A Picture Tells However Many Words I Want It To

Charles is exhausted, both physically and mentally. Following the long battle and the strain of holding Shaw in place, he feels drained.

With the air filled with frozen missiles, there’s no time to rest. In front of him, Erik holds them place with a single raised hand, a show of power that is utterly extraordinary - and absolutely terrifying. The helmet over Erik’s head blocks Charles from his mind like a steel wall, but Charles knows the hard and furious expression on Erik’s face. He knows what is going through his mind even if he can’t hear it.

“Erik,” he says, stumbling a few steps closer to him. He wants to tell Erik of how innocent the people in those ships are: how scared they are, how lost, how helpless. Charles can feel their fear screaming at him from across the waters, yet all Erik sees are enemies.

Erik turns to him, his fury burning bright. Killing Shaw hasn’t assuaged his rage. The next words out of Charles’s mouth will be vital.

“This isn’t the way,” Charles says. “Erik, this won’t help. You’re teaching them to fear us.” The missiles stay where they are, hanging dangerously in the air. Charles chances another step forward. “Please. We can find another way. Together, we can make things right. This won’t help. You’ll only prove them right.”

Erik’s jaw clenches. “Perhaps they are right, Charles. Perhaps we are dangerous.”

Perhaps I want to be, Charles hears, but he won’t allow himself to acknowledge it. He has lost himself in the raging storm of Erik’s mind before. “We don’t have to be. We can be stronger than that - we can be stronger than them, Erik.” It isn’t working. None of this working, and Charles can feel Erik slipping away from him towards madness. “Don’t do this. Don’t make me lose you.”

That is enough to make something rational and human spring back into Erik’s eyes. His frown deepens. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Charles shakes his head. He closes the final few steps between them, and tries to block out the constant throb of terror that he can hear all around him. “I couldn’t remain friends with a man who would do something like this,” Charles states. “You’ve already killed Shaw. Isn’t that enough?”

He can tell the answer from the clench of Erik’s jaw and the tightening of his fist. Erik wants nothing more in this world but to send those missiles shooting straight back to their owners - its only when Charles reaches out to place his hand on Erik’s shoulder to calm him down that anything seems to have an effect. “Please, my friend,” he murmurs, the words soft enough for only the pair of them. No one else on this beach matters, only Erik, only them. If only he can persuade Erik to believe him.

Moments later, the missiles crash into the ocean. Nobody else has to die today.

Nick Fury owes them big time for this.

Steve shifts back and forth as the photographer demands. At his side, Thor is happy to smile and preen as he’s told, talking happily with the photographer and her assistants as the camera-bulb flashes again and again. Apparently, destroying the city (again) requires  some PR work, mostly to stop the police from arresting them as vigilantes. The excuse of trying to save the world only goes so far.

“Just hold that thought for a moment, boys, we need to touch up your make-up,” the photographer says. Steve freezes, and a team swarm upon him to attack his face with brushes and swabs. By the time they leave, Steve is fairly sure that he doesn’t look any different at all, but he’s learned better than to try arguing with them. It doesn’t work at all.

Thor is grinning like this is the most fun he’s had in years. “Midgardian customs can be quite strange, Captain,” he says.

Steve smiles back at him. “You’re telling me,” he agrees. “It wasn’t like this in my day.” Perhaps it was, and he just never noticed. They apparently made trading cards of him, after all. He wishes that Bucky could have been around to see that; it would have made him laugh so much that Steve would never have lived it down.

Now, smiling and posing with his shield, it makes him feel as ridiculous as he had when he was prancing on stage to sell war bonds. He’s always done what he has to do in order to help his country. Sometimes, he wishes that the only thing asked of him was to get beaten up and save the world. It’s a lot easier to beat up a robot than it is to pretend to be a model.

By the end of the day, Thor is still in good spirits as they leave the studio. “I dare say that Tony will be sorry to have missed this experience,” Thor says as they walk side by side. “He was very pleased when he first heard that we had agreed to Fury’s request.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t making fun of us?” Steve asks. “It’s hard to tell sometimes.”

“I believe that is how he shows his affection,” Thor states. “He’s a complicated man.”

“That’s one word for it,” Steve agrees. Thor smiles brightly, and they go to a bar together to finish off the day. Even if neither of them can really get drunk, Thor’s company is the most relaxing thing Steve has found since he woke up in this century.

And, when the photographs are published to Tony’s absolute delight and extremely loud laughter, Steve requires all the relaxation he can get.

The blast hits Steve square in the chest before he has time to raise his shield. Staff in hand, Loki freezes - with the other Avengers still fighting, he doesn’t have time to pay attention to his fallen adversary, but he hadn’t expected Steve to fall so soon. Captain America had always refused to kneel. The memory of their first encounter will always burn bright in Loki’s mind.

With a pained groan, Steve starts to push himself up once more. Iron Man rushes at Loki, while one of Hawkeye’s arrows flies towards his head. With a spin of his staff, he deals with both threats for now.

Striding forward to Steve, Loki has to kick back an attack from the Widow. He throws her across the road to slam into another building. When he reaches him, Steve has managed to get up to his knees, one hand cradling the wound on his chest. His jaw clenches and he prepares to fight.

Loki reaches out for him with an unarmed hand rather than finishing him off with his staff. He can’t say that he’s surprised when Steve doesn’t accept it. “Does it hurt?” he asks.

Steve straightens up. He wavers on his feet and pants for air, but he doesn’t fall or surrender. He is everything that is admirable and frustrating about the blighted human race.

“You shot me in the chest,” Steve says. “Yes, it hurt.”

Behind him, Loki is aware that the others are regrouping. Steve doesn’t allow his gaze to slip away from Loki to acknowledge them; it is a fair attempt at a distraction. “It wasn’t my full power. If I had wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing there now.”

Steve’s expression is equal parts scorn and disbelief. He’s starting to recover his breath by now. Loki turns for a split second to conjure a blockade between them and the rest of Steve’s team.

As the Avengers struggle to scale the sky-scraping ice wall that has coated the city block, Loki turns back to Steve. He reaches out to brush his finger-tips against the wound he has left behind on Steve’s chest, the fabric of his uniform scorched and matted with blood. Steve grabs his wrist and restrains it in a grip that might crush the bones of a mortal. Asgardians are sturdier than that.

“Be more careful next time, Captain,” Loki advises. “Your other enemies might truly try to dispose of you.”

Before Steve can begin to question the meaning of such a statement, Loki vanishes from view, fading from sight even as blemished understanding forms a frown on Steve’s face. Steve’s fist collapses where Loki’s wrist had been, firm and brittle, only moments ago.

Cobb frowns as he focuses on the files in front of him, his eyes devouring every scrap of information. Arthur watches his face as he reads: it’s like witnessing creation itself. On the page, the words are nothing more than black ink. When Cobb reads them, they transform into something so much more.

“Is this all you could find?” Cobb asks.

Arthur nods. “He’s a very private man,” he explains. He tries not to allow himself to flinch or show any sign of weakness. It’s a terrifying thing to be working with Dominic Cobb for the first time. This man is legendary. He practically invented many of the techniques that they will be using if they pull this job off; his dreamscapes are beautiful.

Cobb murmurs a vague response and looks back down at the assembled information, his fingertips skimming over the phrases that interest him the most. Arthur is captivated by the sight of his hands, tanned and unexpectedly rough. The life of an extractor is more dangerous and physical than Arthur would have assumed.

“We’ll need a third person on this,” Cobb states, but he seems to be talking to himself more than to Arthur. When Arthur had heard that Cobb was looking for a point-man for a job, he had been quick to allow their mutual contacts to know that he was interested. ‘Interested’ barely covered it, of course. ‘Desperate’ would have been more apt.

Cobb is exactly what he would have expected from his reputation: severe, focused, and well-dressed. Arthur wears his suit like it’s his armour, a barrier between himself and prying eyes; for Cobb, his business suit seems like a forgotten detail. Arthur doubts that Cobb would be able to describe what he was wearing without looking down to double-check.

Underneath Arthur’s careful gaze, Cobb absorbs the details of his report, before he passes it back to him. “Good work. Follow up on the connection with the cousin. That’s probably our in.”

Arthur nods severely and leaves without any further word. With anyone other extractor, he might have offered more of his own thoughts or insights. Working with the Dominic Cobb, it’s going to take a long while before he gets to that stage.

Previously, Prince Bucky found his bulked-up lost friend bathing in the woods, because that is a totally normal and appropriate thing to do in an enchanted forest.

Bucky can’t stop staring at Steve. He watches every single movement, every single facial twitch, and compares it to the small, frail boy that he remembers. Steve leaves the pool and gets dressed, pulling on coarse and simple clothes. He wears a deep frown as if he is troubled by Bucky’s presence.

“I’ve been searching for you for years,” Bucky says. He steps closer to Steve. “I thought you’d died.”

“You were wrong,” Steve answers.

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees. “I get that.” He might understand that he had been wrong in assuming Steve was dead, but that is the only thing that he does understand. They had been best friends, inseparable, or so he had thought. “I’ve found you now. Can we go home?”

“Back to the castle?” Steve asks. His hair is still damp from his earlier dip into the lake and his clothes cling to his skin. “I can’t.”

“Trust me, you can. You will.” Bucky offers a smile. “Even if I have to drag you there myself.”

“That really wouldn’t be a good idea,” Steve says. His frown only grows more anguished. In his face, it is easy to recognise the serious and brave teenager who had left the castle so many years ago. His body might have changed, but he has not. “When I say that I can’t go, I mean it literally.”

“What?” Bucky takes a step closer. What he really wants to do is reach out and touch Steve to confirm that he’s real. Listening seems a lot harder than that.

“There was a curse,” Steve says, shifting awkwardly. “It’s what made me like this.” He gestures vaguely, but it’s enough to indicate his entire body. “I’m supposed to help the world,” he mutters, as if the explanation is embarrassing.

More than embarrassing, it’s simply confusing. “You’re not making a lot of sense,” Bucky says.

“There was a witch,” Steve says. Perhaps that is supposed to clarify things. “I saved her life. In return, she made me like this - I think she thought it was a gift.”

“I’d be inclined to agree with her.”

“I’m strong enough to help people now, but the closer I get to the castle the weaker I get.” Steve looks over Bucky’s shoulder into the woods as if he can somehow see the castle despite the thick covering of trees and the long miles that separate them. “The last time I tried to come home I passed out before I came within a mile or two of the city. It’s not possible.”

Witches. Curses. They aren’t concepts that are new to Bucky, but it’s the first time that he’s had any encounters of his own with them. To a prince, the stories only ever come second-hand; the heir to the throne must always always be protected from the darker side of life.

“Then we’ll break the curse. Or I’ll stay out here. Whatever it takes,” Bucky vows.

Steve watches him for a moment, his eyes careful and considering. Bucky stands taller, his shoulders straightens, and hopes that Steve remembers their childhood together as well as he does: games in the castle’s courtyard and stolen adventures in the city’s streets.

Steve’s caution splits into a grateful smile. They used to be inseparable. Maybe they can be so once again.

Cold winter air attacks Bucky once he exits the hospital, but it’s good to have something to clear his head - anything that helps to banish the haunting image of Steve looking small and vulnerable in a hospital bed, paler than usual. It isn’t the first time he’s gotten sick. Bucky knows that it won’t be the last time either.

He won’t allow himself to even consider the possibility of Steve not pulling through the illness. Steve has always been a sickly guy, but he’s got the kind of spirit and courage that much larger men can only dream about. He’s a hero in a victim’s body. Heroes don’t die from viruses. They get to live into a peaceful old age.

Bucky wipes his hand over his face, brushing away tears that he won’t otherwise acknowledge. Just this morning, he and Steve had been joking around and eating breakfast tomorrow. Maybe there had been a cough or two that Steve had shrugged off, but it had been nothing that had seemed at all significant. Nothing that should have been life-threatening.

As the day had worn on, Steve had started to get worse and worse. Bucky recognised the signs from the last time he had had a scare like that, but Steve was too stubborn and too defiant to accept any help or even admit that he had a problem. Sometimes Bucky was left with the intense desire to throttle the stupid kid.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and tries not to allow himself to wonder if things might have been better if he had managed to convince Steve to go to see a doctor straight away. At the very least, he wouldn’t have had to suffer through seeing Steve collapsing to the floor in the middle of their shared apartment.

He looks up to the sky, with the sun pale and wan, and breathes in as deeply as he can. The cold invades his lungs like an attacking virus, stealing his very breath. He brushes a few more stray tears from his face and ignores the questioning glances from passers-by. He’s a grown man crying in front of a hospital. What the fuck do they think is the reason for it?

Swallowing convulsively, he manages to get control of himself:

Everything is fine. Steve isn’t in good shape right now, but Bucky got him to a doctor as quickly as he could. He’s going to be on his feet again in no time at all, picking fights he can’t win and needing Bucky’s help to open jam jars and reach the top shelf.

It’s times like this that make Bucky realise how much his life has morphed to fit around Steve. Every single second of his day is sculpted towards their shared comfort, whether it’s working for a living or picking out films for them to go and see together. Steve isn’t just part of Bucky’s life. He’s the whole thing.

And Bucky’s got to say that that is the most terrifying thing of all.

He breathes in as deeply as he can and swallows until he feels like he’s in control once more. Not a victim to his emotions, he is a responsible adult and he’s got to be the strong one out of the pair of them. That’s what Steve needs from him right now.

He gathers himself together and walks back inside the hospital, ready to take up his customary seat by Steve’s side. By the time Steve wakes up, bleary but so much better than he was, Bucky is once more strong enough to grin down at him and tease him about having the nurses fawning over him.

He doesn’t have to tell Steve how worried he’s been. The kind, intelligent sympathy in Steve’s sick eyes says that he already knows.

Moriarty frowns at Sherlock in disapproval as they face off over cups of tea. “Please,” she murmurs. “Don’t be so dull. You and I both know that you aren’t going to try to kill me. Certainly not in your lovely little kitchen. What would John say?”

She can’t keep the smile from her face as she mentions Sherlock’s new flatmate. Sherlock’s friendships have always been fleeting and shallow, a desperate attempt by uninspired idiots to grab onto a burning star. The only lasting connection he’s had with anyone has been with her - and they’ve been dancing around each other for years, ruining one another’s plans from the shadows.

John won’t be any different from any of the other boring men who have flitted in and out of Sherlock’s life. Moriarty is the only constant.

“I imagine John would complain a great deal about the washing up,” Sherlock says.

Moriarty’s eyes sparkle in delight. She rests her chin in her hand. “Do you think he would wash my blood from the ground for you?” she asks. “Is this true love?”

Sherlock stares at her, but if he expects her to flinch from his cold gaze then he doesn’t know her nearly as well as he pretends to do so. “John is an invaluable companion,” Sherlock drawls eventually.

Moriarty smirks. She leans back in her chair and brushes her fringe out of her eye. “How charming,” she says. “I hear he’s also something of a ladies’ man. Am I his type?”

“I don’t think you’re anybody’s type.”

“No, but I can make myself appeal to anyone,” Moriarty says. She licks her lips. “I’m sure John won’t be a challenge. I even know where he likes to spend his Friday nights. I -“

She’s cut off by a blast of movement: Sherlock rises from his chair and grabs hold of her upper arm, yanking her out of her seat. His grip is tight enough to hurt and her heart starts to race. Adrenaline rushes through her and she arches an eyebrow at him as she looks up into Sherlock’s furious eyes.

All she has to do is glance towards the window to remind him that she has all of London at her disposal. She is the sharpest mind of her generation. All it would take to destroy both him and his lapdog would be the faintest gesture to her guards. Loyalty is such a wonderful thing, especially when it’s violent.

Reluctantly, Sherlock releases his grip on her arm, and she rewards him with a mocking pat to his cheek. “Good boy,” she says. “Don’t worry. If you behave yourself, I won’t need to go anywhere near him.”

Sherlock breathes through his nose. She can feel the anger vibrating through him and it makes her want to prod a little more: she wants to see what it’s like when he explodes. “I think you ought to leave now, Jane,” Sherlock says, biting off her first name as if it’s an insult.

“Of course, I wouldn’t want to take up too much of your time,” she says, with a dismissive glance towards the half-finished experiments on the kitchen table. “Thanks for the tea. I’ll see myself out.”

All the same, Sherlock stalks her all the way to the front door as if he thinks that she might plant something dangerous on her way out. It’s disappointing. Surely by now he ought to know that she’s far more inventive than that. The door closes behind her with a satisfying click and she heads straight into the black car that is waiting for her by the sidewalk.

An afternoon spent threatening Sherlock is always a pleasant diversion, but she’s got work to do. The criminal underworld won’t rule itself.