Bring Me Home // Bucky Barnes

Chapter XXXVI - Obliterated

As Sam and Bucky launched themselves at the machines that now attacked, Elizabeth turned to Wanda enchanted by the way the blue crept towards the red, mingling and knotting as it danced through the space between them.

"Elizabeth?" Wanda stepped forwards.

"Let's end this." She felt the lift of the air, the way her body floated away from gravity and earth itself.

This was her battle now.

*

"Who is that!?" Lizzie grunted as the red man with the gold stone emitted a beam of white light just three feet from her, turning two bots to nothing more than a flaming pile of ashes and dust at their feet.

"Long story!" Steve shouted, his shield flying through the air and back to him. "But he's with us."

"Incoming!" Thor boomed as Mjölnir sped past Elizabeth's face and smashed into another of the robots flying towards her.

When she had blown into the fight Steve had been angry. His face had contorted with thinly veiled contempt when Wanda had followed behind her, but he watched how she linked herself to Lizzie, feeding her power, helping her to control it, and his hatred seemed to dissipate as he watched one of the people most important to him find her strength in the fight. Now watching her, he was proud. Terrified but proud.

"I hope I'm not too late for the action?" The grumble of the voice tapped into the communications system sent shockwaves through Elizabeth's body, her power flickering as a weight was lifted from her shoulders, a weight she did not know she had been carrying.

"Sir?" Her voice was barely audible as Steve grinned up at her and the helipad lifted into view. "You can't be..."

"It's good to see you're not letting the boys have all the fun for once Doc." Nick Fury laughed into the microphone as he stared at the woman encased in mist and stars and spectacular galaxies of mystic energy. "Looking strong Lizzie."

Elizabeth felt pride surge inside her and the blue spread further, whipping three machines out of action and smashing them into a wall.

"Barton," Fury continued. "If you and the silver speedster can get civilians on this thing, we can end this."

*

It hadn't taken them long to clear the city. With the corpses of machines scattered around them they had found themselves face to face with Ultron himself.

Steve threw his shield up as he pulled Natasha to his side, covering her as Ultron took his aim, firing pure energy at her.

"Lizzie!?" He shouted as Natasha clung to him. "Can you do this?"

Elizabeth gently landed beside Wanda who stood manipulating machines into destroying each other, the red haze around her throbbing with power and anger. The misty blue was fading again. Lizzie felt the pressure in her chest, the pull of the darkness as she reached out to Wanda.

"It's now or never." She shook as she stepped towards her scarlet counterpart. "Get out of here." Wanda took her hand. "We'll follow."

Pietro, exhausted and beaten, raked his eyes over Elizabeth's shaking frame as a small v appeared in the middle of his furrowed brow.

"Look after this one Little Sis," he smiled softly at her, encouraging her, "We'll see you both soon."

Within the whirlpool of silver and blue Elizabeth watched her friends disappear one by one, until it was just her and Wanda left, with Ultron charging towards them.

The fight was draining and damaging. Elizebeth felt the power pulled from her as she and Wanda wrapped the arms of their power around him, crushing him.

His laugh, so out of place in the panic of the scene unfolding before them, rang loud and clear as blood began to pour from Elizabeth's nose and her sight began to grow fuzzy.

"I may lose now my children. But you will not leave here unscathed."

As if the world had slowed and time itself had chosen to exist in a painful fraction of what it once was Elizabeth watched as Ultron tore through the grip her power held on him, his hand lifting to signal something sinister. Bullets tore through the atmosphere as a streak of silver split the air. Wanda wrapped tendrils of scarlet around the final machine and tore it in two as Lizzie screamed out.

Space itself shifted around her and Pietro was pulled from the path of bullets. Where they would have pierced his chest, he now felt the fire of pain ripping through his side. He dropped to the floor as he watched Ultron explode, obliterated by the power surging around them all, power that shone with a wealth of colours and shapes, power that extended from the core of the woman now flaming in the air.

As her flames subsided she dropped, landing beside him as he bled out, slipping out of consciousness as she watched him struggle to stay awake too. She reached towards him, finding his fingers outstretched towards her and closed her hand around his. Blood flowed freely from his wounds and pooled around them as his eyes unfocussed and his lids began to droop.

"They're both down!" Bucky shouted as he ran, his heart pounding against his ribcage, his lungs burning as he reached her side. "Medical needed! Now!"

He threw himself down to the floor, pulling her into his arms, cradling her against his chest as he held her, wiping away the blood streaming from her nose as she stared blankly ahead at the boy on the floor. Her breathing was shallow and her grip slipped. Pietro's hand dropped from hers and she felt excruciating agony as she watched the shimmer of crystal blue turn lifeless and dull.

As darkness came she could picture the life slipping from the blue of Pietro's eyes and hear the waves of torturous pain washing through Bucky's tearful pleas. Her head rolled as energy left her and her eyes closed. Darkness was here. She could breathe in the numb of it all.

"Lizzie?" Bucky rocked her gently as he began to cry. She was cold in his arms, her bleeding slowing, and her lifeless form no longer held the brilliance of the blue. "Come on Lizzie. Wake up. I need you to wake up. Please Lizzie..."