Look What You Made Me Do (MCU)

Chapter 90

Even though Bucky had been staying at the Avengers compound for a while now, his room still felt impersonal—plain furniture, no decorations, barely any personal effects. It seemed more like a slightly messy hotel room than what was, effectively, his home.

Bucky was sitting on the edge of the bed. I'd dragged over the chair from the small desk tucked against one wall so that we could sit knee-to-knee, as we usually did. Both of us were dressed casually—him in nondescript grey and black, me in a red dress that was maybe a little bit too light for the weather.

…Was it cliché that I wore so much red? Maybe I should mix it up a bit more. Not important right now.

His blanket and pillow had been tossed haphazardly on the bed, giving the impression that it had been slept in, but I noticed that the sheets were almost uncreased. My guess was that he'd been sleeping on the floor, rather than on the mattress. I made a little bit of a show of glancing around, then looked deliberately at the floor and reached over to poke the side of the bed. "You're allowed to be comfortable, you know," I said, a gentle accusation in my tone.

Bucky gave me a half-smile and shook his head. "Mattress is too soft."

After what had happened in Westview, I thought I finally knew what I'd been doing wrong. When Bucky and I had first met, I'd locked the Winter Soldier away, burying the HYDRA persona as deeply as I could. I'd treated him like a contaminant, a foreign body that needed to be removed or destroyed. But he wasn't. He was an aspect of Bucky, just as much a part of him as the scared younger version I'd met, who I'd been thinking of—wrongly—as the 'real' Bucky. The simple truth was that neither were the 'real' Bucky; they were both just reflections of the whole.

I'd spent hours, over a dozen sessions at this point, wandering the Facility inside his mind, trying vainly to lead the younger aspect out. I'd let myself be taken in by the straightforward-seeming nature of the things in front of me without considering the wider context of Bucky's mind. Talking to not-Eliza had made me realise, however, that the younger aspect wasn't the part of Bucky that needed my help.

In retrospect, it seemed almost obvious. Hell, there had been another, almost directly comparable example staring me in the face this entire time and I hadn't even realised it: Bruce and the Hulk. Something that seemed to manifest as a split personality, almost a separate entity in its own right, but that was, in reality, just another aspect of the whole—one that could be reconciled with, healed, and reintegrated. Bucky didn't turn into a big green monster, of course, but that was a distinction without a difference.

I still wasn't sure what exactly I needed to do, of course. But it felt pretty clear to me that I'd been standing in my own way, trying to heal Bucky's mind while my magic blocked off the thing that actually needed to be addressed.

The two of us had already talked it through, but it was pretty clear that Bucky still had his doubts. He leant back, looking up at the ceiling. "I don't know if we should do this," he said, shaking his head a little. "Maybe it'd be better to just continue on as we have been. Keep it sealed away."

I pressed my lips together in a sympathetic smile. "We can't just keep doing this forever. What if something happens and I'm not around?"

He lowered his eyes to meet mine, a serious expression on his face. "And what if, once you let him out again, you can't put him back?"

"You're afraid," I said softly.

Visibly uncomfortable, he broke eye contact again, looking off to the side this time, his jaw working silently for a moment. He started to speak, stopped, then steeled himself a little and looked back at me. "Yeah," he said, matter-of-factly. "I'm afraid."

Bucky really didn't like admitting vulnerability, but it was just me here. He wasn't one to let anyone get too close but, in some ways, at least, I felt like I was probably the person closest to him after Steve. "It's okay to be afraid. But I really think we can do this. I'm getting pretty good at this sort of thing," I reassured him, then touched the pendant at my neck. "And if my own magic isn't enough, I've got one of the most powerful tools in the universe backing me up."

"What if that's not enough?" he asked. The fingers of his metal hand flexed in his lap, clenching into a fist then relaxing, over and over again. "I don't know if I'm worth all this. What if I can't be fixed?"

I wasn't sure what to say to that. I couldn't promise him anything—he knew there were always going to be risks involved. Instead, I took a deep breath and reached over to put my hand over his. He stopped fidgeting. "Breaking things is easy," I said slowly. "Fixing things that are broken is hard. Having hope for something better is hard. 'Nothing in this world is worth having or doing unless it means effort. Pain. Difficulty.' This is worth the effort. You are worth the effort."

Bucky's forehead creased and the corner of his mouth twitched in a surprised smile. "FDR?"

Huh. I knew I'd been quoting someone, but I hadn't actually been sure who it was. Wasn't that strangely appropriate? "He was your president, right? During the War."

He shook his head, looking at me with an odd expression. "You always surprise me, you know?"

"Eh," I said with a shrug, a small grin on my face. "Someone's gotta keep you on your toes."

There was a moment of pregnant silence as we looked at each other, my hand still lingering on his. After a few seconds, Bucky swallowed and glanced away awkwardly. "You, uh, need to restrain me."

Reluctantly, I withdrew my hand and called wisps of red energy to it. "Don't worry," I said. "I've got you, okay? We've got this."

He nodded. "Okay."

Red tendrils of telekinetic energy wrapped carefully around him, gently but firmly restricting his movement, and I tied off the magic. Bucky closed his eyes and relaxed his muscles, leaning easily into my power as it cradled him, and took a few deep breaths. I did the same, raising my hands to frame the pendant at my neck between my fingers. Touching the Mind Stone with my magic, I concentrated on the man in front of me and pushed forward, submerging myself within him.

A moment later I was standing in one of the endlessly repeating corridors of Bucky's mind, the grimy concrete walls and floor both familiar and not. Steel grates set into the floor ran along the edges of the walls, bundles of power cables running below them. Thick, steel doors lined the corridor as it stretched off in either direction.

"I knew you were coming." The sudden voice caught me off-guard.

I blinked, turning to see the now-familiar younger Bucky watching me from an open doorway. He was as he always was—his face a little younger and less weathered than the real Bucky's, a thin chain around his neck, dog tags tucked inside his dark green, military shirt, its left sleeve hanging loose and empty.

Well, this was different.

Every previous time I'd ever visited the Facility, I'd always had to go looking for this aspect of Bucky. He'd never just… been there, waiting for me, before. "Hey," I said, looking at him askance.

"You're going to let him out, aren't you?" Resignation and fear warred in his voice.

"You can't just keep ignoring him. Hiding him away isn't solving anything. He's a part of you, too." He didn't respond, staring at me silently. After a few moments of silence, I tilted my head toward the corridor. "Come on."

Reluctantly, he followed after me as I headed down the corridor. When we came to a junction, I picked a direction at random and kept going, not bothering to slow down. The maze of the Facility didn't have a set layout, as far as I could tell—it ran entirely on vibes. If you wanted to find a specific landmark and deliberately tried moving toward it, then the corridors would resolve in such a manner that you'd get to where you were going—except for an exit, of course.

It didn't take long at all for us to reach our destination, a pair of rooms separated by a thin wall inset with a simple door and large, one-way mirror. I ignored the observation room and headed into the other, stopping in front of the giant, metal device that loomed, coffin-like, amidst a mess of unpleasant-looking surgical instruments and medical apparatuses. Faint wisps of red energy—my makeshift binding enchantment—coiled around it, undulating silently in the gloom. The younger Bucky hesitated at the door for a moment before coming up beside me, looking up at the containment chamber with an apprehensive expression. There was a narrow glass window in the metal, but it was frosted over and dark, so we couldn't see inside.

I glanced sideways at Bucky, watching him carefully. "Ready?"

He stared at the device for a few more seconds, not saying anything, then took a deep breath and nodded.

Lifting a hand, I unthreaded my enchantment, letting the strands of energy dissolve and dissipate into nothingness. There was a hiss as the containment chamber unsealed, fog boiling from the edges of it to spill across the floor as the metal tube lifted itself into the air. Inside was a semi-upright operating table, a tall figure bound tightly to it by a series of thick leather straps.

He was taller than Bucky—larger than life, well over six feet—and clad in black body armour under a military harness. One sleeve was missing from his outfit, in order to fully show off the arm made of overlapping bands of metal, a bright red star emblazoned on the shoulder. A hard mask covered the bottom half of his face, and the skin around his glaring eyes had been darkened with black camo face paint. His long hair fell forward over his face.

"Hey there, big guy," I said casually. "Miss me?"

The Winter Soldier didn't respond, glowering at me silently.

"What now?" Bucky asked, his voice quiet.

"I have no idea." Gesturing with my hands, a small application of telekinesis undid the straps. The second he was free, the Winter Soldier lunged toward me, metal hand reaching toward my throat. He was immediately yanked backward by threads of red energy, his fingers closing on nothing but empty air. "None of that, please," I scolded him.

He looked furious, glancing between Bucky and me, his hands flexing impotently. After a moment, I released him. He didn't hesitate—immediately trying to attack us again—but I was expecting it and interceded instantly, pulling him up short. Once he'd settled, I released him again.

"I can do this all day," I said mildly, shooting him an unimpressed look.

The Facility's ancient PA system crackled to life. Russian words echoing through the facility. "Желание. Ржавый."

Bucky shrank back in sudden fear, looking up, but I just rolled my eyes. "Absolutely not," I said, my voice loud and firm.

I felt for the Mind Stone, its energy sending a cold spike through me as I channelled it into my hand to intermingle with my magic. Gesturing, tendrils of red energy speared into the one-way mirror separating us from the observation room, where the broadcast equipment was. The mirror rippled as I used the Mind Stone to reshape it, drawing it back like a curtain. A quick glance confirmed that no one was there—there never was, of course.

"Семнадцать. Расс—"

The voice cut out as I gestured again, yanking all of the cables out of the equipment. It was only a temporary measure—it always managed to reconnect itself—but, as far as I was concerned, we were going to stay here until this was fixed. If all that meant was that I had to keep unplugging it, that was easy enough to handle.

The three of us stood watching each other in the sudden silence and I hesitated, unsure what to do next. After a moment, Bucky spoke up, a slight quaver in his voice. "…Show me your face."

The Winter Soldier didn't respond or move, his body language tense and ready to lash out again if we relaxed our guard for a moment. A few seconds dragged by, then Bucky took a cautious step forward. The Soldier's arm came up and Bucky flinched as it stopped dead an inch from his throat, caught by strands of red. He glanced back at me and I nodded encouragingly. Licking his lips, he turned back to the Winter Soldier and slowly reached out with a hand.

The Soldier tried to pull away, looking a little alarmed—the first real emotion I'd seen on his face that wasn't borne solely from a desire to kill us—but I held him in place as Bucky's fingers closed around his mask. His fingers probed the edge for a moment, there was a barely audible click, and it popped free. As he pulled it away, a storm of emotions seemed to play across the Winter Soldier's face, too much and too mixed together for me to get a proper read on it. Anger, fear, confusion, sorrow? I wasn't sure.

They had the same face, the same blue-grey eyes staring at each other as if into a mirror. The Winter Soldier's forehead twitched.

"You really are just me, aren't you?" Bucky said quietly.

The Soldier's head jerked to the side like he'd been slapped across the face. "I'm no one," he ground out. "Just a soldier. Я готов отвечать."

My eyes widened slightly. That was the first time I'd ever heard the Winter Soldier aspect of Bucky speak. Was this working? This was working.

"You're not," Bucky said softly. "We're not. Not anymore. I won't let anyone make us into a weapon. Ever again."

The Winter Soldier tried to throw himself at Bucky, but my grip on him was unbreakable. "You can't… This is what we are," he spat. "The things we've done. The people we've killed. You just want to pretend that none of it happened?"

Bucky swallowed. "No. But that's not what we are."

"…It's all we know."

A moment of realisation crossed Bucky's face and he straightened slightly. "You know the way out of here, don't you?"

The Winter Soldier was silent.

"We won't forget it," Bucky said quietly. "Any of it. The things they made us do. The people we hurt. We'll make things right, somehow. But we can't… we can't let it define us forever. We need to move forward." The air felt thick and oppressive, the Facility somehow weighing down on us even more heavily than it had before. "I… I can't do this by myself. I need your help. Please."

Seconds crawled by in silence as the two men stared each other down. After a little while, the Winter Soldier's shoulders slumped fractionally. "And if we can't?"

"We can," Bucky asserted. He glanced briefly back toward me. "We have help. People who care about us. Her. Steve."

As Bucky invoked Steve's name, the Soldier's shoulders drooped again. "Steve…" he repeated quietly.

I continued to stay quiet, not willing to risk interrupting what was happening. I was an intruder here and this was something intensely personal. My magic was facilitating—they wouldn't be having this conversation at all, otherwise—but I couldn't do this bit for him. Not if I still wanted him to be Bucky at the end of it all.

Without looking around, Bucky raised his voice slightly, just to make it clear he was talking to me. "Let him go."

"…Are you sure?" I asked.

"No."

That was fair enough, I supposed. My stomach tight with worry, I gestured curtly, staying on high alert as I dismissed the red wisps of magic that were holding the Winter Soldier back. He lowered his outstretched arm, and I let out a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding. The two of them continued to stare at each other for a few more seconds, then, without a word, the Winter Soldier moved to one side and stepped past Bucky. I resisted the urge to flatten him against the wall, watching carefully as he circled around me to the open door. Standing in the doorway, his back to us, he turned his head slightly and waited.

I exchanged a cautious look with Bucky. He nodded, and we followed the Winter Soldier out into the corridor. He moved quickly, with purpose, and when we turned one corner we were faced with something I'd never seen in the Facility before: a dead end. And at the end of the corridor…

"An elevator," I breathed.

It was old, its twin metal doors covered in discoloured and peeling sky-blue paint. There was a dirty white call button set in the metal beside the doors, a small raised keyhole above it. As the three of us walked up to it, the Winter Soldier reached out and placed his metal palm over the seam where the doors met. "It won't open," he said. "I've tried."

Bucky stepped forward and pressed the button. Nothing happened. I cleared my throat. "May I?"

With a gesture, I sent wisps of red energy boiling into the keyhole, finding the pins and testing them. I'd never picked a lock with magic before, but that didn't seem like it was going to be the solution here. If it was as easy as picking a lock, that was something Bucky could have probably done on his own. My guess that the key to this elevator represented something that Bucky would normally need to work for—whatever he'd done in the original timeline to finally divest himself of the looming shadow of the Winter Soldier. Hard work, years of therapy, overcoming mental trials… Instead, I tapped into the Mind Stone again, feeling an icy spike as its power flowed through me, using it to massage and reshape the interior of the lock.

Ding.

The elevator doors opened jerkily. The three of us exchanged looks, hesitating only for a moment, before we stepped inside. Much like the rest of the facility, the cramped elevator had no roof, the walls stretching endlessly upwards. I looked at the buttons and was unsurprised to see a line of them stretching upward as well—thousands of them. However, just below the buttons was yet another keyhole. I repeated my earlier action, using my magic as a conduit to reach in with the Mind Stone's power and activate it.

The doors closed and the elevator started moving. I watched the Winter Soldier carefully as we waited. His body language was tense, guarded, but I didn't think he was going to go for a repeat of Steve's elevator scene here. Still, I kept an eye on him until we reached our destination. There was another tinny ding and the doors jerked open, revealing a cavernous room.

From the elevator, we stepped out onto a metal walkway, seemingly suspended over a bottomless, black abyss. The walkway led to a central platform, and as we started toward it, the walls of the room around us flickered to life. They were lined with hundreds of ancient-looking monitors—like something right out of The Stanley Parable—each showing a different scene, a different place, a different event. After a moment, I realised what they were: each one was replaying a Winter Soldier mission.

On the central platform was a series of blocky workstations, ancient-looking computers covered in dials with accompanying trays of punchcards, some with large magnetic tape reels humming along. A blocky security camera perched atop a central monitor turned to track us as we approached.

"James Bukhanan Barnes. Jou are not zupposed to be hier," said a very familiar, almost-cartoonishly German-accented voice, slightly tinny through the computer's speakers.

"Zola?" I breathed, eyes widening in surprise.

The screen flickered to life, green Matrix-like code structures appearing to resolve into a bespectacled face. "Zat is correct, fräulein. Ant jou are Vanda Maximhoff, meddling where jou are not vanted."

Of course. I'd forgotten. In one of the episodes of What If…?, it had been revealed that a copy of Zola's uploaded consciousness had been kept in the Siberian HYDRA facility and had supervised the Winter Soldier Program experiments there. It was never found in the Sacred Timeline—maybe Zemo had destroyed it when he'd neutralised the other soldiers held in cryostasis there. It had completely slipped my mind that we needed to do something about that place. I'd need to tell the Avengers about it and make sure it was taken care of.

Was this an aspect of Bucky, too? Whatever he was, he definitely didn't belong here.

"Jou are mein, zoldier," Zola said. "Zere is no escape hier. I vill—"

His voice was cut off in a burst of garbled static. I'd been so caught off-guard by Zola's presence that I hadn't even registered the Winter Soldier move to a keyboard and start entering a rapid-fire series of commands, keys clacking as he typed.

"Shut him down," I said, perhaps a little belatedly, and the Soldier shot me a quick glance as if to say 'what do you think I'm doing?'.

Bucky moved up to an adjacent workstation, looking at some data displayed on another chunky screen for a moment before a big red button, covered by a clear plexiglass cover, caught his eye. He flicked it open, then gestured to a matching button on the other side of where the Winter Soldier was working. I stepped up to it and flicked open the cover, looking at him askance.

He didn't respond until the Soldier looked up from what he was doing and gave a small nod. "On three," Bucky said and I hovered my hand above the button. "One. Two. Three."

We hit the buttons simultaneously. There was a powering-down sound as everything turned off: the monitors, the ancient computer systems, the lights—everything. We were plunged into blackness. I raised a hand, summoning energy to my fingertips to cast a little light. The three of us looked at each other in the dim red glow for a moment, all hesitating and unsure what to do next.

There was series of sounds as the lights turned back on, one at a time. The monitors and computer systems, however, remained still and silent. "Was that… is that it?" I asked, slowing turning in a circle.

At the far end of the walkway connecting to the platform, there was a ding. The elevator doors slid open again, but what was on the other side wasn't an elevator. Cautiously, the three of us moved toward it.

As we drew closer, I could see that the doors seemed to open out onto a sidewalk, a street visible beyond lined with trees and buildings—alive with colour, in stark contrast to the silent greys of the Facility. The faint sounds of cars, unintelligible voices, and other sounds melded together into the quiet background murmur of a living city.

We stopped at the threshold. Bucky looked through with wonder in his eyes, then glanced at me, a small smile touching the corner of his mouth. "We can take it from here." He turned back to the Winter Soldier, who was staring morosely at the open doorway. "Come on. We've still got work to do."

Together, they walked through the door and out into the street scene. Part of me wanted to stay, to go with them, but Bucky was right. I'd done my part. From the looks of things, I didn't think that HYDRA's programming was going to be a problem moving forward, but that didn't mean Bucky was free of the emotional scars. He still had a long way to go, but now the path was there for him. He just needed to walk it.

I took a breath and returned to my body. Across from me, Bucky's eyes flew open a moment after mine and I gestured to dismiss the red wisps of magic restraining him. He stared at me for a few moments, breathing heavily, his eyes wide.

"How do you feel?" I asked quietly.

"I feel…" he started, then trailed off, blinking. "I feel different. Something's different." A slight, almost disbelieving smile started to creep onto his face.

"Different how?" I prompted.

"…Free."

Chapter 91

Natasha paused at the threshold to the lab, taking a moment to observe Shuri through the glass-panelled wall. The Wakandan princess was standing at a workstation, her brow furrowed as she fine-tuned a floating holographic interface, hands skimming along the projected schematics with practiced ease. She was focused on her task, but Nat thought that she could still detect a hint of tension in her shoulders.

The door slid open and Nat stepped inside. "Hey, Shuri," she said, her voice tuned to 'gentle but approachably friendly'.

Shuri glanced away from her work, an instant of wariness in her expression before she slipped on a polite, neutral façade. "Good morning, Natasha Romanov," she responded, then returned to what she was doing, clearly not expecting anything in the way of subsequent conversation.

Nat moved a little closer, careful not to loom or intrude too much on Shuri's personal space. "Thought I'd just see how you were doing," she said, keeping her tone casual. "Bruce mentioned you were working late last night, thought you might have taken a break today."

The younger woman paused, but didn't look at her. "Checking in on me? How thoughtful." Her tone was neutral, but the edges of it felt brittle. "I'm fine—I know my limits. Was there anything else?"

"Nothing in particular." Nat stepped around the workstation a little, deliberately putting herself in Shuri's line of sight, an easy smile on her face. "Just thought we could chat."

Shuri swiped at the hologram in front of her, moving it to one side so she could stare at Natasha challengingly. "I don't want to talk about your girlfriend, if that's what you're here for."

Natasha schooled her features—gentle, steady. She had expected this. "I'm not here about Wanda," Nat reassured her. "If you did want to talk about her, we could, though."

A flicker of something hard crossed Shuri's face. "That wouldn't be a good idea."

"That's fair," Nat conceded. "Like I said, not what I was here for. I just wanted to see how you're doing. That's all." Reassuring, calm, friendly.

Shuri exhaled, the tension in her jaw easing just a fraction. She stood a little straighter, dismissing the holographic display entirely with a flick of her wrist. "You probably think I'm irrational," she said flatly, though not as sharply as before. "A child nursing a grudge."

Natasha snorted. "I have to deal with Tony, Wanda and Secretary Ross on a regular basis. My bar for 'irrational' is pretty high." She was pleased to see the faintest ghost of a smile flicker across Shuri's features.

"Tony Stark can be… an interesting person to work with," the younger woman acknowledged.

"You've been cooped up in the lab basically since you got here. Have you even been out to NYC yet?"

"No," she said with a small shake of her head. "I've been working."

Nat shrugged, keeping her posture nonchalant, trying to avoid any hint of pressure. "I'd be happy to take you. We could even grab Peter, maybe? I'm sure he'd love to show you the sights. I know he's pretty young, but I bet having him around on the weekends is still a nice break."

Shuri went to nod in acknowledgement of her point about Peter, then her forehead creased and she paused. Damn. Nat nearly managed to trick her into agreeing without thinking there. The younger woman shrugged, instead. "There's still a lot of work that needs to be done."

"I know. But if you decide you want a break, the work will still be here when you get back." Nat shot her a sympathetic smile. "Look, I know it's probably not something you're interested in talking about, but you've had a lot of stuff put on you. New powers, being away from home, having to deal with seeing Wanda all the time… it's a lot. No one will judge for you taking a break. Slowing down a little. No one's expecting you to be perfect all the time. Except maybe yourself," she added, injecting a little levity into her tone at the end.

There was a flash of uncertainty in Shuri's eyes for a moment. "…That's not an unfair assessment," she acknowledged slowly. "It has been a little stressful."

"I'm not going to pretend a little downtime is going to fix everything, but you don't have to deal with everything on your own. If you need a break from the science, or to vent about how little sense gamma radiation makes, or just want to talk about home, I'm always around. Tony and Bruce can be great, but…"

"…A pair of middle-aged white men aren't exactly where I would like to be getting all of my social interaction," Shuri admitted, a faint, reluctant smile once again threatening to appear before she suppressed it.

Nat grinned back. "I'm not trying to pry or anything. But I know a little about feeling out of place. Like I said—I'm around. No judgment. No agenda."

A taut breath escaped Shuri and she folded her arms, her gaze dropping to the floor. After a few seconds, she gave a small nod. "I'll keep that in mind," she said quietly. There was still distance there, but Nat felt like it had lessened a bit.

The door to the lab slid open and Bruce walked in, poring over a tablet cradled in one hand. He looked up and paused, his eyes flicking first to Natasha, then to Shuri, and back again—mild surprise registering on his face.

"Oh—hey, Nat," he said, recovering quickly. "Didn't expect to see you here." He gave her a lopsided grin and turned to Shuri, offering her the tablet. "The comparative overnight data on your last batch of bloodwork. Figured you'd want to see it straight away."

Shuri gave him a short nod. "Thank you, Dr Banner." She shifted her posture, taking the offered tablet before turning back to her own system. "I'll incorporate it now." A subtle tension still tightened her shoulders, but she was firmly back in 'work mode.'

Natasha caught Shuri's eye briefly, offering a brief, reassuring tilt of her head before taking a step away from the workstation to let her refocus without feeling crowded. She moved toward Bruce. "I was just checking in," she said softly, but still loud enough for Shuri to hear. "Sounds like you've both been busy."

Bruce nodded. "Yeah, Shuri's… unstoppable when she's got a project. I'm just trying to keep up." He chuckled, sounding a little bit in awe.

"You seem to manage just fine." Her tone held a gentle note of amusement.

"Well, I—uh, you know. We do what we can, right?" he offered with a self-deprecating grin, gaze darting over her face then back to the graphs in his hand. "I mean, it's all her work, really. I just run some numbers, maybe geek out over new gamma interactions, that sort of thing."

"Don't sell yourself short, Dr Banner," Shuri said without looking away from her interface—she'd brought across the data from his tablet and was flicking through a hovering holographic screen of raw, complex data. "You're likely the only person on Earth who still knows more about gamma radiation than I do."

Bruce ducked his head, one shoulder lifting in a modest shrug, then he straightened up a little bit and shot Shuri an inquiring look. "You mind if I show Nat?"

Still looking at the data, Shuri shook her head. "That's fine." She held his tablet out for him to collect again, having taken what she needed from it.

He took a step over to retrieve it, then hurried back over to Natasha while rapidly swiping at the screen. Nat felt a small smile tug at her mouth—he was always so animated when he was excited about something. "Here," he said as he offered her the tablet. "Take a look at this."

She took it and he stepped up beside her, standing close and peering at the screen with her. It showed a detailed full-body imaging of someone: a man—not Shuri—which was a little bit of a surprise. Nat wasn't exactly an expert, and she didn't see what Bruce was trying to show her until he touched the screen again and faint traces of purple were isolated from the rest of the image. It was a fairly broad scatter pattern, through all parts of the body, with slightly heavier concentrations around the major organs.

"This is Shuri's brother, T'Challa," Bruce said. "The Heart-Shaped Herb infuses you with vibranium—it bonds it to organic cells, somehow. We've got Dr Cho looking over the details to see if we can isolate the mechanism."

Nat frowned briefly. "I'm surprised Wakanda's happy for you to look into that, given they see it as a blessing from their goddess."

He screwed up his face a little, as if the political ramifications were only a needless distraction from the science, but it was Shuri that responded. "We're not trying to replicate the Herb," she said firmly. "Even if we were, I would be more concerned with the practical implications of a reproducible scientific process over the shamans' superstitions." Her tone made it pretty clear just how much stock she put in the religious significance of the Herb.

Bruce nodded impatiently. "Yeah. That's not a concern. This stuff's purely for understanding Shuri's condition better, looking for clues about why the Herb's interacted with the gamma the way it has." He gestured to the screen, drawing her attention back. "You see the vibranium distribution?"

"Yeah?"

"Okay. So that's T'Challa, and this…" He reached over, his hand accidentally brushing against hers for a moment as he swiped at the screen again. "Is Shuri."

Nat's eyes widened. "What the hell?" she murmured, then immediately kicked herself mentally for not controlling her immediate reaction better.

"Right?" Bruce breathed, sounding excited.

Shuri's imaging was much more heavily infused than T'Challa's, with purple suffusing almost her entire body. Without an exact measurement to be sure, Nat would guess Shuri's vibranium infusion was four or five times more advanced than T'Challa's was. "Gamma radiation did this? How?" she asked, her eyes taking in the details of the scan for a few moments before she glanced over in Shuri's direction. "You haven't been chowing down on loose bits of vibranium while no one's watching, have you?"

"I haven't, no," the Wakandan princess responded mildly.

Bruce let out a small chuckle, shaking his head. "We don't know exactly how the gamma triggered it, but it's like the vibranium is growing inside her."

"Do we need to be worried?" Nat asked.

"We don't know, yet," Bruce said with a shake of his head. "My guess? No. From what we can tell from the last month's worth of data, the process is slowing down. She's been getting measurably tougher this whole time—even without going purple, she's nearly as strong and fast as Peter is now—but we think it's close to reaching some sort of equilibrium in her system."

Before he could say more, the lab door slid open again and Tony strolled in. He shot a quick glance at Natasha and Bruce, eyebrows lifting slightly. "You never come to visit me in the lab anymore, Romanov," he noted, feigning hurt. "I'm starting to feel left out."

"Let's have a chat, then, Tony," she said lightly, glancing at Bruce meaningfully.

The other man's gaze flickered between them, then he caught on and gave a quick nod. "I might see if Shuri needs help with that data," Bruce said, a little awkwardly, before taking the tablet and and ambling away toward the Wakandan princess's workstation.

Natasha turned her attention back to Tony, tilting her head slightly to indicate they should step to the other side of the lab. He humoured her and followed, his arms folded in mock defensiveness. Nat dropped her voice a little. "Tony, Wanda hasn't been in the best headspace lately. I know you're not the bad guy here, but I was hoping you could give her a bit more consideration." Shuri had enhanced hearing, but letting her listen in if she wanted to was better than her imagining what was said later, if Tony mentioned anything to her. At the very least, moving the conversation away showed that Natasha was trying to be considerate.

Tony let out a breath, raking a hand through his hair. "I'm trying here, Nat. Really. She's not a full Avenger, but we let her come and go as she pleases, no restrictions on the labs, the training rooms… she's basically got free rein. What else do you want from me? A big neon sign on the roof saying 'All hail Wanda'? What else am I supposed to be doing here?"

Natasha's gaze flicked to where Bruce was now standing next to Shuri's workstation, pointing out some particular data to her. "You know she doesn't like being blindsided, Tony. Letting her wander around the compound isn't the same as keeping her in the loop."

Tony dramatically sagged back against the wall behind him, letting the back of his head bonk against the metal, and rolled his eyes. "Ugh, this is about the reality anchors again, isn't it? I mean, I know you've gotta be on your girlfriend's side, but seriously. It's just a weapon, like anything else I make."

"It's not like other weapons," Nat said, shaking her head. "You should have known Wanda would feel targeted by it. It's something that could be used against her, just as easily as we're going to use it against Kaecilius."

"Most of my weapons can be used against anyone, Nat. That's the point. I could use a repulsor to blast you just as effectively as anyone else, but I don't need to report back to the team every time I make a new one. Wanda's just always gotta make everything about her."

Tony was doing his best with a scattershot argument, but something about his approach just didn't seem particularly authentic. More than that, there were certain things that Tony wasn't saying, and their absence was painting a slightly clearer picture in Nat's mind as to what he had been thinking. She liked to think that she knew Tony extremely well, by now. He was no stranger to subtlety, but it wasn't his natural habitat like it was hers, so sometimes he overegged it and inadvertently gave himself away.

Not once during all this had he mentioned Shuri. He hadn't even looked in her direction this entire conversation. He was talking about the reality anchors like they were his, taking ownership and, therefore, any associated blame. It was actually pretty obvious, now that Natasha was looking for it. Shuri had been the one who hadn't wanted to bring in Wanda. Tony might have even suggested that they bring in Wanda to help—while the two of them didn't get along sometimes, they'd proven perfectly capable of working together before—but Shuri must have argued against it or been upset or something. Tony had been caught between a rock and a hard place with this project. Between Wanda and Shuri, no matter what he chose to do, he'd have upset one of them.

Shuri was isolated. She didn't have someone supporting her the way Nat supported Wanda, or anyone here, really. Her older brother and everyone she'd ever known were hundreds of miles away. So, given that choice, Tony had chosen to upset the one that had a local support structure in place.

"Gee, that doesn't sound familiar at all," Natasha said softly, shooting him a wry smile.

A flicker of red caught Natasha's eye as Wanda came bounding up the corridor outside, visible through the glass-panelled wall. "Speak of the Devil, here's a convenient distraction," Tony said wryly.

The door slid open at Wanda's approach and she swept into the room, practically bouncing with every step. She had a massive grin plastered across her face, flushed with excitement. "I am amazing!" she announced loudly, drawing everyone's attention now as she spread her arms wide, as if to receive well-deserved accolades. "Praise me!"

Tony snorted. "All hail Wanda," he said, echoing his words from a moment ago as he glanced amusedly toward Nat, who would have very much preferred if Wanda had not done that at this exact moment. "And people say I'm the one with the ego. Sorry, I don't think we have a 'praise Wanda' protocol—there's not one in the official Avengers' handbook, at least."

On the other side of the room, Bruce had a puzzled smile on his face. Next to him, Shuri muttered something quietly to herself, rolling her eyes. Nat wasn't close enough to catch it all, but she thought she'd said something like: "I'm just not going to be allowed to get any work done this morning, am I?"

"Hey," Nat said, stepping over and taking one of Wanda's hands, trying to settle her a little bit. "What's up?"

The physical contact had the opposite effect, and Nat was caught by surprise when Wanda yanked her into a quick hug, lifted her into the air like she weighed nothing at all and spun her around in a circle. "Bucky's fixed! I did it!" Wanda said happily, dumping her back onto her feet.

"Woah!" Nat laughed, stumbling a little as she caught her footing. "Really? That's great news!"

"Huh," Tony raised his eyebrows. "Maybe some praise is warranted, after all."

Disentangling herself from Nat, Wanda darted toward Bruce. "I think I can fix the Hulk!" she said to him, practically vibrating. "I know what to do! I know you said you don't want me in your head because it's dangerous but now I'm pretty sure I know what to do to fix it! Get you completely in control again!"

"Uh, I don't—"

"You're like Bucky—well, not exactly like Bucky, I mean," Wanda interrupted him, the words spilling from her like a waterfall as they struggled to keep up with her train of thought. "He doesn't turn into a big green monster, but it's the same sort of thing. Alternate personality brought on by trauma, the loss of control… it's the same sort of thing, but I didn't see that 'til now, and I fixed him so I can fix you! You might need a bit more work to get there—I think you need to be primed to accept reconciliation—but we can do it, I know we can."

"Easy, slow down," Natasha said, coming up behind her and gently drawing her a step away from Bruce, who was clearly feeling a little bit cornered. He flashed her a small, grateful look. "Where's Bucky now?" she prompted.

"He's with Steve and Sam—they're in the common room, if you wanna go see him," Wanda said, beaming at her. "I'm good. I did good. Tell me I'm good." She locked eyes with Nat, repeating herself excitedly. "Tell me I'm good. Tell me. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good."

Nat shook her head, unable to help the wide smile on her face. "You did good," she said gently. "You're good."