"Ana, give it back!"
"No!"
"Ana!"
"No!"
"Papa! She won't give my apple back!"
"Too bad Cha-Cha!"
The six year old Prince T'Challa of Wakanda curses. "Ikaka!" (Shit!)
Little Tori gasps, petite hands flying over her mouth in horror, dropping the controversial apple in the act. "Bad word! Bad word! I'm telling!"
T'Chaka and Olivia Murphy-Kingsley lightly chuckle over the brims of their coffee mugs at the antics of their children, the King of Wakanda frowning when the obscenity leaves his son's lips.
"T'Challa! Ziziphathe! Such language is unacceptable." (Behave!)
Olivia in return merely smiles in entertainment, attempting to hide her amusement at the little exchange.
T'Challa and Victoria Morana Kingsley pout childishly at each other, followed by Tori snatching the apple back off the grass and running into the recesses of the jungle-esque garden, the sounds of complaints and whines chasing her.
"Ana! Give it back! I'll be king one day, and you can't take apples away from a king!"
Tori blows a raspberry over her shoulder as she runs. "Watch me!"
"I was born first!"
"So you'll be old first!"
At that age, most conversations were quite similar to this. Five year old Tori found joy in pushing the Prince of Wakanda's proverbial buttons, something her mother often did to the king when the two of them were children.
Rushing through the vines that snake around the black marble columns, Tori begins to climb up the timber lattice work leading up the side of a gazebo, little feet finding their footing in diamond shaped holes in between the small wooden panels crossing over one another. This time she thought she could beat T'Challa to the top because she had a pretty good head start, but quite quickly does T'Challa catch up to her once she starts climbing.
Beating her to the top, T'Challa reserves the right to blow a raspberry at her this time, snatching the apple from her once she finishes climbing as a sign of victory. "Still not quick enough Ana," he teases, biting into the apple mockingly.
Tori is actually quite a quick climber, and she knows that. It's why her mother calls her monkey. In comparison to the heir of the Wakandan throne and title of Black Panther, however, she still has a long ways to go. "Not fair, your super power is climbing," she pouts, crossing her arms agitated.
T'Challa now mirrors her frown. "But you can talk to ghosts!"
"Talking to ghosts doesn't get me an apple."
Glancing down at the already bitten into apple, the Prince of Wakanda takes another bite before offering it to his best friend, the face of little Tori lighting up like the Fourth of July. Animatedly biting into it, she takes a few mouthfuls before handing it back to T'Challa, the two of them turning their attention to the sun growing tired and going to sleep on the other side of the jungle.
For some time, talking isn't essential. The two friends simply pass the apple back and forth as they eat and watch the sky change colours like a chameleon, making it look like it's on fire before turning into a pretty purple, blue and blackening bruise. Little words are passed back and forth from time to time, nothing much needing to be said to just enjoy one another's company.
"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.
Tentatively, my dainty fingers curl around the cool knob of the door, gradually opening it bit by bit as to not alert whatever lies on the other side. I wonder who's attacking him. HYDRA? The police? A bear? A bear that's an undercover HYDRA agent working as a policeman? The possibilities are endless.
A mouse could talk louder than I in the moment that I poked my head anxiously around the doorway. "...Bucky?"
As my eyes adjust to the lighting, immediately am I met with the topic of concern himself, asleep, yet tossing and tumbling as the sheets constrict him like they're actually attacking him. Even in the minimal light – I have excellent night vision, perks of being a witch of the dark arts – I can make out his tense figure, eyes screwed in unfathomable pain, sweat the size of bullets streaming down his face and clinging his shirt to his body like sculpting glue. The scene, a scene all too familiar to me, finally registers in the back of my head.
He's having a nightmare.
Eau de Bucky washes over my nose as a late scent-based reaction to entering the room, making me wonder how often I need to introduce Bucky to our lord and saviour Shower Man, but the fleeting thought it quickly pushed back for the time being. Great, an assassin with a nightmare. This is going to turn out fantastically. Will he strangle me to death, or shiv me with a knife that is undoubtedly under his pillow? Oh the choices!
Nonetheless, I horrifically seem to have these strangle little things called morals, and decide it's a good idea to approach the Grade A assassin having a violent, horrendous nightmare and awaken the man with nothing but my charm, adorableness and wit.
This is why I have almost died on several occasions.
With the blanket still securely encompassing me and now acting as an additional barrier of safety from what will surely only result in a bad outcome, I gingerly settle on the edge of his bed and shift the blanket around my shoulders, lifting my trembling hand to hover above the writhing man in pain. Right, just... just calm his soul like you did last time, yeah? All goods, no problem. No problem-o. Easy peasy, lemon squeazy.
A selfish part of me hesitates in easing his soul back into a peaceful sleeping state. To do so, I would once again be introduced to all the little emotions and cracks of pain and misery that make up his soul, and never in my life had I touched a soul so... hurt. Not broken, just hurt.
"C'mon, the dude stood up for you in the store today," I start to give myself a one-sided, hushed pep talk. "Suck it up Kingsley. Be a woman. Other women go through child birth; they literally push a human being out of their body. I can do this shiz, no problem."
Gently resting my right hand on the sweaty, thrashing assassin's chest, my fingers begin to languidly curl in on themselves, pausing a quarter of the way to becoming a closed fist as to not crush his bloody soul. He instantaneously stills, and one would think him dead in that moment, if it wasn't for the shallow, low breathing drawing in and out of his parted lips. Focusing on the his soul, I note more cracks in it than last time, but for the first time – because he's currently not trying to kill, unlike last time – I catch the actual colour of his soul.
Grey. His soul... it's grey.
A state between purity and sinful. Not good, but not bad. Corrupted, but not to the point of villainy. An actual grey lining, between worlds of black and white. I can see, I can feel what he wants – nothing more than to settle down away from a life of constant violence, deception, manipulation and brutality. A life he is smack in the centre of, but wants nothing to do with it.
'He'd trade his guns for love, but he's caught in the crossfire.'
I would snort in amusement right now for the similarities between this man and that song, but upon a little opening of light peeking through the cracks of his psyche and soul, I find myself inexplicably drawn towards it—
"Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Dawn. Stove. Nine. Kind-hearted. Homecoming. One. Freight car."
I flinch in palpable pain, but refrain from severing from the connection. To do so could result in backlash to the both of us and only warp us in more pain. Memories – the briefest of flashes, mainly words, like a movie on fast forward – dart back and forth in my vision, ringing like the after effects of a bomb between my ears.
"Mission report."
"Winter Soldier."
"Заботиться о ней."
"Captain America."
"'Til the end of the line."
"Who the hell is Bucky?"
"Nightingale."
"Выньте ведьма-врача."
"Howard Stark."
"The new fist of HYDRA."
"Natalia Alianovna Romanova."
"But I knew him."
The all too familiar feeling of a metal fist curling around my throat as my blanket falls away from my shoulders snaps the both of us from the trance, the devoid, bottomless eyes of the Winter Soldier staring back at me as the connection wavers to near non-existence. Those words. Those first few words... they're like a key. An activation key.
It would be nice if they came with an off button as well.
He rises as stiff as a board, impossibly strong fist growing stronger and stronger in a way that I know will sport pretty little bruises later this morning. The cold of the metal bites more than the crushing of my actual neck does, leaving no room for debate that this isn't James Buchanan Barnes.
Pressing back on his chest, I curl my fingers more. Soz Winter Soldier, but I'll be taking my new roommate back now thanks.
Strengthening the connection once again, I feel the light and warmth of his grey soul dance and lick between my fingers, said fingers curling around and over the cracks to cover them up. It would be nice if I could say something like butterfly, unicorn, corndogs, Twinkies or anything of the like to de-activate the World War II assassin.
Instead, I settle for this.
Grabbing the fist that is – oh, that's right, choking me – I hug it to my chest as tightly as I currently can with my one free hand, involuntary tears from the strength of his grip around my neck pricking the corners of my eyes. "The power of Victoria compels you!"
Le pause.
"—compels you to please stop—" cough "—choking me."
With (apparently) the right words and enough tugging at the strings of his soul, James Buchanan Barnes immediately snaps back to reality as the Winter Soldier loses his grip on the man and shatters like glass before my very eyes. His first reaction is an expression of pure, unadulterated horror, and the next, an immediate jerk back until he collides with the bed's head board as he releases my neck from what felt like an irremovable iron grip.
Coughing for several long moments, both my hands having retracted from the man as he jolted back, I tentatively touch the sore, irritable, sensitive area of my neck that received the unceremonious strangling. I don't dwell long on it, however, for some peculiar primal instinct seems to rouse within me to assure the overly horrified man that yes, I am in fact okay.
"That's uh, quite the grip you have there." I lick my upper lip anxiously, tongue momentarily brushing the little scar running over the left side of it. "Bet you could take me in an arm wrestling contest any day."
The urge to smack my stupid head on a nearby desk is suddenly overwhelming.
The battle in his eyes is evident, a battle to find the right words, a battle with himself about how he probably sees himself as a monster – you know, the typical thoughts people like him get in instances like this. When I slowly scoot closer to him, he only tries to back away more.
"I – I... I did that." Words are low, cracked, like his soul.
I point to my neck, attempting to appear nonchalant about it all. "Pfft, this? This is nothing. I had a demon almost turn my insides into my outsides once. Fun times, fun times." He only appears more mortified at it all, to which I internally facepalm at my awkward, rambling efforts.
"Look, Bucky," I more seriously try to assure, searching for the right words like a needle in a haystack. "I knew what I was signing up for when I said you could stay with me. I imagined this PTSD; nightmare stuff was going to be a part of the package. Hell, I have nightmares from things I've seen and done, and I haven't even seen or done half the stuff you have. I'm not mad, I'm not scared, I'm not kicking you out. Just... calm your farm, kay?"
Still tense, but not as tense as before. Great, this isn't going to go away with just words, isn't it?
Very gently, I reach over towards his metal limb, an act he instantly flinches away at. As if he were a skittish animal ready to bolt, I mould my tone into one of soft, reassurance. "Hey, it's okay, it's okay." I'm not the one who tried to strangle someone here, boi.
Slipping my dainty, petite fingers over the smooth, cold metal of his own, quite childishly, do I lift them up until both out hands rest palm to palm between us, my fingers furling in until they're loosely intertwined with his. Like Tarzan and Jane – booya.
The last time I saw him looked so lost, it was because I had hugged his arm in the middle of his trying to kill me – the first time. He stared in utter confusion, shock and mild wonder at the intertwined hands, as if he had never held a woman's hand before. Well, we do have cooties. Can't exactly blame him.
"Anything and anyone can be dangerous," I eventually comment, watching his azure gaze snap to me. "Doesn't mean they have to be, or that they always are."
I truly to sympathise with the man. Ever since he 'died' in the 1940s, sinners dressed as saints have done nothing but toy with him and tell him they're on his side. Unfortunately, these days, that's not just limited to HYDRA.
'Heaven, if you sent us down so we could build a playground for the sinners to play as saints, you'd be so proud of what we made.'
Bloody song. Stuck in my head now.
Staring into those tortured, tumultuous eyes, a faint smile twitches along my lips. "It's not fun trying to get back to sleep after a nightmare, especially at this time of the morning. How about I make you some tea whilst you have a shower?" Hint hint, please shower. "Purify the mind a bit. There's still a butt load of Disney movies on Netflix to watch."
Weakly, he nods his head, and not half an hour later, at 2:28 in the morning, are we sat together with tea and Chips Ahoy! chocolate chip cookies, watching none other than Disney's Alice in Wonderland.
A/N: Bit more bonding, bit more insight into Tori's past, bit more of Bucky trying to kill Tori. Fun times, as Tori so eloquently put it.
Hehe, foreshadowing was somewhere in this chapter. Have fun trying to find it and figure it out!
Song of the Chapter: Crossfire by Stephen. I actually have become obsessed with this song recently. The lyrics just hit me like woah.
Thanks for reading and that's all for now, bye! :) xxx
~ T.L