Winter of the White Wolf: Post S1 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Chapter 89: The Crux of Trust, a falcon and the winter soldier fanfic

I hope all of you are having a wonderful month! It's time to dive right back into the fray!

In symphony with this update, I'm thrilled to share a gorgeous painting by Shade ("Shade_of_stars" on Twitter).

The full illustration and further links and information about the artist can be found below the prose for this 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 89 - The Crux of Trust

Summary:

Barnes has opted to take matters into his own hands.

Literally.

The solemn pursuit of running is a curious thing. It's a fundamental locomotion, sure, but if you catch even a glimpse at someone dashin' by, you're bound to get an instant read on some manner of unsung subtext.

You may not be able to parse the particulars, but you can immediately sense the difference between the simple rhythm of footsteps propelling themselves forward to the tune of casual recreation, and the way those same steps transform into something outright purposeful when they're poundin' to catch a train, or scramblin' over one another 'cause the brain danglin' over 'em is slippin' over itself with worry that they might'a left the stove top on at home.

There's an unmistakable nuance to a person's gait when they're makin' tracks away from the maw of danger too, just as sure as there is when those soles are hell-bent on running straight into the fray with every ounce of resolve they've got. And while Sam couldn't pinpoint exactly when his footfalls started tellin' stories of their own concerning the unsung urgency they were facin' down right about then, somewhere two or three blocks back – right around the time Barnes'd gone and silenced his comms – Sam and Ayo'd both went from simply running, to sprinting like they were on the last lap and all bets were off.

Frankly, Sam didn't know how he'd managed to summon the energy for yet another second wind today, but he didn't have time to stop and ask questions. He just knew that when they finally caught up with Barnes, they were going to have one hell of a talk about this, whatever this was.

"Would it have been too much to ask that they didn't wander off in the complete opposite direction from us?" Sam complained under his breath. The lackluster lighting in this part of downtown wasn't doin' 'em any favors, and he had to keep scanning the cobblestone sidewalks for puddles and missing stones, lest he fumble a step and roll an ankle. A few steps ahead of him, Ayo moved with a figure skater's grace around a man who was being pulled by his over-enthusiastic Belgian Malinois.

She managed the smooth maneuver with uncanny agility that didn't seem altogether possible considering she was outright sprinting in high heels over uneven rain slicked sidewalks. All the while, Sam did his best to keep up while his head buzzed with worry about what they'd find once they got to where they were goin'. Something just wasn't adding up.

"You know we can hear you," Shuri's unusually tense voice interjected from the communications module behind Sam's ear. "And it is not as if you remained closeby our agreed-upon meeting spot. Your own trackers indicate you traveled well beyond the far side of the east river."

Okay so… she wasn't altogether wrong in her observation, but she also wasn't the person Sam'd been tossin' stones at, "Wouldn't wish that particular elevation gain on anyone, but I meant the guy Barnes was tracking. Not you three." He considered adding that they weren't exactly close-by either, but that was more'n a little self-evident by this point. Besides: who was counting? His aching calves certainly weren't.

A brief pause hung over the comms channel before Shuri added in a slightly meeker tone, "...Oh."

"We should keep the channel clear for pressing updates," Ayo's hushed voice specified. Even though she was sprinting, the disguised Chief of Security somehow managed to infuse her veiled suggestion with a no-nonsense tone that swiftly reminded Sam of a schoolteacher you knew better than to cross.

He got the point and shut up.

Sam also knew better'n to prod the others for updates they didn't have. He was anxious, sure, wired on adrenaline, yes, but he'd been around the block enough to understand that sometimes the best thing you could do was to hold your tongue so other people could get ahold of their own thoughts.

Sam wasn't exactly sure what prompted Ayo to glance back his way. Maybe it was simple curiosity to check if he was still close behind her, maybe she was worried she'd been too forceful in her command, or perhaps it was somethin' else entirely. But whatever the reason, when Sam briefly met her eyes, what struck him most was the distance in her expression and how her slim eyebrows pushed together before she turned to face the sidewalk again.

Even from the side, Sam could see how her features had been politely folded into a Dora's tight neutral, but there was something unspeakably tight lurking along the edge of her jaw. It had a way of swiftly reminding him that while this mess they were in wasn't a cakewalk for any of 'em, Ayo specifically was burdened with a particularly grim set of responsibilities thrust into her care. Some of those responsibilities were focused on keepin' Shuri safe and not blowin' their cover, but Ayo was also tasked to ensure that if Barnes's mind slipped and went sideways in the worst possible way, that he wouldn't have the opportunity to hurt anyone.

In fact by the sounds of it: Barnes had even made her promise to follow-through on that solemn oath if she felt it was necessary.

Although every last one of 'em were desperately hoping that same agonizing accord wouldn't come into play, it was as if Sam could see Ayo running the numbers on in her head. On if something so benign as holding off on activating that electrical node on Barnes's shoulder wasn't inadvertently amplifying the risks they were swimmin' in second-by-second.

Sam frowned and puffed out a breath of misty air, adjusting the collar of his jacket as he scanned the spotty crowds up ahead of 'em. There were less people idlin' about on the streets in this part of town. Most of 'em were meandering along the sidewalk at an unhurried pace, making it a fair bit easier to maneuver around them than it had been in the thicker crowds. It also offered the occasional opportunity for Sam to check his phone so he could check-in the rogue toaster's mismatched vitals, and how much further they had to go to catch up to the man in question.

Sam and Ayo'd covered a lot of distance considering they'd started damn near across town. The bubbling urgency they'd initially felt about Shuri and the others adopting a local stalker had been tempered by M'yra's play-by-play observations combined with the knowledge that Barnes was bound to catch up with the others soon. When he did, it was reasonable to take a drink from the well of reassurance knowing they had another set of friendly eyes nearby lookin' out for 'em just in case anything went sideways.

They'd collectively breathed a sigh of relief when the man in the green jacket had backed off, well, right up until the moment Barnes opted to ignore Ayo's suggestion to reconvene with the others, and instead continued right-on tailing the man that'd been stalkin' the others through downtown. Any short-lived feelings that the worst was behind 'em were rapidly gobbled up when the idiot himself chose to turn off his comms. And in the wake of that awful lingering silence, Sam and Ayo didn't need to exchange a word between 'em to know they should pick up the pace, regardless of if it turned a few heads here and there.

Trouble was, Barnes not only had a sizable headstart on the two of 'em, but through sheer cosmic irony, the man he was trackin' was presently inclined to wander off in the opposite direction. It couldn't possibly get any wors–

"From his tracker's positioning," M'yra's all-business voice cut into the silence like a surgical knife, "I believe Barnes has entered a commercial building through an alley-side entrance. The slender man has not shown up on the cameras on the far side of the alley, so he may have entered the building ahead of Barnes."

That, or maybe Barnes grabbed him and dragged him into the building himself, Sam grimly considered. Whichever the order of modus operandi, the latest reconnaissance update on their idiot travel companion had a way of coaxing a renewed burst of speed outta Ayo, who threw caution to the wind and darted through an intersection pebbled with rain-slicked cobblestones faster'n any reasonable shoewear should'a been able to manage.

Ayo made it in front of a passing car, but Sam was three steps behind her, which was just enough distance to force him to skid to a stop to avoid running headfirst into the driver's side door. He pivoted on his heel and dodged behind the rear bumper, wondering if they had a name for whatever Cirque du Soleil maneuver Ayo'd pulled off to break away in front of the same vehicle. "We are still a distance away," the high-heeled acrobat breathed through their shared communications channel, "perhaps four to five minutes out from his location."

"I think that may be shorthand for a word. Just there." Soft-spoken Nomble's non sequitur of a comment caught Sam off guard, but it was a welcome salve over the loaded silence of their comms.

"A word?" Shuri responded, confused.

At least he wasn't the only strugglin' to follow along. Sam could only hope they'd be able to figure out what was goin' on in that cyborg brain a distance away.

"With his fingers. In the recording," Nomble's words were spaced like she was pickin' at something, "Within the alleyway just before M'yra lost sight. It's subtle, but it could be 'Fine.'"

Sam groaned, but to his credit: he didn't breathe a word of his private ruminations out loud. Instead, Shuri did him the solemn courtesy of complaining, "This situation is anything but."

Neither of them would've been clued into it, but considering the sheer number of times that Barnes had insisted he was 'fine' in the last fifteen minutes, Sam wouldn't've put it past him to try and sneak in the last word.

Didn't mean Sam believed it anymore than the first time, though. Deep in his gut he knew that whatever all this was, it wasn't leading anywhere good, that was for damn sure.

"How certain are you of the gestures he made?" It was obvious Ayo's words were for her Lieutenant.

"I do not think them to be chance, my Chief," the resident linguistics expert noted. "They were made with intention towards the only direction offering a limited view of a distant intersection camera."

"I see it now," M'yra agreed. "I don't know how I missed it."

"He did not want to risk other eyes overseeing his intent to convey a message," Nomble offered as explanation.

"Well that… that's something," Sam chimed in. "It's good he's communicating, right? Shows it's still him?" He hated how much his own harried voice made it sound as if he was hoping a bonafide adult might step in to reassure him that his nerves were far more raw than they had any reason to be.

At his remark, Ayo cast a glance over her shoulder. The deep brown eyes that met his weren't cross at him for speaking up. Rather: he'd chosen to air the private bit they were all hoping was some shade of the truth. That kept the door open for a resolution that wasn't streaked in blood. "He knows we can remotely activate the node on his shoulder, and that we are likely considering using it to subdue him because he's chosen to cut off communication from us," Ayo noted in an even-keel tone. "He must be seeking to garner our sympathies and buy himself time for the course of action he intends to act on."

Sam gulped in a breath of cold city air, "Yeah, that sounds about right, down to whatever Barnes-brand stubbornness is rattlin' around in his head." With a resigned sigh of frustration, he snuck another look at the phone clutched tight in his palm. Sam was movin' too quick in the city's shit-for-lighting to parse the details, but Barnes's vitals were still elevated. Not just hoisted up a super soldier enjoin' some midnight cardio, no: there was something else goin' on between those mismatched readings. It was like his respiration, blood pressure, and BPMs were altogether erratic, jumpin' up and droppin' back down with wild fluctuations across the board that didn't track to any condition he could pinpoint. He had no doubt Shuri was presently doin' everything she could to cross-compare the whole kitten-caboodle of readings at this very instant, and while Sam couldn't make heads or tails of the particulars, every bit of his medical training was screaming that something was off – even for Barnes – and he didn't like it one bit.

"With no visual on either of them now, there's precious little for me to go on," M'yra noted, frustration evident in her words. "I'm working as fast as I can to ascertain if the business they've entered has any closed-circuit cameras I can access remotely."

"Business?" Ayo inquired.

"From the permits and city records, a second hand electronics repair shop. Currently closed." M'yra waited a beat before more tentatively adding, "Is it advisable for us to halt his progress deeper into the building, my Chief?"

Sam caught her subtext immediately: She was trying to get a pulse on if it was altogether advisable to activate the electrical node on Barnes's shoulder to forcibly deter him from continuing forward with his present course of action.

And if Sam were being honest? He wasn't certain it was an altogether bad idea, seeing as they were flyin' blind on what exactly he was plannin'.

"Is the building occupied?" Ayo pressed for details.

"Unclear, but the interior lights are out and have been for at least thirty minutes."

"Do you have eyes on the building's surroundings?"

"Either side of the alley and the storefront. There are shared walls with adjoining buildings to the side and rear, and I have moderate visibility on their exteriors."

"And You feel certain the man he was following is armed?"

At this, Shuri's clear voice interjected, "A small handgun. I got scans of it as well. A 9mm semi-automatic holding a maximum of fifteen rounds." She hardly paused for a breath before adding, "If we subdue him, he will be defenseless."

"But we think it's still Barnes, right?" Sam volunteered. "You said his mind should be stable?"

"Yes. Everything I see indicates his mind hasn't undergone a decided shift from a Black Hole Event, but he has potentially accessed memories that are new to him."

"But we don't know which ones," Sam concluded aloud, well aware that although Ayo was silent, she was no doubt running the math on their options on what was abundantly becoming a matter of life and death. If they subdued Barnes, it could mean he would be unable to carry out whatever he was planning: up to and including potentially extracting vengeance on the man that had trailed Shuri and the others. But it might algo mean that same man could get the jump on him. Take Barnes out before he even realized what was happening.

Take him out in a way he couldn't come back from, no matter how much of that serum was runnin' through his veins.

Sam swallowed hard, struggling with pinpointing the 'right' option in a sea of uncertainties, especially when the clinical part of him insisted that the two lives at stake had the same relative value, even though the bigger part of him knew he didn't want to grapple with losing Barnes over his own damn stupidity. If he'd just said what he was planning, they wouldn't be in this godforsaken life-or-death guessing game.

"Maybe he saw or heard something we didn't," Sam reasoned aloud, earning him another quick glance from Ayo a step ahead of him. "Look, you do what you need to. Make that call if you think it's best, but after what we saw – and whatever he saw back there – if it's still Barnes, he knows there are some lines he can't cross. That he's putting the other stuff he was hoping to dig up here at-risk. I don't think he'd toss that all away just to go after some random asshole, even if he deserved it. And he knows how to hold back. We saw him do that on the mountain just this morning."

Sam wasn't aware he was pleading until his voice faintly cracked, but Ayo certainly caught it. The subtle shift in his pitch was enough to briefly slow her fleet-footed steps, and the two of them locked eyes along the sidewalk.

He didn't say anything out loud, but he found his lips forming a single word, 'Please.'

In that moment, something powerful passed between them. Between two folks that'd known Buck in fundamentally different ways, but'd met Barnes halfway. It was a raw damn deal for sure, but Same felt surprisingly seen that moment, and Ayo offered him a quick nod before turning her head back towards the sidewalk, "We should not subdue Barnes without cause knowing a viper is in his midst and is likely to strike given the opportunity," she directed her voice over their shared comms. "M'yra, keep trying to get access to whatever closed-circuit cameras you can find. Princess Shuri, if anything changes– "

"I will let you know immediately."

Sam managed to push his aching calves to catch up to Ayo in a straightaway and temporarily muted his microphone, "Thank you. For that. For given' him a little more time."

He was certain she hear him, but she opted to keep her attention ahead of her as she privately responded, "Let us hope that it was the right call, and that other lives do not pay the ultimate price for our gamble."

The events of the last half hour were still fresh in Yama's mind as she forced herself to rapidly acclimate to the abrupt change in circumstances and the tsunami of dire possibilities that remained yet unspoken.

Blocks away and only minutes earlier, she'd remained on guard in an alleyway beside Princess Shuri while Wakanda's brightest mind ran surveillance passes on a suspicious building from a safe distance. Their casual excursion was otherwise unremarkable up until the moment two men had taken it upon themselves to mistakenly mark the three women as easy prey.

They'd gotten away from the men without incident of course, but the slender one had been intent to tail them through Aniana's meandering midnight crowds with far more irksome tenacity than Yama'd initially given him credit for. While she was relieved when he'd finally turned tail from his pointless pursuit, she expected him to slither back to that garbage-strewn alleyway where his temporarily deafened companion was presently nursing a well-deserved headache.

Yama and her sword sister didn't need to exchange words to extrapolate out what plans they had upon his return. It was abundantly clear to Yama that once the two of them were satisfied they'd learned all they could from the surveillance bead Nomble had planted nearby, that one of them would be granted the honor of setting off the Cry of Ngai bead a second time so that the pair of conniving men would be gifted an additional opportunity to be taught a lesson.

It was custom for Yama to share such refined responsibilities with Nomble, but she'd considered asking Princess Shuri might be interested in trying out the toggle's shared interface herself.

For science, of course.

The stray thought had held a spark of quiet humor in the wake of breaking away from their pursuer, but what Yama had not considered was that the bead's original pulse might summon Barnes ahead to them.

Yama was well aware – as were they all – that activating that bead would automatically notify their Chief that they'd encountered opposition. It was a wise security measure to ensure no one was caught unaware, and there was no shame in being prepared for all possible contingencies, even if Yama felt confident that she, Nomble, and Shuri could manage the situation on their own without revealing themselves or unsheathing a single weapon.

In hindsight, Yama supposed that it was unexpected but reasonable for her Chief to grant Barnes permission to run ahead of her and Sam as a precaution, but neither of them had considered that upon catching up with the slender man, Barnes might opt to continue his pursuit unabated.

Any residual humor Yama held for the image of her Princess 'testing' and fine-tuning the functionality of her Cry of Ngai bead was snapped away in an instant as Yama's sharp mind drew out a multitude of potentialities for how the next few minutes might unfold. While she wanted to believe she knew Barnes enough to trust he would have only acted out of reason and necessity, she was not blinded to the impact his actions might have – regardless of his intentions.

Yama willed herself to not allow her imagination to run rampant with what grim possibilities might follow, and to instead focus on what was in front of her. Now was not the time for needless speculation without cause. It was time for intention.

Tucked away between buildings as they now were, Yama's eyes darted across the nuances of their crumbling surroundings. They stood along the side of a poorly-planned alcove where multiple footpaths converged at odd angles. Thankfully, the awkward turns proved to be a boon to their cause, because the winding paths were not intended to be shortcuts between the connected streets and alleys. If anything, Yama suspected that they were rarely used by anyone aside from lost garbage collectors and the occasional intoxicated local who'd made a wrong turn on the poorly-lit streets. She would take it for the small win it was.

A step away, Shuri exchanged updates with M'yra and Ayo as she poured over data from her phone and augmented opticals for clues while Yama regarded the buildings around them. There was no sign of movement undulating in the shadows, but it was better to be safe than a lion's snack, so Yama ran her fingers along her Kimoyo strand and smoothly removed a bead. With casual, practiced grace, she floated her fingers in the air, issuing a silent command that prompted the nanites in the remaining orbs to subdivide and fill the space around her wrist with slightly smaller beads. She took a step forward and pressed the single Kimoyo Bead into the grout between the nearest bricks, directing it to roll forward and out of view where it could situate itself in a more useful surveillance location supporting their cause.

Satisfied, she stepped back and reaffirmed her guard opposite Nomble and eyed the far skyline and corridors, calculating a host of countermeasures and viable methods of escape while she and her sword sister maintained a well-honed vigilance for the faintest hint of any potential danger. Now was the time for them to sharpen their senses so that Shuri could concentrate on her task, and if Yama were being honest with herself? She was relieved that the Princess appeared intent to stay put as Ayo had requested of her. The last thing any of them needed right now were more distractions, and strictly speaking: Given the circumstances, Ayo's command would have taken precedence over Shuri's.

As she scanned their surroundings, Yama split her focus just enough to key into what the others were saying – both her Princess a few steps from her shoulder, and the anxious voices over their shared comms.

It was not enough to simply hear the tense words in their exchanges. She willed herself to listen for what was hiding in the spaces between syllables that might shine a light into the darkness before the situation risked unraveling further. It felt as though there were precious-few heartbeats to spare before they reached a sharp crescendo they could not walk backwards from.

The thrumming of her nerves had a way of reminding her of how her mother used to caution her about entering into a flooded river. About how even if the surface did not stir, it did not mean there were not crocodiles lying in wait for a tasty meal to wade in from the riverbed's shore.

The trick was to find the ripples. To know what to watch for.

"His vitals are elevated," Shuri observed as she poured through data that was digitally projected onto her lenses, "but I don't see an instantaneous uptick. It's like it's been progressing over the last ten minutes or so."

"His left elbow struck the side of a passing car a few minutes ago," M'yra offered, clearly hoping to shed some light on what was happening.

"He was hit?"

"Only grazed! He claimed he wasn't injured by the impact when he protected a boy who was playing along a curb."

Yama watched as Shuri rotated the fingers of her left hand counter-clockwise, obviously using the gesture to shuttle back through the security footage M'yra had shared with her across the lenses of her glasses and the phone in her palm, which presently displayed time stamped video footage. "No, the timing of that doesn't explain the changes to his vitals. They were already elevated then." She pulled up another data array, "You said he was responsive before?" The timber of her words were clearly meant for Ayo.

"He was. Up until the crowds grew dense."

Shuri's frown deepened as she made a series of gestures with three fingers. Maybe she was toggling on subtitles? Her expression was uncharacteristically tense. It was difficult for Yama to watch her struggle, all-the-while wishing there was anything she could do to help.

She did what she could to put herself in Barnes's place. Weaving through a sea of strangers while he tracked the man that'd been tailing them. He would have been ready to intervene, of that she was certain. That would explain why he hadn't been talkative. It would have only risked attracting unnecessary attention.

But if he was communicating in sign language now, he'd known they were still watching and worrying for him, and while Yama knew a glimmer of what Barnes was capable of, she couldn't imagine his gestures being a nefarious misdirection. He was many things – stubborn chief among them – but he was observant. Intentional. And he felt a deep sense of purpose.

At least that's what she wanted to think. Wanted to believe. Ayo must've felt the same too. That was why her Chief had not chosen to activate the electrical node and stall his quest and risk putting him in further danger.

"Sam, this way," Ayo briefly interjected through their shared comms. Yama found she could easily imagine the two of them running through the night towards an uncertain future.

"His locator's stopped moving just inside the door," M'yra noted.

"And his vitals?" Ayo pressed.

Shuri didn't miss a beat before responding, "Still stable." Her urgent words acted as a substitute for confirmation that his present lack of movement was not itself a result of sustaining greater injury.

Yama spared a moment to glance at the beads around her wrist, bringing up the soft glow of everyone's locators. She couldn't see the nuances M'yra could, but Yama found herself imagining that the creepy man was with Barnes now or close by. But what were they doing? The lights of her Kimoyos indicated that Ayo and Sam were rapidly threading their way towards the used electronics shop Barnes had entered, but they were still a distance away and every second counted.

What exactly was it that Barnes planned to do when he finally caught up with him? Back on the mountaintop he'd repeatedly claimed he wasn't beset on unnecessary violence, but he'd also admitted he was not beyond ending lives if he believed the situation required it.

Yama hoped this was not the latter.

As if reading her mind, Sam's cautious but clearly winded voice slipped into their shared comms, "...Do you… think there's anyone else inside the building?"

"I can't know for sure," M'yra all-but apologized. "The storefront and surrounding windows are dark, and according to records it's closed for the day, but that does not mean there might not be others inside."

Well! There was yet another worry to add to an ever-growing list.

It was readily apparent that Princess Shuri was doing her best to multitask amid waves of competing conversation and information, but without missing a beat, she tossed her beetle-like drone high into the air before M'yra had even finished her thought, "I'll send my drone and attempt to get a scan and find a way inside. It can only penetrate a few meters through solid objects, but—"

"Your drone?" Sam deadpanned.

Shuri waved an errant hand above the screen of her phone even though Sam was nowhere close enough to benefit her attempt to reassure him, "Not like yours. We'll discuss it later."

Yama absorbed every syllable of the volley of conversation while she maintained her guard opposite Nomble. She couldn't see whatever Shuri was looking at through those augmented glasses of hers, but Yama did what she could to try to piece together a more complete picture of what had happened. What could have possibly prompted Barnes to break off on his own in such a risky manner? His mind was ailing, yes, but he was far from naive, especially where matters like these were concerned. In times he could remember, he'd been forced to act on his own, but he was also no stranger to working as a part of a larger team.

But time and again, Yama found herself coming back to the times she'd skewed orders for a greater purpose. She wanted to believe that Barnes was cut from the same cloth. That he knew something they didn't. That he was calculated in his choices, not impassioned. Like those around her, Yama wanted so desperately to find any precious breadcrumbs that gave credence to the thought that he wasn't inadvertently following a time-worn procedure he'd learned from those that struck him with nails and trained him for their own sinister means.

But if he strayed too far into the deep shadows beyond where the light could find him, they would have to assume the worst. Not because they did not hope for the best, but because there were more lives at stake than simply his own. They could not simply stand by and watch the sparks of a forest fire lap against dry kindling. They had a responsibility to stop the flames before they risked consuming everything they touched.

What were they missing?

"...Maybe," she began, "he did not silence his comms because he did not wish to hear the words of his Pack, but because it was critical he be able to hear something softer in his surroundings?"

Shuri tilted her head just enough that Yama felt certain her Princess had heard her theory, "It's a thought I've shared as well, but his timing…" her words faded off as she frowned and stroked her fingers across the air, clearly multitasking as she reviewed any number of unseen displays across her lenses and no-doubt hurried her tiny drone to the repair shop some blocks away. The tension in her voice betrayed her full awareness that the future of more than one life weighed on her quick decisions, and that she was threadbare with the answers she so desperately sought.

The communications bead across Shuri's Kimoyos blinked again. Yama did what she could to not be nosey, but she suspected from the pattern that it was a follow-up call from the Design Center. Whoever it was: Shuri swiftly silenced the prompt, clearly too-deep into one-too-many competing initiatives, "His vitals are slowing slightly."

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" Sam inquired in a direct and harried tone few in Wakanda would have addressed Shuri with. That being as it was, his words carried an open honesty Yama found she appreciated that cut across the tension surrounding them all.

Shuri cringed, "Unclear. There's little I can use in order to pinpoint the reason for the change, but his brain waves are stable. He does not appear to be in the throws of an Event."

"Princess, if I may…" Yama's quiet sword sister lifted her voice from just beyond Shuri's far shoulder, "Yama has a second sense about Barnes. Perhaps she can see something other eyes cannot?"

Yama blinked twice, caught by surprise by the remark. She arched her neck forward just enough to shoot Nomble a mild look of reproach which the more soft spoken Dora returned with a short but insistent shrug, "It's true."

Yama opened her mouth to respond, but before she got a word out, Shuri turned the whole of her head around to meet her eyes. Oddly, the expression that greeted her was not one she was accustomed to seeing directed at her. It was not the countenance she used to respectfully acknowledge Yama's guard or to permit her to occasionally assist in select pursuits surrounding medicines and sciences like a decorated doctor working with an eager intern.

No, it was as if for a fleeting moment, she became the Princess's singular focus.

Before Yama could sort out the weight of Shuri's expression, no less her intentions, the brightest mind in Wakanda rapidly pulled off her thin glasses and thrust them in Yama's direction without hesitation, "Hurry. Put them on. I'll make due."

Over the course of her life, Yama had trained for many things.

She was remarkably nimble and surefooted – even for a Dora – and had spent years honing her reflexes to achieve advanced proficiency with a variety of weapons. While she maintained a keen eye for details, Yama reveled in the pursuit of knowledge, and during the Decimation she applied herself to cultivating a broad understanding of the sciences as well as natural and lab-created pharmaceuticals and medical techniques, not because she wished to change her vocation, but because she wished to enrich her understanding of the world around her.

Yama could name off more animal facts than most had patience to learn, and while she was not as skilled with a wealth of languages as Nomble was, or as adept with clever technologies as M'yra drew from like a fish to water, Yama knew that no prerequisite education would have suitably prepared someone for being granted hands-on experience with Princess Shuri's personal set of augmented spy lenses.

Shuri no-doubt had a better name for them, but being entrusted to them – especially in the heat of a mission as they were – was no casual act. It was a remarkable sign of trust since not only had the Princess chosen to lend her preferred interface to her, but her lenses were still logged in with Shuri's credentials.

Yama was usually quick at sourcing clever replies, but she found words failed her in the moment. Instead of trying to force them through her lips, she kept her eyes open wide as she carefully lifted the edges of her fuzzy hat and slid the temples of the glasses over each ear before resting the bridge gently over her nose.

The fit was perfect.

She wasn't sure just what she had been expecting – perhaps Griot's voice or a hand-off boot-up sequence of some sort – but instead of being met with a clear view her surroundings, Yama was momentarily overwhelmed by a dense wallpaper of overlapping holographic windows overlaid across her entire field of vision.

It was not that Yama expected to be greeted with familiar interfaces widely available to the public, or even more advanced technologies reserved for the Hatut Zeraze, Dora Milaje, or King's Guard, but she had assumed – wrongly apparently – that the core visual array would be some recognizable flavor of two-dimensional hud interface projected within the vibranium glass lenses. Instead, what she saw through the glass was closer to three-dimensional augmented displays overlaid across her surroundings like a living blueprint.

Shuri reached across the space between them and briefly touched their Kimoyo strands together, transferring primary control to Yama and prompting an advisory overlay that gave her the option to automatically calibrate the intensity of the shroud of data so that she didn't lose sight of their surroundings while she worked. As her selection took effect and the supplementary information faded to forty-percent opacity, Yama caught sight of thin strokes of bold color outlining both Nomble and Shuri, making them stand out prominently against their surroundings. Nomble was outlined in silver, and Yama was not the least bit surprised to see that both Princess Shuri and her collapsed personal playlist were outlined in her favorite shade of purple, because of course they were.

Just beyond where Shuri was frantically parsing her phone, Nomble and her augmented outline rotated as she fluidly adjusted her stance to that of a solo guard, compensating for the fact that Yama was no longer singularly focused on guarding Princess Shuri. A simplified series of biometrics hovered in the space between their shoulders, and along the far left corner of Yama's field of view were matching readouts for Barnes, Ayo, and Sam as well as an estimated time to arrival on when their paths would intersect. Shuri had expanded out Barnes's latest data trends to fill an elongated column with formulas alongside a timestamped comparative analysis that loomed over a series of annotated readouts provided by the Design Center. It was hard to take comfort at the sight of so many bright red notations and footnotes.

Just below, an oval camera port offered a high-speed live view from her small drone. Its current location and intended trajectory were overlaid with the locations of everyone in their party, including a pulsing green light which Yama took for the last-known whereabouts of the creepy slender man who'd trailed them across downtown. Even at less than half opacity, the center and right portions of her view were obscured by a wealth of medical charts and interactive views of Barnes's brain that surpassed Yama's middling knowledge of neurology by exponential bounds. She was momentarily overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the data laid out in front of her, but was quick to remind herself that it was not up to her to discover new formulas or correlations. Others with far more experience were reviewing them at this very moment.

A series of open viewports, scrubbing toggles, and supplementary metadata for various synced camera views drew her attention. Based on the timecode, it was recent footage of Barnes from what looked to be the last seven minutes or so. Shuri'd apparently paused it at the moment of impact when his elbow had been sideswiped by a passing car, and she'd zoomed in on the grainy footage, using AI to enhance it and get a better look. Yama briefly compared the timestamp to the current time as Shuri mumbled something to herself and adjusted her shoulders, nonchalantly pocketing her cell phone. Seconds later, her fingers were already weaving light and hovering vibranium together above her Kimoyo strand to form a series of three-dimensional projections.

Though they were technically undercover, Shuri brought them to life without reservation. Three of the beads lifted effortlessly into the air in front of her, augmenting her process, "Being seen with this is the least of our worries," she remarked to no-one in particular in a casual tone that Yama felt certain was audible only to her and Nomble. Undeterred, the Princess rapidly opened arrays in an attempt to pick up from where she'd left off, "I'll focus on the scans. You focus on the feeds. If you see something, speak it aloud, even if it's just a hunch. We don't have time to be silent save for certainties."

Yama offered Shuri a crisp nod as she regarded the footage spread across her field of vision and opted to replay the close-call that'd initially drawn Shuri's attention. She switched camera views and enlarged a three-quarter bird's eye view of Barnes, who stood out from the tight crowds only because he was digitally outlined in navy blue. At a glance, Yama wasn't sure that even she would have been able to spot him had she not known he was there.

Barnes had expertly tucked himself amongst the crowds to avoid detection while he trailed a short distance behind the slender man, but he'd gone out of his way to surge ahead and and a step to the left to ensure the carefree boy playing along the curb hadn't been side-swiped by a passing car. Seconds later, Barnes had already seamlessly re-entered the sea of people while the man he was stalking none-the-wiser for his brief detour. It happened so fast that Yama could hardly follow the action, but no sooner had she glanced a hair to the left to try and locate the toggle to rewind the clip then it started over again, replaying the encounter from multiple camera views.

Apparently Shuri's glasses must've had infrared eye tracking that allowed them to intuitively preempt inputs. Huh! She wouldn't mind such a feature to be more readily associated with recreational technologies.

Yama focused her attention back on the recording, watching Barnes for any semblance of tells before or after the hit. His expression – or what little of it she could make out – didn't offer much. It was tight. Centered. It barely even wavered when his left elbow connected with the passing car.

The glancing impact was quick, but the speed the car was moving – annotated as about 57 kilometers per hour – was enough force that regardless of the fact that it'd connected to his prosthetic limb, Barnes would've certainly felt it where the rigid metal of his arm attached to his collarbone. It would have hurt. Maybe not as much as the repeated impacts he took on his body up on the mountain top this morning when they were sparring, but even then, he visibly reacted. Grimaced or braced himself. Yama would have expected to see more of the same here, some hint of a reaction. A wince, at least. But instead his expression remained oddly locked in place. Frozen even after the transcript showed Ayo asking if he was injured in the impact, and him shaking his head side-to-side as a substitute for 'no.'

He didn't lie though. As least so much as she'd seen. Perhaps he was intent on skirting truths since he didn't believe the injury he'd taken wasn't severe enough to be considered a true hindrance?

While there wasn't time to be drawn to the sentimental, a part of Yama privately puffed to see his instincts flare to ensure the city boy didn't suffer needless harm. It made her certain that Barnes was still with them in spirit. While he appeared largely unharmed, she didn't miss the subtle way he took inventory of the fingers of his left hand soon after he re-entered the crowds. Was he just checking to ensure no systems were damaged in the impact? She skimmed forward at triple speed, tapping her tongue at the pace of his steps which Griot apparently took as a request for a silent metronome, which prompted a supplementary overlay that measured his walking asymmetry. Was 3.4% considered normal for him? Yama used two fingers to toss the data in Shuri's direction in case it was useful. Whatever it was, something seemed off, but she couldn't put her finger on it. "His expression barely changed when his elbow struck the car and his gait is uneven. Perhaps his foot is not as mended as he claims it to be?"

"He did refuse treatment for it at my lab," Shuri was quick to remind her. The Princess effortlessly 'caught' the data mid-air and used her nimble fingers to enlarge the data stream Yama had shared with her. Shuri frowned and shifted her weight as she regarded the data and merged it into the layered scans hovering in the air in front of her.

"He didn't complain about his foot," Ayo observed over their shared comms. His voice was more winded than Yama was used to hearing from her Chief, "But in order to make haste to you, he had to lean into his athleticism. It's possible he strained or suffered an injury to his foot that he chose to make no mention of."

Yama frowned and shuttled the recorded footage forward and focused on Barnes's gait and his hands, doing what she could to ignore how weird it was to repeatedly catch sight of herself, Shuri, and Nomble weaving amongst crowds in the recorded footage. She tracked the movements of Barnes's gloved hands carefully, measuring the relative value of how often he shoved them into his pockets. He wasn't one to complain about the cold, and while the act itself wasn't alarming, it was as if he couldn't decide whether it was better to keep them in or out, like he was channeling an indecisive cat waiting about a door. Still, there was something subtly off about his posture as he moved. It was intentional, certainly. He was a trained professional used to skillfully blending in and evading notice as he kept in remarkably close proximity to the man he was tailing. But… it felt like it was more than that.

What was she missing?

Each gentle tumble of numbers in the timecode was a swift reminder of the urgency of their cause, and that time wasn't slowing to allow her the convenience of casual reflection. Seconds mattered. She parsed forward through the footage in the hopes of locating anything useful to latch onto. Repeatedly she honed-in on the area of the recordings just before and after he'd silenced his comms when he'd broken off on his own to pursue the green jacketed man south along the sidewalk, but there was nothing she could see that would explain Barnes's choice to silence his communications device.

The city's red light cameras and spotty surveillance lenses offered little insight and no audio feeds, so Yama tuned first into the captured audio from Shuri's drone that had been following the slender man overhead, and then into Barnes's own microphone for clues surrounding the moment he'd muted it. Griot's systems provided Yama a running transcript of scattered nearby conversations from passing citizens, but none accounted for Barnes's actions. She adjusted the volume just in time to hear the tangible plea in Sam and Ayo's recorded voices begging him to acknowledge their requests of him.

"Hey, remember when I said we were all on the same team here?" Sam inquired in a voice laden with emotion, "That means you're not supposed to run off on your own and do something stupid."

"Barnes," her Chief repeated more firmly, "do you copy?"

Only the air of silence greeted them.

It felt like being privy to a private moment she was never meant to overhear. Although Yama was no closer to an explanation, some part of her insisted that it was still possible Barnes might've heard something they did not. That there could yet be reason underpinning his decisions, frustrating as they were.

As she sought answers, Yama tried not to be distracted by the live readings from Barnes's shifting vitals, which were lit up like a holiday fireworks display. She knew she could have minimized the overlay, but it felt fundamentally wrong to be blind to whatever was happening with him in that electronics building a distance away. Had he converged on the slender man and dragged him inside? A cursory glance at his vitals provided painfully little insight, and Shuri was so uncharacteristically quiet and deep in layer-after-layer of holographic displays nearby that Yama was certain she too was still desperately in search of viable theories, no less a plan of action.

Yama did what she could to turn her attention back to the recorded video feed, skimming forward at high speed in search of answers. She knew it was Barnes in the images she saw, but he was hunched forward in a way that bore more than a casual resemblance to times when his mind was fogged and the Soldier emerged. While he did not call attention to himself on the street, the singular focus of his intention was abundantly clear to her, and sent a chill up her spine.

If his foot was still bothering him, he hid it well. Like how some animals masked their injuries to avoid showing weakness in times of stress.

A small orange alert popped up just below Barnes's vitals, and before Yama could say a word to ensure that it was visible to Shuri, Sam's tense voice spoke up over their shared comms, "You seein' that, Shuri? What does that warning mean?"

"His vitals are slowing, dipping below his normal range."

"Does that—?"

"—I don't know what it means," she cut off his question with an uncharacteristically raw admission. "He's stable, just…" she faded off, fingers flicking over her readouts.

"Does this present as increased risk?" Ayo pressed.

"I can't tell. His body does not appear to be on the verge of shutting down as if he were seriously wounded, but his respiration is low. Like his breathing is shuttered, slowly reducing his blood oxygenation. But at the same time, isolated portions of his brain are hyperactive. I do not have any solid theories to explain the diametrically opposed biological behaviors."

"Have you seen readings like them before?"

"That is not an easy answer. Biologically speaking there are casual similarities to times when the Soldier emerged on command, but the shared cognitive markers are not present that would indicate his mind is presently in the throes of an Event or is otherwise disturbed." The frustrated tone in Shuri's voice had a way of gnawing through to the core of their shared communications channel. It didn't offer any conclusive explanation for what was going on inside the building, but Yama hoped it was not as dire as the shadows in their minds feared.

"I've located at least one closed-circuit camera inside the building," M'yra interjected, "but I have been unable to achieve access to it as of yet. I worry about what is happening inside that we cannot see."

She was far from the only one.

"Keep at it," Ayo insisted to the pounding of harried footsteps still audible through her noise-canceling microphone.

With increasing urgency, Yama used her fingers to move footage around in three-dimensional space in front of her, opting to review the last sighting of Barnes they had before he'd slipped into that alleyway. Urgent fingers picked at the footage for clues. He had that same taunt expression and hunched shoulders, but there was nothing more to explain his actions or his choice to move one hand in a casual motion and that Nomble took for a shorthand for 'fine.' With a frown, Yama reversed speed and shuttled the recording backwards, pulling up an expansive window that covered nearly all of her field-of-view. She threw caution to the wind, toggling every relevant thumbnail of camera ports she could see, prioritizing angles that offered a clear view of the whole of Barnes's body.

She rewound to the time before his elbow had been struck by a passing car and parsed backwards through footage like a living puzzle, searching for anything that scratched at her observant mind.

There it was again. He was idly toying with the fingers of his left hand. Yama double-checked the timecode and replayed the clip. Odd: this was from the time before he saved the child from the errant car. She adjusted the playback to 10x speed and when suddenly the bulk of the viewports went black. The few that were still active showed no views of Barnes. "Were some of the camera feeds cut a little over ten minutes ago?"

"Not cut," M'yra clarified. "We initialized a temporary localized blackout so Barnes could cross the river without risking stray eyes upon him."

"A localized blackout?"

"Yes. Using a remotely reprogrammed Kimoyo grounded on a lamp post to behave as an EMP."

Yama nodded once in a tight affirmative. It was technology she was aware of, certainly, but by M'yra's choice to mention that it was a remotely reprogrammed bead, it could not have belonged to Ayo. So Barnes, then? That was a very particular breach of protocol, but Yama supposed even her Chief was not beyond skirting rules when the situation called for it.

Yama glanced back to the recorded feed showing mismatched boats puttering along the cement-lined channel. With determined intention she coupled the data together. The request prompted the creation of an additional overlay that indicated many of the boats had briefly slowed or come to a complete stop when the feeds went out, no doubt due to the nearby electromagnetic pulse. So that's how he'd gotten across the water then? By playing a dangerous game of blind leapfrog in the darkness? It was hard to believe, even for him. The waterway was not only wide, but tremendously steep along the western retaining wall.

Perhaps such exertions flared the injury in his foot? But it didn't explain the whole of his behavior, or why he'd later silence his comms. Yama enhanced the footage and jogged the footage around to before and after the blank section, looking for him in the time before he'd sought to make his way across the river. "His gait was still slightly hindered before the jump, but was worse immediately after he was back on even ground," she began, squinting as she noticed a particular detail, "Not dramatically but— mmm… his hand."

"His hand?" Ayo pressed.

Yama zoomed-in just to make sure, pulling up supplementary telemetry data as well as a musculoskeletal overlay that saw through the digitally enhanced footage, "He wasn't fiddling with his left hand before the jump." She turned her attention to the plethora of live data coursing over the world surrounding her as she cautiously added, "I can see his cortical monitors are still actively collecting data, as are his Kimoyos, but are we certain of the status of the electrical node attached to his shoulder?"

Shuri's shoulders straightened at the possibility, and she rapidly pulled up a series of new holographic overlays in the space in front of her that were visible to Nombe and Yama on either side of her. The Princess's fingers flew through them as she sought to pinpoint if Yama's theory bore fruit. It had the possibility of complicating matters in any number of ways, but the one Yama kept coming back to was that if Barnes was clear headed and in stubborn pursuit of someone, that was one thing, but if he had remarkable pain as a companion…?

"I cautioned him to stay well out of range from the EMP's field to avoid risking it interacting with the systems of his arm," M'yra was quick to clarify in a tone that was not defensive so much as genuinely concerned.

"But a reprogrammed bead's range might have more variance than a standard bead," Shuri supplemented.

Yama's fingers coursed over a revised three-dimensional diagram of the river's edge, indicating the EMP's presumed blast radius and where a nearby ping from Barnes's locator put him just before the pulse went off. "If it even slightly impacted the systems of his arm, it may have also—" she began,

"—Inadvertently tampered with the delicate systems of the electrical node. The ones that are intended to activate if the device is mettled with. A failsafe."

"Wait, so you think it's active?" Sam interjected, perhaps a little louder than he intended. "That it's electrocuting him? Look, I saw what that thing could do firsthand back on his little tour de force. It dropped him. Took the fight right out of him."

That was the root of Yama's worry. It could just be that the fingers themselves had merely been impacted, but what if he was not only presently in pain, but downplaying it for their sake? And worse? Unaware or unwilling to acknowledge the very real risks such resounding stubbornness presented to him and everyone around him simply because HYDRA had once forced him to preserve through such unimaginably cruel trials?

If she was right, they had limited time to act before Barnes risked being overtaken by the shadows lurking beneath the water's murky surface. And how were they to know if her hunch was even correct?

"My readings do not indicate the electrical node has been activated, but I would not swear a life to it under the circumstances," the brightest mind in Wakanda admitted in an uncertain tone Yama wasn't used to hearing from Shuri.

Yama's breath briefly caught in her throat as she turned to regard the layers of data and video recordings spread out across the alcove like so many dense western city billboards. She knew the weight of the world was not riding on her shoulders specifically, that all of them were doing their part to help, but when Nomble glanced her way, a blend of palpable worry and profound resolve was plain across her painted features. Silently, her sword sister's lips repeated a flavor of Yama's declaration from the top of Mount Bashenga like a shared promise, "Seek the Ukupakisha ibhondi."

Their 'Pack bond.'

That was what they had that HYDRA's many snares could not compare to.

She had to find a way to get through to him. But how?

The Winter Soldier clutched the slender man in the green jacket tight against his chest and secured his grip in one fluid movement, expertly pressing the gloved fingers and thumb of his right hand into the tender flesh on either side of the younger man's exposed wrist. In response, his captive let out a high-pitched breath of air that was cut off by a quick, instructive counter before the muffled vocalization could risk building into the crescendo of a scream. All it took was a short adjustment to the firm chokehold that jerked the man's neck back at a sharp eighty-degree angle.

It wasn't far enough to snap his captive's neck, but it startled him enough to immediately suppress the desire to test the strength of his strained vocal cords. In response, his captive's own grip momentarily faltered, and his cell phone slipped out of his hand, bouncing twice against the thinly carpeted floor before settling face-down by their feet. The soldier instantly knew which side it landed because the phone's built-in light shot through the darkness, illuminating the underside of a cluttered sea of crowded tables and wayward electronics.

The shuttered pockets of light and their eerie long shadows offered a fleeting glimpse at the rest of the musty, windowless room that reeked of cigarette smoke. It was crowded and easily two or three times as large as the previous space, but lined with metal shelves and short rows of mismatched folding tables cluttered with small stacks of electronics in various states of disrepair beneath a low drop ceiling. TVs and gaming systems were piled precariously along the far wall, while personal computers, laptops, tablets, and phones with cracked screens were laid out across the tables alongside an assortment of small tools and screws. Interspersed amid the sea of used electronics was a yellowed glass ashtray and thin paper cups containing a dark liquid the soldier took for abandoned coffee.

Though his head was throbbing, his eyes rapidly adjusted to the change in lighting as he abruptly choked down a renewed flare of pain in his left shoulder by clenching his jaw together and reducing his breathing down to only short bursts of air he pushed in and out through flared nostrils. His predatory blue eyes searched the room and its dark underbelly for the smallest sign of movement, but no new threats presented themselves. A quick scan of the shadowed perimeter confirmed that there were no additional entry or exit points, and no weapons or figures lying in wait unless they were concealed behind one of the tall metal filing cabinets. It was possible there were other latent threats beyond the soldier's line of sight, but there didn't appear to be further complications to deal with in the immediate vicinity. That being as it was, he felt untapped adrenaline surging through his veins, and he forcibly pulled his wandering mind away from the host of sharp possibilities detailing how he might've engaged and swiftly disabled each of his unseen opponents if he'd encountered opposition.

The faint illumination briefly prompted a renewed struggle from the man the soldier was clutching but the soldier's grip stayed firm, ensuring he didn't slip away or have the opportunity to crane his neck to the side in an attempt to catch a glimpse of his captor's face.

A glint of what might've been glass or metal high on the far corner of the room briefly caught the soldier's attention. If it was lower to the ground he might've taken it for a weapon, but based on the height it was most likely a mounted security camera. The soldier wasted no time in shifting his weight and abruptly stomping on the nearest corner of the fallen cell phone, sending it flipping end-over-end onto its opposite side and swiftly returning the room into a loaded darkness. He ignored the brief flare of nerve pain leaching into his foot and kicked the device away, sending it skittering across the floor and into a metal table leg with more force than he necessarily intended.

The sudden loss of ambient light and uncanny stillness had a way of reminding him of the Dark Place, but it briefly stilled the fight out of the captive clutched tightly in front of the soldier's chest. The slender man breathed heavily in frog-like gulps and his pulse was elevated. Both to be expected. He squirmed ever so slightly where he stood, evidently still beset on pursuing a fruitless means to escape or a way to access the gun still concealed in his right pocket. It was imperative he not allow his captive to gain access to the weapon, so the Winter Soldier rapidly cut him off by tightening his hold.

He meant for the maneuver to be smooth and purposeful in its intimidation, but instead the prosthetic arm he'd locked around and across the other man's rib cage briefly spasmed, prompting his captive to let out a short croak of pain into the darkness.

"I said don't," the soldier repeated, his threat-laced words tinged with a low growl he forced through clenched teeth. He adjusted his grip along the man's outstretched wrist and did what he could to ignore the almost deafening pounding in his own head and aching shoulder. He'd dealt with far worse, but the revolving pulses of pain were strong enough that he was finding it increasingly difficult to achieve fine motor control, no less articulate his jaw.

He had to keep everything under control. Focus on the mission.

He couldn't fail.

"What are you doing here?" the once-assassin sneered, pivoting his grip around his captive's throat and tilting the attached head forward just enough to allow him sufficient air to form a few choice words, but tight enough that the same tender throat could be swiftly silenced at a moment's notice if the man chose to abuse the soldier's gift.

"I'm just here for the phones, man," the slender man choked out in a jumble while his head remained tilted upwards at a precarious angle. "Trade-ins for some quick cash." He shucked in a quick breath before quickly adding, "Look, if this is about last time, that stuff's already in the wind, but I can get you the money back and then some, right? We can sort something out. Make a deal."

The trained assassin did what he could to focus, rapidly running through a series of quick checks he cross-compared to his internal rubric on tells between if someone was lying or telling the truth. All the while, he felt some sunken part of his mind burble up a fresh wave of adjoining memories from the countless times he'd undertaken similar interrogations.

Including the ones he'd subjected Sam to.

Barnes forced the thought aside.

Eyes - Pupil dilation and responsiveness unknown due to environmental factors.

Pulse - Approaching 140 beats per minute. Panicked. Nominal change compared to rate taken prior to statement. Pulse rate increased slightly as the statement concluded. Potentially correlated with his uncertainty surrounding one or more of his claims.

…Or it was possible that the imprecise readings could be attributed to the fact Barnes's right hand was trembling slightly while trying to maintain even pressure against the other man's radial artery.

Breathing pattern - Labored due to positioning and partially constricted airway. Data deemed unremarkable for determining possibility of verbal manipulation.

Perspiration - Increased. Stronger odor indicating activated apocrine glands from stress response. Unclear if uptick is connected to target's latest statement or his continuing concern for self-preservation. Data also deemed similarly unremarkable.

Results could never be conclusive – especially in the dark from this angle – but the man didn't have any obvious tells that he was intentionally lying about his purpose for breaking into the building. He must've assumed Barnes was associated with the owner of the business. Security, perhaps.

But that still didn't explain why he'd been tailing the others.

Barnes frowned and tightened his grip on the man's throat and tilted it further back, constricting his airway enough to sell the brooding threat holding him hostage. Two of his vibranium fingers remained locked in place, non-responsive. The other three bent crudely to his will, but with a sudden jerk that resonated deep into his shoulder. He knew it paid to be patient, to pace himself for a well-constructed interrogation, but he found it increasingly difficult to focus through the blinding pain that was only worsening by the second and was no longer offering him brief moments of respite. At the same time, he knew he'd come too far to second-guess himself now that he'd finally cornered his target.

It was critical he obtained the information he required by any means necessary.

He ached to find out what the other man had been planning to do when he caught up with Shuri and the others, but as much as he yearned to cut to the chase, he knew it was risky to be overt about his intentions, especially if he intended to sidestep concluding the investigation by ending his hostage's life.

And so even as his shoulder and skull seared in pain, Barnes forced himself to play the long-game. "No deals," he deadpanned, low and threatening through clenched teeth as he paced his haggard breaths. "Who are you working for?"

"I'm just an honest entrepreneur. Same as a lotta folks who peddle secondhand tech for a quick buck. Look, I can see you're upset–"

In the wake of the young man's rambling, what Barnes meant to do was to leverage a set of pressure points in the soft flesh underneath his target's jaw to hurry him along and emphasize his demand. Instead, his fingers must've dug deeper than he'd intended because the man he was gripping against his torso went rigid and let out a short little squeak that dissolved into a higher pitch that was laced with confessional panic, "Sorry sorry! I don't got names so much. Just a place on the corner of 3rd and Ivy I offload the extras at now'n then. They pay cash. Don't ask questions. Not sure what they do with it all, prolly wipe it and resell the newer stuff and run scams with the rest. I'm tellin' the truth!"

His captive's pulse remained steady, indicating that he probably was, "What about the gun?"

The soldier felt his target tense at the question, but his own eyes briefly fluttered and rolled back into his head. He forced his aching eyelids closed as another surge of pain jolted through his chest, knocking the breath he'd been holding straight out of him in one fell swoop. The stabbing pain was getting worse. He didn't know how much longer he could keep this up but he knew he had to push through. Lives could depend on it. If only his target would just give up the information he needed.

"It's just for protection," his hostage squeaked. "You know how it is here. It–"

A quick change in his breathing was a tell-tale sign he was lying, "That's the last lie–" the Winter Soldier growled unevenly through clenched teeth, –you get to tell me." Although it was nearly pitch-black in the workroom, he squinted through the pain and forced his eye open.

The younger man clutched in front of him trembled and swallowed hard, "It's not like that. I just… sometimes I use it to intimidate people. Okay? To get what I need from 'em. That's it though, I swear. I've never even fired it at someone. Not once."

It was difficult to keep track of the changes to his target's vitals amid the static shearing through his own mind, but near as he could tell by his strained vitals, the kid believed what he was saying.

There was something else though. Something after he'd spoken that made the slender young man tense his shoulders anew. He swallowed hard and took two shallow staccato breaths before more cautiously inquiring, "...Wait, you're not…? Not him are you?"

"Who?" The single word punctuated the air between them.

For a moment, Barnes worried that he'd somehow gotten careless and given himself away, but instead the slender man in the green jacket breathed more than spoke, "The Vigilante." The way he articulated the syllables made it out to be less of a classification, and more of a formal title. The young thief quickly added, "The one that's been doing away with the politicians they say are corrupted and–"

Barnes had been content to hear him out, but a sudden surge of pain seared through his chest, sinking its jagged teeth into him with such raw ferocity that it took every bit of his strength to counteract his body's compulsion to double over outright. It might've risked snapping the spine of the man rigidly clutched in the darkness in front of him. Barnes closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as his hostage yelped in pain, "Sorry sorry! I shouldn't've said anything. I didn't see nothin' okay?" His voice was meek, edged in a fresh wave of primal terror that wasn't feigned, "I don't wanna die," he whispered in a shallow plea, "I didn't do anything but some quick grab'n goes, I swear."

Barnes was aware the man pressed against his chest was talking, but it was increasingly difficult to make out his words through the static searing through his mind. Somewhere in his periphery, he recognized the fear latent in the man's intonation. That he was pleading for his life. And much as Barnes knew that he wasn't intending to pursue a course of action that would end the man's life, something between the strained timbre of his words and the way his own aching head twisted the pitch in knots made his mind flash to a chorus of other raw voices. Ones that begged for their lives in a host of different languages and dialects that all shared the same hauntingly familiar tone.

"I don't wanna die," the man repeated in an airless plea.

Barnes wanted to focus – needed to focus – but he could feel himself starting to slip. How his mind began wandering back to compare and contrast the wavering grip of each hand to the countless other people he'd killed. To the fragile lives he'd held between his fingers, and how they blended seamlessly into the stark horror he'd glimpsed in Steve's eyes and the rage boiling in Ayo's. So many faces. So many expressions. He hadn't been able to parse most of them then, but he could now.

Terror. So much terror.

But that wasn't what he'd seen across the face of someone who'd once been a temporary handler. The one he'd been instructed to hunt down in a foggy mission he only half-remembered, but one which his mind increasingly insisted took place in Symkaria.

His target had been wearing plain clothes when the soldier had tracked him down, but that wasn't always the case. He remembered him wearing a white lab coat too. When was that? His face was freshly shaved, but he used to have a beard. He hadn't been armed. Hadn't put up a fight. It seemed like he'd been packing his things in preparation to leave when he'd been spotted and systematically dispatched according to his handler's orders.

The lingering smell of cigarette ash pulled at him and twisted. No, that wasn't right, was it? His target was killed at his handler's request, but the method had been set by another. His temporary handler. Nikoli. Once through the neck, and a second shot to his forehead.

But before he'd taken that second shot and the man lay there bleeding out in a pool of his own blood, he'd looked up at the soldier with an expression he didn't understand. Even now, it didn't match with any other expressions he recalled on mission targets. There was familiarity there, and something else too.

And as he lay dying, just before the soldier pulled the trigger to end his misery, the man had taken great efforts and labored breaths to slowly mouth, '...I'm… sorry...' His eyes didn't hold terror like so many others, or even argument. They were clear and steady, as if the man accepted his fate, but for some inexplicable reason, didn't hold it against the man that would ultimately become his murderer.

The soldier hadn't understood the exchange at the time, and didn't have any better answers now.

But he could still remember the weight of the gun in his hand and the crystal-clear details of how his target's – his once temporary handler's – breathing slowed to a stop. How a part of him felt something stir deep in his gut at the sight of a worn photograph with three faces resting atop a mound of clothes haphazardly stuffed into a nearby suitcase. A man. A woman. Two boys. They'd been smiling. He knew that now. The soldier couldn't parse the family's expressions at the time, but he recognized their faces since he'd just come from dispatching them at his temporary handler's latest request. Their father had probably assumed they were safe. Unharmed.

They hadn't been armed either.

The soldier hadn't known regret at that time. Hadn't been taught to put emotion to the feelings HYDRA'd sought to smother out, but it wasn't the first or the last time he'd been ordered to put down a child in the hollow name of a greater good he couldn't comprehend.

The ones that didn't fight back had a way of haunting him even more than the ones that did.

But as he stood in the darkened room, he found he could no longer keep up with counting the shallow breaths of the man he was clutching against his chest because he was struggling to find the rhythm in his own breathing. A part of him was faintly aware of the rapid thrum of the other man's heart, but it felt like background noise to the pounding in his head and the faint crackle of energy emanating from his left shoulder. He bid his fingers to loosen, to make sure they weren't too tight so the man he was holding could catch his breath, but it was like his digits were locked in place, unwilling to comply with his increasingly frantic pleas.

Maybe it was better to let him go? To hope he'd flee given the opportunity rather than turning the gun on the man that's been holding him hostage?

But Barnes still didn't know what he'd been intending to do when and if his target caught up to Shuri, or what any of this had to do with 'The Vigilante' he'd taken Barnes for.

What had Barnes gotten himself into? He should have asked for help when he had the chance. He strained to open his mouth to say something, but try as he might, no words came out. It was like his vocal chords were stripped bare of their function entirely.

"Can't… breathe…" the man in the green jacket weakly whispered into the acrid darkness.

Barnes found he could no longer keep track of their breaths or heartbeats and if they were speeding up or slowing down. He was barely fighting to keep his eyes open, no less keep himself upright, when out of nowhere the beads encircling Barnes's wrist pulsed in a succession of short and long haptic vibrations:

.-.

..-..

His strained mind quickly translated the coded message:

"Pain?"

A heartbeat later, another short burst of haptic pulses followed:

-...- -.- .- - .-

He found his lips silently mouthing the dots and dashes that followed:

"-Yama"

His churning mind frantically struggled to piece together both how she'd managed to get a message through as well as the intent behind her inquiry, but at the same time, the unexpected summons had a way of shaking him out of the searing pain and blood-drenched memories that threatened to pull him under.

"...Please…" the man in front of him limply strained to speak, "...I don't want to die..."

Another series of long and short haptic pulses resonated against the Barnes's exposed wrist as they spelled out:

"Entrust me only truths, Lost Wolf."

Although the haptic pulses were absent of intonation, he found his bleary head infused Yama's tone-of-voice into the syllables. She'd always been direct with him, even when his mind was ailing and he didn't recognize her. Even when he'd assumed her to be an extension of HYDRA's reach.

But she'd also been the first one to enter into the dome. The first one to show him trust when he'd hardly deserved it, back when he was too stubborn to believe otherwise.

And now Yama'd found a way to ask him a question. Even though the pain was growing strong enough that he worried it might force him into unconsciousness, he knew he wasn't about to lie to her now. Regardless of what that might mean to his self-appointed mission.

Barnes held his breath and summoned all his remaining strength to loosen a single finger from the unintended death grip he had around his captive's exposed wrist. He could hear the stitching of the leather whine in complaint as he stretched the finger of his gloved right hand to toggle a remote message reply and formed what he hoped would double for a single shorthand gesture in the all-encompassing darkness.

A trembling index finger wordlessly extended straight and rotated clockwise in a narrow circle in a silent confession:

"Pain."

This evening was rapidly unraveling beneath Ayo's feet, and she hated how she was forced to guess from a distance at not only how close they were to slipping from the blade's edge, but how many lives might be at-risk from her recent decisions, "You're certain he held nothing in his hands?" she repeated as she sprinted the last few blocks towards the electronics repair building Barnes had disappeared into with the man he'd now taken as a captive.

Her mind freshly replayed the choices they'd all made when Barnes had taken Sam for a captive within the Design Center, and it was clear from his expression that M'yra's latest update had unsettled him as well.

"The light from the phone was visible only for seconds, my Chief," M'yra noted, elaborating on what she'd briefly glimpsed through the building's interior security camera, "but Barnes was not armed. His hands were both visible, and he clutched the man in the green jacket in front of him in a modified chokehold. They were both alive."

While the latter comment was better than a host of other grim possibilities, Ayo felt her heart sink as her mind's eye vividly pictured the scene in excruciating detail and how it might play out.

"Shit," Sam managed from a step behind her, "Are they…?" he began.

"I could not see much, but I did not see any blood or injuries upon them," M'yra quickly added, her voice thick with concern, "but I worry for his intentions."

"His readings indica–" Shuri began, but that's all she got out before she was interrupted mid-syllable by Yama's urgent decree.

"–He's in pain."

"The systems–" Shuri started, but Yama cut her off again.

"–He wouldn't lie," Yama insisted with far more directness than Ayo would have appreciated when addressing their royal charge. "If it's malfunctioning," her Lieutenant reasoned through their shared communications channel, "then it could be that it's been sending variable impulses that might explain his stubborn behavior."

"Wait, where are you getting any'a this from?" Sam interjected.

"I bid his auxiliary beads to resonate in haptic morse code," her Lieutenant explained like the answer was self-evident. "He confirmed my theory just now by his reply."

Impressive, but not conclusive. "He replied?" Ayo pressed.

"Not verbally," Yama clarified. "But he sent a remote message over his Kimoyos in the form of a gesture Griot translated."

"He disobeyed my request to reconvene with you three, which calls his words into question," Ayo smoothly responded, all-but pulling Sam into an adjoining alleyway as they made haste towards Barnes's indicator a few blocks away. If only they were closer.

The man beside her had the gall to counter her claim, "I mean, technically he skewed it. If I recall correctly, you said he should be able to catch up with the others, not that you were ordering him to follow through with your suggestion."

Ayo shot Sam a short glare of frustration as she countered, "He also ignored the repeated questions that followed before he silenced his comms outright."

Shuri smoothly cut in, "The electrical node's readings remain unremarkable, but I do see what might be interpreted as an indication of tandem modularity in Barnes's brain just after the timestamp of the EMP. It might indicate a supplementary activation of his pain matrix."

"Can you explain that to me like I'm—?" Sam began, but M'yra cut him off.

"But he would've said something if the node activated," M'yra reasoned aloud into their shared communications channel, confused, "wouldn't he?"

The statement was a valid one that called many of her assumptions into question, but Ayo found she knew the answer intrinsically, "No, he might've chosen to not draw attention away from his objective." As she spoke the last word aloud, her mind seamlessly folded it into another term ladened with uncomfortable subtext. If this had become a mission to him, what were his end goals? She wanted to believe they did not end in violence, but could she truly continue to cling to such fantasies when M'yra'd just confirmed Barnes had the other man clutched within his firm grip, regardless of if he was armed or not?

He'd once brutalized Sam, and that was a man he knew.

But had Barnes secretly been in sizable pain this whole time too? She'd sensed no indication of that in voice or behavior.

As if reading their minds, Yama quickly added, "It could be that the affliction was not immediately concerning, but has cascaded from use. He is remarkably skilled at masking his discomfort. He was forced to do so for many years under duress by his captors."

"That tracks in a way I wish it didn't," Sam grimly agreed.

Silence fell across their shared communications channel while Ayo's feet pounded against the rain slick pavement. She knew they were looking to her for guidance on how to act given the new information, but every alternative that ran through her strategic mind was fraught with terrible risks.

After a moment, M'yra's voice poured through their shared comms again, "There. At the timecode I just shared just after the jump across the river. See how he reaches up to touch it, but stops short? I think you might be right."

"I see it too," Shuri confirmed, her tone tense and distracted. It was obvious their Princess was stretched thin to connect the visuals and latest findings to the firehose of incoming data she was no doubt pouring over at this very second. "It's difficult to know for sure, but there are trends that might imply the intensity of the pulses have grown increasingly intense."

Part of Ayo wished to slow her steps so she could see what the captured recordings the others were referring to, but she knew better than to distract herself. It was critical she trust their instincts and rely on those around her to fill in the blanks she could not see herself.

"If we believe it to be causing him pain, should it be disabled so it does not put Barnes and the sly man at undue risk?"

Yama's question was not improper, but they couldn't just… disable it. The whole point of the electrical node was that it acted as a necessary contingency in case something went wrong. It was strictly agreed upon by not only General Okoye, but King T'Challa himself.

But as if pre-empting Ayo's next question, Shuri grimly noted, "If it is truly malfunctioning, then were it to be disabled – however briefly – I do not know if it would be possible to remotely re-enable it."

Sam glanced over his shoulder to Ayo and cringed as they turned another sharp corner, "Well that's not good."

Ayo grunted an affirmative as she quickly regarded the locator along her wrist. Yama was right that two lives were presently at-risk if the electrical node was indeed malfunctioning as they suspected. Letting Barnes run ahead of them was one thing, but how many more could be at risk if they chose wrongly now?

"My drone is drawing close, but it will take time to gain entrance," Shuri's strained voice relayed. "Barnes's vitals have become increasingly irregular, perhaps due to the electric impulses, or perhaps due to the throes of unseen combat: I know not which. But the node was never meant to be used at-length. If it is indeed active, I cannot tell for how long it has been operating and with what intensity. Such unknowns limit my insight into what the best course of action might be under the circumstances."

Her Princess's words and those unspoken did not outright deny the possibility of disabling the electrical device, but it was clear she grasped the dire risks they were tiptoeing around as well. They'd seen what violence he was capable of, could they really choose to let him off of his leash entirely, especially if it was possible they might be unable to remotely reactivate it?

The risks running rampant through Ayo's mind were high, but it was her quiet Lieutenant's voice that added an entirely new shade of concern to their already over complicated crossroads, "If it's misbehaving – or might be –" Nomble cautioned, "does it not run the risk of stimulating the cortical nodes themselves, potentially triggering an Event?"

"It should not be possible," Shuri was quick to interject over their shared comms. "Both were thoroughly tested, and countless simulations were run testing their compatibility, but…" her voice faltered, strained with a fresh wave of guilt blended with deeply unsettling worry.

Ayo heard Shuri but caught Sam looking back at her with those concerned mahogany eyes of his. He didn't have anything to say that she didn't already know, but she found they could no longer dance in circles along the river's edge when time was running out. They had to act. She had to act. To place her trust in Barnes or the unknown.

"Disable it," Ayo laid her command into the night, praying to Bast that she would not come to regret her choice.

[Chapter 89 Chapter Art, by Shade]

[ID: A painting by Shade-of-Stars showing a waist-up side portrait of Barnes as the Winter Soldier against an impressionistic blue and red background. He is wearing a black mask over his nose and mouth and is looking to the left. His chrome arm is raised in front of his body and his right arm is held across his chest so it almost touches the red star on his shoulder. He has long brown hair and is wearing his iconic black leather tactical gear. End ID]

This painting by Shade is just so beautifully emotive, and in the context of this chapter, it just feels so especially fitting. I'm so honored to have the opportunity to share it with you!

While we're so often accustomed to seeing the Winter Soldier as a hardened assassin, I love this moment of self-awareness edging on humanity. I love the way Shade was able to render that lost soul of his breaking through the noise of the role he was forced to play for so long.

As always, Shade really crafted something incredible here, and I can't thank her enough for allowing me to share this piece with you. Please check out her artwork on Twitter to see more of her beautiful art!

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:

I might sound like a broken record here, but the last month has been extra crazy for me! The entertainment industry has been especially turbulent this year. We've seen a lot of layoffs across the board – including at my company – and my team and I are doing our best to adjust to some really big changes, and I've been spending a fair bit of my free time doing my part to try and help those that were impacted find new roles.

In the wake of all this, I've inherited two additional art pipelines, so I've been incredibly busy juggling a host of new metaphorical plates and responsibilities while I try to feel out some semblance of a new "normal."

While my creative bandwidth has been at a premium, I'm doing my best to acclimate myself and ensure that I'm prioritizing my mental health along the way and keeping the personal art and writing flowing. I really appreciate being able to return to this story and share the ongoing adventure with you!

That said, I hope you've been well and that you enjoyed this tense chapter! The next one is slated to be the conclusion of Act 12 of Winter of the White Wolf, and I can't wait for you to see what's just around the next corner in Symkaria…!

● Chapter Title Origins - 'The Crux of Trust' - The title of this chapter originates from the idea that we are at a pivotal moment for these characters and that their trust is being tested in all sorts of ways across the board. Ayo trusting Sam's instincts, Shuri trusting Yama with her most advanced portable gear, Barnes trusting Yama with the truth, Ayo trusting Shuri and her Lieutenants and ultimately Barnes, and so-on.

● Apple Vision Pro - Hilariously, I was working on this chapter long before news of the Apple Vision Pro dropped, but I can't get over the fact that some of what I imagined for Yama's PoV during this chapter is almost like a much more advanced version of that tech. So cool!

Say hi and connect with me on social media:

- "KLeCrone" on Twitter and Tumblr

As always, thank you for all your wonderful comments, questions, thoughts, and words of encouragement on this story. They help keep me inspired to keep this story moving ever-forward, and all of you continue to be a lighthouse amid what has been a wildly challenging year for me. From the bottom of my heart: thank you for accompanying me on this journey. Knowing you're out there following along on these adventures truly keeps me fueled to keep on writing! ❤