Frostbite

Six

The trip was quick and uneventful. Steve stood from his seat as we flew over Africa, approaching Sam and Nat. "Drop to twenty-six hundred, heading zero, three, zero."

"I hope you're right about this, Cap. Or we're gonna land a lot faster than you want to," Sam replied, but did as he said.

The quinjet passed through some kind of force field, the lush forest around us turning into a sparkling body of water. A large city sat on the edge, the huge buildings spanning far into a mountain range on the other side. It was stunning.

Sam lowered the jet onto a landing pad, a group on people waiting outside for us to disembark. King T'Challa and the Dora Milaje slowly approached the ramp as we all followed Steve and Natasha.

"Should we bow?" Bruce whispered, glancing over. I raised a brow but didn't make the smart reply I was tempted to.

"Yeah, he's a king." Rhodey snorted, winking at me when Bruce turned away. I shook my head and bit my lip to keep from laughing.

"Seems like I'm always thanking you for something," Steve greeted T'Challa, shaking his hand. Bruce took a few steps forward and bowed awkwardly to the monarch. I launched into a coughing fit as I tried to hide my amusement.

Rhodey stared at Bruce in fake shock, "What are you doing?"

"Uh, we don't do that here," T'Challa informed Bruce, giving him an odd look. Bruce shot up and narrowed his eyes at Rhodey, who only grinned. I laughed and turned back to the others.

"So how big of an assault can we expect?" T'Challa inquired as our group began moving toward the building.

"Uh, sir, I think you can expect quite a big assault."

"How we looking?" Natasha asked him, glancing around at the preparing soldiers.

"You will have my Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and..." he gestured to an approaching figure. Wanda and Vision kept moving on, eager to get inside.

Bucky came forward, a wide smile spreading across his face at the sight of Steve, "A semi-stable, one-hundred year old man."

They embraced briefly, taking a moment to talk. How long had it been since they'd seen one another? Steve had to hate being separated from Bucky so soon after getting him back.

"How you been, Buck?" Steve grinned.

"Uh, not bad, for the end of the world."

Bucky's eyes shifted from his friend and landed on me as I hovered behind them quietly. Steve moved to the side, letting him slowly approach, his eyes bouncing between us.

He came to a halt in front of me, struggling to say what he wanted, "I- I just want to say how sorry-"

"You don't owe me an apology. You don't owe me anything, James."

"You can call me Bucky," he smirked, still slightly uneased. I smiled and reached my hand out, unsure if he'd take it. He did hesitantly and I pulled him into an embrace. He stiffened at first, but eventually relaxed. I hadn't lied before; I held no anger towards him. He deserved peace, a real life.

"Bucky- I'm glad you're doing well," I told him, stepping back again. His arms dropped from my shoulders and his eyes glistened as if my forgiveness relieved him of part of his dark past that clung to him. The hell this man had endured over the years was heartbreaking. Steve beamed at the two of us, but we were ushered inside without further delay.

Sam, Bucky, and Rhodey stayed outside as the rest of us made our way up to Shuri's lab, who was T'Challa's younger sister. Vision was already on the table, Wanda and Shuri hovering over him. T'Challa briefly introduced her as she used some form of tech to scan Vision's body. A hologram projected over her palm.

"Whoa. The structure is polymorphic," she observed, not taking her eyes from the image.

"Right, we had to attach each neuron non-sequentially," Banner explained, growing closer to speak with her.

"Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?"

Vision glanced at Bruce as if to ask the same thing. If it were other circumstances, it would have been a laughable moment.

"They didn't think of it," I snickered, receiving a betrayed look from Bruce. I shrugged my shoulders back. I wasn't wrong; I had listened to all their ideas. It hadn't come up once.

With a reassuring smile at him, she said, "I'm sure you did your best."

"Can you do it?" Wanda interrupted, staring at Shuri.

"Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures," she explained seriously before looking to her brother, "It will take time, brother."

"How long?" Steve inquired, finally speaking.

"As long as you can give me."

An alarm rang out, startling the room. Okoye fiddled with her bracelet and flicked one of the beads into her palm. A pulsing marker of Earth appeared.

"Something's entered the atmosphere," she announced, and I quickly approached the spanning windows, spotting the intruding object far up in the sky.

"Hey, Cap, we got a situation here," Sam said over comms from outside. The vessel slammed into the shield protecting the golden city and it shattered into nothing.

"God, I love this place," Bucky whispered in awe.

"Yeah, don't start celebrating yet, guys. We got more incoming outside the dome," Rhodey spoke up.

More of them came raining down, landing out in the forest surrounding the city. Everyone in the room grew tense. We were out of time.

Vision struggled to sit up on the table, saying, "It's too late. We need to destroy the stone now."

"Vision, get your ass back on the table," Natasha barked at him. He stopped struggling and glanced at Wanda.

"We will hold them off," T'Challa reassured him, heading for the door with his warriors.

Steve turned to Wanda, "As soon as the stone is out of his head... you blow it to hell."

"I will."

"Evacuate the city. Engage all defense procedures," T'Challa ordered, stopping to glance back at Steve one more time, "And get this man a shield."

I strode up to Wanda and grabbed her hand comfortingly. Her eyes met mine and we exchanged a brief moment.

"We'll do everything we can. Try not to look so worried," I murmured to her. Her hand rested on my cheek as she gave a weak smile.

"I know you will, Melanie. If only our reunion wasn't under such strenuous circumstances."

"I know."

With a final glance at my friend, we left them and headed down to where several large vehicles were waiting to take everyone out to the fields near the edge of the dome. Once everyone was loaded up, we drove out immediately. It was time to face Thano's army.