King of Anything
Sam lifted his phone to his ear, “Sharon, got what I need?”
“Hello to you too, Sam,” Sharon said over the phone, “And yes, I do. I’m sending you the invites now.”
“Thanks a lot for this,” Sam spoke to her gratefully.
“Of course, but I have to ask, why do you need seven tickets?” Sharon questioned.
“We’re doing an investigation of sorts,” Sam replied vaguely.
“I got that, but why seven tickets? You, Bucky, Torres, and Walker, but who are the remaining three for?” Sharon narrowed down her question, pressing for a real answer.
“Ah..” Sam failed to come up with a lie on the spot.
“A few extra agents?” Sharon continued.
“Not exactly,” Sam responded.
“Come on, I had to draw on some of my old connections for this, at least tell me a little something,” Sharon implored.
Sam sighed, “Fine, but you can’t say anything to Val or Fury or anybody.”
“I used to be an enemy of the state, I can keep a secret,” Sharon claimed with a chuckle.
“Alright about that,” Sam tried to explain in a way that would be vague but still enough to satisfy her curiosity, “We’re working with a few vigilantes of sorts. They brought our attention to something and we’ve been helping them investigate. In turn, they’ve been helping us look into something else.”
“Ah, I see how it is,” Sharon tolerated his broad response.
“Look, I have to get ready for the flight, but thanks again,” Sam grinned.
“No problem. Call again if you need anything,” Sharon replied and hung up before he could lower his phone.
Sam checked his phone, finding all seven invites intact. He then transferred them to his watch and sent them to Kitty for verification. He then put his phone in his back pocket, picked up his suit, lifted his shield, and left for the plane.
^^^
Sam, Bucky, Torres and Walker returned to the base in Madripoor on Saturday a couple hours before the gala. When they entered the building and eventually the room with the large table, they heard Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
Kurt sat shirtless in his blue form at the table while looking at his phone. He wore dress pants and his pointed ears perked up as he heard them enter.
Sam playfully elbowed Bucky as he heard the song and whispered, “See? Everybody likes Marvin Gaye.”
Bucky rolled his eyes with a sigh. Kurt greeted them with a smile, staying seated at the table, but turning off his phone, “Willkommen zurück!”
“What did he say?” Walker asked.
“Welcome back,” Bucky translated.
Kitty walked in wearing cornflower blue, flared dress pants and a white T-shirt. She hadn’t noticed them and was looking at two necklaces, one held in each hand. She stopped next to Kurt and then looked at him, “I didn’t know if you wanted the silver one or the wooden one so I brought both.”
Kurt looked at the two necklaces, “Are you bearing your golden one oder your silver one?”
“The silver. It matches the outfit much better,” Kitty answered and then her eyes lit up, “Do you want to match?”
Kurt nodded, “Ze silver vill do fine zen.”
Kitty set the wooden necklace on the table and then unclipped the silver one, placing it around his neck and then making sure it was fastened. It was now clear to the four men that it was a silver cross necklace.
She clipped it in place and then spoke without looking at them, “So are you all going to change here or are you going like that?”
“We’re going to change here, but you said something about disguises?” Sam answered and then looked at the table.
“Okay, vell, zer are two bathrooms. Zer are two stalls in each,” Kurt spoke, gesturing to the door, “Logan is currently occupying a stall in ze bathroom down ze hall.”
Kurt and Kitty left the room and then Kitty reentered it with a colorful concoction of bright clothing. She set it down on the table and then returned with another pile of clothing. Sam and Walker left to change first, leaving Kitty alone with Torres and Bucky.
Kitty left again and returned with two boxes of miscellaneous items. She set down the boxes on the table by Torres, “Start looking for some stuff that could act as a disguise please.”
Torres dipped his head and began sifting through the items in the box. Kitty got out some hangers and began sorting through the clothing. They looked like costumes.
Bucky wanted to make himself helpful and spoke up, “Is there anything I can help with?”
Kitty’s head shot up to look at him before looking away quickly. She was processing her thoughts. She finally shook her head, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?” He asked, looking at the piles of clothes and then to boxes Torres was going through, “It seems like a lot.”
“I can handle it,” She assured him and then went back to sorting the clothing.
He decided not to press her any further and just watched. As she unrolled each suit, he noticed just how wrinkled they were. They must have been in there for a long time. She attempted to smooth them out, but found herself unsuccessful and exasperated and just set them down.
Bucky watched her reaction and then walked over, standing by her side and then picking up one yellow and black suit, folding it neatly.
“What are you-” Kitty looked baffled and slightly apprehensive.
“Just let me help,” Bucky cut her off and walked away, using one of the boxes Torres had gone through to put on top of the folded suit. Kitty watched him with an inquisitive expression. Bucky then walked away and repeated the gesture with a green and yellow costume and then a blue and yellow costume.
“What exactly are you doing?” She asked, tilting her head.
“Getting rid of the wrinkles. I did it back during the war with my uniform,” Bucky explained.
She opened her mouth to speak and then seemingly answered her own question, going quiet once again and then moving on to continue sorting the costumes.
“So, um, what’s the deal with these anyways?” Torres questioned, holding up one piece of black fabric with a large yellow X on it.
“Just old costumes. Kurt thought they could work, but,” She held up a wrinkled green dress with a yellow mask, “I highly doubt that.”
Torres chuckled and pointed to the costume, “Was that yours?”
“Oh god no,” She shook her head quickly and then hesitated to explain, “This belonged to somebody else.”
Kurt reappeared with a BAMF! “Vhat are ve talking about?”
“Costumes,” Bucky gestured to the table.
Kurt looked at the costumes with a grin and then began going through them until he found a black suit with two red stripes down the torso, “Kätzchen look!”
He held it up next to his outfit. The suit matched his current formal outfit. He wore a white dress shirt with a black suit jacket with red lapels. He gave her a goofy grin and she giggled.
“Your old costume should be in here as vell, should it not?” Kurt asked as he dug through the pile. He frowned when he couldn’t find it, “Nicht hier.”
“No, no it’s here,” Kitty smiled at him and then walked over to the box that Bucky had put over the folded clothes. She briefly removed it and took out one folded costume before setting the box back down.
She unfolded the costume and held it up in front of herself. It was a black bodysuit with a yellow stripe down the center, running from the belt and then splitting in half to two points at the shoulders. She looked at the lack of wrinkles, slightly surprised, “Huh, whaddya know. Your method worked,” She spoke to Bucky.
Bucky nodded and inspected the two costumes before looking at Kurt and Kitty, trying to imagine them in the bright costumes.
Just then, Walker strolled in, donning a rather boring metallic blue suit. He glanced at the sight with confusion. He took a seat at the table next to Torres. Torres stood up and then left with his suit to go change.
Kitty went back to sorting through the clothing. As she looked at each costume and folded it, Kurt would say some remark in German in an attempt to get her to laugh. She would occasionally crack a smile and giggle, but she seemed to be holding back for whatever reason.
“If you don’t mind me asking, if you guys were born with these powers, why didn’t you become Avengers?” Walker had to interrupt the moment.
Kurt and Kitty looked at him, both debating their answers. Kitty answered first, “It was a matter of circumstance.”
“Circumstance?” Walker raised a brow, “It sounds like you just didn’t want the responsibility.”
“Nein, ve vere never given ze opportunity to become Avengers. Ve vere not shrugging off ze responsibility,” Kurt corrected him, shaking his head.
“In the very least either of you could’ve joined SHIELD,” Walker expressed.
“You make it sound so easy,” Kitty shook her head.
“Because it is. All you have to do is walk up to SHIELD and say, ‘Hey I’m a genius and I can walk through walls’ or 'I'm blue and can teleport,” Walker proclaimed and crossed his arms.
“You are unbearably naïve,” Kurt murmured, stroking his chin.
“If I’m naïve, then you two are just irresponsible,” He scoffed.
“Don’t say anything you’ll regret, John,” Bucky warned him.
John sighed with exasperation, “All I’m saying is that what is the point of having powers if all they do is shrug off the responsibility,” He pointed to Kitty, “She could’ve been the next Tony Stark if she’d been working for SHIELD by now,” He then pointed at Kurt, “And he could’ve stopped dictatorships and prevented thousands of deaths by now.”
Kitty stopped midway through one costume and swallowed a lump in her throat. Kurt stared at the ground with shame.
“By not acting alongside the law and the people who make them, they just add to the damage,” Walker concluded.
There was about a minute of silence before Bucky began to respond, “John, you don’t know why they chose not to get involved. You can’t just assume that they stayed out of it because they just didn’t want to.”
“What other reason could there be?” Walker replied, slightly offended that Bucky was defending them.
“People have their reasons for not wanting to be involved in violence,” Bucky said. He knew what it was like and, most of all, he knew why they’d stayed away. He remembered how peaceful it had been to be away from the fight in Wakanda- even if it was such a short time. He understood.
“Why are you on their side?” Walker snapped and gestured to Kitty and Kurt. He then looked at them with a sneer for a few more seconds before a realization dawned on him, “How did I not realize this before? They’re just like you, aren’t they? HYDRA experiments. I can’t believe I didn’t see that before.”
“See, people have their reasons,” Kitty finally spoke, setting down the half folded costume.
“Then you should’ve had more of a reason to fight. Look at Bucky, he still fought and he probably went through worse things than you,” Walker stated, raising his head.
Kurt frowned and looked at Bucky. Bucky subtly shook his head, looking at the two mutants with guilt. He hated that Walker was using his situation against them. He hated that it was being used to guilt them. He didn’t know.
Kitty’s interpretation was much different. Not only did she take offense to what he said, she was practically seething. She looked like she could’ve spit about a million vile things at him, but it was Kurt’s hand resting on hers that got her to cool down. She revised her original flurry of insults in her head and looked Walker dead in the eyes.
“If no one’s ever told you this before, you’re a complete, undeniable imbecile,” She spat at him and then left the room.
“Es tut mir leid,” Kurt bowed his head and then took his wooden cross necklace from the table, following her out.
Once they were gone, Bucky turned to Walker, “That was uncalled for.”
“It’s the truth. It would do them good to hear it,” Walker insisted, keeping his arms crossed and his haughty attitude intact.
“No. No it is not,” Bucky shook his head, completely disappointed, “And your failure to realize that is exactly why you failed as Captain America.”
Walker took offense to this and scowled at him. Bucky looked at the remaining costumes on the table, folded them, and put them under the boxes before leaving the room to find Sam.
Bucky went down the hall. As he passed one room, he heard whispering again. The same familiar whisperings of Kitty and Kurt he’d heard back in the jet. He decided it would be best to leave them alone and kept going. He passed by one bathroom and called for Sam, only for Torres to yell that it was just him. Bucky apologized and continued on until he heard low voices in another room.
“And you think they’re ready for this kind of thing?” It was Sam’s voice.
“They’re more ready than you are, bub. This isn’t a new thing for us.” Logan.
“Look, if anything goes wrong tonight, we stick together, alright?”
“If anything goes wrong, it’ll either be because of you or the bad folk in that gala. My team ain’t gonna betray you.”
“As hard as it is to believe, we aren’t going to betray you either.”
He heard a grunt of acknowledgement.
“If this is going to work, we have to trust each other. This has to be a mutual thing.”
“Tell that to your Walker guy. He’s made it his mission to make an enemy out of us.”
“He won’t act on it. He has more restraint than you think.”
“Tell that to the guy he killed.”
Sam sighed, “You have me there, but either way, he’s involved now. We can’t just ask him to leave.”
“Fine,” Logan said reluctantly, “But I don’t want him near the kids.”
“We’ll make it so he isn’t.”
They ended the conversation and both came out of the room, finding Bucky waiting outside. They joined him and walked back down the hall to the main room. Walker was still inside, stewing with a sneer on his face. Torres had returned at some point and continued to go through the boxes, looking uncomfortably at Walker.
“So how are things on the disguise front?” Sam asked in an attempt to break the tension.
Torres looked at him and held up a pair of red sunglasses, “There’s not a lot here we can use, but there is an insane amount of red glasses and sunglasses.”
Kurt appeared in purple smoke next to Torres and picked up a pair of sunglasses, “Zey belonged to a friend.”
“You know, you guys keep saying things about stuff belonging to a friend, but then why is it just the three of you?” Torres queried.
“Ve did once have a team,” Kurt admitted and then walked over to one closet, removing a long black trench coat and then handing it to Bucky, simply saying, “For your suit. For a little variety, if you vill.”
Bucky evaluated the trench coast and then took it from him. He then left to change.
“And what happened-” Torres went to ask.
He was interrupted by Logan, “Team split.”
“Ve had differing.. Ideologies,” Kurt tacked on.
Sam took a seat at the table, “The Avengers went through a little something like that.”
“Yeah, we know,” Logan mumbled.
“Mein Freund, ze entire vorld, including us, vatched on as ze Avengers tore each other apart,” Kurt nodded and then appeared by Sam’s side, handing him a pair of red sunglasses.
“Right,” Sam bobbed his head and inspected the sunglasses, “Not something that’s hard to forget, huh?”
“I am German. Ve have a great difficulty forgetting,” Kurt chuckled.
“I’m sure your team will figure it out,” Sam said with a lighthearted smile.
Kitty entered the room, holding an oversized periwinkle suit jacket and now wearing a satin formal corset top that was a much lighter shade of blue- nearly white. The corset itself had small white flowers painted on. She walked over to Kurt and handed him a necklace. He looked at it and then helped her put it on. Once he was done, she was donning a silver star of David necklace. She put on the suit jacket and then sat down by Torres.
“So who are we waiting on?” She asked as Sam put on the red sunglasses.
“Just Bucky,” He answered, “These are pretty nice. I see why your friend had so many of these.”
Logan chuckled at a joke he was unaware of, earning an annoyed frown from Walker. Torres looked at him curiously.
“What? Is that not why he has so many of these?” Sam looked concerned as he noticed Kurt and Kitty glance at each other.
“Nein,” Kurt shook his head with a slight chuckle, “It has to do vith his mutation.”
“Ah, freaky eyes. I got you,” Sam understood.
“Somezing like zat,” Kurt smiled.
Bucky walked in wearing all black with the black trench coat to match.
“Lookin’ good, man,” Sam complimented him and gestured for him to sit next to him. Kurt sat down between Kitty and Logan.
“Alright, so the game plan is that we have to split people between the main hall and the lobby area. We need to have mutants split between the two rooms so that you can identify any of the Hellfire people you suspect is behind this. Since the lobby is smaller, we’ll have two people there, one mutant and one human. Any takers?”
Kitty raised her hand slightly, “I can do it.”
Kurt mouthed an ‘are you sure?’ and she nodded.
Bucky glanced over at Walker, still stewing in his irritation from earlier. He saw the moment it clicked in his head and he went to raise his hand. He spotted the dread on Kitty’s face. On instinct, he raised his hand before Walker could.
“Alright,” Sam nodded, “Kitty and Bucky in the lobby and the rest of us in the main hall,” He checked his watch, “We’ve got ten minutes until we head out, so do what you need to do and we’ll head out.”
Everybody nodded and then stood up. Kurt quickly walked over to Kitty, the two whispering to each other. Logan got up slowly and then put his hand on Kitty’s shoulder. He said something to her in a low voice and she nodded, looking at him with unease. Her disquietude remained as she stood up and then had another conversation with Kurt. He said something encouraging to her and then hugged her. Once they split, she gave him a faint smile and then the group all headed to leave the building.
Bucky and Sam gave each other a reassuring look as they split into their respective groups and ventured towards the Sovereign Hotel.