Not sure if you guys are still hanging on to this story or not with my inability to reliable post chapters. HA. Hope you enjoy the chapter. I am determined to finish this fic despite my real life adventures that keep getting in the way!

His head throbbed, but the pain in his body had finally dulled to a manageable level. It was still very present, leaving him unable to move without at least a slight wince, but he could move with far greater freedom than the past twenty-four hours.

"This is a mess," Sam said, from where he sat in a chair in the corner of the laboratory. He ran his hands over his face. "We've made a mess of this."

"We are doing what we can," Bucky said quietly, his hand running over the empty socket of his left arm.

The point of severance for his old Hydra issue arm was far less clean than the ruined arm he had acquired from his time in Wakanda. His fingers brushed through several capped wire ends. Shuri had come for his arm when they had returned. They did not have time for the extent of the operation that would be needed to remove the hardware from his old arm, hell he wasn't even sure he had time to be sitting here now, but she had insisted, wanting to make what upgrades she could during this quiet.

"None of us could have been prepared for something like this," Rhodey murmured. He had shown up nearly a half hour after them, his suit singed and fractured, ut he had been alive, and aside from some scrapes and bruises, relatively unharmed. Due, in no small amount, to Clint's relentless marksmanship that finally drove his attacker back to her master.

Thor, though, had yet to reappear. And the fact of that weighed very heavily on the trio.

"They would have been," Bucky said softly. "Steve…he wouldn't have hesitated."

Sam looked up then, anger flashing. "Are you kidding me? The damn man went back in time to be with a woman he fell in love with over 70 years ago. You cannot tell me that if that had been Peggy, if he had been faced with shooting her in the head, that he wouldn't have hesitated. He may have been Captain America, Buck, but he's still a man. He's nothing more than you."

"I am nothing," Bucky said, staring up into the glaring fluorescent lights, trying to burn away the tears threatening.

"You are a part of this team," Rhodey said adamantly. "That makes you something to us. We all fumbled through this, the same as you. Now we just have to decide where we go from here."

They were shouts in the hall outside, exclamations of surprise from several unfortunate techs. It was the only warning they had before the door slammed open, banging so hard enough against the wall that they heard the crackle of drywall.

"What. The HELL. Was that?" Thor seethed.

The static of lighting sang through the air, raising the small hairs on the back of Bucky's neck.

"There has been a lot of shit happening these last few days," Bucky said tiredly, "You are gonna have to be a little more specific."

"The demon."

"Ah yes," Bucky adjusted himself, wincing slightly. "Miranda. That's a fun-"

Thor lunged, seizing Bucky by the throat. There was a split in his lip and a bruise was darkening the skin around his left eye. Miranda had done a number on him. Long trailing scratches ripped through the top most surface of his skin, from the side of his throat down over his collar bone. They looked like the marks left behind by fingernails.

"Why was I not told of this sooner?"

Bucky wheezed, gripping Thor's wrist and squeezing hard, twisting the skin. Sam and Rhodey leapt up, grabbing at him, but Thor reached back and shoved them away. A thin trail of lighting danced across Bucky's cheek.

"You aren't exactly easy to get a hold of!" Rhodey yelled. "I sent word as soon as I knew. But you don't really have an intergalactic email."

Black smudged the corners of Bucky's vision just as Thor released him, shoving him back onto the examination table with a clatter. Bucky gasped and coughed, his lungs burning as they worked in vain to pull in all the air they could.

"How could you let it get this far?" Thor's voice was dark, angry. "Do you know what she can do? You know what happens next?"

"She will go for her Dad. Yeah. We get it. The end of the world and shit," Sam spat. "Beating up what's left of this craptastic team is not helping anything."

"You are in way over your heads."

"No shit," Bucky rasped.

"They would have never let it gotten this far."

They. Steve. Natasha. Tony.

"Yeah, well. Unfortunately we can't go running to them. We have to fuck this up on our own," Bucky sneared, pushing himself up. "I know I'm shit. You don't have to tell me."

"And you," Thor turned on Sam.

"What about me?" Sam asked, not backing down.

"Steve left that shield to you for a reason. You were meant to lead, to step in and take his place. He saw that in you. We all did. And what have you done with that? Hid it away in a closet?"

"You have no idea what you are talking about."

"I know exactly what it is to run from your destiny. To deny what others see. To be a coward."

That hit deep. Sam's hands clenched into fists, his lips pulling back in a snarl. "I never asked for this."

"None of us did," Thor seethed. "But the rest of us accepted it."

"I'm standing here, ain't I?" Sam opened his arms wide, "I'm not running."

"You have the potential to be great," Thor said, turning back towards Bucky. "Stop fucking it up."

"You don't get to speak to us like this," Bucky snarled. "You haven't been here. You left. You left to do your little soul searching siesta. So I don't really give a fuck what you think we should have done."

"What we need to do is contain this. We stop her from unlocking the final hurdle," Thor said.

"No shit Sherlock," Sam waved a hand at him and moved to sit back in his corner seat. "What the hell do you think we've been doing?"

There was a small knock at the door and all the men turned their attention towards it. The door cracked open and Shuri stepped inside, cradling Bucky's prosthetic.

"Well," she glanced around the room at the tight expressions. "I've done what I can with this one. Hopefully soon we can get the arms swapped back out. I have an entirely new model ready and waiting for you."

"Thank you," Bucky said quietly, watching as she aligned the limb with the socket.

On reflex, he reached out to grasp the metal wrist and hold it aloft for her as she connected the wiring. They had done this countless times in Wakanda before the old arm had been removed entirely as she had studied it for her own schematics.

"Of course. Hopefully my adjustments will help with it's reactivity and finesse. This arm is quite rudimentary compared to what you are used to."

Bucky sighed, "Unfortunately I have not even really had a chance to notice the difference."

"You guys are discussing what you are going to do next?" Shuri asked.

"Heh," Rhodey laughed. "I'm not sure "discussing" is what I would call this."

Thor leveled him with a dark gaze.

"How is Aristelle?"

Shuri turned back towards Bucky. "Good. Her healing ability is remarkable. There was direct damage to the heart tissue. She should be dead, but she is almost entirely healed. It's like nothing I have ever seen."

"It seems to run the family…"

"I have a few ideas," Shuri said, "about how to incapacitate her. You said her ability to kill is linked to her sight? Right? She has to be able to see you to see the tether to your soul?"

"Right," Bucky sighed. "I have an idea about that also. It's a bit…despicable. But I think we are running out of pleasant options."

"And thankfully, we will have you back at full steam again," Sam said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You know her best. Having you on the bench was not great."

"Yeah. And about that," Bucky flexed the fingers in his metal hand, happy to have it back but yet despising the sight of Soviet metal. "I'm going to need you to take it out."

The room was quiet for a moment.

"Who are you talkin' to Buck?" Sam asked.

Bucky looked up, setting the intensity of his gaze on Shuri. "What you did to me. Whatever it was that you put in my brain to stop me from becoming…him. You need to take it out."

"What?" Shuri looked back, astonished.

"Buck-" Sam started, pushing to his feet.

Bucky held up his hand, silencing him. "I've thought a lot about it. I've been thinking about it the entire way back and the entire time we've been here. I'm not going to be able to do what needs to be done to stop her. Not in my right mind."

"Buck…"

"When I was…when I was under the influence, I was an incredible weapon. I mean, hell, I walked out of a government facility like it was a church on Sunday." A sad smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as her words echoed in his head. "There were five of you and you couldn't stop me. Not even Steve. We need that. We need that ruthlessness."

"But at what cost, Buck?" Sam asked, taking a step closer to him. "You have come so far. We aren't going to push you back for this."

"For what? The end of the world?" Bucky asked, clenching his metal fist. "I cannot watch the world die knowing it was all because we wanted to hold onto my sanity. And if you…if you are the one to say the words, to put me in that state, then you are the one in control. You will keep me from…causing unnecessary damage."

Something in Sam's expression changed, softening at his words.

"Do you think it will work?" Thor asked.

"I hope so," Bucky responded, rubbing his throbbing temples. "It's all I have left. How long would it take you to undo…what you've done?"

Shuri chewed on her thumbnail, looking entirely unhappy about the proposal. "Twenty minutes. Probably less. I don't have to entirely remove the device. I can just disable it."

"Can it be re-engaged on the fly? If we were to," Sam glanced at Bucky, lowering his voice as if it made any difference. "If we were to lose control of him."

"No," Shuri leaned back, crossing her arms. "But we could bring him down another way. Some sort of taser or sedative."

Bucky sighed. "Yep. This is gonna be fun."

The door burst open. Aristelle slid to a stop on socked feet. She wore shorts, but her upper body was wrapped almost entirely in bandages. Bruises painted her arms and shoulders. Thin pink lines traced over her skin, marking the freshly healed wounds.

"Bucky."

His heart sank at the tone in her voice. She was clutching a phone in her hand, the screen lit showing she was still on the line with someone, though he couldn't make out the name.

"She's doing it," She said. "It's starting."