"Drop to 2600, heading 0-3-0," Steve quietly directed Sam, who was flying the Quinjet, towards Wakanda.
Wanda stood beside me, watching Vision. "What if this is a mistake?"
I shook my head automatically. "Wakanda's tech is unrivalled. If anyone can remove the Stone, they can. And if they can't, then we'll find another way."
"That's not what I mean," she said in a quiet voice, not taking her eyes off of him. It was as if she was worried that he'd disappear if she stopped looking. "What if removing the Stone is a mistake? What if removing it destroys Vision? Or worse, what if we remove it, destroy Vision, and Thanos gets it anyway?"
"He won't," I said, much too confidently for someone who had no idea what could happen.
"You don't know that," she told me. "We've never fought anyone like him before. Not only does he have a plan, and a motivation, but he has a whole army to back him up." She took a shaky breath. "Rogue... we might lose this fight."
I shook my head again, shaking away all the thoughts that agreed with her. "Coming back to Earth will be his last resort," I told her. "If Thanos comes here, then that means he has the Time Stone, the Stone that Strange would die to protect. If he gets it... then Stark and Strange lost. And if he kills them-" I stopped myself abruptly, looking at the ground. I couldn't finish the thought in my head, let alone out loud.
Silently she took my hand and squeezed it, trying to get a hundred sentences into a single movement. I squeezed her back, replying to all of her thoughts. Even if Thanos didn't get all the Stones, he could get the two that meant the most to us. The two that caused us to lose the most important people in our lives.
The Quinjet passed through a force field, made to look like a forest, and suddenly we were in a whole other part of the world... or so it seemed.
We landed, and were immediately greeted by King T'Challa (aka Black Panther) and a few members of his army.
"Seems like I'm always thanking you for something," Steve said appreciatively, shaking his hand.
"How big of an assault can we expect?" T'Challa responded, walking in the opposite direction. We all followed, like a puppy trailing at the heels of its owner.
"Uh, sir, sir, I think you can expect quite a big assault," Banner said, nervously stuttering.
T'Challa nodded, as if this was exactly what he'd imagined. I guess he knew that, if coming to his homeland was our only chance for survival, whoever we were facing was more than a match for us alone.
"You will have my King's Guard," he told us. "The Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and..." he trailed off, as a familiar face walked towards us.
"A semi-stable 100-year-old man," Bucky finished his sentence, smiling at Steve, who pulled him in for a hug.
"How you been, Buck?" Steve asked.
"Not bad," Bucky shrugged, an easy smile on his face. Clearly, being in Wakanda agreed with him. "For the end of the world."
He spotted me, and while the smile didn't leave his face, his eyes betrayed his surprise in the same way that I assumed mine did. While going to Wakanda was the best option we had, seeing Bucky again hadn't crossed my mind. Part of me had thought that he would still be frozen – the other part refused to think about him.
"Hi," he said after a short silence.
I took a breath. "Hi."
Everyone looked back and forth between us, either wondering about our history, or remembering every painful detail.
"We should go," Wanda said, making eye contact with Vision, Sam and Banner, who all followed her lead. Steve and T'Challa hesitated for a moment, but then also followed the rest of the team, leaving us alone.
"It's been a while, Rogue," he said with a sigh.
"Over two years," I responded, nodding. We stared at each other for a long moment, and then a smile crept onto my face. Without meaning to, I giggled, my mind on everything that we'd been through. "I never thought we'd end up back here."
"I never thought I'd have to help you guys save the world," he said, also smiling. "Usually I'm the one you're fighting."
"Only when you're being controlled," I reminded him sympathetically. "You've had a tough life. Maybe when all of this is over, you can start to find normality again."
"I've never had a normal life," he reminded me. Whether he was fighting wars, Hydra agents or superheroes, Bucky was always fighting. "I don't think I'm built for that."
I shrugged. There had been a time when I believed that a 'normal' life wasn't for me either. Then I discovered that a dysfunctional, non-blood-related family was still a family. That maybe 'normal' was subjective.
"How have you been?" he asked, changing the subject.
I shrugged. "Is it weird to say 'good' when the world might end?"
He replicated my shrug. "I was just thinking the same thing."
Smiling up at him, I held my arms out and pulled him into a hug, something that I hadn't even thought about doing in years. It was comforting that he still felt the same, almost like time hadn't passed. Then we parted, and just like that, things were different, we were different. And it felt good to be different.
I looked up at the sky, just in time to see something hurtling towards us.
"Looks like we're not alone," I said into my earpiece, as Wakanda's magic-like shields stopped the object before it could even think about entering our atmosphere.
"God," Bucky said peacefully, also looking up. "I love this place."
"Guys, we've got more incoming," Sam warned. "Outside the dome."
He was right. Whatever they were throwing at us couldn't touch us, but their objects were destroying everything outside of Wakanda's shields. Through my earpiece, I could hear the others formulating a plan.
"Wanda, as soon as the Stone's out of his head, you blow it to hell," Steve told her.
"I will," she responded quickly, knowing how important this was.
"Evacuate the city," T'Challa commanded, speaking to various members of his army. "Engage all defense procedures. And get this man a shield."
***
I stood at the edge of the border, beside Steve and T'Challa, as two aliens walked towards us. I immediately recognized them as Female Alien and Bigger Alien.
"What happened to the other two?" I asked out of curiosity. If Smaller Alien wasn't here, maybe Stark and Strange had actually managed to win their part of the battle. Or, maybe they were still fighting.
"You will pay for their lives with yours," Female Alien warned me, her voice cold and detached. "Thanos will have that Stone."
"That's not gonna happen," Steve said.
"You are in Wakanda now," T'Challa told her, automatically taking a leadership role that rivalled Steve's. "Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood."
Female Alien seemed to smile. "We have blood to spare."
We walked backwards to join our army, as the rest of Thanos's revealed themselves. Thousands of small aliens exited the spaceships, running into Wakanda's shield. After a few minutes of fighting, they started pushing through the force field, pulling themselves apart in the process.
"They're killing themselves," the leader of the Dora Milaje warriors, Okoye, commented.
I shook my head, watching them in disbelief. "They're getting through."
Everyone followed my eye-line, to see that I was right. For every ten aliens that got themselves killed, one got through completely whole, ready to fight. Even with all of T'Challa's armies, they outnumbered us.
"Cap, if these things circle the perimeter and get in behind us, there's nothing between them and Vision," Banner (decked out in the Hulkbuster armor) warned Steve.
Steve grimaced. "Then we better keep them in front of us."
"How do we do that?" Okoye wondered, not able to take her eyes off of them.
T'Challa answered her, as if he knew all along that this was coming. "We open the barrier." He spoke into his own earpiece. If there was only one entrance into Wakanda, we could control where the aliens began. And if we killed them quick enough, T'Challa's sister (and tech extraordinaire) Shuri would have all the time in the world to separate the Stone from Vision. "On my signal."
"This will be the end of Wakanda," M'Baku, the leader of the Jabari Tribe (a fellow group that had, thankfully, joined our fight) said in a voice that portrayed a sense of fear.
Okoye stood straight, preparing herself. "Then it will be the noblest ending in history."
We all got into fighting stances, ready for the biggest battle of our lives. T'Challa looked at us, nodding once, as we waited for his signal.
"Wakanda Forever!"
*****************************************
Finally Rogue and Bucky have reunited, even if it was bittersweet.
The battle's about to start - but is Rogue ready for it?
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