The White Wolf

XII

Ava held her arm, looking at the smooth skin that just the day before had been torn open by a bullet. The miracles of Wakanda and their medicine. If only healing Bucky could be that fast. A soft sigh settled on her pursed lips, and her lashes cast a shadow over her cheeks as she looked down at her arm. Just a few feet to her left, Everett Ross laid unconscious on a sand table, his wound now repaired by  Wakandan doctors inside of Shuri's lab. Listening to Shuri mumble and type away at the counter in front of them, her mind wandered back to Barnes.

He only had one arm. The origin of his arm being gone was still unknown to her, all she knew was that he had been given a metal arm by the terrorist organization, Hydra. But even that one had been blown off by Tony Stark's arc reactor. There were still so many things about Barnes that she did not know, that she craved to know. His life before the war, his time as an American soldier, and even the secrets of his time with Hydra. Questions. Questions were all she had. Questions she would not even be able to ask him once he awoke, due to her being afraid of pushing him away or making him uncomfortable with her prying.

A sore grunt grabbed Ava's attention and her eyes snapped to the sand table as Ross sat up, reaching over his shoulder to feel where he had been shot. "Where am I?" 

Shuri gasped, whipping around to look at him as he swung his legs down, placing his feet on the floor as he stood up. "Don't scare me like that, colonizer!" She chided, turning back to her computer. Ava let out a scoff, rolling her eyes at Shuri, which earned her a wary glance from Everett.

"What? M-my name is Everett." He said, looking back at Shuri.

"We know." Ava spoke up, crossing her arms over her chest as she moved to stand beside Shuri. "Everett Ross, former Air Force Pilot, now CIA, right?"

The gray-haired man blinked a few times in surprise as he stared at the two women before he gave a now. "So this is Wakanda, then?"

"No, it's Kansas." Shuri smirked sarcastically, turning to face him.

"Now, you. You were there, in Korea." Everett said, pointing at Ava. "How long ago was that?"

"Yesterday." Ava answered him simply.

An unamused chuckle erupted from his throat, his head shaking in disbelief. "No, no way. Bullet wounds don't just magically heal overnight."

Shuri giggled softly, smiling pridefully. "Here they do." She said. Everett's lips pressed tight, his brows pulling together in disbelief. "Not by magic. By technology." 

Everett took a deep breath, looking around the lab. Ava watched him curiously. He was another white man, and she had not met many before. Everett Ross seemed kind enough, but very serious, and a little bit skeptical. He began to wander, going to a large window that looked deep into the mountain where the Wakandans collected the vibranium, trains carrying loads of the metal through the open tunnels. "Don't touch anything, my brother will be here soon." Shuri said, glancing over at him. 

Ross turned his head to look at her, before looking back out through the window. "These train things... That's magnetic levitation, right?" He asked, noting how the trains zoomed through little light paths, not touching any real rails. Light panels above powered on each time a train passed through them, gaining his curiosity. "And those are?"

"Sonic stabilizers." Shuri answered. "In it's raw form, vibranium is too dangerous to transport at that speed, so I developed a way to temporarily deactivate it."

Everett's expression changed, his brows raising high, causing his forehead to crinkle as he pointed out the window at the trains going by. "There is vibranium on those trains?"