The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 22

A/N: I really do have to restate my huge thank you to TAngel96, apex-aporia,  XxTheAvengerXxX, lucidhalos and Joey106 for participating in a (huge) and wonderfully in-depth discussion on the Sokovia Accords as I was polishing this and a couple other upcoming chapters. It really did help me get some of my thoughts in order and clarify some of my points! They are all owed virtual hugs!

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Cambridge, Massachusetts

Spring 2016

As if she didn't already have enough to fret about. Nina's gut quivered anxiously as she ended the call with her mom, her eye automatically drawn back to the TV before she could stop it even as Nadine's reassurances echoed in her ears, their faintly hollow quality having little to do with the distance of the phones that relayed them.

Her mom was shaken. And for good reason, Nina could admit. She was pretty shaken herself.

To hear there has been an attack on the UN summit in Vienna? The one where she knew her Aunt Nat was representing the Avengers at the official ratification of the Sokovia Accords?

Shaken seemed a mild term all of a sudden.

She shifted in her spot on the couch of her dorm's common room, typing out a text to Natasha with trembling fingers before hugging her knees close as her attention fixed on the TV screen and its breaking news coverage. She felt like she was barely able to process what she was seeing.

Across the room, a pair of other freshmen were whispering intently to each other as they watched with wary, intrigued eyes. At the table behind the couches crowded around the TV, Jason—a boy from one of her intro courses she sometimes studied with—was hunched over his spread of books and laptops, though his hands hadn't done more than move in an absent facsimile of work since the breaking news had flashed on while his head was tilted in the direction of the TV.

And more of her fellow first year students were beginning to trickle in, morbidly fascinated by the attack. Nina barely noticed.

It had already been a stressful enough last month or so. As if the normal stresses of school and assignments and labs and tests and being away from friends and family weren't enough...

First the fallout from Lagos and how utterly devastated Wanda still was—not that Nina could blame her—and how helpless Nina felt being stuck so far away. She'd only just been able to get Wanda to talk to her about it in the last few days. Though, considering how she'd felt hearing about what had really happened from her mom and Nat second-hand? She couldn't say she was in the least bit surprised Wanda was taking it so hard.

It was like Ultron all over again.

At least, it felt that way to Wanda.

Then there was how sullen and angry Pietro was, all the while hiding how scared and guilty he felt...at least she did seem to be able to help him a little, providing a sympathetic ear and letting him vent about it all. Not to mention the option to let him get his mind of everything in other, more pleasant ways.

Then there was the unrest over the Avengers. Lagos had been the 'Last Straw,' apparently. With the first shaky footage that had appeared, seeming to show either Steve engaging in little more than an all out brawl with Crossbones in the middle of a crowded market or Wanda throwing a fireball into a building? Even once the truth had come out, like that Wanda had been fighting to save everyone in the marketplace from a massive explosion by thinking as quickly as she had or that the Avengers had prevented Crossbones from making off with a biological weapon—not that the South African government was cooperating on that front, seeming to prefer to deny that Rumlow gotten that far in an attempt to mitigate embarrassment that he breached the facility despite security measures—the damage to the Avengers' already shaken reputation had been done.