is awash with vibrant crowds and colorful purple, green, blue, and orange fireworks in front of a lush lakefront. End ID]
In addition, back when I'd posted Chapter 76: Propositions and Plums, I'd mentioned that I'd gotten in contact with Janeshia Adams-Ginyard, the actress that plays Nomble, and offered to send her a print of the piece of the fan art illustration I did of her character. She shared some photos of it on her Instagram, and was so incredibly kind and complimentary about the piece, and even sent me a little something in return! :)
Well this week when I attended San Diego Comic Con, I finally got to meet her in person! Chatting with her was one of my highlights of the con!
[ID: A vertical photo of Janeshia Adams-Ginyard as Nomble dressed in her Dora Milaje regalia. Janeisha faces the camera with a serious expression and her fists ready for battle. The photograph has been signed in purple sharpie with: 'To Kymba - Stay fierce! Much love from your favorite Dora Milaje, Nomble -Janeshia' End ID
[ID: A vertical photo of Janeshia Adams-Ginyard and KLeCrone taken at San Diego Comic Con 2024. Janeshia is wearing sunglasses and a matching brown, orange, teal, and purple striped two-piece shirt and pants, and KLeCrone is wearing a tank top with a blue, green, and grey mandala design. They are both smiling at the camera. End ID]
All-in-all, it's been a really insane last few months, and I deeply appreciate your patience while I worked on this chapter. I'm hoping to get back into a more regular update cadence going forward. :)
* - This is in reference to a scene in the Dark Place that occurred a while back, but if you need a refresher, you can take a look back at the art for Chapter 57: Subtractive Shadows by MaxKennedy24
** - Sam is too much of a gentleman to point out that this is ASCII for "BOOBS"
*** Ibhondi Yomgcini - Wakandan Translation: Bodyguard's Bond
- Chapter Title Origins - The title of this chapter originates from Modus Operandi. I thought that it was a nice nod to the fact that Barnes (as well as his friends) were trying to use their powers of deduction to not only figure out what was going on with him, but what the criminal in the story was up to, and just how dangerous it was for everyone involved.
Say hi and connect with me on social media:
- "KLeCrone" on Twitter and Tumblr
As I've said before but so desperately want to repeat: I deeply appreciate your continued support. Every kudo and comment means to me to keep me inspired on this journey we're on together. Thank you again for all of the encouragement, questions, kind words, and commentary. Knowing others around the world are out there reading along with these updates truly makes a difference. I appreciate hearing from you! ❤
