Steve sat by the fire circle watching as Bucky worked on his latest project. He had commandeered leftover scrap lumber from the pier and was running an old-fashioned manual plainer back and forth across the rough-hewn board he had set up on two makeshift sawhorses. A Vibranium powered tool would have done the job in about an hour, but that wasn't an option here. Steve focused on his broad shoulders, the sharpness of his muscles flexing across his back and arm as bits of sawdust and chips flew around him. His hair was tied back. Damn, he looks good. Bucky placed the tool on the board, rubbed his shoulder at the point where the metal met his skin. That was unusual.
"You ok?" Steve called out. Bucky turned, startled, surprised to see him there.
"I thought you were going with Sam?" He asked.
"I did. Changed my mind. Came back. You ok?" He repeated the question. Bucky let out a sigh and turned away. He'd been doing that a lot lately.
"Just a little sore. Between this and what we did on the pier, it's no wonder it hurts. I'm sure it's nothing," he said.
"Or it could be something. Maybe you should give Shuri a visit?" Steve suggested. That unfamiliar anxiety flared up inside him again. Bucky turned away, but Steve could hear him audibly sighing again.
A shadow crossed the sky above them and in the distance accompanied by the shouts of children. Sam was keeping his promise.
"I will if I can't work the pain out." Bucky picked up the tool and was about to start again. In an instant Steve was beside him, stopping him.
"Let me take over for a while, just in case," he said, taking the tool from Bucky and imitated what he'd seen him do. "What's all this for?"
"I thought we could build a wood floor, for the house. Whoa! Slow down! Not too deep, not too fast. Back off a little. Good, you've got it."
"If you asked, they'd probably put in a tiled mosaic for you."
"They already gave me a boat! I don't want to push it," Bucky rubbed his shoulder again, this time staring back up at the house. "Sometimes, I don't think I deserve all this, Steve. I mean, considering what I was…"
An old memory pinged inside Steve's brain. A painful memory. He put the plainer down and put his arms around Bucky. "Don't say that. Never say that. You're the best man I know and I know a lot of good men. You deserve…the world," he said. Bucky pulled away. Steve noted that he seemed a little warmer than usual. He didn't like that. "I crossed the sappy line again, didn't I?" he asked.
"A little," Bucky replied, then he smiled. "But you would say that. You love me." He brushed the sweat off his brow with his metal hand but stopped, another grimace crossing his face.
"Are you sure you're ok?"
At that moment a sudden flash of color buzzed around them, causing a distraction. Looking up in the space above, they spotted a small red drone. Redwing, but a brightly colored unfamiliar Redwing. It shot straight up and then circled around the area. Apparently, the children had given it temporary decorations and had affixed a kite like tail to Sam's prized reconnaissance tool. The children accompanied it, running over the hill laughing as they chased it. A moment later, Sam appeared at the top, laughing himself as his audience tried and failed to keep up with it. He tapped a control on his wrist, making Redwing return to him, sitting it down gracefully on the ground in front of him.
"That's it for today, kids!" he said. They groaned in disappointment. "Hey, take it up with your parents!" He pulled the decorations away and picked up his drone as the children ran back to the village, their chatter and conversation eventually dying down as they made their way back to their homes.
"They gave me a nickname, something I can't pronounce but apparently it means The Other Friend of the White Wolf?" he said as he walked down the slope to join them. He sat Redwing down on the ground and unbuckled his wings. Steve laughed.
"I'm sorry about that, Sam. I swear I had nothing to do with it," Bucky said.
"Uh huh," Sam didn't sound convinced. "I bet you put them up to it, but I don't care. As long as I can hang out here with Thula, being part of your entourage is worth it. Are you ok? You look a little, flushed. I didn't interrupt anything, did I?" he asked, a teasing tone to his voice.
Bucky made a face. "Very funny, but no," he said.
"He feels a little warmer than usual, and his shoulder hurts." Steve felt he had to speak up because Bucky wouldn't. Sam would take it seriously.
"It's nothing guys, I overdid it today." Bucky walked over to the fire pit and took a long drink of water.
"That's doesn't sound good. Your muscles are supposed to heal as soon as you exert any energy. Your body is in a constant state of work out, something the rest of us have to schedule…" Despite Bucky's protests, he placed his hand on his forehead. "Damn it, you have a fever. When was the last time either one of you was sick?"
"We can pick up passing cold and flu germs, but it rarely lasts more than a day," Steve said.
"Yeah, super immunity along with everything else. This is NOT normal for you. You need to go see Shuri…"
"Guys, I'll be ok. Just need to rest…" Bucky said.
"Do I have to pick you up and fly you there myself? Because I will." Sam's threat surprised Steve. He was standing in his classic feet slightly apart, arms crossed in front of him pose that sent the signal that he meant business.
"No need for that, we'll take him up there. Come on, Bucky put a shirt on, We need to go," Steve said. That knot of dread in his chest that had been his constant companion for weeks grew tighter. That voice started to whisper to him and painful scenes flashed through his eyes but he did his best to shake it all off.
Bucky rewarded each of them with a glare reminiscent of the Winter Soldier. "I give up. I'm outnumbered," he said. Getting up he walked back into the house, emerging a few moments later wearing a Wakandan tunic shirt. "Let's get this done, and after Shuri says it's nothing, we'll come back here for a Barbeque. How's that sound?"
"Sounds good, now let's go." Sam urged.
Bucky didn't say much on the way up except to mutter something about it being a waste of time, but the minute they walked in her lab, Shuri dropped everything as soon as she saw him. Bucky didn't want to talk, so it was up to Sam and Steve to describe his symptoms. She didn't need to use a Western Style thermometer, all she had to do was ask and somewhere, a voice answered with 'Forty'.
"A hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit. That's high, even for you." She spoke a few words and a hologram of Bucky's arm appeared in the space in front of her. Steve had seen this before, but this time there were small bright lights running in a circuit through the Vibranium. Warning beeps pierced the air. Something was wrong.
"Hold up your arm," She commanded. Bucky did, a slight groan of pain. The area around where his arm attached to his shoulder lit up red on the hologram.
"That is far above normal pain levels," she said.
"Well, I'm not, like most people like to remind me, a normal man," Bucky said. "What happened to it? I didn't do anything different, I swear…"
"It is obvious your arm is malfunctioning, and it is making you ill. I must confer with the doctors. You will stay up here tonight," she said. She spoke a few words, and the hologram spun around in the air. She looked at it closely.
"There's things I have to finish…" he began.
"I'm sure someone else can take care of it, whatever it is." Shur's voice was firm. "I'm going to send you over to the hospital wing."
Bucky opened his mouth again but this time she held up a warning hand before he could say anything.
"I don't wish to frighten anyone, but if there is an illness going around that makes a Super Soldier sick, that might not bode well for the rest of us," she said, her voice taking on a gentle tone. "We don't want an epidemic on our hands." She directed her attention to his companions. "I'm sorry, but the doctors might want the two of you to stay up here until we find out what this is."
"I was planning on staying anyway," Steve said.
"Yeah well, he's here to look after Bucky, and someone's got to look out for him so I guess that's me," Sam said. "What about the village? I was hanging out with the kids…"
"I'll pass everything along to the doctors and tell them you're on your way." The left the room with the hologram still spinning the air, with Shuri studying it with a worried expression on her face.
The three had barely turned the corner when Bucky stumbled. Steve reached out to grab him by his good arm and pulled it around his shoulder, holding him up. Now he felt hot. At that moment two Wakandan health workers, a man, and a woman appeared accompanied by a strange floating contraption, covered in purple lights, their version of a wheelchair.
"White Wolf, you must go with me now…" the woman said, reaching for Bucky.
"I should go with him.." Steve began, unwilling to release him.
"The two of you will go into temporary isolation until we can determine the cause. If you will follow me…" The man said.
"No, you don't understand…I have to be with him!" Steve never let fear control him but now he felt it taking over. "I need…he needs…" the words wouldn't come.
"Is there a way you can do what you need to do…but in a way where he can still see him?" Sam asked, coming to his rescue. "It's important."
The two exchanged a glance. "We will make arrangements," the woman replied. She reached for Bucky.
"Careful of his metal arm. That's hurting him," Steve said.
"Yes, Captain Rogers." The two got Bucky into the contraption without him giving any sign they had caused him any distress. With a slight tap, the first worker, whose name tag said Karoba gently guided him down the hall. The whispers and the images started to flash in front of his eyes again.
"Follow me," the man's name was Nathi. Steve felt unreasonably agitated. Down another hall, through a hidden door to a room with a large window. Across the corridor on the other side, a mirror of the room they were in, complete with another large window. They watched as others joined Karoba helping Bucky out of the chair and into a bed. Even though he knew he was in good hands, Steve couldn't relax. Bucky noticed them and waved.
"He'll be ok, Steve," Sam said, his voice reminding Sam he was here. "These are smart people, they've got all the gadgets, they'll find out what's wrong and fix him. You've seen the things they can do!"
"I know," he said. He couldn't take his eyes off Bucky. An old fear came to the surface. They would take him away...maybe he was so sick even they couldn't….
"I need to run a few tests on both of you, and until we learn more about The White Wolf's condition, you must remain here," Nathi said. "This shouldn't take long."
"We understand," Sam replied. "Steve, the quicker we help them out, the quicker they can figure out what's going on."
"Yes, yes." He sat down on the other side of the room where he could still see Bucky who was awake and talking so that was a good sign. Shuri came down the hallway, looking determined as ever. She entered the room and spoke to the doctor, and then to Bucky.
The scanning distracted him. Outlines of his body and Sam's hung in the air but he paid little attention to them. "You are both fine, at the moment but as we are dealing with an unknown, it might take time for symptoms to appear," Nathi said.
"We understand," Sam said.
There was a stir across the hall. A contingent of bodyguards and T'Challa. They wouldn't let him in the room but Bucky smiled at him through the window. The King nodded in response and then conferred with his sister.
Steve felt like he would jump out of his skin. "They need to tell us something, anything," he said.
"What happened to the old I suck it up and deal with it because I grew up during the depression guy?" Sam asked. "You're wired tighter than one of Tony's robotic arms. You might get yourself all worked up over nothing."
Steve took a deep breath. Sam was right. "I don't know, maybe this is the first time one of us took sick since we've been together…"
"Funny, I never took you for the mother hen type."
"Neither did I."
After what seemed like an eternity, the group conferred in the hallway in a place just out of Bucky's sight but Sam but Steve could still see them. Shuri nodded and one of the doctors went into Bucky's room and she came into where Steve and Sam were waiting.
"Whatever is causing this, it has confined itself to his cybernetic implants and the skin tissue surrounding it. The two of you are fine," she said.
"Is that good news?" Steve asked.
"Yes, and no. We believe we can treat him, rid him of this infection but we will have to remove his arm. We have a theory, that when you traveled off the planet, he brought back some kind of technical virus that has damaged his arm, and it is trying to work its way into his system which caused him to fall ill. We remove the arm, the rest of him should heal."
"Remove his arm?" Steve repeated. "Does he know?"
"The doctor is informing him now. You can see him as soon as he's finished."
"Technical virus? Like a computer virus?" Sam asked.
"Similar, and that is not the most accurate of descriptions. It is an unknown threat. If this were to break through our security measures and firewalls…"
"It must have happened when Bucky stuck his arm through that portal when we were on the planet we called Sanctuary. He short-circuited something, giving us a way out," Steve said. He started frantically searching his mind for solutions. Bucky had to come through this. "You should talk to Wanda. She might be able to help you. Wong, you should get them to talk to Wong, a friend of ours, in New York, and Bruce. Hell, even Peter Parker might be able to help you. He was actually inside their system longer than I was. After you remove it, the arm, you'll make him another one?"
Shuri sighed. "We don't know. It depends on the nature of this...virus and how far it spread. It might have affected the implants in his spine and the neural sensors in his brain. It will be the third time it's had to be replaced. If the damage is too extensive, we will have to decide whether it will be wise to replace it."