The King: T'Challa.

Chapter 11: Coming Home.

Emily finally caught up to them. Steve stood with Bucky slumped against his shoulder, his strength stretched thin by more than just exhaustion. Ahead of them, T'Challa waited—not the predator she remembered from the airport tarmac, but a still figure, his helmet under one arm, Zemo restrained and strangely compliant at his side.

Emily moved to steady Bucky's other arm, bracing his weight as she came up beside him. Her gaze flickered to T'Challa, and for the first time since Vienna, she gave him a nod that wasn't steeped in defiance but in quiet respect. His eyes met hers briefly, dark and searching, before he returned the gesture with the smallest inclination of his head.

Steve spoke, his voice edged with desperation he didn't bother to hide. "We don't have anywhere to take him. Any hospital, any safe house, they'll be watching. He needs more than bandages. He needs someone who can undo what's been done to him. He needs help, T'Challa."

Emily tightened her hold on Bucky as he groaned softly, his broken body evidence enough of Steve's words. Hydra's poisons ran deep, woven into his mind and blood as much as his body. Undoing it would take more than skill—it would take a nation capable of rewriting what Hydra had burned into them. And there was only one. She turned her head toward T'Challa, catching his eye deliberately, letting her silence speak the thought aloud.

He understood. "Wakanda has the resources," he said slowly, his tone stripped of vengeance, weighted instead with something more grounded. "The science to heal his body. Perhaps even to give him peace from what Hydra carved into him. When I have delivered Zemo to Ross, I will return home. If you wish it, you may come with me."

The words hit Emily harder than she expected. That the same man who had sworn to kill Bucky now offered him sanctuary felt like a shift in the earth itself. Her mind flickered back to nights in Wakanda—the throne room's torchlight, Shuri's laughter echoing in her lab, Okoye's blade at her throat during training, the sunsets that made her feel, for the first time in her life, like she belonged somewhere. And now here he was, extending that place to Bucky. Extending it, perhaps, to her as well.

Steve turned to her, uncertainty clouding his face. She answered him with a steady nod, her eyes never leaving T'Challa's. Trust him.

Steve's voice softened. "Where do we meet you?"

A faint smile touched T'Challa's lips, but his eyes lingered on Emily, as though the offer was meant for her as much as for Barnes. "I assume you will want to go back for your allies. Meet me outside this facility. A ship will be waiting."

Steve bowed his head, relief threaded with gratitude. "Thank you, Your Highness."

T'Challa inclined his head, but his gaze didn't break from Emily's until he turned away. In his eyes she caught something that unsettled her more than anger ever had: recognition. Not forgiveness, not yet—but acknowledgment of who she was, and perhaps, who she might still be.

***

Bucky was already secured aboard T'Challa's ship, his pallor still unsettling but his breathing steady. Emily and the Wakandan prince moved as one, steering Zemo through the facility's cold corridors. T'Challa's hand clamped firmly around the Sokovian's arm, unyielding, while Emily walked on the other side, her posture rigid, every step calculated to remind Zemo he wasn't slipping through either of them.

Ross appeared to meet them halfway, his gaze lingering on Emily with a stare that was neither friendly nor curious—merely calculating.

"So," Ross said coolly, turning his attention back to their prisoner, "this is the man who managed to bring the Avengers to their knees."

His words held no admiration, only disdain. His eyes flicked once more to Emily before settling on T'Challa.

"I'll take him from here."