Possibility of Tomorrow - 14

Cont...

 November came, and the week before Thanksgiving, the Rouges all showed up at Bucky's Wakandan home. He'd returned two months ago to finish his mental therapy. Now his hut was filled with laughter and food. 

They had all somehow crammed into his little home, and it was nice. They had all managed to bring a boatload of distinctly different foods, so instead of the normal turkey and stuffing and fixings, it was barbecued pork and enchiladas and other things that were smelled so good Bucky didn't care to figure out the name of. His tables had been slid together as one long one, and everything that wasn't a chair was shoved off to the side to try and make room. 

"Can we please eat?" Sam begged. 

"No! We have to wait for Darling!" Natasha scolded, rotating the platter with the Peking duck on it.

 "But she's taking forever, and it smells so good!" Steve joined in the mock whining. 

Bucky rolled his eyes as he came over with the cold drinks, "Listen to the woman Steven." 

"Yes, Steven, listen to the woman." Wanda teased. Sam was dying of laughter as Steve scowled. 

There was a loud knock at the door, making them all go quiet. Knocking was an American custom, not a Wakandan one.

 "That'd be the lasagna." Natasha grinned, flinging the door open. 

Tony Stark was dressed in regular clothes with the Spider kid, and Rhodes on either side of them arms full of large casserole dishes. "Someone ordered Italian?" Tony greeted Nat with a kiss on the cheek. 

"When you said lasagna, I expected like store stuff, not homemade heaven." Steve took a pan of lasagna out of the Kid's arms. 

"That stuff is the bane of Italian existence. Have I taught you nothing?" Tony deposited his pan onto the table. 

"Apparently not. It's good to see you again." Steve hugged Tony gently, and Tony reciprocated. 

"I don't know what possessed you to have him do lasagna. He almost burned down the kitchen." Rhodey put his pan of lasagna on the counter and hugged Nat. 

"That was not my fault! I've made it many a time before without problem! That was all, Peter!" Tony retorted, grabbing a chair. 

"Hey! Don't blame this on me! I didn't know dry pasta was flammable!" The kid, Peter, shot back. 

"Kid," Tony sighed like a disappointed parent, "You're a genius. It's a sheet of carbs. How do you not know it's flammable?" 

Peter let out a sound of annoyance, "Mr. Stark!" 

"How does one light pasta on fire?" Wanda asked, amused. 

 "The question that's old as pasta." Rhodey deadpanned. 

Sam snorted, "I take it he's done it before?"

 "College," Rhodey said like it explained everything. 

"Well, he's still around, so it couldn't be that bad." Natasha pointed out. 

"That's debatable." Tony looked over, "It is me we're talking about." 

Steve chuckled, "I don't know your luck is incredible. I really don't think much could kill you at this point." 

"He's got a point, Mr. Stark! I mean, an alien invasion, a space wormhole, three attempted murders with iron man suits, poisoning, and multiple heart attacks. That's just naming a few. You really are like indestructible." Peter nodded with this unending optimism that completely missed the tense moment that followed Steve's words. 

"Indestructible." Tony tried out the word putting his arm around Peter pulling him closer, "I like it." He turned and discreetly looked at Steve, "I like it." The tension dissolved in the room, leaving them all smiling slightly as Peter kept talking. 

"That table doesn't look like it could hold much else. We waiting for someone, or can we dig in?" Rhodey asked, taking a seat. 

Bucky had to admit his table did look like it was gonna give if they added to it-"Shoot!" Bucky yanked open his oven and pulled out the amazing smelling lua pork. 

"Is it burnt?" Sam asked, coming over. 

"No. I don't think so. Maybe a little dry but not burnt. I totally forgot about it." Bucky checked the temperature as he flipped off the oven. 

"At least nothing burned," Steve said, coming over helping Bucky carve it. 

"You're bad luck, kid. Bringing the burning food curse with you." Tony teased, nudging Peter. 

"To be fair, I was raised by May. I don't know what you expected." Peter pointed out with a grin. 

"This is true." Tony agreed.

 "I take it this May is bad at cooking?" Natasha guessed coming over with cold drinks. 

"Horrible. She could burn a salad. Or water. Or our apartment if I didn't cook." Peter nodded. 

"Sounds like Steve," Bucky commented. 

"Hey!" Steve playfully snapped. 

"Face it, you can't cook anything other than breakfast to save your life," Bucky said straight-faced. 

"I believe it." Tony nodded, making Steve scowl harder.

 "Break it up, boys," Natasha warned. 

"I'll have you know I haven't burned anything since 1939," Steve said with mock seriousness.

 "Ah yes. After you almost burnt down our apartment and got us evicted. I recall that. I also recall that being the incident, I banned you from all cooking. You aren't helping your case here." Bucky brought the tray of pork to the table where Wanda cleared a place for it. 

"That smells amazing." Tony drooled. 

"Yeah, well, don't touch it yet. We're waiting for Darling." Bucky warned, putting the leftovers into his fridge and cleaning up what he had used. 

"Darling? That brown-haired girl who broke into the Avengers' Compound?" Rhodey clarified.

 "Yeah, she's bringing dessert. She's always late." Sam nodded, gulping down some of his drink. 

"Yeah, but I heard that Peter technically let her in." Natasha grinned. 

Peter groaned and buried his flaming cheeks in his arms, "You told them?!"

 "Of course not, kid! It's Nat. She just knows." Tony faked offense.

 "That and your AI's love me." Natasha grinned, sipping her drink. 

"FRIDAY, you traitor." Tony deadpanned.

 "My apologies, boss." FRIDAY's voice came from Tony's glasses in his pocket.

 "Not to be offensive, Ms. Romanoff, but from one spider to another, you stink abstractly." Peter groaned. 

Laughter exploded around the table. "'Abstractly?' Who says that?" Sam asked, wiping tears from his eyes. 

"MJ says it," Peter grumbled.

 "Yeah, well, your scary girlfriend is as odd as they come, kid." Tony chuckled.

 "She's not my girlfriend, Mr. Stark!" Peter groaned.

 "Are you sure about that cause your heart rate just jumped up quite a bit?" Steve grinned. 

The kid's cheeks went redder. Bucky decided to step in then, "Well, if we want to talk about heart palpitations, we should probably ask why Vision isn't with you and where exactly he is." Bucky sent a knowing look at Wanda, who went pink. 

Tony followed his gaze before grinning, "I knew it!" 

"You know nothing, Stark!" Wanda retorted playfully. 

I'm going to end you. Wanda was glaring holes in his head now.  

Bucky smiled back at her. Hey, I was just trying to help the kid out, maybe but us some goodwill. He's obviously important to Tony. Wanda sighed aloud and sent him the stink eye. 

"Yeah, where is Vis? I was kinda looking forward to introducing him to all this food." Sam nodded, saving Wanda. 

"Well, since he can't actually eat, he thought it better to stay back and run some diagnostics on himself, something about his hearing being tweaked?" Tony shrugged. Wanda went pinker.

 "How is he doing? Working with Ross and all that." Nat asked. 

"Pretty well. I think he's displeased with how some things shook out. On the other hand, he's learned how to shift into a human form, so he isn't purple, which is significantly less creepy in the middle of the night." Tony nodded. 

"Well, that cause you won't go to bed at a reasonable time, Mr. Stark and he had to come to get you." Peter pointed out. 

Tony opened his mouth to defend himself. 

"He's got a point, Tones." Rhodey nodded in agreement with Peter. 

Before Tony could come up with some lame excuse, the door banged open, "Honey, I'm home!" Darling teased, kicking the door closed with her and full of bags and boxes. 

"Ma Cheri." Bucky kissed her head as he took some of the bags out of her arms, "How was Prague?" 

"Pretty good, really pretty, but I was kinda distracted with breaking and entering, though." 

"Darling!" Bucky scolded. 

"What? He was dirty!" Darling protested. She pulled out a file from one of her bags as she unloaded, "Like six feet under and actively burying himself dirty." She tossed it to Rhodey of all people, "See what you think."

 Rhodey gave her a weird look before flipping the file open and promptly losing his jaw. He taped at the contents for a minute before spinning around to face her, "You broke into Secretary Ross's office?" 

"No, I broke into a law office that happens to house a secure server that shuffles what you put on the cloud around with its sibling servers around the world. That is his black book, if you will. Should be enough for a warrant, probable cause at least." Darling shrugged, pulling out little boxes of desserts from her bags. 

"It was illegally obtained. It's not admissible in court." Rhodey pointed out.

 "True, but it will be when an anonymous sender sends it to Everett Ross along with a manifest of more than questionable items sent to Alaska for illegal testing." Darling grinned over her shoulder, "Happy Thanksgiving." 

"Oh, you're dangerous." Tony grinned, "Give me that." 

Steve frowned as Tony eagerly took it, "How are you sure you didn't get caught?" 

"How do I explain this?" Darling mused aloud.

"The internet saves things really oddly, Mr. Rogers." Peter piped in. 

"How?" Steve asked, turning to Peter. 

"Oh, this should be good," Nat smirked. 

Peter proceeded to explain the cloud or lack thereof in storing internet data. Meanwhile, everyone had paused what they were doing to listen and try not to laugh. Finally, when Peter wrapped up, and Steve was wearing this guilty as all get-out grin, Sam stepped in, "Kid. Hate to break it to you, but you just got played."

 That broke the dam as Tony started laughing so hard he was crying. Steve had the decency to feel bad for the kid for a moment as everyone started laughing before busting up like everyone else. 

"Alright, cut it out." Darling finally said, grinning. 

"You really need to stop doing that." Bucky shook his head, grinning. 

"Assumptions should at least get me a good laugh. I mean, come on. I've been here like seven years already." Steve grinned.

 "Keep talking smack, and I'll give all your portion of dessert to Peter." Darling challenged. 

"That seems fair." Wanda grinned. 

"Shutting up." Steve mocked, putting up his hands and backing away. 

"Don't feel bad, Queens; he's been like that forever." Bucky nodded to Peter, who was still red from embarrassment. 

"That doesn't change the fact I did assume wrongly. Sorry." Peter apologized. 

"Apology accepted, but seriously, I was leading you along to see if I could get a reaction." Steve reiterated. 

"So I guess all that school video stuff was what, propaganda?" Peter shot back. 

"Loki, don't ask." Steve chuckled, "I like you." 

"No." Bucky called from across the room, "I know what your thinking. The answer is no." 

Steve pouted, "But-" 

"No." Everyone was snickering; Steve glared.

 "Okay, but really Darling, how did you find this?" Sam asked, holding up the file.

 "Something Nat said, actually." Darling nodded as she moved around the kitchen, finishing putting away the extra sweets.

 "Oh really?" Nat turned so she could see Darling. 

"Yeah. You said Zemo found out all that stuff from the info dump during the Triskelion, and that got me thinking." Darling grabbed a soda. 

"Thinking about what?" Wanda asked. 

"Well, I mean, I really don't think that Hydra would be stupid enough to keep files on record in SHIELD that proved their hand in the deaths of one of the founders of SHIELD. I mean, that's like the definition of stupid, right?"

 "Understandably. My scans didn't come up with anything related to the Stark name. At least not what Zemo found." Tony nodded. 

Darling snapped her fingers, "Exactly! Because it wasn't on the internet. It wasn't in the dump. So where'd he get it?"

 "From Ross." Steve supplied. 

"But where'd Ross get it from?" Rhodey asked, frowning. 

"Yeah, if it wasn't in the info dump, where was it?" Nat gestured in agreement to Rhodey. 

"That is where things got dicey. You've all heard of wet work departments, right?" Darling checked. 

"In a Jason Bourne movie, yeah. Wait, those are real?" Peter sputtered.

 "Yes, but that another discussion." Darling waved his shock off, "Well, after the purge that followed the nuclear-sized government intrusion, a new department was opened. The cyber equivalent to a wet work department. No rules, no red tape, no boundaries. Just orders. They could do whatever needed to be done online to get info. The info generated from these cyber info groups went straight into classified briefings for only the relevant government officials'. Eyes only. And as the Secretary of Defense, guess who gets all the briefings no matter what?" 

There was a long moment of silence as the rhetorical answer rang through heads. 

"Okay, now I really want to punch him." Tony broke the silence. 

"Get in line," Bucky muttered. 

"We got set up." Steve rubbed his head. 

"A man like Ross, a chance like that, he wouldn't pass that up. Not for power like he has now." Nat shook her head. 

"I knew he was power-hungry, but now I'm leaning towards insane." Sam sighed. 

"We need to take him down. If he can do this to us, what can he do to others with us out of the way?" Rhodey motioned around the table, not speaking about the divide that could be felt until now. 

"We need to be careful. If we tip our hand wrong, we'll all end up on the Raft." Wanda shuddered.

 "We can't go straight at him. He's too well prepared for that. This is a long game if we do this." Bucky shook his head, "And that's a big if." 

"He's right. We're talking about going against the most powerful man in the country who happens to hate all of you." Darling sat down at the table, "It's a big risk." They were all sitting at the table thinking, weighing the options.

 "It's a risk we need to take," Steve said solemnly. 

"I think Cap's right. The man won't stop until we're all gone. He's come this far; what happens when he keeps going?" Tony nodded, looking at Steve, "You were right; people have motives, agendas." 

Steve nodded a bit, "You weren't wrong either, Tony. We need some oversight so that what happened doesn't happen again." 

"We need a balance. Oversight but freedom. Respect and honesty." Wanda said sagely. 

"Fear got us into this mess. We need to put it behind us." Nat said, looking at both Tony and Steve.

 "From what I heard, it was a problem of loyalty." Peter said quietly, "I've heard it said that loyalty is power and misplaced it'll end us." 

"He's right." Darling said, nodding, "Loyalty is power and blind loyalty is dangerous. When push comes to shove, you all will do whatever it takes for each other. But you need to get to the point where it doesn't need to come pushing. You need to be more than a team. You need to be the family none of you have had. One that doesn't break. No matter what." There was a heavy silence as they all pondered her point. 

Peter grabbed his drink, "My family always did the tradition of going around the table and saying something personal that they were thankful for before dinner; maybe we could too?" Peter raised his glass like a toast, "I'm thankful for this opportunity, to meet you all, to do this." The whole table nodded. 

"I'm thankful for second chances." Wanda said quietly, "And third and forth."

 "I'm thankful for freedom." Bucky said firmly, "No matter the cost."

 "I'm thankful for perspective." Nat said, smiling around the table, "And reconciliation." 

"I second that," Sam nodded, "I'm thankful for healing."

 "I'm thankful for the future and the possibility that tomorrow will be a better day than today." Rhodey nodded, smiling.

 "I'm thankful for friends." Steve nodded to Darling, "And family." He nodded to Tony.

 Tony nodded back, "To Family." 

"To family." The table chorused back. Everyone grinned as they finished the toast. 

"Okay, let's dig in. I'm starving!" Sam grinned. 

"Well, it looks like enough food for an army, so that shouldn't be a problem." Rhodey joked as plates were passed around. 

 "Technically, it's enough for four armies but details." Darling shrugged.

"Four armies?" Rhodey asked, amused. 

"Yeah, one for Steve, one for Barnes, one for Spider-Man, and one for the rest of us commoners." Darling waved her hand like it was perfectly normal. And for their odd family, it kinda was. 

"Are those donuts?" Sam drooled at one of the trays on the island behind them.

"In a crude manner speaking, yes. Their fancy French donuts." Darling rolled her eyes. 

"Is that baklava?" Wanda asked with awe in her voice. 

"Yep, now stop staring! Food first, then dessert." Darling scolded. 

Everyone chuckled as they filled their plates. And for the first time in a long time, they were home.

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