nerves_of_ice | [oom] see right through my walls

"I have faith in you," he says, dryly, and this time Shuri doesn't even try to hide her laugh.

"Come on," she says, turning off her tablet and getting to her feet, bright-eyed and mischievous. "You can keep arguing on the way back to the Citadel. I won't interrupt."

"I thought those kids told you not to be mean," she teases, falling into step with Shuri and tossing a glance at him over her shoulder as they walk.

He trails behind the two of them at a comfortable distance, keeping pace easily.

"I'm not being mean. Am I?" A beat. "Shuri?"

Shuri waves a hand, still laughing. "Do not involve me in this! You are worse than –"

"Yeah, I get that a lot," Sharon admits.

Again, it doesn't matter who Shuri had meant to say. It's true regardless. Shuri makes an exasperated noise that's mostly a laugh at their expense and touches a Kimoyo bead as they come back up to the train platform.

Sharon, on the other hand, looks back at Bucky and mouths: mean!

He shakes his head at her, a half-smile curving one side of his mouth, and follows them into the train car.

Bucky leans against the wall, opposite the door, and waits for the return trip to start.

She fights the urge to stick her tongue out at him and instead just listens as Shuri points out various landmarks as the train speeds its way back to the Citadel. Night has settled over Wakanda like a dark cloth floating down over a table, but it's just as beautiful as it was during the day. When Sharon leans against a window and looks up, she doesn't think she's ever seen so many stars.

But she is tired, even if she doesn't want to admit it, so she doesn't ask too many questions, just lets Shuri's enthusiasm wash over her while she looks outside and then back across at Bucky, her gaze holding there on him.

It's all real. She's really here. And he's fine. Maybe a little banged up, but who isn't?

The only things she's worried about, she thinks as they disembark back in the Citadel, is waking up tomorrow morning and finding out this has all been a dream.

Rather than contine with them into the palace, he stops once they're outside the train car.

"I'll say good night here," he tells them, with a nod toward the ramp that leads up on a long, winding path around the building and toward the green, grassy fields behind. "See you tomorrow, if you want."

"Good night," Shuri tells him. "We will speak again soon."

Of course. No, it's not a surprise, it makes sense that he would leave here instead of coming all the way into the Citadel with her and then having to walk that whole way back again.

It's perfectly logical and whatever her gut thinks as it sinks a little, it doesn't actually get an opinion.

"Well, I already have it in my calendar to come yell at you tomorrow, so..." She lets it trail off, and studies him briefly with a tiny smile.

(She'll see him tomorrow. She doesn't need to try and fix every detail in her head. This isn't a dream, and she doesn't only get this one day.)

"Good night."

Edited 2021-03-02 00:57 (UTC)

"You know where to find me."

There's a single odd beat of silence, as he looks at her half a second too long, and then he shakes his head, as if pushing away whatever he was originally going to say.

"Sleep well, Sharon."

Bucky nods to Shuri and turns away, moving up the ramp and vanishing into the shadows of the night beyond.

She watches him go until he disappears into the dark, and even after that she stays where she is, watching, until Shuri clears her throat meaningfully and she takes a deep breath like she's coming awake.

"Okay. So where am I hanging my hat?"

She looks back a few times as Shuri takes her back into the Citadel, but not as many as she'd thought. And once they're inside, she has to pay attention to every corridor and turn so she can try not to get lost tomorrow.

Although it's probably a lost cause. This place is huge.

Eventually, Shuri stops in front of a door and beams a cheerful grin at Sharon. "Here we are! Nakia has seen to everything for you."

(This is indeed true - including, although Sharon doesn't know it, making sure that her guest suite is conveniently located on the other side of the Citadel from where Everett Ross has stayed in the past and potentially will stay in the future.)

"Rest well," Shuri continues. "We will see you tomorrow." She gives Sharon a wave that is somehow as cheerful as her smile, and heads back down the hallway.

The room is beautifully furnished, warm with wooden furniture and rich with traditional Wakandan hangings on the walls. A large window looks out into darkness, toward the fields and the forested lake in the distance, with a comfortable armchair and side table in front of it, and a reading lamp designed to look like a many-branched tree glowing with a soft golden light beside the chair. The closet stands slightly open, showing that Nakia had the foresight to have a few changes of clothes added for Sharon's benefit.

A glint of light from the side table draws the eye, as something moves very slightly with the shift of air in the room. Folded across the foot of the bed is a soft woolen throw in shades of green, and hanging from a display stand on the side table is a palm-sized piece of glass art with shards of gold and gunmetal gray.

Edited 2021-03-02 01:30 (UTC)

She finds a smile for Shuri and waves her off back down the hall, then softly closes the door behind her and locks it, then turns to look at the room, her back against the wood, her mouth pressing and pressing and pressing while her throat burns.

The glass art look beautiful hanging there, but it grows fuzzy in her vision as she blinks hard, trying to keep ahead of tears that are probably just a mix of exhaustion and reaction and the strain of the last six weeks, or because this room is beautiful but lonely, and not at all because he didn't want anything of her in his space.

When she finally moves away from the door and comes to the bed, she runs her fingers over the soft green wool of the throw, her mouth and throat working, eyelashes damp.

He's always so kind. It makes this so much worse. It would be so much easier if he'd just thrown it back in her face.

But at least no one is around to see when she wraps the throw around herself and cries into it, for herself, for her parents, for Aunt Peggy, for all the friends and family she won't get to see again.

And for this stupid heart of hers that doesn't seem to know when to quit, even when it's not wanted.

There's no one to see, and when she finally runs out, exhausted, there's no witnesses to that, either, except the calm Wakandan night, and whatever dreams creep into her head until morning.

He walks back to the little hut in silence through the cool, dark quiet, broken only by the hum of insects and the call of various night-birds whose names he doesn't know.

The goats are asleep when he arrives. One or two of them give sleepy bleats as he checks that they're safe in their pen. He hushes them and leaves them be, instead walking down to stand by the lakeshore. He stands there for some time, watching the water ripple in the moonlight.

Somehow, he doesn't know how, he'll have to figure out how to cope with Sharon's bright laughing presence without letting himself want. Wanting anything would be too much, he fears - and fears, at the same time, slipping back into the habits of all the long years before.

Weapons aren't allowed to want anything. Only the mission matters.

Whatever answers the lake depths might hold, it keeps to itself. Some uncounted time later, he goes back inside, and goes through his evening routine without thinking.

The purple-and-smoke-colored throw rests on the chest at the end of his bed. He lies down and stares at the ceiling in the darkness, and doesn't let himself think, and doesn't sleep, and doesn't sleep, and doesn't--

In the deep of night, he gives in. He pushes his pillow to the side and folds the throw under his head instead. If he tries hard enough, he can almost imagine that he can smell the scent of her hair.

She sleeps like shit.

It's not just –

It's everything. She hasn't had a really peaceful night since the last night before Aunt Peggy died and everything fell apart, and over the last few weeks she's rarely felt safe enough to sleep a full night, and no matter what she tells herself about how impossible it would be for someone to get her here, she still doesn't feel safe.

She spends the night starting awake in a panic and then staring at the ceiling or into the dark, too tired, too anxious, too sad. It aches in her bones, like the ribs that finally healed but which will probably always be a little weak, a little prone to aching in bad weather. And by the time morning comes, she feels like she's hardly slept at all.

Daylight brings a whole new enemy: the clock. It calmly ticks the morning away while she watches it from the comfortable armchair by the window and the sun rises higher and higher.

He's expecting her. She knows that. Even though – he'd still said he'd see her in the morning. Told her to come yell at him. But even after a shower and some fresh clothes, she can't stomach the thought of going down there to face him, feeling like a fool and unable to explain herself. Sitting right here and feeling sorry for herself all day long sounds like a much better plan.

Nakia, on the other hand, disagrees.

It's almost noon when the cheery knock comes and Nakia comes sweeping in, beautiful and warm as a summer sun, but her smile fades when she looks at her friend. "Well?" she says, gently, and Sharon spills it all.

Fifteen minutes later, when she's done, Nakia is silent for a long moment, and then stands decisively and strides to the door. She's very nearly through by the time Sharon's brain catches up to what's happening. "Nakia, where are you going?"

"To give that man a piece of my mind!" Nakia is fuming and protective, and the thought of her storming down to the lakeside and rounding on Bucky with all the righteous fury of a September hurricane is the first thing that makes Sharon laugh all morning.

"I should go," she says, rueful, and Nakia presses her hand. "You do not have to," she reminds Sharon. "You have some healing to do, as well."

Sharon takes a deep breath, and shakes her head, finding a smile that's almost, nearly close to her usual quirking one. "Come on," she says. "When have I ever given up on something just because it would be a good idea to?"

Nakia does, at least, insist on walking down with her, and Sharon's grateful for her bright, cheery company every step of the way – especially as they get close to the lake, and hear the children shouting, and Sharon's heart thuds with trepidation.

(At least in the sun, she thinks, she doesn't look quite as terrible as she had in the mirror this morning.)

He watches the sun rise while sitting cross-legged on the ground outside the hut, a piece of flatbread brushed with lentil paste serving as enough of a breakfast to provide needed fuel. As the goats began to stir, calling sleepily to each other, he gets to his feet and goes to feed them their daily ration of grain, checking them over and brushing dirt from their coats in the usual routine.

Sharon hasn't shown up by the time the sun lifts above the horizon, nor does she appear by the time it clears the trees. He keeps one eye on the Citadel, trying to ignore the fact that he's doing it, and reminds himself that she'd been exhausted. She's probably sleeping late.

It helps when the children show up after their morning classes are done, as by that time he's taken to pacing in circles back and forth between the hut and the lake, trying to talk himself out of going to the Citadel to see if everything's all right. If she's avoiding him, well, she likely has reason. Maybe seeing Steve last night caused her to have second thoughts.

He plays with the children, and then, when he realizes he's too distracted to do a good job of that, he gives in and watches while they play with each other. He still can't keep himself from looking at the Citadel every few minutes, which means he spots Sharon and Nakia coming as soon as they're visible over the edge of the hill.

As they get closer, worry sets in. Sharon looks -- well, she looks worse than he's ever seen her, including when she was covered in smudges of dirt and blood in the underground facility in Greece, and Nakia looks as coolly regal as a carved statue.

"Hi," he manages, as they reach him. He doesn't realize how poor a job he's doing of hiding his concern. "Good morning?"

"Sergeant Barnes." Nakia's tone could etch steel.

Edited 2021-03-02 02:59 (UTC)

When she sees his face, two things happen:

First, her stomach plummets and twists and then fills up again with butterflies like she's back in tenth grade, and second, he looks so concerned that she wants to go stick her head into the lake so she'd at least have a good excuse for looking like shit.

Damn. "Hey," she says, and smiles even as metaphorical frost swirls from Nakia's skirts. She turns to her friend. "Thanks for walking me down," she says, and her tone is light but she fixes Nakia with an intent look. Whatever her own feelings, he doesn't actually deserve to be on the receiving end of whatever Nakia had planned to say.

They have a silent battle of wills for a moment, but Nakia finally shakes her head and steps in to give her a hug. "Remember what you are worth," she says low, into Sharon's ear, and then steps back to nod, coolly, to Bucky before sweeping back off across the grass.

Sharon watches her go, then scrubs at her face and wanders up to him, looking around with a crooked half-smile. "Where's your fan club?"

"The kids? Er, both kinds - over there," he tells her. He points in the direction of the forest some distance away, where the children can be seen chasing the goats in and out of the smaller trees and around bushes in the shade. On second glance, it's possible the goats are chasing the children. Either way, they seem to be having fun.

He doesn't bother to look at them, though. All his attention is fixed on Sharon.

"Did something happen?"

"What? No."

She's looking at him a little strangely. "Nothing happened. I just – didn't sleep very well – God, do I look that bad?"

She scrubs her hands over her face again like it might help. (The lake idea is sounding better and better, honestly.) "Awesome. Thanks."

"I didn't mean that," he protests, "I just meant--"

James. Darling. Natasha's voice whispers in his memory with an echo from years past, at a time when he'd screwed up so royally that he wasn't entirely sure if she was going to throw him out the window he'd just climbed in to apologize. How did you ever think that was a good idea? You idiot man.

"Okay, maybe I did mean that, but not like that," he tries, carefully, feeling a little like his words are quicksand sliding out from under his feet. "You just look so tired, and--"

He swallows, and tries again.

"When you didn't show up this morning, I was ... worried."

Oh, this was a bad idea. She should have stayed in her room and seen what the Wakandan version of Ben & Jerry's is like. Or maybe she should have let Nakia yell at him.

Or maybe she should yell at him herself, but the thing is?

He's allowed to not...want her back. As much as she wants to say that he's not. "Nothing happened," she repeats. "No Task Force agents climbing in through the window, no shoot-outs, no fights. Just...couldn't sleep."

There's a beat of silence while she looks at him, and then away again. Not being able to sleep doesn't explain why she wasn't here earlier, but maybe he won't ask.

"I'm sorry I made you worry."

He shakes his head.

"No, that's -- you didn't do anything wrong." Just because he'd expected her to show up doesn't mean she had to. She doesn't owe him anything. Anything at all. She's done so much more than he could ever expect by coming to Wakanda in the first place.

And now she won't even look at him. All his instincts are screaming at him that something's wrong, very wrong, disastrously wrong, but he can't for the life of him figure out what it is.

He sets his mind working at the problem with some desperation as he asks,

"Do you... um." He glances around, raking his hand through his hair. "I guess, um, there's not much to show you that you haven't already seen. Except the lake?"

The lake that is right there and impossible to miss seeing, he realizes, and closes his eyes briefly in an effort to keep from wincing.

She does look at him now, with faint disbelief. "You mean that lake?"

The big one that's about twenty feet away? That lake?

She huffs a breath of a laugh and shakes her head. "You know what? Yes. I would like to see the lake."

Maybe she could dive into it. Or push him into it. Either way it would at least break some of this tension. "Is there a spot around it you like?"

Edited 2021-03-02 04:17 (UTC)

"Yeah," he confirms, barely managing not to wince at her expression. It was a stupid question. "That lake. And... actually, there is."

He turns to walk on her left, gesturing toward the little footpath that leads through the grasses and toward the thicket of trees further along the shore. "It's this way."

She'd been fine when he'd left her and Shuri the night before. Whatever happened, it was between then and now... and based on the way Nakia had treated him, he's pretty sure he's to blame for it, whatever it is.

One way to find out.

Very quietly, he says,

"If I ask what I did, will you tell me?"

Edited 2021-03-02 04:24 (UTC)

"Yes." It's very simple, as they pick their way along a little path that curves towards and along the lakeshore. "I always do."

Ever since Franche-Comté, even. She's always been honest with him, and that's a hell of a thing for an intelligence operative like her to do. And even if she wanted to lie, that pained look on his face from yesterday when she attempted a harmless white lie would stop her cold before she could even try.

She doesn't look at him, but she's all too conscious of how his right hand is so near her left, and how much this is beginning to feel like their conversation in Leipzig.

"Are you asking?"

After all, he might not want to know the answer.

Without hesitation:

"Yes. I'm asking."

If he's responsible for the way she looks--

He's walked this pathway enough times that he doesn't need to watch his footing. It means he can look at her instead, searching her face.

"Sharon. What did I do?"

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