Remember Me (Steve Rogers Fanfiction)

Chapter 8

"Can you do it?" Wanda asks quietly, her eyes never leaving Vision.

Shuri hesitates, then nods. "Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures. It will take time, brother."

"How long?" Steve asks.

"As much as you can give me."

"Something's entered the atmosphere," Okoye says sharply. I glance out the window to see something slam into Wakanda's defense mechanisms.

"Hey, Cap, we got a situation here," Sam says through my earpiece. I look at Steve as more explosions begin to pummel the ground outside. I don't know what we're going to do. We're scattered, and we need to protect the stone.

"It's too late. We need to destroy the stone now," Vision insists, struggling to push himself into a sitting-up position.

"Vision, get back on that table!" I order.

"We will hold them off," T'Challa says to his sister.

"Wanda, as soon as the stone's out of his head, you blow it to hell," Steve adds.

She nods, terror in her eyes. I put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I will."

"Evacuate the city. Engage all defense procedures." T'Challa turns to Steve, and pointing at him, says, "and get this man a shield."

I follow Steve into Wakanda's armory, where I pick up a few different daggers, feeling the weight of each of them in my palm. Really, my speed and my hand will be my best weapons in this fight, but it's good to be prepared. I strap a few into my suit.

From behind me, Steve brushes my hair aside and kisses me gently on the cheek, sending goosebumps up and down my body. I blush, turning around to look at him. "Hi, Captain."

"Hey, soldier." He kisses me softly, and my knife clatters to the floor as I lean in. No violence, no fighting, no Thanos. Just us. "How you doing?"

"I'm okay. I want to thank you. For understanding. After our whole fight."

"You don't have to thank me," he whispers, kissing me again. "Once this is over, it'll be different. I promise."

"You really think so?" Hope stirs in my chest. It's an emotion I haven't really felt in a while.

"Yeah. We'll go back to Brooklyn, you and me. And we'll stay in that apartment our friends got us for our wedding but we only stayed in for a night. And we'll finish watching Friends and we'll go see more art and you can teach me how to dance. And then we'll see after that."

"Steve, that sounds amazing," I sigh, laying my head between his shoulder and neck. "We should go."

"We could just hide out here."

"No, we can't."

"I know."

I stoop to pick up the dagger I dropped. "I love you, you know that?"

He smiles. "'Til the end of the line."

------

Steve, T'Challa, Natasha and I walk to the border of the force field, where two of Thanos' servants are waiting. She's the one we almost killed in Edinburgh. Maybe we should have.

"Where's your other friend?" Natasha asks conversationally, tilting her head to the side.

"You will pay for his life with yours. Thanos will have that stone," the woman sneers. She grips her weapon menacingly.

"That's not gonna happen," Steve says.

"You are in Wakanda now," T'Challa says proudly, gesturing to the massive force of fighters behind us. "Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood."

She smirks. "We have blood to spare." She raises her sword, beginning a rallying cry that spreads through Thanos' entire army. I shake my head and we tromp back to the front lines, where Bucky and Anna wait for us.

"So?" Buck asks jokingly. "Did they surrender?"

"Not exactly, no."

"Yibambe!" T'Challa yells, thrusting his fist in the air. All across the field, the Wakandans echo him. "Yibambe!"

I lean over to Anna. "What does that mean?" I ask her quietly.

"Hold fast," she answers, taking a moment from loading her gun to survey the battlefield. Pride shines in her blue eyes at a place she now thinks of as home. Once this is over, Steve and I will finally be able to have a home of our own.

I can't wait.

Thanos' army begins charging at the force field relentlessly. They begin to die over and over, but they keep coming. "What the hell?" Bucky mutters.

Natasha shrugs. "Looks like we pissed her off."

"They're- they're killing themselves," I say, bewildered. "I don't get it."

"It's like she said, they have blood to spare," Anna answers.

My eyes meet Steve's. "All right, when we charge, I'm going to run. I'm not going to wait for any of you. It'll be better that way."

He nods, giving me a short kiss. "Stay safe."

"I will. You too."

"Yibambe!" The army shouts again. This time, I shout with them. Hold fast. Yibambe.

"Wakanda forever!" T'Challa yells, donning his mask. I clench my fist and set my eyes on the enemy, blocking out everything but this moment from my mind.

And as I always do, I run.

Heyyyyy! Leave predictions, I loved writing this chapter!