The Archangel (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter Twenty Five

I landed at the back door after night had fallen and many hours of flight maneuvers. My wings ached pleasantly from continuous high intensity flight training as I tenderly folded them to my back. I groaned as I pulled the door open to our room, "I hurt."

"You were gone pretty long, might have muscle soreness. Come here." I stumbled over to where he was sitting on the bed and he quickly pulled me onto his lap, my back to his front. He pressed his metal thumb into the muscles connecting my wings to my back and I sighed at the pleasure it caused. I stretched my wings out on either side of me and he moved along each of my wings, massaging into deep tissue with his metal arm.

"Oh god, that feels amazing," I groaned, immensely enjoying the massage. Ten minutes later, when Bucky had gone over both my wings quite thoroughly, I allowed myself to fall back onto the bed and sighed in contentment. Bucky joined me not long after and I buried my face in his chest, he had taken to sleeping shirtless, which I unashamedly enjoyed. "This week has been . . . a lot." I sighed.

He stroked the feathers of my wings and murmured, "it has, hasn't it?"

"I have a question for you and if you don't say anything, then I'll assume the answer is a yes," I pulled away just far enough that I could look him in the eye, "do you still have those words in your head?" When he didn't say anything, I nodded my understanding. "Then neither of us are free of their control."

"We will be." The conviction in his voice was uplifting to say the least, but it didn't quench my fears. "One day."

"When is one day? The day after one of us accidentally hurts someone? The day before?" I sighed, my fears of losing control roiling within me. "I want to be free before that happens. I don't want my first instinct to be death, you know?" I felt his head nod against mine.

"The words still float around in my head, I know I wouldn't be able to stop if someone called upon the Winter Soldier." Bucky admitted.

I asked, "how do we get free then?" I had my answer when Bucky remained silent. I sighed against his chest and curled closer around him, his arms wrapping around my body in a protective manner. Despite my restless mind, I slept peacefully in his arms.

Neither Bucky or I wanted to leave the room after we woke up that morning, wary of what the day had to hold. So we laid in silence, enjoying each other's company while a foreboding feeling loomed over us. I could just feel that today was not going to be a good day. I curled further into his body, not wanting to face whatever was giving me that foreboding feeling. I would much rather stay right where I was, laying next to the man I loved, breathing in his delicious scent, and hiding from the world in his chest.

A knock at the door sent both of us on high alert, Bucky leaned up on his elbow to glare suspiciously at it and I simply ignored it. If it was fate knocking, a simple wooden door wouldn't stand in its way. "Conference room, ten minutes." Just Steve. I couldn't tell if I was relieved or even more nervous.

Bucky relaxed back onto the bed next to me, sighing, "that gives us five minutes to do whatever you want." I couldn't help but let my mind wander to all the worst outcomes that could come from the meeting. But the one that scared me the most was also the most likely to happen, that they would send us away to different ends of the globe, agonizingly far from each other.

I buried my face in his chest and clung to his shoulders, as if a tighter grip would prevent them from splitting us up. "I don't want to be separated." I voiced, an edge to my voice that he most certainly picked up on. Consequences to my conscience be damned. I would kill whoever attempted to separate us, without question or mercy.

"I would never allow that to happen." In his voice, I heard that same edge. He tilted my chin up and pressed a soft kiss to my lips, a silent promise to each other. Whatever came next, we would do it together or not at all.

With that in mind, we went out to face the Avengers. Wearing our uniforms seemed appropriate for the occasion as it was an official Avengers meeting. We walked in and I immediately noticed the grave atmosphere in the room. Only about half of the original Avengers were present; Steve, Tony, Nat, and Clint. Bruce was probably off doing something science related and Thor was, well, nobody seemed to know where Thor was these days, on another off-world adventure somewhere.

Tony swiveled in his chair and tapped at his holographic device. Whatever he was doing somehow turned on a big screen and started playing different news clips. "Should I assume you've seen these?"

"That's enough, Tony," Nat glared, "we aren't here for that."

I found myself directing the question to Steve, "then what are we here for?"

"Unfortunately, it is a problem, we're gonna need you both to lay low for a while until the heat dies out." Steve informed, leaning heavily against the table, arms crossed over his big chest.

"Lay low?" Bucky asked incredulously, "where? Nobody would want to hide us."

Clint sighed to himself and spoke up from a corner of the room, "we contacted T'Challa, the Wakandans will let you lay low there and help keep your cover story."

Wakanda. I had heard of it from my time at Hydra but never been there. Most of the world still thought of them as a third world nation of nomadic goat herders, but the elite of Hydra had known that to not be the case. They hadn't considered it a threat because the Wakandans were so against getting involved in international affairs but had plans to conquer it in the future for the vibranium. Clearly they'd never gotten that far. The Wakandans had started to change their foreign policy as of recently due to the . . . rather abrupt change in leadership, so I could see them being a little more lenient with close friends such as the Avengers. And who knows, with their technological knowhow, they might even be able to help us.

"What is the cover story?" Bucky asked.

"You're on loan to Wakanda to deal with domestic issues that arouse from the death of T'Chaka." Clint responded.

"Besides, Wakanda has the best sunsets." Steve said.

I breathed out a deep sigh, "when do we leave?"