Frenemy of Spider-Man (3/3 Y/N Stark's story)

Part 19

~3rd March~

"I? What about me?"

"This is not your fight sweetheart and I am not going to let you stay here if it means you getting hurt." your mother said and you frowned.

It wasn't your fight, it was far from it. But it was your mother, could you really leave her? Even if you did leave her, what if something happened to her? Would you be able to live knowing that there was something you could have done to change the outcome of this fight?

If the decision was between your mother's will and your conscience need, what were you supposed to choose?

She was your mother. A brave, young, beautiful, stubborn woman who you loved more than you loved the world. Leaving her wasn't even an option. You had to stay.

The winter soldier, Mr. Barnes, Bucky, James. The different names for the man all over the news were ringing through your mind, making it impossible to let your body relax enough for sleep. You let out a grunt in frustration as you turned in the bed for what felt like the millionth time. By now, the sheet was probably a crumbled-up mess, much like the situation on your mind.

When you had trouble sleeping in your home town, the rain that so often fell used to calm you. But despite how common the pour was in New York, no rain came. As if even the world knew you didn't deserve to sleep.

Out of the almost eight billion people in the world, you were one of the few who knew the truth about the Winter soldier's reasons for acting the way he does. Yet, here you were, trying to sleep instead of doing something about it.

Your mother's face flashed through your mind, the concentration and pressure she had shown while working on his case.

What would she say if she saw you now?  Doing nothing other than look out for yourself. Though the last time you decided to risk your safety for someone else, that someone died.

You groaned again, sitting up from your bed and standing up. If you weren't going to get sleep tonight, at least you can do something of meaning. 

You picked up your laptop and started searching for... anything. Anything that had something to do with Mr. Barnes. Within minutes, you found his whereabouts, the fact that he was not currently with Hydra, and that both S.H.I.E.L.D and the government were preparing to take him down.

They were going to kill an innocent man. Without thinking, you looked up all the exits of the tower, easily finding the best one if you didn't want to be noticed.

You put the computer down and sprinted out of your room, through the corridor, down the stair, and finally into the training room.

"Steve!"

You had three options. Go stay with your aunt, which kind of felt like the safe choice, but is it the right one? 

You could stay in the tower with Happy, which would mean you would stay with people you are familiar with and you could remain at the same school as your friends. But it also meant staying in a tower full of memories of your dead dad and a school full of people who hates you.

And the final one, you could move to Wakanda. Live with your new acquaintances in a place you had only been to briefly while being too focused on surviving to notice much about it.

There was only one safe choice, another one was a safer choice, the third one was not safe at all. But if Bucky could make Wakanda his sanctuary, maybe you could too. Maybe you could get a break from Hydra, from dead parents, from all the other things that have nearly killed you. 

Moving to Wakanda was the hard choice, but it also was the only one that felt right, you had to choose it.

As soon as T'Challa's body had fallen down the fighting spot and into the stream below, you had turned around and ran. You ran all the way to beside the steam, eyes searching for the outline of his body as you ran.

"Come on, come on, come on." you muttered as you hurried beside the stream. The hint of a shoulder showed itself just below the surface and without further thought, you dove down into the dark, cold water.  It took you a second to orient yourself but once you did, you swam over to the wakandian and grabbed him from under his arms.

The current along with the extra weight of carrying another body kept you under the surface, panic rising inside of you.

Instead of letting the panic freeze you, you let your eyes search for something that might help you. A tree root stuck out of the stream wall and you reached one arm to it, grabbing it and pulling the two of you up, fresh air reaching your lungs.

You crawled the both of you onto the sand, breathing deeply as you turned to him. You leaned forward and listened for a heartbeat or breathing. Nothing.

You place your hands over his chest and started doing the Heimlich manoeuver. The procedure took a couple of moments before it did something, but when it did, he started coughing and gurgling up water. You rolled him onto his side to clear his lungs and he coughed some more before taking several deep breaths.

"Y/N?" he asked once he finally looked at you and you offered him a smile.

"It's me." you said and he frowned, looking around him to make sure no one else was watching.

"You shouldn't have done that. If anyone finds out you helped me, you will become a criminal." he warned and you felt all air escape your lungs.

You had acted on pure instinct, never stopping for a moment to think about the consequences. Killmonger was the king now and since you are not even a real citizen, the punishment for treason could be even worse than it would normally have been.

But what about Shuri? A friend you care deeply about, who loves her brother greatly. What about Ramonda? The queen who took you in, who would hate to lose her son. What about him?

What about T'Challa? He had been nothing but kind to you ever since your rough start. Could you really step aside and watch him fall? Finally, after a while of silence, you said;

"Isn't that my specialty?"

You had made many tough decisions in your past. Why should this be any different? What surprised you was the fact that T'Challa put you in charge of making this decision.

"Roger that." you said before clicking the button to end the call. You raised your head to meet Mr. Man's eyes once again, forcing yourself to seem pulled together despite the panic rising inside of you. "We'll go into an alliance." you said and he smiled as if he had won. "On two conditions." you said and the smile faded.

"Alright, let's hear them." he said and you nodded.

"Number one; All of your soldiers will stay as far away from Bucky Barnes as possible, only approaching him if it is a matter of life and death." you said, thinking about the PTSD Bucky still suffered from due to these people.

"Easy enough, what is the second one?" he asked and you forced your lips into a confident smile.

"You will release  Mr. Walsh and his family, his entire family. They will be completely free from Hydra from here on." you said and the man sighed.

"Very well, do we have a deal?" he asked, holding out his hand for you to shake. Every bone in your body wanted to say no. Wanted you to shake your head and leave him here. But instead, you took his hand.

"We have a deal."

1314 words 

Featuring Hugh Laurie as "the Man"