It's not what it seems

5

It's our choices that show what we truly are far more than our abilities. This is a quote from Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts during Harry's first, second, third, fourth, partly fifth and sixth year. It felt fitting to my life. I became the person I am because of the choices I made, my abilities had no to little say in it, neither did the choices of others. Steve wrote this quote on a board in the cafeteria of the Avengers base. He thought it could help us if we went through some dark times, and I have to say it worked, for me at least. A little less for Tony, his choices weren't always the best, but his ego was big enough and could do with a little less. It worked really well for Bucky too, I sometimes found him there, just staring at the board. I can imagine why it worked for him, after the brainwashing and all. He never wanted to be what he was, and he never had a choice, now he did, and we was planning to make his life better. I even saw him smiling occasionally while he was staring at it.

In the meanwhile, Steve and I were still training according to my schedule. Steve slowly pushed me, he was a little soft on me in the beginning, but now he was getting hard on me. I was a little unfair actually, him being a super soldier and me being a normal human. Bucky trained with us too, sometimes on my side, sometimes on Rogers' side. We kept this schedule up for several weeks, until a very unexpected guest interrupted one of our training sessions.

The guest was Fury, and he said he had a mission for us. We assembled the Avengers in the cafeteria where we listened to Fury. "I know you guys barely escaped from Hydra three months ago, but I need you to go back," he said. "You're crazy," was Tony's immediate answer. "I know you think I am, but T'Challa is still in the hands of Hydra, Wakanda is leaderless and it won't take long before Hydra takes over the country, which would give them access to an army. We can't let that happen. "Why don't you send anyone else, you've got nothing to say about us anymore." "Because nobody but you can do this." He had a point, and Tony knew it. "Listen, S.H.I.E.L.D. might not exist anymore, but you do, and I know I've got nothing to say about you anymore, but Hydra is a threat and the world needs your protection against it." We all looked at him in silence, until finally Wanda said what, I suppose, most of us were thinking, "How much I hate to admit it, he's right." "Oh come on, an army could stop them just as easily as we can," Tony brought in. "No they can't," Steve said, "They're a lot stronger than an army, they've had much more training and their weapons are more advanced." "They also have the KGB on their side, remember?" Tony sighed, "I know, it's just... I don't think we have the manpower to take them down." "No you don't," Nick said, "not alone." "You mean we need help?" "Yes, that's what I mean." "And where do you suggest we'd go for help?" "I still got some old S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, real S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, under speed dial." We looked at him in surprise. "Well, that changes everything," Tony said.

We prepared ourselves to leave for Wakanda, we'd take one of the repaired helicarriers to take us and a whole lot of ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents there. The flight didn't take too long, but we got really bored on the way. So we decided to play some games. Clint came up with a weird game of finishing each other's sentences. This was a little bit funny at first, but it quickly became boring. So we all became very social, on social media.

We landed in Wakanda about a day later, the helicarriers aren't very fast. We landed somewhere on a river. There we got our orders. The Avnegers had to infiltrate the Hydra bas, while the ex-agents surrounded it. We had to look for the leader and the agents would storm in to wreak havoc and to eliminate as much Hydra agents as they could. Not the best of plans, but we had the element of surprise. And it worked quite good at first, we found almost no Hydra agents at the underground levels. But the closer we came to T'Challa, the more agents we encountered. And not the least of them. All of them where top class agents of both Hydra and the KGB. Fury was right, the Avengers where the only people who could do this. We were lucky to have Wanda and Vision on our side. Without them it would have been a lot harder than it already was. It took us at least half an hour to get to T'Challa. He was in a dark room full of weird machines, laying in a big chair, not unlike one you see at the dentist. Bucky, who went with us, gasped. "That's not good." "What's it Bucky?" Steve asked. "That chair, this whole room, it's not good." "Why?" "I... this room looks like one in my memories... to the one where they used to brainwash me." "Fuck," Tony said. "Please Stark, mind your language." "Barton, don't," Steve said slightly annoyed, "This is not the time." Then suddenly T'Challa moved, a troop of Hydra agents came running in and we were surrounded. After that several things happened in a blur. The Hydra agents avoided us and went to the other side of the rom, while locking the door behind them, they then dropped something, ran out using another door and so were gone. All of them, even T'Challa.