Stark's Driver ~ A Bucky Barnes Story

Chapter 11- Fallout

At a hospital Rhodes lies inside an CT-scanner. He's in a blue gown covering his body. Tony paces up to Vision, who watches Rhodes, grave faced.

"How did this happen?"
"... I became distracted."

"I didn't think that was possible."
"Neither did I."

Tony leaves Vision looking in on Rhodes. Along the corridor Tony spots the equally concerned Natasha and Talia- who had returned from dropping Peter back in Queens.
The three stand on a balcony looking towards a row of trees just outside the compound.

"The doctors say he shattered L4 through S1. Extreme laceration in the spinal cord. Probably looking at some form of paralysis."

"Oh shit Tony, I'm so sorry."
He gave her a terse nod of appreciation, "I know Nat's good at playing the double agent, just didn't realise she'd taught you so well Talia."

"Tony I told you, I'm not takin si-"
"Sides right, yeh I get it. You let them get away, you picked a side."
"It's not that black and white Tony, Steve's not gonna stop." Natasha hummed in agreement.

He scoffed, "Some employee you are," and her eyes flashed dangerously, "Apologies, boss." before Natasha snapped, "Are you incapable of letting go of your ego for one goddamn second?"

"T'Challa told Ross what you did, so . . . they're coming for you Nat, although His Majesty oddly didn't mention you Talia, guess you must've sucked up to him well with you secret Xhosa skills."
His bodyguard didn't deign to reply and Nat just uttered lowly,
"I'm still not the one that needs to watch my back." before giving Talia a short farewell hug and stalking off.

They stood in silence for a few seconds, Talia's irritation relaxing into lethal calm, and then came the perfect, professional manner that Tony hated it when she used, normally after he said something stupid about her working for him, when they were quite clearly best friends.

"So, will that be all, Mr Stark?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose, and huffed slightly, "No.
FRIDAY what have you got?"

Whatever the AI said to him made his face drop.
"What is it sir?" She enquired, sickly sweet, and he frowned at her,
"Evidence from Berlin Police, the psychiatrist killed King T'Chaka and framed it on Barnes."

She fought hard to keep the smug smile off of her face, but it didn't matter. Tony could feel the unspoken "I told you so." simmering from her in raging waves.

"Good." She finally replied firmly, "Now you know the truth." Without provoking him anymore, she turned to step into the lift, "I'll just be fixing you car now Mr Stark, is there anything else you need sir?"
She drawled mockingly, crossing her arms.

He rolled his eyes and just spoke to FRIDAY,
"Fire up the chopper."

~

Talia had spent hours fixing up all of Stark's vehicles, checking them, running them, even taking his Lamborghini out for a cheeky spin.
She even checked Steve's motorcycle, stored in the basement of the compound, cautiously touching it.
It was his favourite thing in the world.

As she started to worry, she organised all the security arrangements for Tony's calendar next month, but just couldn't take her eye off the clock.
It felt too empty around the facility, Wanda wasn't playing the guitar, Vision wasn't floating through walls annoying everyone one. Steve wasn't playing fifties music and Tony wasn't trying to drown it all out with heavy rock music at top volume.

What was taking so long? Surely Sam would've told Tony where they were going, what they were doing.
Unless Tony was being sulky about being wrong she couldn't imagine what had gone wrong. Or rather, she was imagining every possible way it could go wrong.