𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒~ 𝐵.𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑠

FORTY SIX

"Hey Bruce." I smile hugging him, "Rosalie!" He says joyously, "so cap found you then?" I shrug, "you could say that, but how have you been?" I ask, "in space." My eyes widen, "space?" He nods, "with Thor and Loki." My eyebrows raise, "so Loki isn't dead?" He shakes his head, "he's actually even a bit good now," that was cool I hoped I'd get to see him again. "but I don't know how he or Thor are." He tells me, "I'm sure they're fine, Thor's one of the strongest people we know." I assure him.

• • •

"So we gotta assume they're coming back, right?" Rhodey asks after we've all caught up on the need to know, "And they can clearly find us." Wanda adds, "We need all hands on deck. Where's Clint?" Bruce asks "After the whole Accords situation, he and Scott took a deal. It was too tough on their families, they're on house arrest." Nat explains making Bruce's brows furrowed, "Who's Scott?" He asks us confused. "Ant-Man." Steve answers but this seems to confuse him a bit further.

"There's an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?" I nod before realising something, "you met Spider-Man?" He nods, "he's with Tony." Oh dear god I hoped the kid would be ok.

"Okay, look... Thanos has the biggest army in the universe. And he is not gonna stop until he... he gets... Vision's Stone." Bruce tells us, "Well then, we have to protect it." Nat shrugs, "No, we have to destroy it. I've been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head, about its nature. But also, its composition. I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source, something, very similar to its own signature, perhaps... its molecular integrity could fail." Vision addresses Wanda as he nears her. "And you, with it. We're not having this conversation." Wanda says as I look between them.

"Eliminating the stone is the only way to be certain that Thanos can't get it." He tries to reason with her, "That's too high a price." She argues, Vision Takes her face gently in both hands. "Only you have the power to pay it." Wanda walks away, distressed. "Thanos threatens half the Universe. One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him."

"But it should." Steve says before he Looks up at Vision, "We don't trade lives, Vision." He tells him in a sure tone. "Captain, 70 years ago, you laid down your life to save how many millions of people. Tell me, why is this any different?" Steve takes a breath, but before he has a chance to answer, "because it was an in the moment thing Steve didn't have a choice, but we have options Vision and there's more of us to protect you, also Steve sorry to say but your sacrifice didn't really even work out in the long run. I mean yes you saved a load of people but it didn't put a stop to hydra, all that happened was Steve's loved ones lost him when we shouldn't have." I say making Bruce nod.

"Yes Rosalie's right you might have a choice. Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays. J.A.R.V.I.S., Ultron, Tony, me, the Stone. All of them mixed together. All of them learning from one another." Bruce says, "You're saying Vision isn't just the stone?" Wanda asks, "I'm saying that if we take out the stone, there's still a whole lot of Vision left. Perhaps the best parts."

"Can we do that?" Nat asks, "Not me. Not here." Bruce sighs shaking his head. "You better find someone, and somewhere fast. Ross isn't exactly just gonna let you guys have your old rooms back." Rhodey says as my mind already goes to someone.

"I know somewhere." Steve says as I say that I know someone.

• • •

"I hope you're right about this, Cap. Or we're gonna land a lot faster than you want to." Sam says as Steve instructs him on how to get into Wakanda. The Quinjet passes through a camouflage force field into Wakanda's Golden City's valley and lands at the airfield outside the palace.

"Should we bow?" Bruce asks rhodey and I who share a glance, "Yeah, he's a king." Rhodey says seriously as I nod along just as serious, "yeah his majesty thinks it's so disrespectful of you don't, it really riles him up." Rhodey and I share a secret smile as Bruce takes in what we told him. "Seems like I'm always thanking you for something." Steve says shaking hands with T'Challa.

Bruce then bows awkwardly to T'Challa. "What are you doing?" Rhodey asks in mock shock, "Bruce I told you T'Challa doesn't like this kinda stuff." I add making Bruce look at us in shock and confusion, "Uh, we don't do that here." T'Challa says as he dissuades Bruce with a motion of his hand; Bruce shoots Rhodey and I a look, as he looks between to us and sees us fist bump with big grins on our faces. "So how big of an assault can we expect?"

"Uh, sir, I think you can expect quite a big assault." Bruce answers, "How we looking?" Natasha asks, "You will have my Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and..."

"A semi-stable, 100-year-old man." Bucky says smiling as he walks towards Steve. I smile as I watch them share a hug, "How you been, Buck?" Steve asks Bucky who shrugs, "Uh, not bad, for the end of the world."

"You, you didn't let me know that you were ok like you were supposed to." Bucky says sternly to me as he spots me, "a lot was happening I forgot sorry." I tell him as he wraps me up in his arms. "I was going out of my mind thinking something had happened to you." I felt bad, I should've thought to get him a message like I was supposed to when I had gotten to Steve safely. "I'm so sorry everything was so hectic I didn't even have the time to." He nods in understanding, "it's ok I'm just glad you're fine."

"Wait a second you have two arms!" I notice pulling myself from his grip so that I could inspect his new arm. "It's so pretty." I say as I trace over the new design as he chuckles fondly at my my excitement. "It's so cool Bucky." I say messing with it a bit more as he just watched me. "Is it heavy?" I ask remembering how his old metallic limb used to weigh him down. "Not really, it's pretty manageable." He says flexing his new limb, "well you are very strong." Suddenly we here the sound of fake gags, "god get a room." Sam huffs as we both turn to him. "You're disgusting." He continues, "shut up Sam."

"Honestly some people are just tryna live their lives without seeing all of that." He says gesturing to the two of us, "my god Sam let me live, do I need to call Steve back out here?" I ask.

Before Sam can reply we notice something overhead, "Hey, Cap, we got a situation here." Sam tells Steve over the our comm. The defense shield over the Golden City destroys one of the alien vessel when it slams into the field at full attack acceleration as we stare up at the sight, "God, I love this place." I glance at the awe on Bucky's face, now was not the time but he was so cute, still that nerd from Brooklyn in the 40s and I loved it.

"Yeah, don't start celebrating yet, guys. We got more incoming outside the dome." Rhodey says flying past us in his suit as we watch three more vessels slam into the shield.