Coming Down ? Steve Rogers

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Delaney wished that her power was time travel.

She'd ensure that Tony wasn't there. She'd make it so that Zemo never arrived - maybe she could make his plane crash? No, that would hurt others, she'd delay it instead. For a number a days. She'd reverse what happened in Sokovia and Wakanda so the Accords didn't even have to be considered. She'd go back to the 1940s and ensure Bucky never fell into the hands of H.Y.D.R.A.

She'd do any of those things so she wouldn't have to see the look on Tony's face as he viewed the grainy footage of Bucky killed both of his parents.

The expression on his face wounded Delaney to the core, as did the horror and self-loathing in Bucky's eyes. It felt like a crime scene in that room, and Delaney was witnessing the death of any hope of reconciliation between them.

When Tony raised his fist, Delaney flung herself between the two parties and bellowed, "All of you, stop, please -"

Tony managed to fire a shot over her shoulder. He dodged around her, and soon everyone was locked in combat, no matter how much Delaney screamed both verbally and with her mind for them to just listen! 

She didn't fight, just stood on the sideline, because no matter what she couldn't bring herself to fight once again - not after their reunion with Tony.

She wanted to pull her hair out, stamp her feet, scream - anything to grab their attention. They were so locked up in their battle that she had no chance of reaching any of the three.

Zemo. This is all Zemo's fault.

Delaney's blood boiled and she found the horrifying desire within her to hear him limb from limb. It was because of him her new found family was being torn apart - and she was never, ever going to forgive him for it. She hated him, her fury as bright and heated as the open flames of a wildfire - more than she'd hated even her parents.

She twisted around, knives at the ready, prepared to storm his chamber by any means necessary and make him pay for ripping her family apart. 

But to her utmost horror and displeasure, he was no longer there.

She hissed like a snake about to strike. I will find you, slime, and bring you to justice!

Leaving the echoes of metal and lasers behind her, Delaney sprinted through the complex. She'd fight neither Steve, Tony, or Bucky, but the man who had rendered them this way.

She didn't run blind. Delaney stretched out with her mind and sensed Zemo's. Along the way it brushed with a second, more noble mind. Delaney frowned but didn't delve deeper. She got the feeling this person was no threat to them and thus, she'd leave them alone.

Her search brought her barrelling onto the snow-coated mountainside. The temperature dropped yet Delaney paid it no heed. The chill was far less of a concern to her, compared with the man who sat just within her line of sight.

Zemo. The cause of all of this.

He wasn't alone. A second man - the person Delaney had sensed earlier - crept toward him like a cat over the snow. With a jolt she recognised him: T'Challa, again.

"I almost killed the wrong man," T'Challa was saying. He voice was deep and rich as velvet, majestic in its own right.

Delaney took the opportunity they were distracted to prowl forward. Her knives weighed heavily in her hands.

"Hardly an innocent one."

"Is this what you wanted? To see them rip each other apart?"

Delaney was about halfway there now. Her heart hammered so hard in her chest, she was surprised they hadn't heard her.