[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]

He just looks at her.

"If you'd called Steve after France, and told him you were in touch with me? I'd have disappeared again. You know that, right?"

He's pretty sure he would have, anyway. No matter how intrigued he'd been.

[from_the_outside]

"Of course."

She's studying him with a mix of wry exasperation and understanding. "But I still made the choice not to tell him. And I kept choosing not to tell him.

"And you know that I was perfectly comfortable with continuing not to tell him. If we'd actually made it to Tirana, I would have passed along the intel and told him with a straight face that I had no other contact with you. The only person who made the call for me to lie was me. And I thought it was worth it."

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head as she mentions Tirana, but doesn't say anything about it.

"Anyway. I told him. He understood." He sounds wry as he adds, "Which you could tell when you saw him yesterday, I figure."

[from_the_outside]

"Mm."

She's reasonably sure that after everything they'd gone through, Steve would be willing to forgive quite a bit.

After a second: "You didn't tell him about Leipzig, though, did you." She would put money on it, that he either said nothing about it at all or glossed over so much he might as well have just made something up.

He might have told Steve they'd made plans for another mission, but she's willing to bet that's all he'd have said.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Not in detail," he says, quietly. "I told him that I'd been planning another mission, and that I'd approached you about it."

You could have come to me, Steve had replied, and the guilt had threatened, as always, to drown him. They'd already made you a target once, he'd answered. I couldn't trust myself with you. I couldn't risk it.

Silence, between them, broken by only the low hum of the plane.

She's a hell of a woman, Steve. She'll be okay.

I know.

Here in the present, he meets her eyes.

"I didn't tell him anything that would get in the way of the two of you."

[from_the_outside]

She eyes him for a long second. He's not far at all from the water's edge; she could shove him into the lake with just one good push, probably.

"Oh, good." It's dry as the Sahara, and now her exasperation is back in full force. "That is just ducky."

He is so set on this, but he hasn't bargained on one thing: she may have given in on a few lesser issues, but she is not losing this fight.

[nerves_of_ice]

He shrugs, and says nothing.

[from_the_outside]

She takes a deep breath through her nose and lets it out again, and when she opens her mouth, her voice is calm.

The kind of calm right before a tornado smashes through and levels a small town, anyway.

"Did you know that in all your worrying about what Steve wants or what you should do, you have completely neglected to ask me – arguably the one with the most important opinion on this whole mess! – what I want?"

Her eyes narrow. "Or does it not matter?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Of course it matters."

His answering tone is slightly more wary, at least to judge from the way he's looking at her now, but still even.

"That's why I asked you to think about it."

[from_the_outside]

"So then why are you acting like this is some kind of foregone conclusion?"

He's infuriating; she throws up her hands and stalks to the edge of the lake, shaking her head at the water before she can look back at him. "You keep pushing me at him like I'm some kind of prize he gets to win, and I resent it, Bucky! Is that really how you want this to happen?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"That's not what I'm doing."

She's mad, he can tell, and ignores the simmering something that's beginning to burn inside him to try to explain, instead.

"I'm not pushing you anywhere. I'm telling you what I said to him. Or didn't say, rather, at a time when I thought you already had made a choice, and it was him."

[from_the_outside]

She levels him with a flat stare: she's not just talking about this one instance, and he knows it.

Or he should, if he doesn't. "Well, I hadn't."

Steve had kissed her, not the other way around. And sure, there had been a few moments – more than a few – when she'd started to think maybe she would change her mind. "And I hope you stretch before you do all this jumping to conclusions, or else you're going to hurt yourself."

[nerves_of_ice]

"It sure looked like you had."

It's as flat as the stare she just gave him.

[from_the_outside]

"He kissed me," she points out, sharp. "It wasn't my idea. And yes! It was a very nice kiss! Are you happy? Should I have shoved him away? It was nice to be kissed by someone who wanted to kiss me and was very obvious about it! That doesn't mean I decided anything."

She glares at him.

"I tried. I honestly did. I talked to him, I messaged him, I met up with him after the funeral. And you weren't wrong. I could see it happening. I could see it being great."

Steve Rogers: honest, brave, handsome, and true. Any woman would be lucky to be looked at the way he'd looked at her.

[nerves_of_ice]

Something flashes in his eyes before everything about him shuts down into absolute stillness.

"Okay, then."

[from_the_outside]

"For fuck's sake."

The temptation to just grab him by the shoulders and shake hard is getting more and more difficult to resist. "What did I just say about jumping to conclusions? What did I just say you never asked me?"

The lake is looking like a better and better option, honestly.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Fine," he snaps back at her, while deep within him something twists and is shoved back, ruthlessly.

"Then what do you want?"

[from_the_outside]

"You," she returns, in a tone that adds idiot, or maybe jackass. "I want you."

Now she does move towards him, stopping a few steps away and meeting his eyes with her own flashing ones, chin tipped up, jaw set obstinately. She doesn't even notice how her hands are shaking. "It was never going to matter how great Steve is. He was too late. I'd already fallen for his best friend."

[nerves_of_ice]

She's standing in front of him all fire and fury and stubborn determination, glaring at him, and she's beautiful.

He knows, he knows, that if he just-- if he could only, but--

But.

"Sharon," he whispers. "I can't."

[from_the_outside]

She sighs out through her nose, eyes closing in a pained wince, because it hurts. It hurts to see him trying so hard.

Because he's so good. And he never sees it. "I know."

It's so much softer, and when she opens her eyes again, all the anger has faded into rueful understanding. He'd said it already: I can't be the one to break Steve's heart.

She gets it. Steve is his best friend. The one he'd do anything for. Give up anything for. The most important person in his world. She nods. "I know. I know what you have to do, what you're going to do, because you're you and Steve is your best friend. And you might not think it's important, but...I want to know. Because it matters to me.

"What do you want?"

[nerves_of_ice]

What I want doesn't matter.

The words tremble on his lips, but they don't fall. She's already said it matters to her; he can't tell her it doesn't.

And while weapons aren't allowed to want, he's not only a weapon any longer.

"I..." For a sick, sinking moment his throat locks up and he's not sure he'll be able to say anything at all. Bucky makes himself breathe, slow and steady and deliberate, and looks down at her as he answers her question.

"If I could. I would want a chance. To try."

[from_the_outside]

Her throat works as she searches his face, the storm vanished from her eyes like clouds blown out to sea. "Me too," she says, softly.

But he can't, and that means they're at a stalemate for now. That's okay; at least now she knows what she's dealing with.

She takes the last few steps required to come close enough to take his hand and lift it to cup it between her own. Very gently, she places a deliberate kiss into his palm, then folds his fingers around it and lowers his hand back to his side, looking back up at him again.

"I'm not giving up," she tells him, and her voice is quiet but clear. "I promise I'll respect your decisions. But I'm not giving up. Just so you know."

[nerves_of_ice]

He almost smiles at that, a quick flicker of movement at one side of his mouth.

"When have you ever?"

Bucky glances down at his hand, then comes to a decision. Slowly, he raises it, and meets her eyes as he presses it to his chest, over his heart.

He doesn't say a word as he does so, or as he lets it fall again after a moment and turns away, toward the narrow path back out to the rest of the world.

[from_the_outside]

A melting thrill runs through her from head to toe as he presses her kiss to his heart, and she smiles, soft and aching and just a little pleased. "Pretty sure I was born without the 'quitter' gene."

He starts towards the path and she falls in to follow him back out again, into the dappled shade of the thicket. "So who do you think's won? The goats or the children?"

If whatever game they were playing could be said to have winners.

[nerves_of_ice]

"The kids," he says, without hesitation.

It's not far to the entrance, and as before, he lifts the hedge-gate up for her.