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“Give me a minute!” you screamed as you could sense Bucky, Sam and Zemo pulling up to the door as well. “If you’d touched anything in this case, Sharon, you might be dead. And I am just as clueless…shite…”

“That can’t be good,” Sam said as you sensed the quartet outside the door backing away from it. The bathroom was filling with a green mist, and you knew immediately who had sent this to you just as you realized the mist was seeping under the door. “And Auntie Kay? Seriously? Why are we just hearing that now, Sharon?”

“It’s…Loki had been holding this for me. With his death, I guess he had tasked someone with getting this to me. We were more friends at the end than I realized,” you said as you finally came out of the bathroom, holding a dagger that was very familiar to Bucky.

“It’s that damned knife,” he said as he stepped back a foot away from you. “Why did Loki have it?”

“I took it to him to see if he and Frigga could figure out what it does. After our dust up in Katowice, I was hurt and I was clueless. I asked Loki to hold it for me back in 1991. When you went to Wakanda for healing, it never dawned on me to get the stupid thing back. You didn’t need me or it poking into a rather delicate process. It would likely have freaked out that staff of scientists in Wakanda.”

“Why is such a small knife in such a huge case?” Zemo asked as you went back and picked up the case, opening it fully to the group. “Oh,” was all he said as you pulled another, heftier weapon out of it. The last time you had used the sword that had taken up most of the space in that case had been in London in the mid-1800s, and it still made you want to cry every time you held the damned thing. The silver hilt had a raven sitting atop a flaming sun, and the blade was dotted with dried blood.

“He had this sword hidden for me as well, and that is all you need to know about it at the moment,” you said as you took the sword and put it back in the case. When you went to close the lid, an envelope jutted out of a corner pocket. You put the envelope on a shelf to the side of the bathroom door and set the dagger on top of it. Once you closed the case fully, you opened a small pocket dimension door to stash the case in. The envelope and the dagger, with its emerald studded hilt and golden overlay on the blade, were staying with you. The dagger still had some of your blood and Bucky’s on it as well. That little detail surprised you.

You went to check the envelope, and a small ring fell to the floor. You squatted down to pick it up, and you mouthed a silent “thank you” as you got back up. It was a gift from Loki that you were more than happy to have as you thought about going to see Dr. Nagel. “And this little thing is better than truth serum. If Nagel is lying, I’ll know, without going into his mind once,” you said as you put the ring on your dominant right hand.

“It looks like a mood ring,” Sam said as you laughed. “We used to have one in the junk jewelry box my Mama had. Never worked right.”

“It sort of is a mood ring, but this one only works for people like me,” you said as Sharon rolled her eyes at the comment. “Here, try it,” you said as you handed her the golden band dotted with amethysts and emeralds with a moonstone in the center. “Ask me a question, Sharon.”

“I think I’m going to pass,” Sharon said as she handed the ring back. “The one question I am dying to ask, I know you won’t answer. Not around these three anyway. It might make things a little complicated.”

“His name was Thom O’Malley. He was my second husband, and the last time I held that sword was the day he died,” you said as you stared Sharon down. “But you knew that because I’m sure Peggy had that in my dossier. Now, any takers?” you asked the three gentlemen in the room as you showed them the ring again, but they all declined. “Fine then. I’ll hold it until we find Nagel.”

Finding Nagel was not the problem once Sharon got everyone to the docks. Staying alive after he opened up about the Super Soldier serum was the bigger bit of business, especially after Zemo shot the man dead and his container car lab blew up.

Hell, you never even got to use the ring Loki had sent along to you! Maybe it was because the man was afraid of Bucky shooting him. He should have been more afraid of Zemo in the end.

You didn’t remember crashing to the floor when the explosion happened, but Sam shaking your shoulder to rouse you was all too real. So were the bullets whizzing past you when you ran out of the container car. Zemo was long gone, and you figured this whole trip was for nothing as Sam, Bucky and Sharon bickered with each other behind a makeshift barricade.

{{Will you all shut up? I can’t concentrate}} you telepathically said in their minds, sending the trio into a bit of a tizzy as you tried to find the best way out of this mess. But then there was another explosion, and you could see a purple-hooded Zemo was taking out more of Madripoor’s muscle with his gun. You were damned lucky to get a shield barrier up to protect your compatriots from the fire caused by the blast.

As you all finally got out from behind the barricade, Zemo vanished from sight once more, but then he rolled up in a vintage Pontiac Firebird. You looked at Sam and Bucky getting in the car, and then you looked over at Sharon. Something about this whole situation seemed very wrong, and you realized what it was as soon as you pulled that dagger from your belt. It and the letter were the last things you grabbed from Sharon’s apartment before you left to find Nagel.

“Buck’s right,” you muttered under your breath.

“What am I right about?” he asked as he saw you palming the dagger. “Maybe you should stash that thing before we get on Zemo’s plane?”

“You don’t need me where you’re going,” you mumbled as you opened a portal just in front of the car. “I need to parse out Loki’s note. Any clues to this dagger are in it, and I may need to go to Wong to help me decipher it. You guys need to be clear headed about this, and if Bucky and I start reliving falling off Polish university roofs, well, that isn’t good. And I can find you if you need me.”

“You’re running again,” Bucky grumbled as he got in the front seat, refusing to move it up once Sam got in the back.

“What else is new?” you said as you threw up your hands and walked through the portal. But you had no intension of going to see Wong just yet. You needed to go home.

The moment your feet touched Irish soil you felt better. You just needed to be away from all the noise of this disastrous mess. You could just feel the tension rising again when you left, and you did not want to play referee to Bucky, Sam, Zemo or anyone else.

“They can sit on a bloody plane for a few hours and not make a mess of it,” you said under your breath, but then you remembered the flight to Madripoor and realized you likely had just made a huge mistake. But you couldn’t be a babysitter for that trio, and you really did have work to do about this stupid dagger.

Before you went inside, you walked around to the back of your small house on the grounds of your family’s ancestral home. It wasn’t the manor house you had showed to Team Cap from that window in your pocket dimension safe house on that Christmas Eve so long ago. This was the “small” house closer to the stables on the property. It was a lot cozier now that it was only you living there, and even then you split your time between County Kildare and Brooklyn anyway. There was a small garden in the back where you would usually sit and drink tea or coffee the mornings you were there, but right now it just gave you a quiet place to read Loki’s letter.

“I wish I had come back for this so we could have discussed it in person…”

You sighed heavily as you looked at the envelope, and then you noticed the runes along the edge of the letter once you pulled it out. Loki had put some magic into the note, and you could only imagine what it was he was trying to hide from prying eyes. You ran your fingers over the runes as you expected hidden lettering to appear. You got much more than that. A hologram of sorts materialized before you.

“Finally!” the apparition said with a devilish grin as “Loki” sat in the chair to your right. “I suspect by now you know what I did to make this happen, and I am afraid the magic may not last long. And if this is in your hands, well, I may have met my end sooner than I planned, little goddess.”

You looked at “Loki” and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You died a hero. But I wish I had gotten to say good bye. Properly. And with an apology.”

“For what?” he asked as he saw you had the dagger in your belt.

“For not convincing people that you were under the thrall of the mind stone. They never saw it with you, and they never truly understood the brainwashing thing about Bucky either. I’ve failed you both, at various times, in so many ways.”

“You do not control the world, as much as Stark and others might wish you did at times,” “Loki” replied as he shook his head. “You do not need to take on that burden. I am sure the sergeant and I both know that. Now, about that dagger. No one seems to know what it does. It may be from another realm. I don’t know…”

The apparition started to blink in and out, and you could tell the magic was failing.

“Twining. Joining of souls. Empathic bond. I’m not sure. I wish I could be of more help, little raven.”

“Thank you, my friend,” you said as you hung your head and the apparition disappeared. It would have to do for now, or at least until you saw Loki once more at the end of your days. You closed your eyes and clutched the letter, tears spilling down your face as you tried to rekindle the magic in it once more. But the sudden jarring noise of a jet brought you back to reality. As the Wakandan transport landed in the open space behind your home, you were greeted by Okoye, the general of the Dora Milaje and one of the few women you trusted to understand what it took to get through what must have seemed a charmed life to many. Why she was here was going to be a problem, though.

Okoye crossed her arms and looked every bit the pissed off general as she stood on the ramp of the jet. “Explain to me why it was so important for them to use Helmut Zemo as a contact for this mission?”

“I know you spoke to the Berlin authorities. I saw the call go out on their console at the prison,” you said as you invited Okoye into your home. “I take it Ayo is on her way to see them? I do not have the particulars of how he got out. He was the best contact to get information on who stole the Super Soldier serum. As far as I am concerned, he can rot for eternity for what he did to Bucky,” you said as you moved past the back door, closing it behind you so none of the staff on the property would come knocking just yet.

“And does Bucky know how you feel?” Okoye asked as she sat down on one of the leather chairs in your small office toward the rear of the house. “You staring at him through the stasis tube as he slept might not have been the best way to let him know how you feel.”

“Bucky does not deserve to be saddled with the likes of me, and we both know that. He deserves happiness and a bright future, not more fighting. Be right back,” you said quietly as you walked out of the room and back in a few minutes later with a pitcher of water, iced tea, bottles of juice, some glasses and a plate of fruit and cookies. Your staff checked in every few days to make sure a small bit of food was on hand in case you showed up unannounced. “He deserves peace. By my very nature, that is not what he would get from me. Please, help yourself,” you said as you set the items down.

“I think you are being ridiculous, and so is he with this plan of his,” Okoye replied after pouring herself some juice. “Ayo will not go easy on him for this.”

“And that’s why I will likely go to Riga, but I had a problem to deal with first,” you said as you held up the dagger. “I had taken this to a friend a long time ago for safe keeping, but he died, and now it is back in my hands. It binds me and Bucky somehow, but I don’t need to figure this out while flying over the ocean or in the middle of a battle. We stabbed each other with it during a fight in 1991, and I’m not sure what it did to us.”

“Is that the blade he stabbed you with in the heart?” Okoye asked as you just stood and stared at her. “He told us about it when he saw a photo of you with King Azzuri.”

“Oh, that’s just lovely,” you groaned as you held the dagger. “Yes, it is. And I need to figure out what happened after we stabbed each other. Wait. Why did he bring it up?”

“He had a nightmare. That’s all I know,” Okoye added as she sipped her drink.

“No wonder he wanted to stay the hell away from it,” you noted as you put it into a box on your desk for the moment. “Thank you for that information. I’ll try to get them to see reason about sending Zemo back to prison now. I’m hoping Ayo has him in custody before I get there. I’m sick of his holier-than-thou smug attitude. He sees things in black and white, but he never seems to see the gray area just beyond the edges. And I am still not thrilled with how he treats Bucky and Sam.”

“Then why are you here and not with them? Is it because of that dagger?” Okoye asked as you nodded in reply. “Then maybe you should do what is needed and get to Riga? And have you seen this new Captain America? What is your take on him?”

“Oh, yes, I met the man,” you said as you grunted under your breath. “He is arrogant, but he has the physical skills to do the job. I just wonder about his take on holding that shield. You can imagine the drama between Bucky and Sam about all of this. I am trying like hell not to play referee between those two. I think that’s another reason I headed back here. I needed to think, and their interactions about that shield make that a bit difficult.”

“I would not wait long,” Okoye said as she got up and prepared to leave. “Barnes is as stubborn as you are.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” you said as you nodded to the general as she left your house and went back to the jet. You walked the dagger down to what you called The Armory in the basement of your home and stored it in a safe guarded by wards not used in centuries. It would be safe for now, and you would bring Wong here to take a look at it soon.

As you came back upstairs, you could tell the team was well on their way to Riga. A quick shower and a short nap couldn’t hurt. Right?

Wrong. You slept half a day, maybe more, and what you woke up to freaked you out. You could feel what was going on with Bucky, Sam and Zemo. You could hear Ayo. You could see John Walker and Lemar Hoskins.

“Shite,” was all you could say as you prepared to open a portal to Riga. It was then that you felt it. Ayo and Bucky getting into a very heated argument. And your portal opened just as Ayo made Bucky’s arm fall off.

“What in the name of Bast are you doing?” you shouted at Ayo as a spear came flying past your face and planted into the wall behind you. You grabbed it and spun it around your head before taking a battle stance in Wakandan fashion, glaring at Ayo and her comrades as they finally gave Walker back the shield. You dropped the spear and rolled it to Ayo before she and her team left to follow Zemo.

“Oh, why do I feel this was all a set up?” you bellowed as you looked at Bucky putting his arm back on. “Okoye visited me back home. We were discussing current events, if you get my meaning. Then I crashed. Great. Just great.”

“Did you leave that dagger at home? I take it you didn’t make it to see Wong yet?” Sam asked as you muttered under your breath. “I’ll take that as a grumpy yes,” he added as you followed him and Bucky out to the street, and you were very glad not to see Walker or Hoskins.

You didn’t have time to think about what to say regarding the dagger for very long. As Sam filled you in about what had happened with Zemo and the serum vials earlier, he got a call from Sarah that sent the three of you off to a meeting with the Flag Smashers. Sam was supposed to meet Karli alone, but once again, things spiraled out of control as Bucky tagged along with him. You would have stayed outside as backup, but Walker and Hoskins showed up as well. There was a free-for-all, and you got to see up close how powered up Karli’s forces were. It was like fighting younger and more frenetic versions of Bucky from those days back in Poland, and it stunk.

Everyone seemed to be paired off with an opponent, and it was getting beyond messy as the one you assumed was Karli slammed Hoskins into a pillar, breaking his neck on impact. The Flag Smashers ran, and Walker was in hot pursuit, trying to find the woman who killed his best friend.

And that’s when the world saw the new Captain America kill a man with the shield, and you knew Sam and Bucky needed to go get the shield from Walker. You just needed to figure out if they needed you there or if checking on Sarah was the better play. You didn’t trust anyone claiming to be a Flag Smasher to keep their word where anything was concerned, and you would not let Sarah or the boys be pawns in this mess.

{{As much as I might be tempted to do so, I am not going to mind wipe anyone. With all the video going out, it would be pointless}} you said telepathically to Bucky and Sam, and they both shot you a look you would never forget. {{Do not look at me like I am the Devil. Sam, back when we made that sandwich run, you asked me if I hadn’t done potentially unethical things to make life easier for myself or others. I have. But I don’t usually pull the card from the deck unless it is an earth-shattering event. This comes damned close. So were some of the things I did when we lost you two. Just ask Bruce. I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly, and old clan rites I performed scared everyone except Thor. The only thing that rivaled it was when I stabbed myself in the heart when my first husband, Galen Sun, died at Camlann protecting King Arthur. I suggest we leave before the police start asking a lot of questions. I know you have places to be, and I know this is something you have to do on your own}}

“Stop talking in our heads. Please,” Bucky grunted as you glared at him. “I’m betting neither of us likes it very much. And yeah, we need to head after Walker. You coming?”

“Sam, I am not betting that someone doesn’t try to bother Sarah. I can do some intel work on what the Flag Smashers plan next and check on her and the boys. Could you just give her a call to let her know I’m coming? Send her my picture. And yes, I need time to figure out that damned dagger, Buck. Loki left me a note, and I don’t like what he said.”

“That isn’t exactly a surprise. It is Loki, after all,” Sam said as he finished texting Sarah your picture.

“Sam, just don’t. Please. I know no one else really understood him except Thor, and you do not want to hear my chorus of ‘He was brainwashed by the mind stone’ yet again. As for the dagger, what he did say didn’t make a lot of sense. It’s stored safely and far away, so it won’t cause any problems. Just, both of you, please be careful. Walker is radiating all sorts of weird energy, and I think we all suspect he got one of the vials.”

“One question,” Bucky said as you all started to walk in the direction where Walker had been heading, “how bad is what Loki said?”

“Our souls may be intertwined, and for your sake, I’m praying Loki was wrong. You deserve a good life, not the ramshackle hell you’d get if you are stuck with me in any way.”

As you turned away from your teammates, you thought about the two of them fighting Walker. Maybe you could talk sense into the man so no one had to fight? It was the longest of shots, but you’d take it.

Or, maybe your gut instinct of being there to heal Sam and Bucky was what held you back?

“Let me stay long enough to make sure he doesn’t pull something stupid,” you said quietly as your friends went into the industrial building where Walker seemed to be holed up at the moment.

You didn’t need your earpiece to hear what was going on inside as your link to Bucky stayed in the “on” position for the entire battle. You could feel his and Sam’s pain, so you fell to your knees and sent every bit of healing energy you could to your compatriots. You cried out as you heard Walker’s scream, and you breathed a sigh of relief as Bucky came outside. You didn’t say a word to him as he stood there waiting for Sam to follow him out with the shield.

They had gotten it back, and that was all that mattered.

As you got back to your feet, you felt your phone vibrate in your boot. It was Sarah texting you to say she appreciated your offer of a visit. Once you saw Sam exit the building with the still bloody shield, you held up your phone and showed him Sarah’s picture. “I’m going to head out,” you said, but then a yellow portal started to form just behind Bucky and Sam. It was Wong, with Bruce and Darcy standing right behind him.

“What now, Wong? I am kind of busy!”

In part 8: Wong needs to chat, Darcy works her brand of magic and Bruce brings two new recruits up to speed...and what of the teens at Midtown Science? Maybe their teacher Julius is not too far off when he talks about witches!