History Has it's Eyes of You

T’Challa had been in meetings constantly since his return. He had to go through everything he’d missed while being ‘dead’, and deal with the war against America while trying to recover on his own from hsi time in the golden light. Okoye and M’Baku were helping by taking over everything that didn’t require his direct attention, and Ramonda and Shuri were keeping him optimistic, but he still struggled on his own.

“My King, Sargeant Barnes is outside,” one of the guards reported, gesturing to the door to the council room. T’Challa shook himself out of his thoughts and gestured for the guard to let him in. It had been a while since he’d last had a conversation with someone that wasn’t about the problems at hand, so he was looking forward to this conversation.

“Hello Bucky,” T’Challa greeted as Bucky entered the room. “How can I help you today.”

“I’m honestly not sure. I just-what’s going on? I mean, I know Thanos is dead and all, but it doesn’t feel like anything's finalized,” he said, metal fingers clenching and unclenching. T’Challa hadn’t noticed how worn out the other man was until he got a closer look at him. It was clear he wasn’t sleeping, and he had been in meetings all day as well. T’Challa knew the feeling.

“It is the golden light,” he replied, making Bucky stop. You and I were both trapped in it alone, with no hope of escape and no one else for days before we got through to Peter. We were sent there in the middle of a battle, with no warning or explanation for how we got there. It is going to leave scars,” T’Challa said. “Yes, Thanos is dead, but this will never be finalized. WE will continue to feel the repercussions, the worst of which will come around now.”

“Like Hydra,” Bucky said with a resigned sigh, sitting down miserably.

“Yes, like Hydra.”

“So this is going on with you too, huh?”

“Yes, I remember my time there well,” T’Challa replied stiffly, a flash of harsh gold flashing behind his eyelids. He shook his head to dispel the image, but he knew it would return come night. “As does Peter, and everyone else who was trapped. They were not alone, though, so they will not understand the same struggle you face. Solitude is a human's worst punishment.” Bucky nodded, looking down. “Have you spoken to Captain Rogers about this?” T’Challa asked.

“No, I don’t wanna bother him,” Bucky admit.

“You will not bother him, he will want to know. If the rumors I’m hearing are correct, your problems are now his, and vice versa,” T’Challa said, lips quirking upward when he saw Bucky duck his head and blush.

“Things get around quickly here?”

“Quicker than twitter. He will want to here, he struggled as well when you were gone. I’m sure that it will help the both of you.” They sat in silence for a bit, both lost in thought about the past until Bucky finally spoke again.

“How’s the kid holding up? Have you gotten to see him?”

“Yes, I spoke with him and Stark earlier,” T’Challa replied. “He still does not sleep peacefully, but that is the same for us. Stark will not let him fight. I don’t think that will hold.”

“No, it probably won’t. You don’t think we’ll be fighting on an open field, do you?”

“I hope not. Wakanda has yet to launch a purposely deadly missile other then the small one a few weeks ago, and that was only a warning shot. I do not wish to fight America. The way things are going now, though, I believe it is a possibility. It that happens, I expect nothing of you or the Avengers. As long as you are here, you will have no obligation to kill those from your own ranks.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.

Dr. Strange was exhausted. He had been in and out of various offices all day to explain things about infinity stones to different people. He and Palmarius were the two people who knew the most about the subject, and Palmarius was not available, so it was up to him.

When he finally did get back to his room, all he wanted to do was sit back and have a drink. Sadly this was not an option, as Stark had reclaimed the bottle Strange had taken from his bar, and he couldn’t get another one without Pepper noticing it’s absence and reporting back to Tony about it. He sighed and rubbed his hands down his face.

“Well someone’s in a mood.”

“Hello, Stark,” the doctor groaned, sitting up to see Tony standing in the doorway. “How may I be of assistance, and if you say ‘tell me about infinity stones’, I will send you to to the arctic,” he said.

“A bad mood, I take it,” Tony said, inviting himself in.

“I ask again, what do you want?”

“Can’t I just check in on my friend? Is that suddenly a bad thing?”
“If you want to be this annoying, then yes. Yes it is,” he said, glaring at Tony. The Cloak of Levitation, seeming to sense Strange’s mood, flicked Tony in the ear and darting out of reach before the other man could swat it away.

“Could you tell your demon cloak to cut it out?” Tony said crossly, glaring at the cloak as it drifted away.

“I could, but you deserve it,” Strange said with a slight smile. “So, what’s up with you? Usually you only come talk to me when somethings wrong.”

“That is not true, I talk to you all the time!” Tony argued.

“Yeah, but you only seek me out when you’re in, how did you phrase it, ‘a mood’,” Strange replied easily. Tony sighed, and his shoulders slumped.

“Ross,” he stated.

“Ross is currently the center of many of our problems, you’ll have to be more specific,” the doctor responded.

“The accords,” Tony said. “He wants signatures. Especially Peter’s. And yours.”
“I see,” Strange said, not giving anything away. He had been worried about this. He had heard about the accords when they had come out a few years previously. He hadn;t worried to much as the government didn’t know the sanctum existed. Well, Nick Fury had, but he wasn’t a problem. As things had become more intense, he got a little nervous. When he had openly used magic in the streets of New York and been carried off by aliens, well it was then he knew he’d be in trouble if her lived. “Does he know my real name? Or does he just know you call me ‘wizard’.”

“He doesn’t know your name, he didn’t get any audio.”

“Wait, what?”

“He has security footage from New York. He knows that you have a flying cloak, are magic, and have an infinity stone. He doesn’t like that,” Tony said. Shit.

“Well then, I guess I’m a hostage like you,” he finally said. They sat in silence for a bit.

“Hey doc, do you remember dying?” Tony asked finally.

“What?” he asked, taken aback.

“You said you have all of alternate you’s memories. Alternate you died, just like Peter and the others. Do you remember?” Strange looked at him for a few minutes before answering.

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes I do. I knew that I would be back, I knew my plan would work, but I was still afraid,” he confessed. “Why are you asking?”

“I don’t know how to help Peter,” Tony confessed. “I mean, the panic attacks, I can help him. Nightmares, I’m the guy. Dieing? I’m stuck. Near death, that’s one thing. Actually disintegrating and getting sucked into the limbo? That is very different.” Strange nodded.

“What about Bucky and T’Challa? They were there with him.”

“Bucky is in war councils, and T’Challa is busy being the king. They’ve dropped by, but not a lot. Besides, I trust you a lot more than I trust them.” Strange was surprised by the compliment. He had not known Stark very long, but he supposed that the man had not reason not to trust him. Well, besides experience.

“I guess I could talk to him, but I don’t know how much help I’ll be, I literally told both of you I’d let you die to save the stone when we were on that ship.”

“And then you didn’t, you saved me,” Tony appealed.

“No, I saw that that was the only option.”

“Yeah, well, here I am,” Tony replied. “Oh, and I brought you this, you look like you need it,” Tony said, holding out the bottle Strange had just been thinking about out in front of him. “There had better still be some left in the morning. And don’t act too hungover in your next meeting, you’ll make me look bad,” Tony said on his way out.

“Don’t you want any? “Strange called, opening the bottle.

“Oh believe me I do,” Tony started, “but I’ve got another meeting. It’s not to long though, so I’ll swing by in about thirty,” he called over his shoulder. The doctor nodded and poured himself a glass, and downed it in one go.

“If he thinks that this bottle is still gonna be here tomorrow, he is very much mistaken,” he said to himself.

Nebula and Gamora sat in companionable silence, both watching as engineers inspected the shields for any design flaws. Nebula had said very little since she had dealt Thanos a killing blow. It had been far from pretty. She had used a relatively small blade, and carved out his eye, sliced into his arms, and finally slit his throat and let him bleed into nothingness. It was probably a good thing Tony had not let Peter watch, and T’Challa had kept Shuri far from the arena where it had happened.

Nebula had not been trying to spend more time with the other guardians as Gamora had asked her to, but it was quite awkward. They would lapse into random silences, and had very little to talk about, as the few times they’d met, it had not been under preferable terms.

She had made one friend though, and that was Loki. Neither of them really fit it, and had both been quite villianouse in their pasts, making it hard to really hang out with any of the others besides their siblings, who were desperate to see them become a member of the group.

“So, what do you plan on doing after the war?” Nebula finally asked. Gamora seemed to think about it for a moment before replying.

“I don’t really know. I mean, usually we just fly around and look for jobs. We’re having a contract written up with the Avengers, though. If they should ever need us, we’ll come back and vice versa.”

“Gamora, you know that your crew doesn’t want me joining. I am not welcome.”

“They just need time. Quill is fine with you-”

“That’s only because I hate Thanos, as does he. They know I fought with them, and that’s the only reason I’m not dead. Had I not been on Titan at the time, they would have killed me by now.”

“They’ll adjust. They just need time,” Gamora said. Nebula didn’t reply. Eventually she got up and went up to her room. She could hear Tony and Dr. Strange talking as she passed by the doctor’s room, and rolled her eyes at the smell of alcohol. She saw Peter and T’Challa talking outside, and Steve and Bucky laughing about something on Steve’s phone. She smiled slightly and headed up to her room and fell asleep.

Peter was outside when T’Challa found him. Not all the way outside, no one was allowed all the way outside, but he was in the courtyard, which they had all agreed to count as half way so that people could get some fresh air if they needed it.

“Hello, Peter,” he said, sitting down beside him.

“Oh! Hi, Mr. King T’Challa, sir!” he stuttered. He had been to out of it when in the golden light to fully realise that he’d been talking to the king of fricken Wakanda, and had been mortified when he came to to discover that he had referred to him as he would MJ, or Ned. T’Challa had tried repeatedly to get him to just call him T’Challa, but Peter continued on with the titles, which were slightly hilarious.

“It is peaceful out here,” T’Challa noted, looking up through the shields at the billions of stars beyond.

“Y-yeah, we’re not due for missile attacks, are we?” Peter asked, not wanting the night ruined by explosions.

“No, we have picked up no signs of a launch,” T’Challa assured him. “How are you doing. Stark tells me the nightmares are lessening.”

“Oh! Right, yeah they aren’t as bad. They come and go,” Peter replied, fidgeting nervously. “H-how are you?” he asked awkwardly.

“The same,” T’Challa replied. “Ross wants your name, you know,” he added. “Tony’s been putting up one Hell of a fight. So has Pepper.”

“Really?”
“You hadn’t heard? While she may not be able to fly to Wakanda to join us, Pepper has been maging her own war on Ross. As has your Aunt May, and your friend MJ. They are truly wonderful women,” T’Challa said. “You should watch the news more,” T’Challa commented, handing Peter an ipad showing people marching in protest, and interviews with Pepper. MJ had apparently started a tumblr movement which had spread across basically every social media platform, and May had started organising marches, and spreading the word through New York.

“I had no idea. Wow, I just-wow,” Peter said.

“They are turning Ross’s own country against him. If he surrenders to us, it will have been because of them.”

“Yeah,” Peter agreed, a smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, it will.”

“Have you seen Sergeant Barnes? I wish to speak with him as well,” T’Challa said, remembering their earlier conversation. He had promised himself he’d check in with the man and make sure that Steve was aware of what was going on.

“Yeah, I think he’s inside with Steve. Steve introduced him to ‘How it Should Have Ended’ videos, and now they won’t stop watching them,” Peter explained. It had been him and Shuri that had gotten Steve hooked on them, and now their work was paying off. He had a feeling that Tony would not be pleased.

“I will let them have their fun, I will see to him later,” T’Challa said, knowing from experience that one did not simply interrupt someone watching youtube. Shuri had made sure he paid dearly for that mistake.