"So, what? It was too dangerous
for me to fight against Iron Man
and Black Widow last year because
I was too young and it was too
dangerous, but now some alien dude
wants to destroy the planet and I'm
suddenly totally cool to fight?"
Sequel to...
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN | FIGURING IT OUT
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if i love you is that a fact or weapon?
-power politics // margaret atwood
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Kazimir was shoved into a cell made from vibranium below the Wakandan palace and Bella was sitting in the lab with Shuri, T'challa, and Steve. She sat criss-cross atop a stool by one of the workbenches and drummed her fingers nervously on her kneecaps. All she could do was wait while T'challa's guards attempted to question Kazimir.
"Don't you guys have some kind of truth serum, or whatever to get him to talk?"
Bella was getting antsy, and when she got antsy she got anxious and snappy.
"We're not wizards, Bella," Shuri told her, looking up from her iPad. She pointed to the thin, bleeding slice on Bella's cheekbone. "I can heal you, you know."
Bella bit her lip to stop herself from snapping at the princess. They could heal people with metal and she could completely rewire Bucky Barnes's brain to get rid of the HYDRA influence but they didn't have a way to make Kazimir talk? She called bullshit.
She pursed her lips and shrugged. "You could just beat it out of him."
"Bella," Steve said, shooting her an alarmed look.
She raised her hands and arranged her face into an innocent smile. "Kidding." And then, under her breath she muttered, "Mostly."
If anyone heard that, they didn't comment. Something she was thankful for. Slumping forward against her propped up knees, Bella chewed nervously on her thumbnail and watched as Steve and T'challa spoke in quiet voices. When a gentle hand touched her shoulder, she jumped so violently that she nearly fell off the stool. Shuri was looking at her with a kind smile.
"Don't worry, Bella. I'm already working on a device to undo what he did. If he tells us how he did it and with what, it will just take less time. You'll get your family back no matter what."
Bella exhaled and nodded. "Thank you, Shuri. This means everything to me. I— I really don't know how I can repay you and your brother for all of this."
"Don't worry about any of that."
Bella opened her mouth to respond, but the doors to the lab opened and Okoye, the general of Wakanda's all-female army entered. The general spoke quietly to her king, but Bella could hear every word Okoye spoke.
"It was an electromagnetic light trigger. He used gamma particles to hit all of New York, but he couldn't account for Bella's relationship with Steve, or his with us. He also claims to have hacked one of Tony Stark's satellites to do it."
"Then Tony knows about it," Steve said. "He'll be looking for Kazimir too."
"That doesn't matter," Shuri said. "We don't need to hack Tony Stark's satellite to fix this. We have better technology."
