↱VICTORIA↲

"Move, Archangel. I won't ask again."

Victoria smiled wryly, unsheathing her dagger. "My name's Victoria, darling, didn't you get the memo?"

The Soldier moved for her, reaching to trap her in a headlock with his metal arm, only to find it wasn't there. She would've thought it sad, had he not been trying to kill her. Well, she wasn't all that sure on that, but she supposed it was better to assume everyone was trying to kill you instead of not and then someone killing you.

The Archangel did notice his movements were choppy - slow, forced, like the ice in his muscles hadn't yet went away. She blindly tugged on the back of his shirt, the fabric tearing; but not before the Soldier fell to the ground. That seemed to shock him into... Something. The man rose to his feet, agile as ever, but didn't make a move for her.

The woman's grip on her dagger loosened, but she moved out of the man's vicinity, just in case. Out of the ice, he looked daunting, haunted-his cheekbones seemed sharper, cheeks sunken in. The shadows under his eyes might've been only the effect of the nighttime darkness, but they still dramatized his ghostly appearance. Cerulean eyes dark and animalistic, the man started circling her, gaze occasionally flicking around as he tried to figure out his surroundings.

The Archangel spread her wings, the tip of the feathers only just missing Barnes. This seemed to urge him to keep his distance, for which she was thankful for. She turned her head to watch him, eyes narrowed. Victoria figured the others were either calm or panicked by the eerie silence; neither one of the two had done anything particularly noisy. "Where am I?" the Soldier croaked out, in the meanwhile grabbing a pen from the table. Victoria looked at the thing wearily. It was just a pen, but he could kill her with that pen around 10 or so ways. She highly doubted that estimation to be accurate. It was probably 20 or more, but she rather disliked focusing on how the man she happened to love could kill her.

"Wakanda," she answered.

The Soldier nodded, moving more quickly. The post-cryo effect seemed to have worn off, physically, but the man circling her still seemed as confused as ever. After a moment of him padding around her, eyes roaming (but she knew he was still keeping an eye on her, just without his eyes) the man stopped.

"Victoria?"

"10 points to Gryffindor."

The man seemed increasingly confused by that, for which she cursed herself. It seemed Sam was right concerning her "obvious" attitude problem, that she thought wasn't "obvious" as much as "prominent."

"When'd... When did you get wings?" he questioned, putting an end to his movement. If she didn't know any better, she would've thought it made him a little dizzy. Victoria opened and closed her mouth, not sure if she wanted to tell him that she had died for "Oh, only 5 minutes or something like that." With a sigh, she shrugged, which didn't seem to appease the man's curiosity, but he didn't push any further.

"Who's outside of the doors?" he questioned, nodding his head towards where both Steve and T'Challa were probably listening. Jacqueline, fortunately, didn't seem to have developed any bonds with her the short time she had been here, which meant she had probably left to get reinforcements. "Steve. T'Challa," she replied. The Soldier's forehead creased as he tried to figure out who the latter was, only for him to remember with wide eyes.

"Didn't he try to kill me?"

"He's tried to kill everyone at one point or another, darling, don't feel attacked."

He cocked his head, like a small puppy, which Victoria was much too familiar with. Her stature wavered, an expression of sadness etched into her features if for only a second. The Soldier was effortlessly aware of everything he wanted to be aware of, including her, and saw the falter. Something, after that, seemed to crumple within him.

Eyes rolling to the back of his head, the man dropped. The Archangel was fast enough to catch him, however, she had miscalculated how heavy he was and was brought to the ground with him. Victoria liked to think the effects of being an 80+ year old woman wouldn't show, but they sometimes did. Especially when she was basically crushed by a 260 pound former assassin.

The Archangel, as a partial human, did not restrain herself from cursing. Loudly. "Motherfucker!"

↱JACQUELINE↲

Despite (obvious) warnings, Steve Rogers practically ripped the door off its hinges to get to his best friend. Jacqueline was more than apathetic to Victoria's wellbeing, admittedly, but the winged woman did happen to be her "parole officer" of sorts, so Jacqueline did try to not just sit around when it came to the woman possibly having to fight off the Winter Soldier (whom she actually had never heard of, but it he was as deadly as T'Challa had indirectly stated, even Jack was worried.)

Bursting into the room, they were met by a sight. The 10 foot radius around the two was in ruins, papers on the ground, other unidentifiable things broken. In the eye of the storm, Victoria herself was holding a semi-conscious Barnes. She was struggling to hold the larger man, automatically signaling Steve to rush forward and assist her. Jack moved closer to T'Challa, unaware of her own actions, and watched concernedly as the two tried to bring him back to consciousness.

"Did you call the nurses?"

"What do you take me for, Knight, stupid?"

"Well, if we're being honest-"

The man violently jerked, inhaling like a madman that had almost been drowned. Dark hair pushed out of his face, he blindly grasped at the front of Victoria's shirt. Pale lips moving, with barely legible words escaping, the only one in the room moving seemed to be the Archangel herself. Gulping for air, he seemed to calm down, looking straight up at the woman with wide blue eyes. The nearly nonexistent light seemed to reflect directly in Barnes', lighting them up like ice.

"Vi-Victoria," he gasped, gripping even tighter. Now, now Jack could see the fear in his eyes. What would he be afraid of? The winged woman only seemed to be more frightened in response, tightly gripping his face in her hands. "I'm here, Jelly, I'm here," she murmured. Jack could barely hear her voice, but that, she supposed, was because the woman was trying to comfort the distraught, haunted looking man.

His eyebrows furrowed, the fear seeming to spill onto his face like liquid.

"Helena-Helena Hawkes is alive."