T'Challa was waiting for them at the entrance of the base, the snow whipping round his frame like a curtain of white and a slumped figure hanging over his shoulder. His cat mask seemed understanding as they walked out. The three of them with heavy shoulders, weary with the knowledge of what had broken in that room. The friendships that would never be the same again. Trust, loyalty and faith had been left there on the floor and it hung over Basil and Steve like a cloak. Bucky seemed to know what they had sacrificed there and the guilt of it was readable in the grim line of his mouth and the tense set of his shoulders. 

"Zemo?" Steve greeted with a wave to the man hanging over T'Challa's shoulder. 

The black panther nodded. "I caught him outside. He thought he could just take the easy way out. I stopped him and will be taking him back to my country to face his punishment". Basil would have commented on that if his head wasn't still in a daze from the enormity of his actions. He used his powers to threaten to harm someone. That made him feel nauseous. His abilities had always been used for escape or defence, every time he harmed someone it was with his hands or a weapon. His ability only used to stay alive. He was a doctor. He never wanted to be a soldier. He never wanted this. 

T'Challa was watching them. "What are you going to do now?" 

Steve sighed deeply. Basil pressed the pads of his fingertips into his eyes in a hopes that the pressure would remove the dull bone weary exhaustion in his chest. The avengers were lost. The friends he had built in this scary modern world gone and disjointed. Henry was god knows where, probably on the run for helping them. Phillip was in a care home and with age catching up on him. The rest; Sam, Wanda, Clint were all under custody. Nat was gone and Tony hated them. The fragile semblance of normality and a life he had managed to build in London was ruined. He couldn't return to work, to his flat, to what comfort he'd had. It made a soft sound escape his throat, a sob mixing with a sigh. Then he was rubbing his eyes and lifting his head. He had been through too much to cry now. 

"We go on the run", he spoke before Steve could. 

"They will be looking for us", Bucky added. They all knew that 'they' meant everybody. 

"We will need to break the other's out", Basil nodded. "I don't trust Ross to have kept the agreement I made with Rhodes and Nat. I don't trust any government man any further than I can throw him". 

"You can't throw anyone", Bucky muttered. Basil scowled at him but the familiar jibe eased the sickness in his chest. He hadn't lost everything. He had something that he hadn't had before. 

"Anyway, this is where we part Your highness", Steve sighed. He slung his shield over his shoulder and held out a hand. The snow dotting his hair and pricking his cheeks. Basil shivered and huddled in his coat, the snow tangling in his curls. 

T'Challa glanced at the hand and the mask eyes crinkled slightly as if in a smile. (It was hard to tell through the material). "Actually Captain, Corporal, Sargent. I think we shall be spending a little more time together. In payment for my false assumptions and refusal to believe you, may I offer you refuge in my kingdom. They won't find you there. You will be safe". 

Basil and Steve exchanged wide eyes. Then the two of them glanced at Bucky. The long haired man blinked but they both knew it as an answer. Steve let out a breath of relief and a slight smile caught his lips. He held out a hand again and this time T'challa took it. "T'Challa, we would happily accept your offer". 

T'Challa nodded. "Good. Come, my plane is over here". Then he was walking through the snow towards the right. Basil glanced around but saw nothing but miles of snow and mountains. Nothing to mark a plane other than the Shield one they had arrived in. The three men trudged after the king in confusion. 

They had only made it a hundred yards before Basil stopped. "You have an invisible jet??"

-----------------------

The door opened with barely a creak, allowing golden light to spill form the room and down the darkened corridor. "Is that you Lauren? I'll go to bed when I've finished this chapter!" A old man with a mess of white curls and tanned skin called from his position sat up on his bed. The room, which would be normally softly furnished with mahogany furniture, was disturbed by the monitor set up next to the bed and the IV line trailing into the old man's hand. A big red call button was on the wall above the bedside table where a lamp was still lit. Despite these recent physical markers of his illness, Phillip still looked like himself. A few more wrinkles and lines round his eyes, a shakiness to his hands that wasn't there before. But it was still him. 

"Lord of the rings? Again? How many times have your read that now?" Basil wrinkled his nose as he slouched into the room. He was dressed nondescriptly in a pair of skinny jeans and a oversized hoodie. He pushed the hood back to expose his dark curls, green eyes glinting in the warm light, as he sat down on the end of the bed. Instantly there was a meow and a grey cat was leaping onto the covers and flicking her tail at him. 

"Jahi!" Phillip greeted in mock annoyance. He didn't notice the second person who slipped into the room, closing the door behind them with no sound. The old man was too busy huffing at his brother. "You could have chosen a better time to sneak in to visit your little brother. I was just getting to the part with the mines or Moria". 

Basil laughed as he scooped Queenie up into his arms, the cat purring loudly. "You have read that book series so many times I've lost count. Besides shouldn't you be glad to see me since I had to sneak into the country and into the building just to see you". 

"You would have done that anyway", Phillip sniffed. It turned into a chest racking cough that made him press his hand to his mouth. Basil went to move closer but stopped as Phillip got his breath back. "No it's alright". 

Basil's eyes dimmed. "You're getting worse. Oh, Phillip". His throat clogged up with everything that he was too afraid to say.  

Phillip smiled gently. "I am almost eighty six. The years are catching up on me. But no talk of that. What the heck have you been doing? I swear to fucking god Jahi!" He snatched up his worn book and smacked it on Basil's shoulder with a thwack noise. Basil laughed and moved Queenie out of his arms to the bed. She hopped down and sauntered over to the figure standing in the shadows. A pale hand reached down and she rubbed her cheek against it softly with a purr. 

"You're a fucking fugitive Jahi!" Phillip was scolding loudly. "Father and mother would be rolling in their graves if they could see this. Their son a wanted criminal". Then he paused and sighed, relaxing back into his pillows. "To be fair, knowing the record you had at public school, it would have happened sooner or later". Basil snorted and put on a dramatically wounded expression. 

"Ouch. Betrayed by my own brother. oof". The effect was ruined by the snigger escaping his lips. 

Phillip sighed but was smiling as he held out his hand. Basil took it in both of his. Smooth youthful skin of a twenty six year old with a eighty six year old's. Yet when they both looked at each other, the resemblance was there. Basil's green eyes brighter than Phillip's hazel. But they were the same shape, the same high cheekbones and curve of a jaw. It wasn't hard to imagine Basil looking like Phillip did in his old age, if they had never been inflicted to hydra's cruel experiments and this twisted fate. (That kind of life, where they could age normally and live normal lives, was a dream now. A beautiful, intangible and broken dream). 

"Really", Phillip's voice took on a more serious tone and he weakly squeezed Basil's hand. "Jahi, tell me the story. What have you been doing?"

Basil smiled. "I will. I just want to introduce someone first". Then the turned and waved a hand at the man petting Queenie in the corner. Phillip's eyes widened but to his credit, he didn't jump at the sudden realisation that they weren't alone.

 The man straightened from where he had been crouched and as he rose, he tugged the hood of his grey hoodie back. He was dressed in faded grey jeans and black trainers. The sleeve of his left arm was tucked and pinned back so that it wouldn't get in his way. The space seeming to throw his walk slightly off balance as he stepped closer, long brown hair hanging round his neck. Basil reached for him as he got closer and Phillip watched a soft warmth fill his brother's gaze. Hand settling on the man's sleeve as he took a slow seat on the bed at his side. The way he moved reminded Phillip of predators, yet also of an injured cat. It was both uncertain and deadly, like he was trying to make himself smaller and unthreatening. Basil beamed at him and the man looked back, blue eyes glinting in the light as he smiled slightly back. 

"Phillip", Basil turned back to his brother with a proud and overjoyed look in his eyes. "This is Sargent James Buchanan Barnes. Also known as the Winter Soldier. He's my blue eyes". 

Phillip took a deep breath at the information that he had the most wanted assassin alive in his bedroom, then let it out in a long sigh. "Well, I've waited long enough", he nodded at Bucky. "You will not believe how many times I pulled faces at the letters Jahi used to send me about you. I swear there was a whole page dedicated to your eyes. It was frankly sickening". 

Basil laughed and a grin creased Bucky's face at the acknowledgement and acceptance. His shoulders eased as Basil stopped giggling. "Blue eyes, really Parrish?" 

"What? They're pretty". 

"Pretty doesn't cover it according to your letters", Phillip muttered. Basil stuck his tongue out at the old man. Bucky chuckled as Phillip stuck his own right back. 

"Enough embarrassing me", Basil waved his hands. Queenie leapt back onto the bed and tucked her paws under her at Bucky's side, purring contentedly. "Let me tell you the whole story". Phillip leaned back onto his pillows as his brother began talking. The events of the last few weeks taking shape. 

unedited 

Phillip finally met blue eyes! Basil finally introduced Bucky to his family! Who's sobbing?