Carry me to my Love
Peter stood, panting, as he looked around at the pile of webbed up Nemea agents surrounding him. Some were bound by webbs, and some were held in vibranium chains from T’Challa. The ones that had dared try to attack Palmarius had ended up dead quite quickly.
The fight had been rather quick, but Peter could tell something was wrong. Near the end, when there were only about ten or so Nemea agents, they seemed to all go into more of a rabid panic than actual fighting style. It happened all at once, as if every agent had received a message to drop everything and lose.
“What do you think that was about?” Peter asked. T’Challa and Palmarius, who had phased back to Mindy, both looked equally on edge. It seemed Peter wasn’t the only one thought the final attack seemed off.
“I am not sure, but I doubt that it was good,” T’Challa replied. “I wonder if the same thing is going on up there,” he considered, trying to see what was going on with the helicopters.
“I’ll check,” Peter offered, turning on his comn.
“PETER! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, TURNING OFF YOUR COMN-” Tony’s voice yelled the second Peter’s comn was back on.
“I’m sorry Mr. Stark, but I needed to focus, but anyway, are you guys seeing anything weird with the Nemea attacks?”
“Yeah, it’s kinda weird… Almost as if they’re not even following orders anymore,” Rhodey noted, jumping into the conversation.
“I’m pretty sure that’s because they’re not,” Natasha said.
“What do you mean?” Steve asked. Natasha sighed over the comns and looked over to Tony, who nodded at her to continue.
“Steve, we’ve kinda cept you in the dark about something. Bucky left the compound not long after you did and has been in communication with Hope to find the head of Nemea. He went to assassinate him,” Natasha explained. Steve was silent and Peter flinched, when he started talking again.
“Your telling me that you let Bucky go off by himself to confront the leader of Nemea?” he asked. His voice was dangerously quote, and he sounded like he was ready to attack Tony. Again.
“It was his plan. None of us even knew about it until we realised he was gone, and had taken the communicator,” Tony said.
“And you felt the need to lie to me because?” Steve asked, still sounding dangerously quiet.
“We didn’t want you distracted, we needed you here,” Natasha replied.
“We’ll settle this later,” Steve replied coldly. “So what does this have to do with Nemea’s panic?”
“We think that Bucky succeeded. He probably just killed the head of Nemea,” Natasha responded.
“That would make sense,” Came T’Challa’s response.
“That would make sense,” Tony began, “I mean if they ran out of orders the-” BAM! The helicopter that Tony had been standing on blew up. It appeared that Nemea was now resorting to self destruction.
“Mr. Stark!” Peter yelled.
“Tony! Statis!” Steve yelled as well. There was no reply.
“He’s falling!” Mindy screamed, pointing to where a red and gold shape was falling from the place of the explosion.
“He can’t possibly survive that impact, someone get him!” Rhodey yelled, memories flashing before his eyes. Suddenly there was a flash of goldish orange, and Tony was gone. Than with another flash, he was laying on the ground by Peter’s feet.
“What the-”
“Parker, open his mask up,” Came the voice of Stephen Strange.
“Did you just portal him here, that’s awesome!” Peter said, staring at Dr. Strange through the portal.
“Mask, now,” Strange ordered, going into full doctor mode.
“Oh, yeah, right,” Peter said, pulling the mask back from Tony’s face. “Should I send him through the portal?”
“Yeah, those burns need to be treated,” Strange said worriedly.
“Help me get him through the portal!” Peter yelled to T’Challa and Mindy.
“Shuri!” T’Challa yelled through the comns, “head back to the compound and help fix Stark!”
“On if, brother,” she replied, blasting off back to the compound.
“You too, Banner,” Steve said.
“No Banner, only Hulk!” Hulk yelled angrily.
“Natasha, lullaby, please!” Steve ordered. “Has anyone else been hit by the explosions?” he asked, looking around from the top of a building he’d jumped onto when the choppers starting blowing up.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got them,” Wanda replied. Anyone who could fly was heading to ground level, while Wanda was using her gifts to get everyone else safely to the ground.
“Will you guys hurry up and go through the portal?” the annoyed voice of Dr. Strange asked. “It isn’t easy to hold this thing when I’m still half high on pain meds!”
Bucky wandered aimlessly, his gun hanging aimlessly at his side. He had left his knife in Friedrich’s back, and the dead scientists where they lay on the second floor. He had only stopped to make sure that at least one of Friedrich’s agents was alve to spread the word of their leaders death to the other Neamea followers before leaving the library.
He didn’t feel like he was going back to being the Winter Soldier, he wasn’t sure what he felt. Just tired. Really, really, tired.
“Mr. Barnes!” a voice called. Bucky turned his head slightly to see a red, blue, and gold figure running towards him.
“Peter?” he mumbled in confusion.
“Did you do it? Peter asked. “Did you kill the head of Nemea?” Bucky nodded absently. “I had a feeling, all the Nemea agents self destructed! Mr. Stark was injured though, so he was portaled back to the compound. Most of the others were too, except for T’Challa, Steve, and I,” Peter rambled. “We stayed behind to find you.” Bucky looked at Peter curiously for a few minutes before blinking and shaking his head slightly.
“Thanks, kid.” the tired feeling ebbed away slightly as Peter dragged him back to what Bucky assumed was a designated meeting spot.
“Guys, I’ve got him!” Peter called into his comn. Not three minutes later was Bucky barrelled over by a very angry yet relieved Steve Rogers. While T’Challa laughed in the background.
“What the Hell, Bucky! What were you thinking!” Steve was yelling.
“I wanted to kill Nemea,” Bucky said simply. “Now I want to take a nap.” WIth that he began walking back in the direction of the compound, and the others could do nothing but shrug and follow.
“Oh my God, Peter!” Aunt May yelled, running over to check him over the second he got inside. “What were you thinking, sneaking out to fight Nemea! You nearly gave me a heart attack!
“I’m fine, May, I promise,” he assured her, making sure to cover the long gash in his arm behind his back.
“We’ll see about that,” said Tony, looking just as angry as May. He was sprawled on the couch with Dr. Strange checking over the injuries he’d sustained from the explosion, but at least he was conscious. “Lab. Now. And don’t think that you’re seeing that suit again,” he warned, pushing Peter in the direction of the lab where Bruce and Shuri were checking everyone over.
“What! But Mr. Stark-”
“Didn’t wanna hear it than, don’t wanna hear it now. Zip!” Tony ordered. Peter sighed but did as he was told.
“So, you think this is really over?” Steve asked, watching as Bucky headed back up to his room to take a nap.
“It’s never really over but for now, yes, I believe it is,” Tony replied.
“Good, ‘cause I want just one year to actually get accustomed to normal life in the modern world. Just one!”
“If you want the modern world, you’ll have to let Mindy, Peter, and I introduce you to memes,” Shuri said, coming back up from the lab to grab more supplies.
“Oh no. No, no, no, no, NO!” Tony said, eyes widening comically. “I already have to put up with you three, don’t even THINK about recruiting a fourth!”
“What are ‘memes’?” Steve asked, a look of confusion written on his face.
“Prepare for your innocence to be shattered,” Tony said, seeming to realise defeat as Shuri looked around some cabinets for something. “What are you looking for?”
“A medical needle for Peter’s stitches,” she said casually.
“WHAT!”
“So, your ‘White Wolf’,” a voice said as Bucky entered his room. He immediately drew his gun and pointed it at the intruder. SHe had brown hair pulled out of her face, and was wearing a strange sort of costume with wings.
“Your Hope,” Bucky said, lowering his gone. The woman nodded and looked at Bucky curiously.
“I don’t know how you got the communicator, but I’m glad you did. Had it stayed in Stark’s hands I doubt Alert would be dead, and everyone would still be fighting. Even if they did manage to get Alert, they probably would have only put him in prison.
“You wanted him dead,” Bucky said, tilting his head.
“He killed Scott,” she hissed. “I had to go and tell his daughter. It was me who told his friends and family. Even dad seemed upset.”
“This was as much about revenge for you as it was me,” Bucky realised.
“I knew that if I gave start a communicator, that you would eventually pick it up. I needed someone who would kill him once and for all.” They stood in silence for a few moments, neither sure what to do.
“So, what comes next?” Bucky finally asked.
“Next, I go downstairs and meet the others, and you take a nap,” she said before walking out of the room and leaving Bucky by himself.
“Well this calls for a toast,” Pepper said, passing around glasses of champaign to everyone including Peter and mindy, much to Tony’s displeasure. May said it was fine, though, so he couldn’t argue.
“To us actually surviving this!” Strange called out, taking a sip.
“To basic survival!” the others repeated. People called out varios toasts that everyone drank to and the noise eventually got Bucky to come down and join them, much to his annoyance but Steve’s pleasure.
“Steve, I just wanted to know if you had any ear plugs…”
“Once you come down, there’s no going back up!”
“You too are hopeless,” Sam said laughing and backing his chair onto Bucky’s foot much to the soldiers annoyance.
“Can you move you chair?”
“No.”
“Alight, time for bed,” T’Challa ordered after a few hours. “We’ve got a lot of cleanup tomorrow, and I’m exhausted.
“Freakin finally,” Bucky grumbled. People trickled out until it was just Tony, Peter, and Stephen left in the slowly darkening room.
“So, we made it through,” Tony said, earning a smirk for the sorcerer.
“We made it through.” They sat in silence for what felt like hours until they both fell asleep, the moon shining down through the smoky clouds to light the room up silver. Not gold. Never gold again.