Chapter 129 - Consultation Fee

Chapter 129: Chapter 129 - Consultation Fee

Lucius did not invite him to sit.

"Excellent, because I feared you came to discuss international feelings."

"Can you undo HYDRA’s conditioning?"

"I can probably undo it."

The speed of the answer irritated Steve more than hesitation would have. "Probably isn’t enough."

"Then ask Xavier for a guarantee. He enjoys those until reality objects." Lucius took a drink. "I have not examined Barnes. I do not know what HYDRA damaged, reinforced or buried. Bring him here alive, conscious if convenient, and willing if you can manage the novelty. I will inspect the work."

"You don’t touch his mind without permission."

"Then he can explain decades of conditioning over tea."

"I mean it."

Lucius set the glass down. "And I mean that Telepathy is how I determine what was done. You are asking me to repair a mind while forbidding me to look at it."

Steve thought of Bucky’s empty stare on the carrier and the hand that had still pulled him from the river. "Then you ask him first."

"If he can answer, I ask. If he tries to shoot me, I restrain him, prevent him from killing either of us and make the minimum examination required to know whether the job is possible. I will not keep him."

"What would you demand in return?"

"After I know the work, I will name the price."

"Bucky isn’t a work, Noctis."

Lucius looked almost offended. "Rogers, if I wanted the Winter Soldier, I would not require you to deliver him."

Steve believed him without finding the answer reassuring. His eyes moved to the damaged wall. "My shield came from Wakanda."

"Your shield came from Howard Stark. The metal came from Wakanda, unless it fell out of the sky and landed in his workshop with a note."

"They hid behind poverty while other countries suffered."

"Yes, aren’t they heroic?"

Steve did not answer.

Lucius leaned back in his chair. "They also came to steal from me because their king could not tolerate fruit outperforming a sacred weed. You may conduct the moral audit in whichever order makes breakfast easier."

"Did you have to kill Twelve of T’Chaka’s men?"

Lucius looked at the picture of naivety.

"Did you have to kill so many Nazis back then? They entered my home with weapons."

"You could have stopped them without killing them."

"I could also have rewarded the intrusion with guided tours and commemorative towels. I am not a moron to turn the other cheek or to tolerate any bullshit from anyone. I am strong enough to do whatever I wish, Rogers. They needed a hard kick to wake up from their dreams of superiority, and now they have received one.. or twelve."

Steve heard the difference in that last sentence. "That’s why you exposed Wakanda."

"I exposed Wakanda because secrecy was the asset he valued most. Killing him would have ended one life. This way, I’ve ruined thousands."

"If I find Bucky, I’ll tell him what you require."

"Do that."

Steve turned toward the house.

"One more thing, Captain."

When Steve looked back, Lucius smiled faintly and nodded toward the shield. "For consultation, I may ask for the patriotic dinner plate."

"No."

"The price has already increased."

Steve left before the negotiation could acquire percentages.

-

Charles Xavier watched the recording from his study at the Institute. Noctis had faced more than thirteen minds on his own property. He could have held all of them before the first weapon rose. He had instead allowed punishment to become entertainment, then converted the surviving king into a weapon against millions who had never crossed his wall.

Charles felt the familiar ache behind his eyes whenever a man who had made himself a symbol of mutant power gave frightened people a reason to mistake ability for appetite. "He did not need that brutality."

Ororo remained by the window. The sky beyond the glass was clear, although a bank of clouds waited over the distant trees where the afternoon heat had begun to gather moisture. "No, he wanted it."

"That is not a defence."

"It was not offered as one." Ororo folded her arms. "T’Chaka brought armed men to take him. Lucius chose cruelty after he had already won."

Xavier turned to Ororo; her surface thoughts were already set on contacting him and having the dinner promised at the invasion of Chitauri.

"And which truth will you discuss over dinner?"

Her mouth curved slightly. She was not one of the idiots who believed Charles was a beacon of morality. "Whichever one annoys him the most."

Charles had learned that forbidding adults from dangerous choices usually made the choice more attractive and the warning less useful. "Then be careful with him, Ororo."

"I am not confusing interest with trust."

She took out her phone. The number Lucius had accepted on the Stark Tower rooftop had remained unused in her contacts until now, and he answered after two rings.

"Storm, I was beginning to suspect the number belonged to Scott."

"How have you been, Lucius?" She asked and added. "You promised me dinner."

"I have had a demanding morning. International diplomacy required an axe, and yes, I do remember."

"Yes, I saw the broadcast."

He waited for condemnation, and Ororo let the silence remain his problem.

"Shall I arrive at seven?"

"Eight, because you need time to clean the blood from your garden."

"Sebastien is responsible for the landscaping."

"Eight, Lucius."

"I will come to collect you."

"You will arrive at the front door."

"Your people are obsessed with doors."

"Eight."

-

Lucius arrived at eight through the front door. Ororo joined him in a black dress that left her shoulders bare and made the white of her hair look brighter beneath the entrance lights. He offered his arm without comment. She accepted it after checking that neither cuff carried blood.

"You have standards," he observed.

"Teaching children encourages pessimism about stains."

Dinner waited at Sands Point in a glass-walled room overlooking the water. Benjamin had chosen a view that kept the damaged lawn out of sight.

They spoke first about New York. Ororo asked why his lightning bent differently from hers. Lucius described charged paths and control, but when she asked where he had learned it, he reached for his wine. She let the silence stand, then described pressure, temperature and movement as one living system.

"You command the weather."

"I listen before I command."

"That sounds inefficient."

"Only to a man who thinks every room is waiting to become his property."

He smiled into his wine.

She asked about T’Chaka after the plates were cleared. "Would you have exposed Wakanda if he had come in peace?"

"No, I would not."

"Would you have killed the others?"

"Not if they had left when the rifles were aimed at them."

Ororo watched him across the table. He did not offer regret, and she preferred the ugliness stated plainly to an apology designed for seduction. "You enjoyed every part of it."

"Immensely."

"I thought so."

"Does knowing that ruin our dinner?"

"Luckily, our dinner is already over."

The breeze entered before she stood. It moved through the room without opening a door, lifted the edge of the tablecloth and wound around Lucius’s wrist with enough pressure to pull his hand from the wineglass. Ororo walked past him. "You are expected to follow."

The bedroom doors closed behind them under a quiet turn of wind. Ororo faced him beside the bed, one hand resting against his chest, and felt the answering current gather beneath his skin. He could have moved faster, but he waited until she drew his mouth to hers.

The restraint lasted until his hand settled at her waist and drew her against him. Heat moved through her, sharp enough that the air pressure changed with it and lifted the curtains. A low roll of thunder crossed the cloudless space above the house and faded before it reached the shore.

Lucius’s mouth followed the line below her ear. "Listening?"

"Closely."

Wind caught his shirt and pulled it open after her fingers freed the first buttons. He laughed once, low against her throat, then used Telekinesis to release the fastening at the back of her dress. "You are cheating already."

"Technical assistance."

The dress slid down her body. His attention followed without pretence, and she let him look until possession began to enter his expression. A current snapped from her fingertips to his chest. He felt it without moving. "Careful."

"That was careful."

"It was a warning."

"That makes it even better."

She pushed him onto the bed with a concentrated gust. The mattress bowed beneath his weight. Lucius caught her when she followed, rolled them once, and stopped above her with one hand braced beside her head.

Their powers met before their bodies did. Fine white-blue arcs moved over her skin. Crimson-gold current answered along his forearms, diverted into the metal frame and returned as harmless light. The air swirled around them, cool where his mouth had left heat and warm when the last barrier between them disappeared.

Ororo’s control survived the first slow press of him against her. It broke when Lucius sheathed his length inside her and held still, giving her body time to accept the fullness while refusing the movement she wanted.

Her eyes opened in lightning blue.

The room flashed as thunder struck close enough to shake the glass, but the charge folded inward under both their wills and spilt across the ceiling in branching light.

"Move," she breathed.

Lucius obeyed with a measured rhythm, his restraint almost insulting after everything she knew of him. Ororo tightened one leg around his waist and drew him deeper. Wind pressed at his back, removing the distance each time he tried to create it. His control roughened until the headboard protested, then held beneath a telekinetic brace.

When a different angle made her breath catch, he repeated it. The next slower withdrawal left her waiting until she used the wind to pull him back. When his current joined hers, lightning moved through them harmlessly, bright behind her eyes and warm beneath every place his hands claimed.

Ororo bit his shoulder to keep from crying out. He turned his head and watched her fail. "Do not look pleased with yourself."

"I am delighted with both of us."

She laughed despite herself, the sound breaking into a gasp when he changed the pace.

The storm remained inside the room. Curtains snapped in the circulating air. Her hair lifted around her face, white strands alive with blue light, while Lucius held her hips and drove her toward the release she had delayed twice out of pride.

Eventually, pride lost.

Pleasure tightened through her until thought scattered. The light in her eyes flooded the room, and her body clenched around him as the wind dropped all at once. Lucius caught her mouth before the sound escaped, kept moving through the aftershocks, then buried his face against her throat when his own control failed.

For several moments, the only weather was their breathing. Ororo traced one fading spark along his shoulder. "At least the room survived us."

Lucius looked toward the unbroken windows and reinforced bed. "I planned the evening responsibly."

"You cheated."

"Technical assistance."

She turned onto her side and drew the sheet over them with a lazy current of air. Charles would have questions, and Ororo had no intention of answering them before morning.

-

Shuri watched the world discover Wakanda one broadcast at a time. She had spent years improving machines foreign scientists did not know enough to imagine. Their proudest laboratories would have required instruction before they could identify the tools on her workbench. Now those same countries had begun discussing inspection teams, resource agreements and the moral duty of sharing what belonged to her people.

They had learned the word Vibranium in the morning and felt entitled to it before noon. Shuri understood the first loss before the council finished arguing. Concealment had been Wakanda’s strongest defence because an enemy could not target what they did not know. With that defence gone, denial would fail against the suit, the weapons and her father’s blood on American soil.

The screen showed Lucius Noctis smiling beneath a storm of questions.

Her father had underestimated him. That failure did not make the man right. It did not return the War Dogs or restore what that giant axe had taken.

Shuri enlarged the image until his face filled the display.

Hatred burned low beneath her ribs. She kept her hand steady on the controls, saved the frame and opened a new file.