Flickers | Bucky Barnes

Wake Up Call

Nothing could have brought Karina down from cloud nine after Steve's news last night on top of his warm reception of Wanda aiding James recovery.

With Steve's recovery of important Hydra documents, he was dealing with the team supervising James' stasis. Since Wanda was hopefully going to be integrated into the recovery plan she was also with Steve. There was only the small voice in her head that knew James might not be too thrilled to be woken up early and having Wanda in his head. Karina decided to ignore that fact until it was time to deal with it.

Scott was still sleeping in his bed and his snoring could be heard behind the door. Natasha and Clint had stayed behind to do more spy things. Karina was slightly hurt by their abrupt absence but by Sam's cheeky grin she suspected the super elusive couple had something other than espionage on the agenda.

So that was how she found herself on the couch next to Sam playing Mario Kart on the Wii. She was playing as Koopa Troopa while Sam was Yoshi. They were on Rainbow Bridge, she vaguely wondered if she would ever meet Thor, in a close race of 1st and 2nd, she was millimeters behind Sam, when at the last second she threw a shell knocking him off the bridge that resulted in her victory. She bit her lip as she watched Sam's loud adverse reaction to her dirty move.

"I wonder where you learned this dirty tactic from." Sam muttered as he glared at the screen.

Karina snorted knowing who he was exactly referencing. She had already got the full story on why Sam had a hard time accepting defeat when it came to losing to James when his cart would be "tampered" with. He was still smarting from when James totaled his car on the freeway in Washington DC. He made it very loud and clear that he was still paying for the damages for that, but she believed it was horseshit. She believed being an Avenger paid very well.

"Have you ever thought I am just better than you," Karina drawled as she watched the animation of her turtle accept the #1 trophy in the game.

Sam threw an unamused glance, which certified him as the sore loser of the group, before he threw a pillow at her face never even giving her the chance to dodge it. It only made her erupted in hard belly laughs.

"What game do you want to play next?" He asked her as he got up to switch out the game.

"How about just Wii sports? We can play golf or I can kick your ass in bowling." She suggested with a waggle of her eyebrow while Sam rolled his eyes at her antic. Karina didn't want to brag, but she had the highest score in bowling and surprisingly with golf. Natasha came in second, but the ginger spy barely played the games. Not surprisingly Steve and Bucky were tied in boxing. Tennis was always in a state of flux between Clint and Scott who played that game more than the others. Wanda preferred Mario Kart over Wii sports, so she just watched in these tournaments.

"You're a cocky little thing."

"And you're a sassy little bird," Karina countered back.

Sam opened his mouth to retort, but he was interrupted by a loud blaring alarm that erupted through their living room and presumably the whole building. Karina jumped from her perch on the couch and had half the nerve to clamp her hands over her ears.

She heard Scott yelp in alarm from the noise. Then the whole building went dark, but as her eyes connected with Sam's dark orbs fear ran down her spine as goosebumps erupted over her body. T'Challa's palace was basically impenetrable. It was practically the safest place on her earth for all of them – for James.

With speed and grace, she didn't know she possessed, she jumped over the couch and ran towards their special elevator that would take her immediately down to James' quarters. She prayed that the thing still worked as taking the stairs would have her losing time she didn't have. In the haze of running to their exclusive elevator, her mind was questioning the basis of this invasion. She wasn't stupid. She hazily was connecting the dots that this was causality from the mission Steve and the others went to on yesterday.