nerves_of_ice | [Virginia AU] we rose up from the falling waters

"Sure," Ross says, inwardly fuming. So the new king of Wakanda thinks he can set terms, does he? "Let's start with that. Come on, your highness. I'll drive."

He glances over at Barnes, who shakes his head very slightly and tips it toward the vehicle where they've secured Klaue. Probably not the worst idea this day's seen, he figures, and gives a sharp nod of agreement.

"This way," Sharon tells Nakia, ushering her and the figure in black – who turned out to be T'Challa, of all people – toward the vehicles while Bucky moves like a silent predator toward the SUV with Klaue.

Who turns out to be a singularly annoying captive. He doesn't seem to care that he's been captured and instead spends his time singing 'Don't Stand So Close to Me' at the top of his lungs, making Ross grind his teeth so loudly Sharon can hear it from the passenger seat as the caravan winds its way towards the Task Force's safe room.

Sharon glances back at Nakia, who meets her eyes with a faint, wry smile and shakes her head very slightly.

No answers here, apparently. At least, not yet.

He keeps his watchful gaze on Klaue, outwardly unmoved by the man's taunting or any of his antics, and keeps whatever thoughts he might have about the way the Task Force secures the weapon the man had embedded in his prosthetic arm to himself.

Halfway through the ride, his phone buzzes with an override signal. Bucky pulls it out of its inner pocket and flicks a glance at it. It's Tony.

so I'm seeing a lot of reports online about a wild night in Busan
I mean, a LOT
want me to tap in?

The last thing they need right now is for Iron Man to land on this city, Bucky thinks. He keeps his screen angled away from everyone as he texts back.

K in custody
minimal property damage
relax, will call later

The ride to the safe room is a grim and silent one, until they arrive, whereupon the Wakandans engage in a hushed, whispered conversation that ends with the woman with the shaved head giving her king an exasperated glance and leaving – presumably, Sharon thinks, to get their things.

She changes out of the gown while the team gets Klaue situated, telling them to take any advice Bucky might give before she does so. By the time she returns, the Wakandan woman is back, and T'Challa has changed from the clinging black suit into something more reasonable. His gaze could burn a hole through the two-way mirrored glass of the room where they're putting Klaue.

"Sure this is a good idea?" Sharon murmurs to Ross, her arms folded. He shakes his head and scowls.

"But we don't have much of a choice, Carter."

It's reasonably appointed for a safe room, he decides, even with a notable absence of basement cells. Bucky reviews the surveillance options with the team, confirms the cameras cover all angles, and makes sure that at least two agents are monitoring at all times. He sends a text to Tony to reconfirm everything's still okay and he'll still call later and reminds himself to share his observations about the women's car and spear later, too. Once that's finished, he returns to join Sharon and Ross in the room outside the interrogation cell.

For now, he doesn't approach T'Challa. Better to hold off on that until after this is dealt with.

"Well?" he asks Ross.

Edited 2022-08-12 17:41 (UTC)

Ross considers them both, his jaw tight, then looks at Sharon. "Carter, you know the Wakandan woman?"

"Nakia," she confirms. "I ran into her a few times during my SHIELD days. We're..."

She considers allies, tosses out colleagues. "Friends," she decides.

"Then I want you with her," Ross orders. "Find out what you can, and if there's any way we can get the Wakandans to relent a little. Barnes – "

He turns to Bucky. Though her boss is a short man, he holds himself with the kind of military precision that means even looking up at Bucky doesn't make him seem small. "With me," he decides. "In interrogation."

Bucky nods. "Good cop, bad cop?" he asks, curious if the man's going to go classic or if he's got something else in mind. He keeps a corner of his attention on T'Challa and the spear-wielding woman, who approach them in time to hear the question.

"Pretty much what I was thinking," Ross says. He turns to T'Challa. "We'll go in first, then you guys can take your turn. Okay?"

The woman leans close to T'Challa and mutters something in their language. T'Challa replies in the same, then turns back to Ross. "After your questioning, we will take him back to Wakanda with us."

Ross stares at him, feeling his headache beginning to spike. "What? No. Look, I like you fine, your highness, but he's in my custody now. He's not going anywhere. Listen, I'm doing you a favor even by letting you be in here."

He pairs this with a light tap of the back of his knuckles against T'Challa's chest. The king looks down, nonplussed, and Ross manages not to step back as the woman puts herself between him and the king. Her eyes are hard as steel as she snaps out what definitely sounds like a threat in the Wakandan language.

The way she looks, he honestly wouldn't be surprised if she pulled out that spear of hers and stuck Ross in the gut with it. Bucky shifts position, clearly ready to act if necessary, and makes an effort at diplomacy.

Again. Natasha's going to laugh herself sick when she hears, he just knows it.

"Ma'am, please," he says, neutrally. "Deputy Commander, if you'd oblige me?"

It's a sad day when the damn Winter Soldier is a relative beacon of diplomacy and manners. Ross looks askance at the woman. "Does she speak English?" he asks T'Challa, and her lip curls.

"When she wants to," she says, and Ross bristles as they eye each other. "Right, Sergeant," he answers Barnes, finally, and looks at T'Challa. "I'm going in. And when we're done, you're up."

He turns away, only to turn back as T'Challa calls him, before the king puts a friendly hand on his shoulder. "Agent Ross," he says, warmly. "I do appreciate your help here in Busan."

Ross looks at him, then at the glowering woman. "You see that?" he says, nodding to T'Challa's hand on his shoulder. "That's called diplomacy. You're welcome," he tells the king, and nods to Barnes. "Let's go."

He's fairly certain that grip was a demonstration of power, if not a challenge to see if any of Ross's people would defend him the way T'Challa's own had, but Bucky doesn't rise to the bait, if bait it was.

Silently, he follows Ross into the interrogation room and takes up position against the wall, staring intently at Klaue, who's singing again.

Ross settles in the metal folding chair across from Klaue, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hands, and doesn't allow any of the exasperation he's feeling to come across his face. Off to the side, Barnes is staring Klaue down like he thinks blinking might be against the law, but Ross has to admit it's effective.

He lifts his eyebrows at Klaue, waiting until the man finally stops singing and grins cheerfully at him. "You know," Klaue says, almost conversationally, "you really shouldn't trust those Wakandans. I'm much more your speed."

"I don't trust anybody, not in this job," Ross tells him, not allowing himself to get dragged in. "But what I am interested in is that arm cannon out there. Where'd you get that?"

Klaue smiles. "It's an old mining tool I made some adjustments to," he says. "But I can get you one if you like."

“Why don’t you give me the name of your supplier and I’ll ask them,” Ross counters.

Bucky watches as Klaue looks past him and at the window. “He’s right outside. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“T’Challa? You’re telling me that weapon on your arm is from Wakanda?” Disbelief paints Ross’s words.

For his part, Bucky’s not so sure. He thinks of an impossible spear, of a car that repelled bullets as harmlessly as rain, and narrows his eyes the slightest bit.

"What do you actually know about Wakanda?" Klaue pitches his voice low, like they're conspiring together, but Ross doesn't lean in.

He shrugs. "Shepherds," he says. "Textiles. Cool outfits."

"It's all a front," Klaue tells them. Ross frowns as he goes on, luxuriating in each word, like a storyteller with an audience. "Explorers searched for it for centuries. El Dorado. The Golden City. They thought they could find it in South America, but it was in Africa the whole time. A technological marvel. And all because it was built on a mountain of the most valuable metal known to man."

He must see Ross's skepticism, but it doesn't stop him. "Isipho, they call it," he says. "The gift. Vibranium."

Edited 2022-08-12 20:24 (UTC)

“Strongest metal on earth, right?” Ross asks. Bucky’s pretty sure he’s trying to lead Klaue down the garden path, pretending to know less than he must. Seriously, ‘cool outfits?’

It seems to be working. “It’s not just a metal,” Klaue confides. “They sew it into their clothes, it powers their city, their tech, their weapons… makes my arm look like a leaf blower.” His glance shifts. “Yours too,” he informs Bucky, then looks back at Ross. “Strong silent type?”

Bucky manages not to roll his eyes.

"You don't get to ask the questions here," Ross tells him. "And anyway: that's a nice fairytale, but Wakanda is a third world country, and you stole all their vibranium."

"I stole – ?" Klaue dissolves into astonished giggles, then lunges forward, shifting the chair he's restrained to by a few inches as Ross sits up and away from him. "All of it?" he growls. "I took a tiny piece of it. They have a mountain full of it. They've been mining it for thousands of years and they still haven't scratched the surface."

It's impossible, of course, but it's a strange story to tell, and Ross frowns, slightly, as he thinks about that arm cannon. "If you don't believe me," Klaue continues, "you ask your friend what his suit is made of. What his claws are made of."

He doesn't want to believe it – and he doesn't – but Ross hasn't gotten to where he is without a healthy dose of skepticism. He turns it over in his head, then glances back at Klaue and leans down to pick up his coffee before standing. "Keep an eye on him," he tells Barnes, and turns for the door, his expression grim

Bucky nods to Ross and turns the full weight of his regard on Klaue, who looks back at him.

“Gonna beat up a helpless cripple?” he taunts. “Or is it supposed to be a fair fight because you’re a cripple too?”

As far as anyone watching could tell, Klaue might as well be speaking a language Bucky doesn’t understand. Taunts like this mean nothing. He watches him in silence, his empty-eyed stare unwavering, and waits.

Nakia's a little distracted, she thinks. They're in the back room of the black site, looking out the window while surveillance huddles over a desk full of screens. A white van drives slowly by, then turns behind the building, and Sharon frowns as she sees Nakia watching it. "What's up?"

Nakia shakes her head. "Perhaps nothing," she murmurs, but tips her head toward the agent on monitor duty. Sharon follows as she goes and studies the different camera inputs. "Where's this?" Nakia asks the agent, pointing to an empty alleyway.

The agent gestures with his thumb over his shoulder. "Back there."

Nakia glances up and as their eyes meet, Sharon knows the same worry written on her friend's face is etched into hers, as well. "That van just turned in back there," Sharon murmurs, and Nakia nods.

"Come," she says, and heads into the main room.

T'Challa had watched him approach with nothing more than mild curiosity, but Ross isn't buying it. "Your father told the UN that Klaue stole all the vibranium you had," he says, bluntly. "But now he's telling me you have more?"

T'Challa looks mild. "And you believe the word of an arms dealer strapped to a chair?"

Ross studies him, not wanting to believe what he's beginning to think must be true. There's no doubt in his mind that Klaue is lying... but he's beginning to think T'Challa is, too.

"How much more are you hiding?" he demands, only to whirl around as the other Wakandan woman bursts back into the room with Carter at her side, both of them tense and alarmed, and his stomach suddenly empties into a pit.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

Even if he’d wanted to answer, he wouldn’t have had the chance, for it’s at that moment when the wall explodes. Bucky goes down under a murderous weight of concrete debris. Even through the bursts of gunfire that follow, he can hear Klaue cackling.

Metal whines as he punches straight up, then sweeps his arm forward and down, unearthing himself. He’s in time to see someone carrying Klaue through the wall, chair and all, and bolts after them without hesitation.

Nakia snaps a warning in Xhosa, and the next second an explosion rocks the building, sending them all off their feet. Her ears ring and dust billows into the interrogation room; she can't see what happened to Bucky. The one-way glass fractures and then explodes inward as a man in a tribal mask pushes in, firing bursts of bullets from a semi-automatic weapon nudged against his shoulder.

There's no time to think. She sees Nakia stand; the man move forward; is in motion in the next heartbeat. "Get down!" Sharon shouts, and leaps to tackle her friend as the man squeezes off another scattering round of bullets. She feels a hand push, hard, between her shoulder blades as they drop, but it's not until they hit the floor and she finds she can't get up again that she realizes one of those bullets, spattered so indiscriminately, had found purchase deep inside her back.

Nakia curls over her, protective, murmuring something Sharon can't quite make out. Beyond her, a figure in black springs through the broken glass and shattered wall. T'Challa, probably, an she thinks, a little hysterically, that she's going to be just so pissed if she dies before finding out what the deal is with that suit of his.

Edited 2022-08-12 21:16 (UTC)

There are three of them, Bucky notes, as he races down the alley. Two are loading Klaue into a white van, while the third, in a tribal mask of some kind, fires another series of bullets which Bucky deflects with his hand. The attacker follows that up with a grenade, but a flicker of black at the corner of his vision announces the presence of T’Challa, who smothers it with his suit before starting to run again.

The two of them keep pace with each other, which just means they’re neck and neck when the man in the mask hits them with a blast from a RPG. The explosion slams them backward, airborne, smashing them into the alley’s walls and dropping them to the ground.

T’Challa stares after the man as the van pulls away. Bucky pushes himself to his feet in time for the other man’s ally to run up to them. She gasps something in that other language, and T’Challa spins and runs back toward the safe room.

Whatever it was, it must be serious for the man to abandon the chase after Klaue. Bucky races after him.

For a second or two, he can’t understand what he’s seeing. The other woman, Sharon’s friend, kneeling on the ground; Ross beside her, and a crumpled figure—

The noise he makes is raw and agonized. Bucky doesn’t exactly know how he gets across the room, just that one second he’s by the hole in the wall and the next he’s pushed past Ross to kneel by Sharon, reaching for her. “Angel,” he begs. “Baby, please, no.”

There's a curious lack of pain that comes with dying, apparently, but it does nothing to keep animal fear at bay. Horrifying numbness spreads through her arms and legs and torso, and it's all she can do to keep breathing, to try and push away the gray film that's trying to sweep across her vision.

She can hear Nakia and Ross talking, but can't tell what they're saying, can't feel Nakia's gentle hands on her back. The fear coils up around her, tightening a little more with each terrified gasp for air. The cement floor is cold against her forehead, but she can't lift her head. She can't do anything at all; she can't even feel her hands or feet or legs or arms.

There's a scuffle of noise, and then a dear voice that sounds so frightened it makes her want to cry. "Bucky," she says, or tries, but though her lips move, she can't seem to force the word past them. Sharon only manages a whimper, low, her breathing just a series of labored gasps, feeling cold all over. She can't even turn her head to look at him.

No, no, no, she wants to say, to scream. No, she won't die. No, she won't leave him behind. No, she's not going anywhere. Any second now she'll be able to pull in a full breath and laugh and smile and tease him that she's fine, that he's worried over nothing, like always.

Any second. Any second. Any –

Nakia keeps her shaking hands on Sharon's back, horrified at how still her friend is laying, and looks up to meet T'Challa's eyes. "She just jumped in front of me," she says, distressed.

The other man, the one with the metal arm, has shoved his way past Ross and is lost in wild fear and grief, and Nakia feels the icy spike of guilt drive into her chest. There's anguish in her eyes as she looks up at T'Challa once more.

"I don't think she'll make it here. It hit her spine."

I don’t think she’ll make it, he hears, and it hit her spine. In that moment if he could rip the serum from his own cells and give it to her, to save her, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

He shouldn’t have left her. He shouldn’t have - he should have protected her. Better him than her, he could have healed it —

“Damn it, Carter, don’t you give up!” Ross orders, and Bucky vaguely notes that the man’s voice is shaking, but he can’t bring himself to care. He bends closer, touching her shoulder, her cheek, leaning over her. “I’m here, baby. I’m here. Sharon, please, please baby please, hold on, don’t go, you can’t—-“

“Give me a Kimoyo bead,” he hears T’Challa demand behind him, and ignores whatever’s going on to focus on Sharon.

Edited 2022-08-12 22:20 (UTC)

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