[oom] see right through my walls

[nerves_of_ice]

As T'Challa stares at the hologram in the palm of his hand, he can already feel the headache forming. "She what? No. Never mind. Bring her to me in the throne room, when she arrives. I will deal with her myself."

He clears the image, then taps the Kimoyo Bead again. "Nakia. I need you."

* * * * * * * * *

"You cannot be serious."

"I don't see why this is a problem. You brought Everett Ross here--"

"Ross was dying! And he was never allowed to know that the man he was seeking was here! Nakia, I have made a promise to protect him."

"She is not a threat. Not to him."

"I will be the judge of that."

Nakia throws up her hands. "Fine. You will see. I hope it does not bother you that I stay and watch?"

T'Challa smiles. "Of course not."

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

Sharon's smile shifts, and he realizes what it must be. She'd been mad at him, after all, when he'd gone a month without contacting her - it's been longer than that.

Steve, you're going to have some apologizing to do.

Mentally, he wishes him luck, and turns his thoughts to Sharon's question. It's not an easy one, not really.

"Um," he starts. "Well. They put me back on ice for a while, first."

There's a beat of silence, as he stares at the floor, thinking, before he looks back up at her.

"How much do you know? About what happened?"

[from_the_outside]

She shakes her head.

"Not much more than I knew then. I read about Zemo in the papers, but it's not like any of them had anything like the real story."

Getting as far away and as deep as she could go was the priority; she didn't have much chance to gather any real intel. She frowns at him. "You said before, 'all he had to do was say the words.' What does that mean?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Right." He draws a slow, careful breath, a deliberate one, trying to remember what Shuri had told him about how to steady himself when facing the past.

It's hard. They've only been working on it for a few weeks, along with everything else.

"The words." He doesn't want to, but he makes himself look up at her anyway. He can't hide from this. He did it. He has to own it. To accept it.

"HYDRA's control words. They - everything they'd put inside my mind was still there, Sharon. It's why I hid from Steve in the first place. I knew something like that would happen if they ever got their hands on me."

He draws another breath; holds it, just for a second. It doesn't help. His ears are ringing, and he can almost hear Zemo's voice in the distance, as though through thick glass.

"Zemo knew them. He had the book. The -- the manual. To the Winter Soldier. To me. All he had to do was read them out."

[from_the_outside]

Her expression slips and cracks like something fragile falling to a cement floor. There's a wide, black, bottomless pool of guilt and grief that's taken up residence in her chest ever since that day. She hasn't been able to do more than glance at it in the six weeks since, but as she stares at him she feels like she's swaying on the edge.

"Oh my God. That's why."

As if in a dream, she hears her own voice.

But that doesn't guarantee whoever framed him would get him, it guarantees we would.

Her eyes are wide with horror and agonized guilt, right before she pushes her face into her hands, unable to look at him. "Fuck!"

It's loaded with self-loathing, as her head shakes and shakes back and forth, trying not to believe it. It feels like she's breaking all over again. "All he had to do was get you in a place where you couldn't run. And I put you there."

[nerves_of_ice]

"You thought I was responsible for Vienna." Low and steady, without accusation. "You were doing your job. Protecting innocent people."

She can't see him, not with her face buried in her hands like that. He's not sure if he should do this, but he has to try.

The table's not that big. It means he doesn't have to stretch when he reaches out to settle his hand on her shoulder, very gently.

[from_the_outside]

Something snaps when his hand lands on her shoulder, and for the first time ever she pushes herself violently away from him, his touch, this misguided comfort he's offering because he is such a good person, a good person she personally chauffeured directly to hell on a road paved with good intentions.

She did this to him. The last thing she deserves is his comfort and forgiveness.

Her motion sends the chair scuffing backwards as she shoves her way up and out of it to pace, hands going to her head, feeling like she's going to burst into a million tiny pieces. "The Task Force found you because of me," she says, biting off each word like it's poison. "They brought you in because of me."

Bitterly: "Don't you see? Ross had me coordinate. Everything."

Finally she looks to him again, her hands dropping away from her head, her eyes huge and despairing. "Everything."

She didn't design that cage or that room, but that doesn't mean she wasn't the one making sure they were ready for him when he got there.

[nerves_of_ice]

He'd always figured she was good at her job. Now he knows just how good.

He stays where he is, without moving, and watches her. This kind of guilt he recognizes. He carries it every day. T'Challa had as well.

"You gave Steve the tip. So he could try to get to me first." He says it just as steadily as before.

"They still wouldn't have caught me without T'Challa. He blamed himself, too."

[from_the_outside]

"I shouldn't have given anyone that tip," she says, and her voice is still full of bitterness.

"I should have known."

But it had been such a terrible day. She'd just buried Aunt Peggy. And Vienna was such a shock. They had to move so quickly.

T'Challa had no reason to think it was anyone other than the Winter Soldier. But she should have known.

She puts her palm over her mouth and the other hand on her hip and turns her back to him, facing towards the window, though her head is bowed and she's not looking out.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, after a long moment. Her voice is very thick. "I'm so sorry, Bucky. I should have known. I should never have let them get you."

[nerves_of_ice]

"You couldn't have known."

He doesn't try to touch her, not after she'd jerked away so hard before. Instead, he gets up and moves carefully around to the side within the confines of the space, so that she can see him.

"I don't blame you, Sharon."

[from_the_outside]

She can see him out of the corner of her eye and angrily pushes the heel of her hand up to smudge her damp lashes as she turns her face away. "But I do."

She hiccups a watery laugh. "And now I'm making it worse. The last thing you need is to deal with my guilt."

How self-involved can she be? She wipes at her eyes and takes a deep breath, then looks over at him with eyes that are a little too bright and a little too red. "Sorry again."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Hey. No."

Now he does look distressed. He takes a step closer, unable to stop himself.

"C'mon. Don't - don't say that. You're not making anything worse."

[from_the_outside]

That gets a smile, even if it's a slightly teary one. "You're always so good to me."

Even when she doesn't deserve it. Maybe especially then.

She gives up. She doesn't want to stay away from him, so she doesn't, just takes the last few steps to walk right up to him and nudge her forehead into his chest, huffing out a long, shaky breath.

[nerves_of_ice]

His arm comes up and settles around her without even thinking about it.

"You've had a hell of a time," he says, quietly.

[from_the_outside]

She takes a deep breath when his arm comes around her, and wraps her own around his middle, huffing a laugh into his chest.

"Look who's talking."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Still."

He stays where he is, just holding her, letting her hold on to him.

"I'm sorry about Peggy."

[from_the_outside]

It's a good thing he can't see her face while she's standing like this, forehead butting into his chest like she's one of those goats outside looking for a handout of grain, because it means he can't see the way it crumples at his quiet words.

She hadn't cried at the funeral. She hadn't cried in the days after, aside from the few tears she allowed herself after she spoke to him and Steve and Sam on the phone. And when she'd gone on the run, she'd pushed all that grief down into a cold part of herself that she could lock up for as long as she needed to.

All of a sudden, the last six weeks feel so, so very long, and she is so tired of trying to keep her distance from it all, and it turns out those tears were all lying in wait for a moment just like this one, as her shoulders shake and the patch of shirt she presses her face into grows damp.

"I really miss her," she says, thickly, when she can.

[nerves_of_ice]

"I know."

Has she even been able to mourn with her family? She's been on the run since the day of the funeral, or maybe the day after, he's not sure. He just knows what Steve told him, on that long flight, and knows how much his friend had grieved Peggy Carter, as well.

"She was an amazing woman."

[from_the_outside]

"One of a kind," she agrees.

She wishes he could have seen Aunt Peggy, too, even if it was only once. If only so many things had been different.

There's another of those teary laughs. "She was so proud when I joined SHIELD. She bought me my first thigh holster."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I bet she was. Do you still have it?"

He shifts position just a little, resting his hand in the small of her back, so that she can pull away when she wants.

"You know, she helped Steve get to Azzano that time. She and Howard. Against orders."

His tone is very quiet.

"She'd be proud of you now, too."

[from_the_outside]

"Sure do. In fact, you've seen it."

That thigh holster has been a trusted friend for her whole career.

When his arm shifts, she pulls away just enough to be able to look up into his face, her hands coming to his hips. Her eyelashes are starred from tears and her eyes and nose are red, but the storm seems to have passed for the moment. "I know. She told me."

Her smile is a little shaky, but real. "Don't tell Steve, but 'fondue' has been a family joke ever since."

His last words leave her looking a little wry, and she shakes her head. "I hope so."

[nerves_of_ice]

He chuckles at that. "I won't."

[from_the_outside]

She smiles, a little, too.

"The world is a worse place without Peggy Carter in it," she says, rueful. "But she did what she loved and she was good at it even when no one around her wanted her to be. And even with how SHIELD turned out...I have to believe she put more good into the world than she took away."

[nerves_of_ice]

"It is. And she did," he says, absolute certainty in every line of him. "It wasn't her fault that HYDRA got in like the poison snakes they are. And what she helped build is tearing them out, one piece at a time."

A thought strikes him, and he lets his hand fall away.

"Here. Let me show you something."

[from_the_outside]

She lets her own hands drop and steps back to get out of his way, taking advantage of the sudden distance to wipe at her eyes and sniff back her stuffed up nose.

Her eyes are curious as she watches him, but she waits patiently for whatever it is he's thought of.

[nerves_of_ice]

He takes up the backpack and sets it on the end of the bed to make it easier to reach, then unzips it and reaches inside. He rakes the notebooks out, spreading them across the blanket, and looks quickly across them.

After a moment, he pulls one to him, then a second. He flips through the first, pushes it aside, and does the same with the second one he'd picked. He finds something about a third of the way through and tries to flatten it open with his hand as he glances up at Sharon.

"Look."

On the page, in handwriting that's a little ragged but still clear --

...it was a dumb idea to keep her out of the field squad. Carter's got more skills in her little finger still than half the rest of us did back then. But she did a hell of a job at base ops, too, and from what I heard never complained. Lot of people could learn from that.