Wakanda

Spring 2016

It was clear almost immediately that the cavernous chamber T'Challa led them to was different. It was clearly still a lab, but it was beyond any of the already impressive research labs they had so far passed on their journey deeper into the facility.

Though darker by sheer virtue of the room's size—a large natural cavern within the mountain, if Nadine were to guess, based on the vast expanse of mine out beyond the large bank of windows on the far side of the room—it was still welcoming and bright, much like the rest of the facility. Upon entering the lab, they were crossing a large walkway to a large, curious but beautiful structure that dominated the centre of the room that immediately brought a double helix to mind for Nadine, with each twist supporting a niche set aside of purposes Nadine couldn't even guess at without further investigation. Massive screens and projections lined the walls of the cavern, displaying so much information even Nadine couldn't even start processing it all. Though, if her daughter's wide-eyed fascination—and comprehension if the way her blue-grey gaze was eagerly and purposefully darting across the screens was anything to go by—Nina had at least some idea of what the complex formulas, algorithms and schematics displayed meant. A renewed flash of pride swelled in Nadine's chest.

As they circled down the clockwise walkway of the curving central structure, bringing more of the lab into view, Nina was soon all but vibrating with curious excitement.

"Mr Stark would die if he could see this place," she muttered to herself in astonishment as they reached the ground level of the chamber, earning a grin from Nadine that she couldn't quite manage to conceal, "Energy disbursement, nano-tech? He's been poking into nano-tech for months. He'd be in heaven!" Next to her, Steve chuckled.

But before either of them could comment, T'Challa was calling out in Xhosa—a language Nadine was absently noting that she might do well to learn—to the handful of scientists gathered on the far side of the room. And at a gesture, most of them were efficiently filing from the room, save for one who was instead heading purposefully, almost eagerly, in their direction.

One dressed in a graphic tee and skirt that immediately had Nadine frowning as she all but skipped over to them across the dark floor with its bold white bars of light and crisp inlays.

She was a...child.

"This is my little sister, Shuri," T'Challa said with a fond grin, tucking the suddenly squirming, willowy girl with his eyes against his side as she came to stand next to him, "the Princess of Wakanda, the head of our research and development group and our country's brightest mind, and this—" he gestured to the other woman who had joined them out in the corridor; the imposing, stoic woman outfitted with striking golden chokers and armbands and a wicked spear, "is Okoye, the General of the Dora Milaje and the head of Wakanda's armed forces and intelligence division." Nadine considered the commanding woman even as Okoye's sharp, dark eyes assessed her right back.

T'Challa turned back to them then, a slight smile on his face. "And this is Captain Steve Rogers." Steve inclined his head slightly at the introduction as T'Challa looked next to Nadine and Nina. "Madame Nadine Ryker and her daughter Nina and," he hesitated then, but only for the barest of instants as he turned to Barnes, his eyes growing faintly grave, "Sergeant James Barnes."

The effect was immediate. At once Okoye's eyes widened and she and her two silver-adorned companions stepped forward in perfect sync, their spears held ready across their bodies, intent and visibly angry.

Instinctively Nadine stepped forward, her face coolly blank as she angled herself before Barnes and Nina, her own frame loosening in preparation, leaving her nearly toe-to-toe with the intimidating general. The Wakandan woman's lip curled disdainfully.

"You will move," Okoye said lowly, "this is the man who killed our king. He will face justice." Nadine didn't flinch, nor did she answer. She just met Okoye's stony stare with a cold, impassive one of her own.

Only for a shimmering, hazy barrier to materialize between them, enclosing the members of their team away from T'Challa and his clearly hostile bodyguards.

"Try it," Nina said coolly, as she pushed in front of Barnes to stand next to Nadine, her eyes shards of pale blue steel. "You will not hurt my dad." Nadine could barely breathe for the pride and fear simultaneously swelling in her chest.

But she didn't falter, not even to look to her fierce daughter. Not with the narrow-eyed way the Wakandan general was eying the three of them.

"That is not necessary, General," T'Challa broke in quickly, a quiet authority to his voice as he too stepped forward to stand between his entourage and Nadine and Nina. Okoye scowled but, breaking her stare with Nadine as she glanced to her new king, fell back, her two subordinates wordlessly following suit. Out of the corner of her eye, Nadine could see Steve laying a reassuring hand on Nina's shoulder, gently pulling her back toward him and Barnes.

It was nearly enough to break her focus when she noticed Nina edging closer to Barnes. And when he unconsciously leaned toward her in return.

T'Challa spared their little party an apologetic glance before looking to his fuming general and angrily bewildered sister.

"This man was framed," he explained soberly, gesturing loosely to Barnes, "he was as much a victim in this as my father. The man truly responsible has been caught and will face justice for his crimes. I made sure of it myself. Once the United Nations is done with him, I have arranged for his extradition to Wakanda, just as I had intended to do with Sergeant Barnes." Mollified, though still not entirely pleased, Okoye backed down further, her frame relaxing back to readiness even if her sharp gaze didn't ease. But Princess Shuri frowned.

"But why are they here, then" she asked, eying Barnes and the rest of them warily. There was no missing the keen intelligence in her eyes as she looked between them and her brother, and Nadine suddenly didn't doubt T'Challa's assertion that, for all that she was Nina's age, if not a year or two younger, she was Wakanda's brightest mind; she recognized the same spark of genius she'd seen in Stark, Banner and even her own daughter. T'Challa spared her a reassuring smile, his features still serious.

"In reparation for my attempts on his life, I have offered protection and our help in undoing what has been done to his mind." He grinned impishly at his sister, then. "Are you up to the challenge?" Shuri scoffed, a smug smile appearing on her face.

"I am always up to the challenge, brother," she dismissed confidently. "I will find a way, no problem." Nadine couldn't help the incredulous grin that tugged at her lips at the girl's cheerful certainty. Even Okoye's stony features softened fondly she looked to her princess. But then Shuri turned thoughtful as she looked to Steve, Nadine and Nina. "But what of the others? Why are they here?" she asked, looking to her brother. T'Challa smiled indulgently at her bluntness.

"They are welcome to our protection as well," T'Challa explained patiently. "Not only are they are Sergeant Barnes' friends—and family, apparently," he added with a wry glance to a still tense Nina where she stood next to her father, "but I owe them a debt as well for showing me my error. They have earned my respect," he added with the nod first to Nadine then to Steve.

"Your highness," Steve replied softly in acknowledgement of the praise. Nadine merely returned the slight nod, still uneasy as she was. T'Challa bit back a chuckle as he took in her wary stance.

"You can be at ease, Mm. Ryker," he assured her. "You are all safe here." Inhaling slowly, Nadine forced herself stand down, though she still eyed the general and her two fellow Dora Milaje warily. Okoye met her assessing glance with one of her own, raising brow in challenge. Nadine nearly scowled.

But she allowed herself to be pulled away as Nina's slim, trembling hand slipped into hers. Turning to her daughter, Nadine couldn't help but smile proudly, cupping her daughter's cheek—pale as it was from shock as she registered what she'd done, effectively threatening Wakanda's General—in a gesture of wordless pride. Tentatively, Nina's lip tugged at the corner, and slowly colour started returning to her cheeks as she looked between Nadine and Steve as he gently squeezed her shoulder in encouragement, before finally looking to Barnes.

Only to frown then at the faintly awed, incredulous way he was looking at her. "What?"

"You called me 'Dad'," he murmured roughly, sounding almost dazed. And Nadine's breath caught, her eyes briefly sliding shut against the unexpected surge of emotion that came from those few small words; she'd barely noticed, focused as she had been on the threat Okoye and her warriors had posed and Nina's sudden, protective presence at her side. Nina's cheeks pinked as she fidgeted nervously at the way he was looking at her.

"Is that okay?" she asked in a small, tentative voice. Barnes looked overwhelmed, his vibrant eyes bright as he swallowed thickly.

"Yeah," he said after a long moment, his voice thick with emotion as he reached up to trail his fingers tenderly against her cheek. "I...I'd like that, sunshine."

Nadine swallowed against the lump forming in her throat, inhaling a shaking breath as she caught Steve's eye. He smiled gently, brushing his hand against hers.

He knew what it meant to her.

That hearing Nina call Barnes 'dad' meant almost as much to Nadine as it clearly did to Barnes.

"Well," Shuri broke in then with an eager impatience that matched the intrigued light in her dark eyes as she studied Barnes, reminding them all that they weren't alone, "c'mon, then. Might as well get started."

"Shouldn't he see a doctor first," Nina objected with a sharp frown, looking between her father and the Wakandan princess as Shuri gave Barnes a pointed look when he didn't immediately obey her implied instruction to follow her. But the younger girl dismissed the concern with a decidedly smug grin.

"Don't need one with my tech," she said, gesturing to the ground level hollow within the boldly decorated curving structure they had used to enter the lab. "I can diagnose and fix anything serious, no problem." Glancing warily to Steve, his jaw tense, Barnes nevertheless stepped forward, his lips quirking faintly as he spared Nina a glance of his own, his hand brushing against her arm in a small attempt at reassurance before gingerly shrugging out of his jacket with Steve's assistance. Handing it to Nina, he followed Shuri toward the curving structure, now obviously so much more than a piece of eye-catching architecture, the rest of them trailing behind.

As he stepped into the hollow—starting as the hexagonal pattern on the walls seemed to flip and fade, projecting a variety of readings, from his vitals to a breakdown on the remnants of his metal arm—Shuri was stepping back into the bright area guiding what reminded Nadine vaguely of a gurney before her.

If gurneys floated at waist height without visible support, that was.

"Well," the girl said with an eager gesture and an indulgent grin as Nadine and the rest edged closer at T'Challa's encouragement to file in around the foot of the gurney, "hop on." Inhaling deeply, his lips pursing faintly as he considered the unknown technology, he stepped forward and settled himself tentatively onto the platform-like rig, his nose wrinkling slightly at Shuri's impatient gesture to lay back.

As soon as he did, tiles similar to those covering the walls of the hollow began to flip and project smaller, more muted displays of their own while the readings on the wall behind Barnes' head shifted and expanded, growing more detailed.

Humming thoughtfully, Shuri peered up at the readings, glancing down periodically to Barnes or the readings on the head of the platform or manipulating the readings shown with idle gestures. But the longer she worked, the more serious the cheerful girl grew, a faint frown developing between her brows. Nadine had to fight from shifting anxiously as the silence dragged on, broken only by the sounds of Shuri's soft, succinct questions to Barnes about what had been done to him and his murmured answers and the gentle hum of her technology as it flashed and shifted almost manically from the speed its operator was working. It was hard not knowing—or understanding, as it were—what it was the Wakandan princess was seeing. Nina was not so fortunate, fidgeting as she hugged Barnes' jacket, her eyes darting across the projections with a faint, frustrated light in her eyes as she frowned at the Wakandan characters without comprehension. But then, even T'Challa with his advantage of being able to read the text displaying at his sister's commands, didn't seem to entirely follow Shuri's quick jumps from reading to reading.

"Can you help him?" Nina finally broke in, her tense frown turning to Shuri. Shuri glanced up from the readings flipping and materializing to the right of Barnes' head, her lips pursed in thought. A small quirk of a smile flashed across her features as she waved off Nina's concern.

"Oh, this is just preliminary," she murmured, a curious mix of gravity and eagerness in her voice as she returned the bulk of her attention back to her perusal of a newly compiled set of readings. "But yes. I should think so. It'll just take time." She sighed then, and with a gesture the readings slowed and stabilized back to roughly the same readings that had been displayed when Barnes had first settled onto the platform.

"What have you determined, sister," T'Challa asked first, before Nina or Steve could do more than open their mouths. Shuri's lips thinned again, her mind working as blazing speeds behind her eyes as she gestured that Barnes was free to sit up.

"Physically, the damage is minimal at this point, given the healing he's already done naturally. It's mostly minor ones left, the bulk of his body's energy having gone to healing the more serious injuries first. I can finish healing what's left no problem," she offered cheerfully. But then her gaze grew serious as she looked to T'Challa. "The damage done to his mind, however, is another matter. It will be much harder to fix, brother," she said soberly.

"From what I can tell, this HYDRA programming will have been embedded deep into his conscious and subconscious mind. It will not just simply be a matter of finding and 'deleting' it. It's far more complex than that; it has been interwoven with the very fabric of who he is, integrating not just with the parts of his brain that control his physical actions but his memories as well." she explained, her eyes grave and troubled. On the gurney, Barnes tensed, his jaw clenching as his head dropped forward, unable to meet Nadine's eye or Steve's or especially Nina's. Shuri glanced to him, sympathy clear on her face as she explained further, "our bio-scanners down on the medical research level should be sophisticated enough for me to map his brain and his mental processes. But I will first have to...'reverse engineer,' so to speak, what exactly was done and how before I can start working on an effective means to deprogram him—" Nadine looked sharply to Barnes at that, the two of them sharing a loaded look that ended with Barnes' gaze flicking to the jacket Nina was hugging to her chest even as Shuri continued "—without damaging the core of who he is, but it will take time."

"Nina," Nadine murmured with an absent gesture toward the jacket, even as Steve was asking gravely: 'but you can do it?" As Shuri nodded distractedly, her sharp eyes having zeroed in on Nadine's movement, Nina was frowning in bewilderment, looking between her parents with question clear in her eyes. But she nevertheless handed the garment over without argument.

From which Nadine withdrew a slim, red-leather book with an embossed black star on the cover that echoed the one that had been emblazoned on Barnes' metal shoulder.

Shuri's brows pinched together in thoughtful curiosity as Nadine held the book out to her, studying the blonde assassin for a moment before she turned to the book in her hands.

"What is this?" she asked idly as she began to flip through the pages, eyes skimming its contents with little comprehension. Apparently the Princess couldn't read Russian, Nadine noted.

"An instruction manual," Barnes answered bitterly. Shuri looked sharply up to Barnes, her dark eyes piercing and troubled. Her lips pursing once more, she slipped around the head of the platform and stepped down from the hollow, disappearing from sight as she circled around the structure. A moment later she reappeared, the book no longer in hand, but instead appearing to hold a rendering projection of it above her outstretched hand, the Cyrillic script translating before their eyes into Wakandan symbols. Intrigued, Nina started to edge forward, but held herself back.

Nadine knew the instant Shuri began to comprehend precisely what she had been given, her lips twisting into a troubled grimace even as her eyes began to sharpen in rapid contemplation.

"Will it help?" Nadine finally asked softly. Shuri didn't even look up as she resumed her place near the head of the hovering gurney.

"Yes..." she offered distractedly after a moment, looking briefly up to the readings displayed on the wall of the hollow once more before resuming her perusal of the book's contents. "...yes, I believe it will," she confirmed with more conviction as she looked up to Nadine and the rest, the projection of the Red Book seeming to disintegrate into sand as her hand dropped. She spared Barnes and her brother each a reserved look then. "I will still have to develop a means to get in there and clear it out without damaging what makes him who he is, but having this book will speed up the process of determining exactly what was done in the first place immensely." Nadine let out a deep, slow exhale of relief.

"B.A.R.F.," Nina blurted out then. Blinking in bewilderment over her daughter's utterly unrelated and bizarre comment, Nadine looked to Nina, immediately recognizing a kindred thoughtful glimmer in her eyes as had appeared in Shuri's moments before. Not unrelated?

"I'm sorry?" Shuri asked, her eyes wide and desperately trying to keep herself from snickering at the seemingly random outburst. A faint, self-conscious flush began to pink Nina's cheeks at suddenly being the centre of attention, but she pushed forward with a small shake of her head, the light in her eyes intensifying the more she considered whatever the thought was that had struck her.

"Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing," she elaborated, looking between Nadine and Shuri, "or using that horrible acronym, B.A.R.F.—it's one of Mr Stark's projects. He debuted it at MIT last month and I helped him with some of the base interfacing algorithms. The way he explained it is that it taps into and even takes over the hippocampus as a way to interact with memories." Nina paused, her brow furrowing with concentration, unconsciously wetting her lips as she organized her thoughts. "He intended its use to help analyse, work through and process traumatic memories, but—"

"—it could work for our purposes with some adjustment, allowing us to isolate and ultimately neutralize the trigger words and their programmed responses within Sergeant Barnes' brain without altering or losing the original memories they're tied to." Shuri took over thoughtfully, her voice growing more excited as she looked to Nina with a new gleam of intrigue and respect. Nina nodded in confirmation, smiling just as eagerly. The Wakandan princess grinned almost wickedly at her older brother. "I suppose I need to get my hands on this program of Tony Stark's," she mused aloud, earning herself an exasperated pursing of T'Challa's lips as he fixed her with an admonishing look before giving an exaggerated sigh.

"Don't get caught," he warned, though a decidedly proud look crinkled the corners of his eyes. Shuri just sniggered, waving off his concern with a smug quirk of her lips as she turned back to her machine, bringing up her holographic rendering of the Red Book again as she looked to the scans displayed on the wall with a far less troubled look —if still somewhat grave, given the material she was referencing—than before.

It gave them all hope. On the platform-like rig, Barnes had straightened, minutely, some of the tension in his shoulders easing as he watched Shuri work with thoughtful, guarded eyes, while next to Nadine, Nina was similarly watching the Wakandan girl work with undisguised curiosity. Steve, meanwhile, was exchanging a guarded look with T'Challa, to which the new king was responding "I trust her with my life, Captain. She may be young, but my sister will take every precaution. There is no one better who can undo what has been done to your friend," in a low murmur that barely carried to Nadine where she stood on Steve's other side. His jaw tightening, Steve could only nod, his concerns visibly put at ease with the reassurance given the way his frame seemed to loosen, his gaze falling to his crossed arms.

But looking on as Shuri flitted around Barnes, Nadine couldn't quite bring herself to relax the way Steve or even Barnes was.

Barnes was finally getting the help he deserved, but... She didn't look up as Steve shifted closer, his arms unfolding to rest a hand on the small of her back. Unconsciously, she leaned into the touch.

"What is it?" he asked softly. She took in a long slow breath, shaking her head.

"It's nothing," she murmured. She could almost feel the skeptical look he was giving her.

"No, it's not. Something is bothering you," he pressed gently. "You can tell me, Nadine. You don't have to hide it." She exhaled slowly, the sound nearly a sigh as the desire to tell him suddenly warred with her uncertainty.

"I can't help feeling I failed," she said softly. Not soft enough, though, for not only did Steve look to her in bewilderment, but so did Nina on her other side, as did T'Challa and even his General on the Wakandan king's left. Nadine's jaw tightened, straightening as her masks threatened once more to snap into place.

But Steve's hand on her back soothed her, easing the aching, tremoring feeling in her chest even if only slightly.

"You didn't fail, Nadine," Steve countered gently. "Nina's safe, Bucky's safe and he's getting the help he needs. That's what you've been fighting for, isn't it?" She tried to smile in agreement, but a dismayed expression still attempted to rise to her face instead, leaving the expression as little more than a tight grimace.

"Didn't I?" she asked looking up to him. The sympathy on his face nearly hurt. "Steve, I swore to find him and to help him the same way he helped me. I didn't do either." She held up a weary hand as he began to object. "No, none of this was me. I wasn't the one to find him, the JCTTF did, and this?" She gestured around the Wakandan princess' lab. "I could never have offered this."

"But he is getting help," Steve maintained, "You did whatever you could to make sure that happened. You can't deny you were, at most minutes, behind the JCTTF in locating him—you're the one who confirmed their tip was legitimate, allowing us to get there first, Nadine."

"And you helped keep him alive long enough for us to help him," T'Challa broke in. "In Germany you stood against me and my misguided desire to kill him, risking your own life to do so. That is no small thing." Nadine met T'Challa's eye, taking in the sincere respect she saw there. She sighed.

"And the book," Shuri piped up, simultaneously chipper and disgusted, as she gestured to the hologram hovering above her left hand, "this horrible book. It will help a great deal. Thanks to it, I know exactly what I am dealing with and what I have to fix."

Next to her, Nina leaned into Nadine's side, curling her arm around Nadine's to take and squeeze her hand, smiling up to Nadine in silent reassurance. Unable to help herself, Nadine extricated her arm to wrap it around her daughter instead, placing a grateful kiss against her temple.

But it was Barnes' silent, earnest look of agreement, his vibrant blue-grey eyes fixed levelly on her that had a lump forming in her throat.

Mutely, she nodded, accepting the credit even if she still wasn't convinced she deserved it.

Satisfied that their point had been made, Steve's arm curled around her, tucking her against his side. After a moment's hesitation she relaxed against him, grateful for the comfort. At least until his hand settled above the dull ache still lingering in her side. She wasn't quite quick enough to keep from inhaling sharply, tensing for a split-second as the ache flared at the light pressure. Steve looked down to her, frowning before realization set in.

"You're hurt," he said. She brushed it off with an impatient sound.

"I'm fine, Steve. It's nothing." He was unmoved by her assertion.

"It's not nothing if you're reacting the way you just did to a simple touch." A warm glow spread through her at the concern plain in his voice. She softened.

"I'm just tired, Steve," she repeated softly, "they're just aches—" only to inhale sharply once again he tightened his hold minutely, her jaw tensing against the flare of pain. She shot him a narrow-eyed glare. But she didn't get a chance to admonish him.

"C'mon." And before Nadine could react, a slim but strong hand had closed around her wrist and Shuri was dragging a startled Nadine from Steve's side. Nadine shot both Steve and T'Challa a demanding look even as Shuri pushed her into position next to the opposite wall of the hollow, seemingly minimizing Barnes' readings with a gesture to make way for a new set of readings to appear as her technology turned its focus to the blonde assassin.

And unable to help herself, Nadine leveled the girl with a cool, impassive look that clearly said to desist...one that Shuri just grinned mischievously in response to. A look that was then redirected to her own snickering daughter where she had edged forward to stand next to Barnes in order to better see what Shuri was up to. Nina, familiar with the look, wisely took the hint, though her bemused expression didn't fade completely. Neither did the similarly amused and indulgent looks on the faces of the three men in the room. Even Okoye looked entertained. Nadine scoffed.

"Shouldn't you be focusing on Barnes," she pointed out, exasperation bleeding into her tone. Shuri just waved it off.

"I have what I need from him for now—your brain scans, the book, all that," she said with a look to Barnes and an absent gesture that said he was free to climb down—an instruction his was happy to comply with, skirting the platform to Nina's side. "I need to analyse it all properly before I can get started on developing an effective means for deprogramming. And get my hands on that program of Stark's," she added with a mischievous grin to her brother that had T'Challa darting his eyes to the heavens with a poorly suppressed, long-suffering sigh. "So I'm free for the moment," she said with a cheeky grin to Nadine. "Now, let's see what injuries I need to fix." Nadine bit back a groan of frustration.

"It's nothing," she maintained, glaring at Shuri and Steve in turn, "a few sore ribs, maybe one bruised at most. Cat-Man over here did throw me into a truck, after all," she grumbled with faint jerking nod toward T'Challa. Steve chuckled while T'Challa looked both amused and abashed. Shuri let out and indignant huff.

"One bruised rib? Try two and one cracked," Shuri declared with a scathing look at her brother, "and what looks like a healing concussion among other injuries," she added, turning her surprisingly formidable stare to Nadine. Nadine just raised a questioning brow at the girl. Shuri was unaffected. "Why would you fight injured like this?" Shuri demanded, her eyes wide and incredulous beneath her pinched brows.

"Well I wasn't injured going into the fight, so we can probably blame your brother for most of it," Nadine pointed out dryly, "either that or Barnes and his window bit in Berlin." A huff of amusement came from the super-soldier in question, a ghost of a grin on his face as he met Nadine's eye. She tilted her head in a subtle, unconcerned gesture, reaffirming that there were no hard feelings. T'Challa shrugged as a sister shot him a questioning glare.

"She challenged me, so I fought back," he said with a wry grin. Nadine's brow rose in challenge, echoing his sister's questioning look.

"So knocking someone out from behind is fighting back?" Nadine asked mildly. Abashed, T'Challa still grinned, ceding her point with a slight nod.

"Not my finest moment, but you were in my way," he admitted somewhat apologetically. Shuri pursed her lips and shot her brother another disapproving glare. T'Challa smiled impishly at his little sister then. "And if she had been a real enemy? You would be asking why I went so easy on her, little sister. So do not look at me like that," he chided with a laugh in his voice. Shuri sniffed.

But she just hummed and turned back to her diagnostics. "Well, at least they are all mostly...healed..." The Wakandan princess trailed off, suddenly thoughtful. A perplexed, calculating light glinted in her eyes she looked sharply to Nadine, "the timeline doesn't match... How quickly do you heal?"

Before Nadine could react much less answer, Shuri had snatched up a nearby tool and incised a shallow inch-long cut on Nadine's forearm.

At once Nadine's own reluctantly bemused expression was instinctively replaced with an icy blank one, her frame tensing. And instantly everyone else in the room straightened with varying degrees of alarm. Shuri just blinked as she realized Nadine hadn't reacted to the sting of the cut—her arm hadn't even twitched—only for exasperation to flash across her face as she noticed just how tense the room had gotten.

"Shuri," T'Challa warned sharply, not looking away from Nadine for a second even as he scolded his sister. Shuri's nose wrinkled petulantly.

"Don't worry," she dismissed with an absent wave as she looked back to her bio-scanner's readings, "I'm going to fix it." Startled from her instinctive reaction by how utterly unconcerned the girl was, Nadine turned in incredulous look to the others. Steve, Barnes and Nina all looked equally stunned. T'Challa, on the other hand, looked about ready to groan in aggravation at his sister's antics.

Okoye just looked amused.

"Well, that does explain that," Shuri declared cheerfully. Nadine looked down in time to see the teen using another piece of her remarkable tech to close up the cut. And a few more efficient gestures and a peculiar hot, tugging sensation deep in the muscle along her ribs and an uncomfortable but brief warm, swollen feeling inside her skull later, the lingering ache in Nadine's side had also faded and Shuri was informing her that her ribs and concussion had been healed properly.

"Your healing factor is most definitely accelerated," Shuri declared conclusively, "and it explains some of the anomalies on your bio-scans; you've been genetically altered much as Sergeant Barnes has—but much more subtly, which is why I almost missed it." Nadine nearly rolled her eyes.

"I could've told you that," she said dryly, earning a few soft, nervous chuckles as the remaining tension lingering in the hollow faded, "now why don't you go poke at Steve—he's far more genetically Enhanced than I am and his healing factor is even faster than mine. Or even Barnes, once his system isn't so overloaded, of course..." She trailed off then as she noticed the way Shuri's face had grown distressed.

Following the girl's gaze to the bio-scanner's newest readings as they appeared on the wall next to them, Nadine frowned. Some sort of list was compiling, growing longer with each passing moment. Though Nadine couldn't read Wakandan, she had a sinking feeling she knew what it was listing.

Especially given the way Shuri's slender fingers were now tracing over the barely perceptible handcuff scars on Nadine's wrist.

She looked to T'Challa, her face once more going blank as her defensive mask dropped reflexively into place at his reaction. The Wakandan king's face had grown serious, his expression hardening. Even Okoye looked troubled as her keen eyes skimmed the list, though a glint of consideration appeared in her gaze as it flicked to Nadine. Yes, it was listing exactly what Nadine suspected.

A list of every injury she had ever sustained that Shuri's sophisticated bio-scanners could detect the merest trace of from her body even years later.

There were a lot.

Steve was frowning beside T'Challa, looking warily between the king and Nadine. Next to Nina, Barnes straightened, his concern apparent at the abrupt shift in the room's atmosphere as his gaze grew guarded. When Shuri looked back to Nadine, her eyes were suspiciously bright.

"Most...most are from when you were a child," she murmured, "up until you were around eighteen years old...when...when you had a baby..." and after the Treatments had taken hold, Nadine amended silently. She hated to think how much longer the list would've been had she not undergone the Treatments...if she'd survived the Red Room at all, of course. She inhaled slowly, enforcing her carefully impassive expression. Understanding crossed both Steve and Barnes' faces, both their expressions hardening as they exchanged a loaded look. Nina, on the other hand, looked ill.

"Where did this happen," T'Challa asked, his voice soft and dangerous as it broke the tense silence that followed the results of Shuri's scans.

"The place where I was trained," Nadine answered emotionlessly. And after a long moment, she nodded towards Barnes, "the place where I met him...and the place he help me escape from." A renewed respect appeared in the Wakandan king's eyes as he glanced to Barnes. Barnes just lowered his head, his jaw clenching, his reaction making it clear that he felt undeserving of the credit.

Next to her, Shuri made a soft sound in the back of her throat, still looking to the marks on Nadine's wrist.

"They handcuffed you," she said softly in revelation, a quaver in her voice as she looked up to Nadine as she finally placed what made the marks, "frequently, over the course of years. Enough to cause lingering evidence down...down to the bone."

Nadine swallowed back a sigh, tugging her arm free from Shuri's gentle fingers and replacing them with her own, her fingertips tracing over the faint scarring encircling her wrist. "Until about twelve or so, depending on different factors—usually the success of our first real mission—every girl in the program was handcuffed to her bed every night," she explained, her voice stilted as she forced the words out. But it felt necessary to do so, the weight of everyone's grim curiosity pressing in on her; she knew she wasn't about to get out of explaining, so she'd decided to get it over with. "It...it was a hard habit to break once we were permitted to sleep without them. Some never managed...and counterintuitive as it might seem, some didn't want to...and they were usually the ones to watch out for."

"You managed?" She looked up to Barnes at the grim question.

"First chance I got, they were gone," she answered impassively, "though it took a long time before I lost the sense of...security that came from the practice." She looked down to her wrist, tugging briskly on her sleeve, covering the paler, banded skin. "But I'll never lose the scars. Not even the Treatments did more than cause them to fade. Some scars simply go too deep." Barnes straightened, understanding flickering in his grave eyes as his flesh hand clenched.

"What kind of place would do this to children?" Okoye said venomously then, her dark eyes flashing in outrage as she looked between Nadine and her king. "What kind of parents would agree to it!" Nadine met the general's eye, her expression emotionless and cool.

"Dead ones." Okoye's jaw tensed at Nadine's blunt answer before giving a short nod of apology.

"To what purpose?" Shuri demanded, utterly horrified. T'Challa stepped forward, laying a gentle hand on his little sister's shoulder. But as Nadine looked to the younger woman, Shuri's expressive eyes betrayed that she already suspected the answer.

"To create the world's deadliest and most effective operatives," Nadine offered with a resigned sigh, her voice hardening. "To build spies and assassins who would complete their missions without hesitation or mercy...or remorse."

"Not completely without remorse," Steve offered softly, levelly meeting Nadine's eye, "in that, they didn't succeed with you. Or with Natasha." A lump tried to form in her throat at his certainty. They'd already had this discussion. But she couldn't hold his gaze.

"They may as well have," she murmured bitterly before she could help herself. Steve sighed heavily.

"Nadine," he objected softly, frustration threading the compassion and sorrow in his voice. Nadine swallowed back a sigh, her arms crossing over her chest as she straightened. But she couldn't bring herself to lift her eyes from their sightless study of her jacket sleeve.

"I killed for the first time when I was eight years old." Her voice and expression alike grew distant as guilt and shame began to swell, tight and knotted and quivering, in her chest—a sensation made all the worse by how...detached the remorse she felt along with it seemed. "Her name was Talia. She was my groupmate...I'd known her for as long as I could remember. Yet I didn't hesitate to snap her neck. By then I had learned that to hesitate was to die." She looked up to Barnes then, taking in his guarded features and the grave empathy she saw written in his blue-grey eyes.

He didn't have to say a word. She knew he understood that she was condemned to carry the weight of the horrible acts she'd committed for the rest of her life.

Just as he would.

And bewilderingly enough, it helped lessen the aching press of guilt and self-reproach beneath her breastbone. It lessened enough that she was finally able to look to Steve, bracing herself for his reaction to so bluntly illustrating what the Red Room had done to corrupt her.

And she was suddenly swallowing back the first scratching itch of a sob that tried to form in her chest at the pure heartache that mingled with the shock and horrified realization she saw dawning in his eyes. Slowly, she nodded, knowing where his thoughts had turned from the way Steve's jaw tensed, his gaze growing hard; the same look he'd gotten almost a year before when she'd told him she'd killed Madame B. "You were wondering at the significance of how I killed my training mistress?" she said softly. Steve's eyes widened as her usually expertly hidden Russian accent broke through. But Nadine didn't care, her voice, though still quiet, hardened just as she felt her expression had. "I snapped her neck because that was her favourite way to have us kill each other in that place."

"I'm sorry," Steve offered softly, and Nadine couldn't help the way her lip tugged in a small smile at the remorse in his voice. She inhaled a deep bracing breath, turning to look at the compiled list projected on the hexagonally patterned wall behind her.

"It's in the past now," she said simply. "I've made my peace." She turned back to Steve with a weak, wry grin then, sparing Barnes a similar glance. "Though, we've already gone over this. Perhaps we can leave it be, now?" There was a faint tension to her voice that Steve recognized if the subtle way his lips thinned were any indication. Just as she was sure he recognized the subtle plea she hadn't entirely intended. But Barnes huffed out a small, humourless chuckle.

"Family's really not that good at leaving such things well enough alone, Rykova," he quipped back just as dryly, fixing her with a faint look of wry commiseration. And despite herself, Nadine let out a soft chuckle of her own.

"You're not wrong."

A/N: Because I like to give credit where credit is due: Parts of Shuri's assessment of Bucky adapted from the Infinity Wars prelude comic.

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