I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season! It's been a minute, but here is another chapter. A little Christmas present from me to you!
The dismal grey of the sky was an unwitting companion to Bucky's horrendous mood. His side was on fire, complaining of every small adjustment he made as he settled into place on the rooftop. Miranda's rifle was cold in his hands, and the feel of it in his grip was an achingly constant reminder of her absence. He did not imagine that there was anything else that could possibly sour his mood any further.
A raindrop splattered on the barrel of the gun.
He had been wrong.
This was much worse.
The skies opened, pounding down on the roof top and assaulting the back of his coat.
"You better be right about this Aristelle," Bucky snarled. "If they're not here and you drug me out into the rain for nothing…I'm gonna be pissed."
He was on the rooftop of an abandoned and decaying building in what had been labeled the "Lost District." Having been hit hardest by the effects of the Blip, the district had yet to recover and instead had become a magnet for the homeless and unsavory.
"We've been getting alerts of calls made to 911 dispatch about odd happenings in this area. Terra isn't going to have her full strength yet," Aristelle's voice was crisp over the communicator. "She's going to need to stretch her abilities and get her bearings back."
"Well," Clint came on the comms, "Considering it wasn't supposed to rain today…"
"I'm with Barnes," Carol Danvers said. "Nothing is happening and I'm getting wet."
"Have a little-"
Aristelle's sharp words were cut off by Peter's hushed exclamation, "I have movement!"
"Movement?" Aristelle asked. "Movement where? What do you see?"
"I…" Bucky could almost see Peter squinting from his own rooftop position through the strain in his tone. "It's...It's a woman."
A jolt sang through Bucky's body.
"It has to be her," Carol hissed. "It can only be her!"
"Do not engage. Do you hear me, Danvers?" Aristelle snarled with such force that even Bucky hesitated as he swung the long barrel of Miranda's gun.
Pain shot like lightning up his side and he hissed.
Then he saw her.
Bucky let out a breath.
She strolled among the decay like it was little more than a common park pathway. Her hands were in her pockets, shoulders relaxed. He watched as she paused, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back. The rain pelleted her face, soaking her clothes. Her hair stuck to her neck and shoulders. Long hair. So different from the carefully cropped hair she had worn when he met her, every strand perfectly in place and as carefully curated as every other aspect of her. Now it was wild and unruly, much like the woman it clung to.
"She's right there…" Rhodey whispered.
"You do not engage. Particularly not until we see Terra. She will be expecting us. For now, we wait. As long as she cannot see you, she cannot kill you."
Carol's voice broke across the comms, light and casual. "Unfortunately, that's not really my style."
"Danvers!" Aristelle bellowed.
But it was too late. From his vantage point, Bucky could see Captain Marvel rise from the rubble. She shone like a phoenix, so fire bright it almost hurt to look at her.
"You can't just punch your way out of this! We have to be smart."
Carol raised glowing fists aiming for Miranda. "I think you are underestimating who exactly you are trying to give orders to."
And then she fired.
A great, brilliant beam of energy burst from her closed fists and barreled towards Miranda, who had clearly not expected the blast. It struck her hard in the chest and drove her several hundred feet back. Carol did not relent, bringing herself closer and closer until she hovered over the crater bursting apart beneath the onslaught of her power.
When she finally released, the street fell quiet. Dust swirled around her, concealing the extent of the damage. Carol did not come closer, hovering some thirty feet above the ground.
For a moment, everything was quiet.
Bucky could hear only the sound of his own breathing. His heart struck a frantic, desperate drumbeat against his ears.
"Was that it?" came Peter's hushed voice. "Is it over?"
"No," Clint's voice was bitter. "It's never that easy."
Far below, Aristelle emerged from her hiding place. She approached the smoking crater, gun raised, body tight in anticipation. "Back Danvers. Get back."
Bucky's eyes caught on something. A figure rose amongst the smoke.
"Carol!" Aristelle screamed.
Bucky could hear her voice both in his ear and from down on the street, but it was too late. Miranda's silhouette drove her hand upward, fingers open wide.
"Bucky!" Aristelle screamed, her voice cracking over the communicators.
His body moved entirely on instinct, settling his scope on Miranda, his finger over the trigger. The smoke cleared just enough for him to make out her features, to see that those black, black eyes were trained on him. Despite the smoke, the carnage, the distance, the damage, her gaze settled on him.
He hesitated.
And that was all it took.
Miranda closed her fingers and jerked her hand back. Hard. The tether to Carol's soul broke so hard that it resonated through the street. It snapped against his skin like static electricity, raising every hair on his body. A wave of nausea threatened to forcefully remove the contents of his stomach.
"No!" Aristelle screamed.
She had torn the earpiece from her ear and surged forward. The air around her body waved and flexed as she prepared to tear through the fabric of the universe.
But it would not matter. She would be too late.
The glow around Carol winked out like the death of a blazing star. Her body went limp as a puppet cut from its marionette. She folded backward, plummeting to the ground.
"What?" Rhodey's voice was breathless and astonished. "What did I just see?"
"I think," Peter rasped, "We just witnessed a murder."
They all watched in horror as Carol disappeared into the depths of the crater of her own making. Aristelle dropped onto its edge, looking down on her sister. Miranda just smiled. It was the kind of smile that skittered like spider legs across your skin. The kind that told you she knew exactly what she was doing. Miranda took one step forward. Then another. At first, Aristelle held her ground, but as her sister neared, she moved back away from the edge.
Miranda stepped up from the crater and as she did, Carol's body rose with her. But instead of the blinding beacon she had been moments before, the radiation around her consumed what little light broke through the storm clouds. She was a creature under Miranda's control now, her body an all too willing servant to her every command.
Bucky couldn't move. His fingers were frozen where they clutched at the rifle.
He had done this.
This was his fault.
If he had pulled the trigger…
But she had looked up at him in that last moment. He had known, without the shadow of a doubt, that she knew he was there. That she had felt his presence amongst all the others. It had not mattered that the person, if she could even be called that now, down on the street was merely a remnant of the woman he had come to love, yet it had been impossible to strike her down. How could he have? When all he could see when he looked at her was her smile. He could still feel the ghosted touch of her fingers over his ribs, down his spine.
"We need to pull back," Rhodey said. "This is only going to end in tragedy."
"Hasn't it already?" Bucky murmured, his aching body refusing to lift him from the ground.
He had failed them. His own team. He had left Carol bare to the assault because of what? Love? He did not love that thing down on the street. Couldn't he accept that? Couldn't he see her for the monster she was?
But he had been a monster once too… And there had been someone who believed that he could be brought back from the brink. But how do you save someone controlled by an impossible source? Even if he did shoot her, would things not end as they had before?
Aristelle looked up at him, her gaze wide eyed and wild. Her pale features were begging him to take the shot, but still he doubted that it was what they needed to do. Would it only make his grip on her worse, allow his claws to dig deeper? Was it possible there was still a small part of her fighting for control? What if shooting her broke what little grip she had on herself.
Faintly he could hear Miranda's voice, muffled by the sound of something rubbing over the microphone. Aristelle still clutched the communicator in her hand.
"You came here for Terra, didn't you?" Miranda sneered. "Did you really think it would be that easy, sister?" She took another step closer to Aristelle. "Did you really think that I would let you get close to her when she is at her weakest?"
"I thought it was worth a try."
Aristelle gasped as Miranda flung out a hand. An invisible force mirrored the tightening of her blackened fingers as Aristelle clawed at her throat.
"Buck!" Rhodey yelled across the lines. "Take the shot!"
This time, Bucky did not hesitate. At this point, it could not get worse, right? The gun fired, heaving back against his shoulder. Bucky hissed, gasping in a breath. Stars swam across his vision as the pain flared.
" I'm really starting to hate her," Rhodey snarled.
When his vision cleared, Bucky tried to settle his focus down the sight of the rifle. Miranda had turned his attention towards him. He could see the smallest of shapes hovering before her sharp features.
The bullet.
Miranda looked away from him as someone else barreled into view. Rhodey shot from his hiding space, thrusters flaring bright in the grey afternoon as he rocketed towards her. Miranda sidestepped him, but not nearly fast enough. He collided with her shoulder, knocking her off balance and releasing her hold on Aristelle.
Bucky pushed himself back. He was useless up here. She was too aware of her surroundings right now for him to assume that he would be able to manage a clear shot.
"Sam?" Bucky pressed a finger to his ear, straining to hear over the mayhem exploding down below. "Where are you? Come get me."
Bucky winced, heaving the rifle up onto his shoulder as he stood at the edge of the rooftop. Carol had surged forward to apprehend Rhodey. They were a quarrel of light and dark as they fired beam after beam at each other. Each meeting of their blasts proffered a reaction so intense it disintegrated the ground beneath it.
Aristelle had pounced on Miranda, but he knew the girl would be no match. Miranda like this was…she was impossible. Aristelle would never land a solid punch, would never manage to be quicker or stronger than her influenced sister.
"What exactly does your crippled ass think you are going to be able to do?" Sam asked, landing hard on the rooftop behind him.
"I don't know, but I can't just stand back and watch."
"Like the rest of us."
Bucky turned. "But she can't kill me. She would have by now if she could."
"We don't know that for sure. And you are the only one who can carry that wretched sword. Do you think we are going to take that chance?" She knows you are injured. You'd be an easy target. And with you out of the way we would be without our greatest weapon. At this point, the best thing we can do is get you out of here."
"No."
"Dammit, Buck. Stop being so damn bullheaded. We are facing nothing like we have ever encountered before. Something I am not even sure we are going to be able to stop. And you have the one thing that can kill her. And we aren't even entirely sure about that."
"I'm not going to kill her. There has to be another way."
"She might not give you that choice." Sam's expression was pained. "She wouldn't hesitate to kill you if she got the chance."
Rhodey shot up into the sky behind them, Carol close on his tail. She was a black smear across the clouded sky, and the sight of it left a heavy, desperate feeling in the pit of Bucky's stomach. Behind them, Aristelle screamed. Bucky turned to see Miranda on top of her, twisting a knife in her chest. Aristelle's knife. The one he had seen flash from the inside pocket of her coat.
Bucky was moving before he could even think of the consequences.
Even air borne his body screamed. Pain flared white across his vision, and he landed gracelessly on the street below before, knees giving way beneath him and he crumpled.
But Miranda paused and looked up at him.
She pulled the knife back and Aristelle gasped, shaking fingers clawing at Miranda and pushing her away. Cold sweat clung to Bucky's back and his vision heaved. Aristelle let out a strangled sound as she turned onto her side away from Miranda. But Miranda was paying her no mind.
Instead, she slowly got to her feet, eyes on Bucky, darkened fingers slick with her sister's blood. Bucky pushed up to his knees, nearly vomiting at the pain of it.
"Miranda," he wheezed. "Em, please."
But there was nothing left of that girl there. She wore her face, but yet he did not recognize the set of her features. He had never seen such blind and unseeing hatred in her eyes before. But he could understand now how she could be the lady of Death. He could understand how she inspired so many myths and legends. He could feel it in the dread that clutched at his soul at the sight of her.
And this would be it. This would be his final moment with her. And he had failed her. He had failed them all.
The air between them crackled and heaved. One last desperate attempt by Aristelle to stop her, he thought. Then everything went white. He could see nothing but the horrible brilliance off it. Even as he slammed his eyes shut it seemed to burn through his eyelids. The earth rocked and trembled beneath him as wave upon wave of unrelenting heat battered him, searing the fine hairs across his skin. The sound was like a freight train barreling down the tracks and he could do nothing to pull himself from its path.
And then as quickly and abruptly as it started, it ended. Bucky gasped in a breath, coughing at the heat that still hung in the air and burned his lungs. Steam wafted from the surface of his coat rose into the waning evening light.
A figure stood where the light had erupted, and finally, Bucky realized what had happened. He had seen it once before on the battlefield of the Wakandan grasslands.
"I'm not sure whether I should be afraid or overjoyed," came Sam's quiet voice across the communicators. "Do you think she can do to him what she did to Carol?"
But Bucky could do nothing but watch in silence as Miranda took in the god standing before her. She straightened to her full height as she studied him, a queen among her subjects. It was the first time, Bucky realized, since she had freed herself from the compound in the mountains that he had been allowed a chance to study her.
She was still striking to look at, her figure strong and powerful, but there was a gauntness to her face that had not been there before. Dark circles marked the skin beneath her darkening eyes and she was terribly pale. The sight of it made his heart ache.
Thor lowered himself slightly, bending his knees as if preparing to perry an attack. His grip on the handle of Stormbreaker tightened, bleeding his knuckles to white.
"Demon," he hissed.
Miranda huffed a laugh. "Do not pretend that you are pure of soul, conqueror of realms."
There, standing among the smoke and scorched earth, crested by the lightning of the thunder clouds above, he looked less a conqueror and more the part of an almighty archangel set to strike down those that had fallen from grace.
And none among them had fallen farther than her.
"I am a god!" Thor snarled. "I will not scare so easily as the others." A long tendril of lightning slipped out from beneath his fingers to trail up the thick muscle of his arm.
"To them. You are a god to them because in their eyes you are extraordinary." Miranda waved a hand out to the side. Smoke gathered around her fingertips, twisting and turning as they worked to form a solid shape. "But to me, you are not special. You are just another being in an abundant universe that feels they are owed respect simply because you are stronger than those who are weak.
Thor's eyes flared white as a snap of lightning snaked around the head of his axe. "You do not know what I am capable of."
"And you have no idea what I am capable of."
"Don't mistake my lack of fear for ignorance, demon. I know who you are. I was told stories of you as a child. Demon."
Miranda's smile was sharp, the sight of it shook a tremor of fear down Bucky's spine. Aristelle coughed, her fingers smudged with blood. He had to get her out of here. Slowly, he brought up one knee, wincing.
"Just because you live longer than the creatures of earth does not mean you are immortal." Miranda lifted her hand as the shadows finally took shape. They swept down into the long handle of a scythe, it's blade long and savage. "It only means you will be slightly more of nuisance to kill. Asgardians were always my least favorite. Too proud of a people, very tethered to their souls"
"You know of my people?" There was a note in his tone that was not quite surprise, but maybe disappointment or apprehension. Did he fear that she might extend her damage to what remained of his race?
"Of course." She touched the long handle of her scythe to the pavement of the crumbling street. A flash of lightning lit the blade. There was something written across its surface. Runes. It looked as though they had been clawed into the metal, and the sight of them left him entirely unsettled. "Who do you think taught your sister to raise the dead? How desperately she wanted to make your father proud, to be the destroyer he so recklessly sought in an heir. He is the one who is truly to blame for what she became. And oh, how he begged me to banish her. So like him to take all the credit…isn't it?"
"She destroyed our home."
"I've been in existence for a very long time. There is not a culture I have not touched. But it is not because of me that empires fall."
The muscles across Thor's shoulders drew tight. He was ready to charge.
"I have to get her out of here. And the others," Bucky pushed up to his feet, breathless and slightly dazed. "Can you hold her off?"
"I plan to do more than just that," Thor snarled.
With the boom of thunder at his back, Thor launched himself at Miranda. She was ready for him, her grin wide and wild. He brought down his axe and she caught it with a blade of her own. Lighting surged and flashed as the weapons met again and again, carving the landscape into horrific shadows.
Thor pushed Miranda back, moving her away from where Aristelle lay on her stomach, hands curled into her chest and pressing desperately to staunch the bleeding.
"Aristelle," Bucky gritted through clenched teeth. "Can you get up? Sam, can you come for us?"
"I'll be fine," Aristelle said, her voice a little shaky and quieter than he had ever heard her be. "I won't die…it just…it makes me a bit woozy until the bleeding it…hurts."
Something landed behind them and Bucky spun, wincing. It was only Sam. Of course, it was Sam. Sam who he had called for. His grip on his nerves was failing.
"Let me help!" Peter called, landing with far more grace than Sam. "He's not going to be able to get you both out of here together."
Buck gripped Aristelle by the forearms and hauled her up, ignoring the hiss that passed not only from her lips but his as well. Behind her, he could see Thor and Miranda farther down the street. The sound of their battle drug him back to a time before this, before the Winter Solider, before Hydra, to the war. To how the sound of mortars drowned humanity. How the earth had trembled beneath their feet.
Thor was the first among them to hold his own against her. He could see it in the shift in her fighting. She was no longer lazy and graceful, but rather savage and entirely inhuman. She was a feral creature, clawing at him with no amount of decency. She would rip out his throat with her bare hands if he faltered.
Lightning flashed and swirled amid each strike and perry, fighting through the black that trailed her and threatened to swallow him whole.
"Buck," Sam pulled at his arm. "We have to go."
Bucky let himself be pulled back, his chest tightening as the ground shook until he almost couldn't breathe.
"What about Rhodey?" Bucky asked, allowing himself to be pulled back further and further.
"Go," Clint called across the comms, "We,need to get you two out of here. Then I'll worry about Rhodey."