𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄━︎━︎ B. Barnes ✓︎

𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
HOLD THEM OFF

BUCKY AND FALLON WALKED INTO the room hand in hand, Steve glancing towards the two and forcing to hide the smile that wanted to creep up his lips. Vision was sitting on the table, Shuri standing there scanning the stone with the bracelet that was on her arm. Fallon could tell the android was nervous, and quite frankly she was too. No one knew the outcome of what was going to happen. But even so, they all had the same goal: protect Vision at all cost.

Shuri flipped her hand, the inside of her palm facing the roof. A hologram of Vision's stone appeared in her hand and she took a moment to scan it with her eyes, narrowing her eyes slightly as she tried to figure out where to start. A amused smile was on Fallon's face as she watched Bruce examine the woman's actions with complete and utter awe. The entire place intrigued the scientist, and if there wasn't a war coming, he probably would've done whatever he could in order to learn all about the place.

     "Whoa." Shuri breathed, her eyes widened slightly. "The structure is polymorphic."

     "Right, we had to attach each neuron non-sequentially." Bruce told the girl, glancing down at the hologram before looking back up at the younger sibling of T'Challa. His eyebrows were furrowed, watching as the woman glanced up at him as if he were dumb.

     "Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?" Shuri questioned the scientist. Her head cocked to the side slightly, and Vision even looked up at the man from the examination table, almost as if he was silently asking him the same question.

     Bruce stuttered over his words, his mouth opening and closing for a moment. "Because, we didn't think of it."

     Shuri gave the man a reassuring smile and nod. "I'm sure you did your best."

     "Can you do it?" Wanda was quick to ask. The woman was terrified for her partner. She didn't want anything bad to happen, and listening to the words Bruce and Shuri were saying only seemed to make her even more anxious. She just wanted to know if Vision had a chance. If they were still going to be okay, and that he would have the chance to keep on living without the stone imprinted into his head.

     "Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures." Shuri nodded her head at Wanda before glancing towards her brother. "It will take time, brother."

     "How long?" Steve was the one to ask the question, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. Like everyone else, he too was worried. Vision was a part of his team, and he would do everything in his power in order to prevent losing a member of their team.

     Shuri glanced at the Captain before answering, "As long as you can give me."

     That's when the bead on Okoye's bracelet starts to beep. The woman opened the palm of her hand, the bead rolling into it, allowing a hologram of the atmosphere around them to appear. The woman glanced towards T'Challa before noticing the red blinking dot. "Something's entered the atmosphere."

Fallon and Bucky exchanged looks with one another before Fallon nodded her head towards the man she had come to love, watching as he walked out of the room. She moved across the room, taking a stand beside of Steve. The man glanced at her and she forced a small smile before suddenly Sam's voice filled their ears.

     "Hey, Cap, we got a situation here." Sam spoke. He and Bucky were looking up at the sky, their eyes watching as something crashed into the top of the dome, being destroyed by the protective barrier.

     "God, I love this place." Bucky breathed.

     "Yeah, don't start celebrating yet, guys. We got more incoming outside the dome." Rhodey's voice joined the conversation. Fallon looked out of the window, narrowing her eyes and watching the movement of the trees outside of the protective barrier, the explosion of dust following after the landing of the alien ships. The dust slammed against the edges of the barrier's, but not making it through. That's when Fallon left the room, walking out and joining Bucky and Sam's side. Bucky glanced towards the girl, his gun in his hands.

     "You don't plan on fighting a war without any weapons are you?" Bucky questioned the girl, noticing the lack of weapons in her hands. Fallon glanced up towards him, raising an eyebrow as she crossed her arms over chest.

     "Bucky, I'm an assassin. I always have weapons on me."

     Back inside of the building, Vision sat up. It immediately grabbed the attention of the entire group. "It's too late. We need to destroy the stone now." Vision grunted out, pain shooting through his body from the stab wound he had received from one of Thanos' children earlier.

     Natasha snapped her head towards the android, walking over to him. "Vision, get your ass back on the table."

     "We will hold them off." T'Challa assured the android, exchanging a look with Steve who gave the King a nod of the head.

     Steve turned his head to look at Wanda. "Wanda, as soon as the stone's out of his head, you blow it to hell."

     "I will." Wanda nodded.

     "Evacuate the city. Engage all defense procedures." T'Challa was quick to order those standing around him that was part of the Kingsgaurd. He stopped in his tracks, turning towards Steve and then pointing at the man. "And get this man a shield." Steve nodded at the King once more before T'Challa walked out of the room. The war was about to start. The war that none of them were ready for.