Clutching || Bucky Barnes

10

Wanda was standing, energy forming in her hands as they all turned towards the clouds of blue and black clouds that had formed a hundred yards away from them between the trees. Basil rose to his feet, knives at the ready as a figure stepped through and the clouds, a portal, vanished. Thanos was big. His stature was similar to that of what the hulk had been, easily ten feet in height and a broad as an old barn door. His skin was a pale purple and seemed to form wrinkled grooves over his face. Bronze gold armour covered his chest and legs, matching the gauntlet on his right hand where four stones gleamed. Green, purple, red, and blue. (Basil thought that the guy's face looked kinda like a grape). 

"Cap. That's him", Bruce muttered. His suit was partly destroyed, one arm missing and the metal dented. Steve was just as battered and bruised as Basil, the shields on his forearms stained with purple alien blood. 

"Eyes up", Steve instructed as Basil fell into step beside him, leaving Wanda standing over Vision. The position familiar and easy. "Stay sharp". 

Bruce attacked first. He hurled himself at Thanos head on but Basil watched as blue magic enveloped him and the iron hulk suit breezed through the Titan as if it was made of nothing but air. It was startling to see something so similar to his own abilities that for a second he just stared as the suit hit rock and turned tangible again, sealing itself into the rocks. Steve went next. Basil running up next to him as Steve charged. A wave of purple energy blasted the blonde back, passing through Basil as he turned intangible last minute. It felt like a wave of sickening heat, so sudden that it made him dizzy, went through him and for a second he stumbled at the power. Steve went flying. The blonde hitting the ground and rolling. 

Basil threw himself at the Titan. More magic passed through him, leaving another nauseating moment of dizziness, but it didn't slow him down.  Thanos raised a hand as he grew close and the fist, as big as Basil's whole torso, passed right through him. The knife glanced off the gauntlet with a screeching of metal but the second one sliced thick purple skin. Thanos grunted. "I have no time to waste on pests like you". 

Then the blue stone gleamed and Basil was falling through a portal. It reappeared high in the clouds above and he was plummeting through the air. Wind and clouds whipping by as he flailed, sudden panic infecting his chest. The portal journey disorientating him and messing with his sense of direction. For a second he feared that he was no longer on earth, somewhere far away from Wakanda. Then the city came into view between the clouds and he realised that he had only been transported high above the battlefield. The battle below him a waste of carnage from this altitude. He could see the ruins of the destroyed alien ships, Thor's lightning sparking around the last one as it exploded. The deep trenches in the earth left by the wheels, the bodies littering the ground. Alien and human alike. For a second, with the sun shining through the clouds and the earth suspended below him, it was calm. The wind pulled on him as he tumbled. Then the earth was rising up to meet him and he was phasing through. Blackness enveloping him. 

He rose to the surface and inhaled a great lungful of air just in time to see as Steve caught Thanos' gauntlet hand and held on. Basil's whole body hurt, chest heaving as he fought to breath. Hitting the ground had felt like everything had been knocked out of him. He had never fallen from such a height before and phasing through the earth, hundreds of metres down as the momentum kept him going, then rising back up had taken a lot out of him. He breathed, aching so much that he could barely move, as Thanos knocked his fist into Steve's head and the blonde crumpled. Through the trees he could see Nat pinned under earth, Okoye; T'Challa and Sam crumpled in various unconscious positions. Rhody's suit was not far and Bucky was just about visible a short distance away. Basil could tell if his lover was unconscious or dead. The man's rifle discarded in the grass.