pure devotion | | bucky barnes | | book one

17. battle in wakanda

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𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐖𝐚𝐫

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Mila woke up like any other day. She got ready and stepped out of the hut. Bucky was an early riser so he was already awake, spending his time outside. Mila walked towards him slowly, "Bucky?" He looked over at her from where he stood staring out at the lake. "Yeah?" "Any nightmares?" he shrugged, "Same as usual." Mila nodded in understanding.

She heard chatter from up the hill. T'Challa and Okoye walking together, accompanied by two Wakandan soldiers. The Wakandan soldiers walk ahead with a case in hand. They present Bucky with a new vibranium arm. Mila felt her heart sink, she knew what this meant. Two years of rest, too good to be true.  "Where's the fight?" Bucky asked the question she too was wondering. "On it's way."

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Mila hadn't been told much, all she knew was that there was a crazy space alien looking for some special stones to end the world. Fun. She watched as the Quinjet landed on the landing pad in the front of the palace. She watched as Sam, Steve, Natasha, Vision, Rhodey, Bruce, and Wanda walked out of the jet. Mila sped up her walking beside Bucky once she saw her sister. The team was talking with T'Challa and Okoye when Bucky and her reached them. She could now hear their conversation.

"Uh, sir, I think you can expect quite a big assault." Bruce spoke. "How we looking?" "You will have my King's Guard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and..." Bucky stepped forward. "A semi-stable, 100-year-old man."  Steve and Bucky share a hug. "How you been, Buck?" "Uh, not bad, for the end of the world." "Mila." Steve nodded at Mila, and shot her a warm smile. Mila wanted to hug Wanda but she could see her holding Vision up and decided to wait.

Inside Shuri's lab they lay Vision on a table, while Bruce and Shuri stand over him, and the others watch. Shuri scans the stone, and studies the hologram carefully. "Whoa. The structure is polymorphic." Shuri spins the hologram, pulling it closer to a certain spot. "Right, we had to attach each neuron non-sequentially." "Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?" Bruce seems shocked that a girl her age bested him. "Because, we didn't think of it." "I'm sure you did your best." She sends Bruce a smile.

"Can you do it?" "Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures." She shifts her focus to T'Challa. "It will take time, brother." "How long?" "As long as you can give me." Okoye looks at a device that just alerted her on her wrist. The beads. "Something's entered the atmosphere."

Mila walks outside to where Sam and Bucky stand, looking up a the sky. A large ship lands heavily against the force field. "Hey, Cap, we got a situation here." The defence shield around Wakanda destroys one of the vessels entering the atmosphere. "God, I love this place." "Yeah, don't start celebrating yet, guys. We got more incoming outside the dome."

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Carriers hover over the ground with Wakandan soldiers and Natasha, Steve, Mila and Bucky on board; Rhodey and Sam keep pace overhead, and Bruce is in the Hulkbuster armor. "How we looking, Bruce?" Bruce is leaping and jogging along, keeping up with the carriers, and utterly delighted, he has control in this situation. "Yeah, I think I'm getting the hang of it. Wow! It's like being the Hulk without actually--" he stumbles on a rock, and a carrier goes by, from which Okoye gives him a dubious look. He stands. "I'm okay. I'm okay." Mila chuckles and shakes her head.