In the Dead of the Night || Winter Soldier

Six: The Power of Victoria Compels You!

"Because you are a pwince, does that mean you need a pwincess?" Tori asks at one point, petite nose scrunching and prompting her small glasses to slide down a little in the process.

T'Challa's nose scrunches as well, but this time it's in disgust. "Nup, I don't need one. I don't want one. I only need you Ana."

Tori giggles, but sobers up to dramatically stick out her pinkie. "Pinkie pwomise you'll neva leave me?"

T'Challa allows the apple core to tumble out of his hands and off the side of the gazebo roof, enthusiastically locking his dark pinkie with Tori's fair one. "Dad told me that when I make my son the Black Panther, I go to the City of the Dead to be the King of the Dead. I won't need a princess, I'll need a queen. So I promise to neva leave you, if you be my queen."

Grinning and energetically shaking their interlocked pinkies up and down, Tori nods happily. "Pwomise! My King of the Dead!"

T'Challa smiles."My Queen of the Dead!"

CRASH – BANG

Another dream interrupted by yet another pet.

The room remains bathed in darkness, an obvious sign that it's still late at night. Groggily checking my alarm clock on the side of the bed, I read it as 1:54 and groan, burying my head under my pillow. "Everest, if that is you, I will hike to the top of your namesake and throw you off of it."

I pause.

"That's a lie, I don't like exercising."

CRASH –SHATTER

Miffed, I flip the lamp on from where it lies on my bed side table, dazedly peeking through my entanglement of hair to spot my Bombay cat T'Challa perched on the cabinet looking rather pleased with himself. When I strain to glance over the side of the bed, I notice the shattered glass paper weight and fallen jewellery box haphazardly all over the timber floor.

My eyes zero in on the feline accusingly. "You are Satan spawn."

"Meow."

Elegantly leaping from the cabinet, he patters over to the ajar door and takes another seat; tail flicking back and forth impatiently, as if daring me to follow. I swear, my pets didn't use to do this before the volatile assassin moved in.

Grudgingly, dressed only in an over-sized black shirt that reads 'Witch please' and some underwear – thank you central heating – I mindlessly trudge out of bed after my cat, the blanket atop my duvet securely wrapped around me to defend me from what little cold the central heating failed to deter. Pitter patter of my bare feet against the timber slightly echoes in the otherwise soundless house. 'Twas soundless at least, until the pained grunts and violent tussling of sheets begins to come from my spare room, the very same spare room that T'Challa is now sitting outside impatiently.

My mind snaps back into remembrance. Finding the Winter Soldier on the street. Patching him up. Watching Princess and the Frog. Driving him into town. Letting him move in with me.

...dammit.

"T'Challa, if I die, everything in my will goes to Everest, because he's the only loyal one left in this house," I uselessly begin to ramble to my cat, the feline entirely emotionally unmoved by the speech. "So don't be a little hoe and tell him otherwise. M'kay?"

"Meow."

"Good talk."

Slowly tip-toeing up to the closed door, automatically, I go to adjust the glasses atop the bridge of my nose, a nervous habit once again kicking in. In return, I only end up metaphorically kicking myself when I realise I forgot to put them on whilst getting out of bed. Sigils and wards protect this house more than the Secret Service safeguards the President, but nonetheless, I always feel naked without my be-gone-vile-demons glasses that prevent me from seeing dead people.