this side of paradise

an adopted father's intuition

Earth-616:

Kamar-Taj

Day Nine: Nightfall

x

Bucky and Yelena had a few moments afterwards of sheer, uninterrupted bliss, before the ceiling—and reality—came crashing down on them.

"Shit."

As Bucky yelled another slew of expletives, Yelena threw his pants and boots at him. "Get your clothes back on—we have to go."

They scrambled to haphazardly re-dress themselves, still frenzied by their tryst. Yelena was distracted and totally missed the voices coming through the hole in their ceiling—but Bucky took a moment, grabbed her arm, and hissed at her to listen.

"—they have to be somewhere around here, the Vibranium signature is only getting stronger—"

"Is that...?" Yelena whispered.

Bucky nodded. He stepped up onto a boulder that had fallen loose, and hoisted himself up so he was outside of the cave, over-looking the entrance to Kamar-Taj.

Sure enough, he recognized the voice correctly. And John Walker had never looked so happy to see him.

"Oh, thank God," Walker exclaimed. And he wasn't alone—Ava Starr, Alexei, and Antonia were in tow.

Evidently, the Thunderbolts had arrived to Kamar-Taj.

James couldn't help it—as much of a pain in the ass as Walker had been to him in the past, he wordlessly opened his arms, and embraced his teammate. Yelena crawled out right after him and was wrapped up in a bear-hug with Alexei, as Antonia and Ava waited their turns.

Bucky finally pulled away, looking away from Walker and motioning to the rest of his teammates. "What the hell are you guys doing here?" he asked.

"Bah!" Alexei half grunted, half burped. "We can ask you the same question, mister 'missing person.'"

Walker sighed. "It's kind of a long story—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Wong emerged from a portal beside him.

"Before you say anything—I called for them," Wong explained, motioning to the Thunderbolts. "They'd already been tracking your whereabouts, you and Yelena, and I knew they were close by. We needed help to defeat the Scarlet Witch."

"Yeah—about that. What was that?" James asked.

A shadow fell over Wong's face, as he shook his head. "That was Stephen Strange meddling with something he should've known better than to meddle with—agents of chaos magic invite destruction. You abuse it, and you re-awaken any remnants of chaos magic on this plane and beyond."

Sensing Bucky's confusion, Antonia chimed in. "The magic pager that Stephen Strange gave you—you tried to use it for too long, back on the island. It reanimated Wanda's body."

James slowly nodded. Oddly enough, it wasn't the weirdest thing he'd heard all week. "Right."

And then he thought for a moment, the implication of what Wong said finally hitting him—the Thunderbolts had already been in the vicinity.

He turned back to Walker. "Were you guys close by because you were looking for us, or the Scarlet Witch?"

Walker scratched the back of his head, suddenly looking to the ground, as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. "Yeah. About that..."