Memories || Bucky Barnes

Chapter 21

I enter the lab and I realize that it is more crowded than I first expected. Every Avenger that got here a few minutes ago, is standing in the room.

"About time! I called you 3 times!" Shuri says

"Yeah, sorry about that. What do you need?" I ask.

Everyone's eyes move to my side, which makes me pretty sure that Bucky just entered the room. He is keeping his distance though.

I clear my throat and I approach Shuri and Vision who's on the table.

"I'm glad you decided to finally use the suit. But I'm afraid I'll keep you inside for this one" Shuri says

"Thanos is coming and we need to destroy the mind stone before he gets his hands on it" Steve speaks

"The stone has a polymorphic structure. Each neuron is attached none-sequential. I can rewrite the neurons one by one and reprogram the synapsis to work collectively, but there are more than two trillion neurons here" Shuri explains

"That needs a lot of time and attention. One misalliance could cause a cascade of circuit failures" I reply

"We can cut the time in half if you work with me here" she suggests

"Are you sure?" I ask surprised

"You studied brains and the technology for the past 2 years. You made it work once" she looks at Bucky

"Alright. I'm in".

"How much time do you need?" Steve asks

"As long as you can give us" she replies.

"I think the clock has already started ticking" Ayo says

All of us follow her gaze out the window and we watch the multiple triangle ships crash right outside Wakanda's protection walls.

"We'll hold them off. Wanda, as soon as the stone if off his head, you destroy it" Steve reminds her.

The rest of them leave as Shuri and I begin working. Bucky stays for a second longer. I ignore him and I work on replacing the stone. Eventually, he walks away as well.

Some time later, Thanos' army brought in the big guns. So our big gun -Wanda- that until then was in the room with us, had to intervene.

Hundreds of those creatures are in the field, but some manage to sneak in and get close to us. Ayo is able to hold them off but I can hear more coming. I make eye contact with Shuri from across the table. She nods.

"I'll get you as much time as I can" I say and I let go of my part

She starts working faster as I create a wall of ice between us and them. I form spikes on their side, but they don't hesitate to run in them. It's like they're killing themselves. They break parts of the ice trying to get through and I restore them every second by either freezing or cutting their limbs off. I also shoot icicles through it at random times, hoping to get more of them.

As I do my best to hold the ice wall up, I turn my head towards the window and I look at the messy battle that is happening on the field beneath and in front of us.

I keep looking back and forth between the wall and the ground. The first person I spot is Wanda, because of her glowing magic. Natasha is close to her. On the other side Steve is fighting, getting his hands dirty, but Bucky isn't with him. My heartbeat picks up.

"Emily, focus!" Shuri yells as she shoots one of the creatures that managed to slip in

"Sorry".

I reinforce the wall and then I push it back, until it pierces through the other side of the building, throwing them out. I repair the damage with more ice. I create an additional protection barrier around us and I get back to Visions head.