Wakanda, August 5, 2016

"Captain Rogers, please do not react. There is something you have to see. Come to my lab at once. Alone."

Steve frowned when he heard Shuri's voice in his earpiece. What had she discovered that she couldn't say over comms? And why couldn't Bucky know about it?

"I'm seeing stars." Steve pretended to exhale. "I'm gonna get some air. You gonna be okay on your own, Buck?"

But Bucky gave no reaction. He was so engrossed in Evelyn's journal he barely noticed anything else. Steve hoped that was a good thing. Though he was curious about the contents, he'd already decided he wouldn't read the notebook. She'd left it for Bucky, not him. Whatever it contained hadn't been meant for him. Hopefully, whatever Evelyn had written would help fill in the holes and bring Bucky closure. 
Steve left without saying another word and headed straight for Shuri's lab underneath Mount Bashenga. It took him a while to get there, since the mountain lay across from the palace, on the other side of the city, but he made good time at a brisk pace. Natasha and Sam were expecting him at the entrance. Their pinched lips and concerned expressions didn't bode well.
He followed them inside the lab, where Shuri walked excitedly between screens. One showed a full-body scan, while the other seemed to be a very detailed close-up of an organ. Shuri glanced over her shoulder at the sound of their approaching footsteps.

"Good, you're here," she said. "I was trying to figure out Nemesis' tracking device. It is still receiving a signal, so the only logical reasoning is that whatever it's tracing must yet be active. I have checked all of Sgt. Barnes' belongings, but they were clean. So I went further and thought about checking the body scan we took before putting him in the pod." She tapped the close-up image, showing a miniature robot, straight out of one of those movies on Steve's 'must see/hear/read' list — Star Wars, Star Trek, or whatever it was (what'd happened to the feel-good MGM movies from his childhood, anyway?). "I found this. It's embedded in his heart."

"My God." Steve stared at the image in shock. "How did she get it into him?"

"Hard to say. My guess is it was injected, possibly during hand-to-hand combat. Though it could have also been shot in, I suppose. It only had to enter and travel through the bloodstream. See here? These hooks are designed specifically to latch onto an organ. I cannot say whether it was intended to be the heart. We can attempt to remove it, but I would not be surprised if the device had a failsafe in place. Electro-shock or perhaps a fast-working poison that would be administered at any attempt to extract or deactivate it. To be honest, I do not even dare to hack into it."

Shuri faced the trio of disgraced Avengers. Her expression was as severe as Steve's, perhaps even more. "I am not easily impressed by non-Wakandan technology and science," she continued. "If I had to name someone who could rival me, it would be Tony Stark. But I have never encountered anything like this before. This is created out of simple material, and yet it is more advanced than our vibranium weaponry and the Iron Man suit put together. Whoever Nemesis is, it would be a terrible mistake to underestimate her. If she can create something like this, she could have many more tricks up her sleeve."

Steve hated to admit it, but Shuri was right. Nemesis was proving to be unlike any enemy he had ever fought before. HYDRA, Loki, Ultron... It was like she was all of them combined. Not to mention she was older than she appeared and seemingly indestructible. But... there was something else she was.
He looked over at Natasha. He abhorred having to ask this of her, knowing she wanted nothing more than to let the past die, but right now, she was the only who could help shed some light on their foe. She knew Nemesis from their time in the Red Room. Maybe the girl might let her guard down whilst talking to a fellow Black Widow. 

***

"Сколько лет, сколько зим....Наташечка крошка.."
(It's been a long time... little Natasha.)

"Я уже не крошка."
(I'm not so little anymore.)

"Не крошка." Nemesis looked up and scrunched her nose as she tilted her head. "Зачем ты покрасила волосы? Ты знаешь, что красный тебе идёт. Хотя синий тоже неплохо."
(No, you're not. Why did you dye your hair? You know red is your color. Though the blue was nice too.)

Natasha smirked and chuckled. "It's good to see you too, Nemesis."

"I'm humbled that you still recognize me after all these years. Still working on your spins?"

"Always."

Steve stepped closer to the screen outside the cell. The Dora Milaje posted at the door kept a close eye as well, but did nothing. They knew very well that if it came to another showdown, Captain America was their best bet at defeating Nemesis — at least, until the Black Panther could get there. 
Sam's hand landed on Steve's tense shoulder, silently telling him to loosen up and let Natasha handle this one. But he couldn't. Not because he doubted her skills — if she could trick an alien God like Loki into revealing his plans, she could do the same with Nemesis — but because whatever past she had with the girl might yet interfere. 
The way Natasha had talked about her had made Steve think Nemesis had been a sort of mentor, someone who had protected and helped pre-teen Natasha in navigating through the Red Room. That sort of thing created loyalty. And even though Natasha would never betray them, she might yet help Nemesis escape if she believed the girl was in the right and she owed her. It wouldn't be the first time she'd done so. 

"Nemesis," Natasha put some sadness to her voice, "what happened to you? Dreykov told us you died in an explosion. I looked for you after they told us your body hadn't been found, but —"

"I didn't wanna be found, Natasha. That was the whole point of dying. Surely you haven't forgotten those particular lessons from the Red Room? Even an Avenger needs to disappear sometimes. Pardon, ex-Avenger."

Steve's jaw clenched in restrained anger. Nemesis was trying to do the same thing with Natasha as she had done to him. But a former top agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. was not so easily stumped.

"May I ask why?" she inquired, not reacting to the comment about the Avengers.

"Dreykov wanted me to complete my training as a Widow. I didn't feel like getting a hysterectomy, so I left the Red Room the only way someone can — by dying. There are other ways to make sure little accidents don't happen, after all."

Steve cocked his head at those words. He knew he had heard that phrase before, but where? 

"Where did you go?" Natasha started to pace casually from left to right. "After leaving us, I mean?"

"Don't do that," reacted Nemesis sharply. "Don't fake interest. We're not friends, Natasha. Not really. So why don't you just cut the crap and ask me what Stars'n Stripes out there is too cowardly to ask, huh?"

Well, she's definitely smarter than Loki. 

Natasha took a stance before the force field, arms loose beside her body. "All right. We found a crafty little transmitter embedded in the Winter Soldier's heart. Yours, I believe?"

"Maybe," answered Nemesis with a shrug.

"Don't be so modest. That's a brilliant piece of tech. It impressed even the brightest mind in Wakanda, and she's right up Tony Stark's alley."

"Please don't compare me to that walking playboy disaster. And FYI, flattery isn't gonna get you anywhere."

"And here I was, about to say you barely aged a day since the last time I saw you. Curiously, that's actually the same thing the Winter Soldier said when we showed him footage of you."

Nemesis' face remained perfectly composed, but Steve could have sworn he'd seen her fist shake. It had been a brilliant move on Natasha's part to name Bucky's alter ego instead of using his real name. 

 "You know," continued Natasha, "he also said he believed he'd killed you. Slit your throat and threw you down a waterfall. You seem to have a knack for dying and coming back."

Judging by Nemesis' angry snarl, mentioning her defeat at the Winter Soldier's hands had definitely triggered something. Hopefully, Natasha would continue to push her buttons. If the assassin got upset at the thought of her foe getting the better of her, she might unconsciously reveal something. 

"Time to be honest, Nemesis," demanded Natasha. "What are you?"

"I've already answered that question," said Nemesis.

"That was an answer to who."

"Same answer applies."

"You really wanna play this game?"

"Do you?"

Sam whistled softly. Steve shared the sentiment. It took a lot of nerve to go up against someone like Black Widow. Natasha Romanoff was the elite and a force to be reckoned with, even if she didn't have a fancy tech suit, superpowers, magic, or whatever. And this... kid, for lack of a better term, had just called her bluff. 

***

Bucky groaned and rolled his neck. He was stiff from keeping the same position over the table for too long. He looked up in Steve's direction to ask how he was coming along with the letters, but was startled to see his friend missing. 

"Steve?" Bucky looked around the medical room.

That's strange. When did he leave?

Bucky walked around the table to see if he could find a clue why Steve had just gone away when he noticed the security feed on the tablet was on. He picked it up and saw Black Widow in the cell with the assassin Nemesis. Bucky squinted. His memory was a mess, but he did remember this girl. The way she'd kept her own against the Winter Soldier, relentlessly chasing after him. He wanted to talk to her, but knew neither Steve nor the Wakandans would allow him near her. But they might not have a choice. From the looks of things, she was as proficient as Black Widow in interrogation tactics. A direct confrontation between himself and Nemesis could be their only shot.

Determined to not sit idly by, Bucky moved toward the door. He reached to open it, but halted suddenly. Something made him pause. A sensation deep inside. He heard Evelyn's voice in the back of his head. Those subtle tunes on the piano. If he could just ignore the pain in his head, then maybe... Dammit, what was she singing?

"Hearts... passion, jealousy, and hate. Woman... man, and man... his mate."

Bucky staggered back, gripping the side of his head at the blinding migraine that assaulted him then. He stumbled to the floor, screaming in agony. The pain was too much. It numbed his entire body and still made him feel every single nerve. 

By the time they got to him, Bucky had almost fully lost consciousness. He was barely aware of getting picked up and placed on a gurney, barely aware of the doctors checking him over, and of the injections they gave him to get his heart rate steady again. 
All he could see and hear was Evelyn Rogers. Her periwinkle eyes. Her full red lips. Her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders and back. Her soft skin. And that sweet but strong voice. Singing that strange yet familiar song. Whispering his name. 
Alluring. 
Loving.

***

"What happened?" asked Steve as he entered the recovery room.

"We don't know yet," answered Shuri, never taking her eyes off the monitors around Bucky's bed. "The guards were alerted by his screams. They found him on the floor."

"Is it that thing in his heart? Did Nemesis activate it?"

"His heart is fine. All his organs are. But his CT and MRI show remarkable peaks in his brain activity. It's similar to what you see just prior to a brain aneurysm, but nothing indicates that is what happened. I doubt very much it had anything to do with Nemesis."

Steve sighed in relief. It was only a small silver lining, though. As long as that thing was inside Bucky's body, the danger was still too real. He called Sam up through his comm. 

"Sam, you read me?"

"Loud and clear, Cap," replied Sam. "How's Barnes?"

"Stable for now. What about Romanoff? Is she still with Nemesis?"

"Yeah. Steve, she ain't cracking. She's throwing everything right back at Widow. Whoever or whatever she is, she is damn good."

"We need something to break her. The Dora Milaje took her belongings to Shuri's lab. See if you can find anything, but be careful. Just because something looks normal doesn't mean that it is. Not with this kid."

"On my way."

With Sam and Natasha working on Nemesis, Steve allowed himself to focus on Bucky. It was an eerie sight to see him lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to all those monitors, especially since Bucky had always been the strong one. How many times had he sat at Steve's bedside when he was sick or when he got beaten up by some punk-ass who thought it was cool to pick on the little guy? Even during the war, after becoming Captain America, Bucky had always kept an eye out for him. 

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked Shuri. 

"Stay here with him," she said. "My mother insists on my presence for some dinner tonight, but if anything changes in his condition, good or bad, I'm the first one you call, understood?"

Steve nodded and sat down at Bucky's bedside as Shuri left. Fatigue crept up on him. They'd been so busy with Nemesis and Evelyn's journal and the letters she'd kept he hadn't even noticed the sun had gone down. But he couldn't sleep. Not when his friend needed him.

"E... Evelyn."

Steve stiffened when he heard his sister's name. He looked up, but found Bucky was still unconscious. He reached for his wrist. Bucky's pulse was normal. And the monitors weren't going crazy, either. Had he imagined it?

"Evelyn, I..." 

Her name was spoken softly again, and the rest of the sentence fell away in an inaudible mutter, but Bucky was talking. Could he perhaps be dreaming? About Evelyn? 
Steve stood and leaned in, hoping to hear what his friend was trying to say. It was a completely incoherent mumbling, but Steve caught one thing. He closed his eyes as he backed up slowly and put his hands on his hips, shaking his head in lament. 

"I knew it. I knew there was something between you two. Goddammit, Evy."

"Cap, come in."

Sam's voice suddenly speaking through the comm made Steve jump. He moved away from the bed and turned his back on Bucky. "Sam, what have you got?"

"Weapons mostly. Some standard issue, some self-made, and damn impressive. Also, a burner phone. Only one number in the contact list. I'm thinking it's someone within S.H.I.E.L.D. You know an Agent 13?"

Steve froze on the spot. It couldn't be... "Peggy used to go by that. Someone we both know took that title over."

"That we know? Who—oh no." Sam groaned. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

"I wish I was."

The current Agent 13 was the same person who'd risked everything to help them out in Germany. The same person who'd gone undercover as Steve's neighbor as he tried to find his way in the modern world, and who he'd almost asked out because she'd reminded him so much of his one true love — Sharon Carter, Peggy's great-niece.