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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
old secrets
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A RUMBLING IN the jet startled Diana awake, and she wished she stayed asleep. The second she was fully conscious and aware of her surroundings, she groaned in pain. Her foot and ankle were swollen, she couldn't see it because of her boot but she could feel it because of her boot. It seemed that the involuntary noise alerted the two pilots because soon Steve's face was all she could see.

"I'm so sorry," He began to apologize, making her eyebrows furrow in confusion as she looked down at Steve, he was kneeling before her next to her foot.

"Why-" She was cut off by her groan when Steve undid her boot and pulled it off with one swift motion, "You motherfucking shit-eating cock sucker!"

She widened her eyes and looked at Steve, guilt flooding her senses, "Oh my god, Steve I'm so sorry I don't know where that came from."

"Tell me how you really feel," Steve chuckled as he got up and walked over to the emergency kit, "You know that we don't have much for shattered bones, but I can get you an aspirin and an ice pack."

Diana nodded and watched as he went to the mini freezer that was a standard in all the quinjets, they were mainly for Diana considering she felt herself to be the clumsiest out of the team. Her destroyed foot seemed to be a part of that standard.

She watched as Steve pulled everything that could help her out, discarding the rest. He even opened the water for her.

"Your powers," Steve started, Diana knew he would bring it up eventually, "are they working?"

"Hand me the bottle cap."

He did. Diana opened up her hand, the cap in her palm and she focused. She wanted to turn the cap into a pencil. The circle of plastic remained. She strained her mind as she concentrated and huffed, squeezing it instead in frustration.

"The last time this happened, it was because Tom locked me in the Dark Room for so long without food that I was barely able to move when they finally remembered to bring me out, I couldn't make anything because even moving my arm was so painful I would see stars trying to do it," Diana frowned, "I thought it was because I was weak from the lack of food, but I guess it was actually the pain."

"So when we get you a doctor or twelve surgeons, you'll be okay again," Steve deduced. Diana looked down at the odd angle her foot sat and frowned.

"If you could call it that," Diana looked away from her foot before the tears could start to summon, "oh god, I'm not built to be on the run."

A humorless chuckle came from Steve as he sat down next to her now. Diana finally took the aspirin, even though it wouldn't do anything for her and she leaned her head against his shoulder. "I can't believe I got shot in the ass for you."

"Thank you for standing by me with this," Steve spoke, looking out the windshield of the quinjet, it was all clouds and open sky from high up they were, "you didn't have to but you did."

"I absolutely had to," Diana argued, straightening up in her seat before looking over at him, "I absolutely had to, your best friend was framed for a horrible crime because the real criminal wants to take over countries with sleeper agents, not only did I want to stop that from happening, I need to stop that from happening, I have a family that I care for, I don't want them to worry about their home being taken from them, I've seen too much of that."

Steve was silent for a while, Diana felt a mother throb go through her foot now that she wasn't distracted anymore and she took a deep breath, looking back down at it again.

"Plus your friend is too pretty for jail," Diana joked as she looked over at the seat Bucky was in, she could tell by the way his head was angled that he was listening to their conversation.

Steve smiled at that, glancing over at Bucky before sliding down to his knees again, he produced a wrap and medical tape from his pockets along with an ice pack. Diana figured he stuffed them in his pockets so he could hand her the water and the aspirin. She knew what he was about to do and she wished she had a bottle of vodka in her hand instead.

She faced blinding pain when he gingerly set her foot straight, it was quiet in the jet, so in addition to feeling her broken bones shift and move, she could hear it too. Diana gagged at the sound, but the sweet relief of the ice pack made her shut her eyes and lean her head back. Steve had wrapped the ice pack around her foot and taped it down.

"Thank you," she whispered. She undid the restraining seat belts and got up. She looked at the overhead storage and found a stashed crutch, she remembered leaving it there after one of her first few missions after recovering from her bullet wound in the butt. Diana quickly snatched it up and hobbled her way to the cockpit of the jet, finding an open seat, groaning as she did, the seats were far more comfortable up there and she had a better view of the sky, "So, how long do we have until we're there?"

"An hour or so, you were out for a while," Steve replied as he made his way back to the pilot's seat.

"Yeah, well no sleep and pain exhaustion does that," Diana grinned, wincing at the way the cut on her cheek pulled. She could feel the dried blood and furrowed her eyebrows at that.

"Well we're almost there, you have to keep the engine warm and if anything happens, you leave us here, and destroy the doctor's way of leaving, we have to make sure that no matter what happens, they can't leave," Steve instructed. Diana didn't like the idea of leaving them, she looked over at Bucky who was on the seat next to hers, he had a firm look on his face, obviously agreeing with Steve. She huffed and looked out at the fluffy clouds.

"Well if your reckless asses don't die, I won't have to leave my best friend in a snow bunker, so don't die, you hear me, Rogers?" Diana asked.

"I hear you, Renfrey."

Diana nodded and looked over at Bucky, "Don't you let him die."

She didn't get a verbal response, only a nod, but it was all she needed.

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DIANA DOESN'T KNOW why she decided to charge her phone on the jet, there was no reception in Siberia, she was already standing in an awkward position when she was trying to talk to her family in the parking garage in Germany, so when the flip phone finally powers on, it'll do nothing. Still, Diana had nothing better to do than watch the way the bars flashed on the screen, indicating the power that would seep into the battery. She also decided to clean up her face as she waited, there was still dried blood on her face and her neck from when Bucky had destroyed the collar she wore earlier.

The sting of the rubbing alcohol grounded her thoughts to the jet as she sat in front of the mirror. At least the string was a minor distraction from the pain in her foot. This had to be one of the worst injuries she's ever faced and she hoped she didn't jinx it with that thought.

It was the explosion that pulled Diana's attention to the windshield of the jet. After that she watched as a large door of the bunker slammed down, a cloud of dry snow billowed out, flying over the windshield of the jet. She wished this damn thing had wipers. She walked over to her comm on the counter and shoved it in her ear.

"Steve? Bucky? Can someone check-in?" She hoped that the silence was due to the fact that they were deep in a concrete soviet bunker.

Diana watched as the area stilled around them and frowned. What Steve told her to do in this scenario rang in her head. With a push of a button, Diana felt a breeze that chilled her to the bone. Snow was already coating the floor of the jet. She hobbled over to the array of weapons and pulled out Natasha's gun rack, one was already missing from where Bucky had taken a gun, she took the next best and tucked it under the arm that didn't use a crutch.

She could feel it in her gut that something wasn't wrong. And when she hobbled out of the jet, she was glad she did. She watched as T'Challa tackled a familiar man, preventing him from blowing his brain out with a gun.

"The living are not done with you yet," She could hear. She quickly hobbled back up the jet and snatched a pair of handcuffs off the wall.

She eventually made her way over to the King and the doctor, clearing her throat as she did, not wanting to startle him. "Your highness," Diana nervously spoke up, "I see you've met the fake doctor."

"It seems I have, and it seems like you shouldn't be out in this weather," T'Challa noted, looking over his shoulder as he accepted her outstretched handcuffs.

"I've been through worse," She shrugged, "I think, where are Steve and Bucky?"

"They're still in the bunker with Tony, he followed you here," T'Challa answered, though his focus was on the man he was handcuffing on the ground, "It seems this doctor here lured you guys with the super soldiers, there was information here about your soldier, Tony disagreed with it and now they're all fighting."

Diana's heart lurched and she looked down at the doctor. Things began to piece together well, whatever has Tony and Steve fighting so badly had to be terrible.

"When you said you wanted to see an empire fall-"

"I wanted to see the Avengers' end!" The doctor seethed, spitting in her direction.

Diana rolled her eyes and used the bottom of her snow-coated crutch to slam into his temple, effectively knocking him out. After stumbling, she found her footing again and looked up at the King who stood over the doctor's body. There was a silence between the two as she observed the way he assessed his surroundings as if he was constantly looking for new threats, she noticed the way he assessed her as if he still didn't know if she posed a threat or not.

Diana wondered if the way her body was constantly shivering brought down her threat level. The biting cold reminded her of her cell, she could still distantly hear the scientists, the hum of the scepter. She could see a faint blue glow in her peripherals, it would only disappear if she looked in its direction every five minutes, she was sure she looked like a madwoman to T'Challa out there in the snow.

"I'm sorry about your father, I truly am," She looked down at the limp unconscious body of the perpetrator, "I don't know how many people have to pay for our mistakes, it's clear the Avengers affected him, I- I just-"

"My father will know justice today, you helped in every way you could," T'Challa spoke softly. Diana looked up into the man's eyes, he truly was beautiful, but even she knew that it wasn't appropriate to say anything about that.

She opened her mouth to say something else but a great slam of the bunker door pulled Diana and T'Challa's attention in that direction. Steve and Bucky, covered in soot and blood, stumbled forward. An indescribable noise escaped Diana's throat as she hobbled towards them. Bucky's metal arm was missing, some of the wires that stuck out seemed to spark if they rubbed the wrong way. Diana's heart lurched at the sight, just what exactly happened down there?

"You're still here," Steve noted as Diana got within earshot.

"You think I'm gonna start following orders now?" Diana asked, "The king over there got the doctor, give me Barnes, I promise I can handle this."

It was like Steve knew there was no fighting it, Diana quickly replaced him, Thanking the crutch gave her the stability to support Bucky. She guided the man to the jet, his staggered breathing only indicated his exhaustion to him. Blood poured from his nose in a crimson gush and she could hear the small grunts of pain he desperately tried to suppress with each step.

"You don't have to hide your pain," She muttered softly as she helped him to the table in the quinjet, quickly pushing away some of the stuff she had out when she was taking care of her wounds.

"Been through worse," Bucky gave her as he crawled onto the table, laying on his back, his right arm strewn over his stomach as he tried to even out his breath. Diana grazed her eyes down his body, it wasn't the first time she's done this, it probably won't be the last, but it is the first time she's assessed his injuries. He has bruises from their previous fights, some were already beginning to form from the fight in the airport.

Diana didn't say another word before pulling up a chair and grabbing what was left of the first aid kit. She was silent as she worked, gingerly cleaning the blood out of stubble of his mustache and beard. She narrowed her eyes at his nose, it was off from how it looked the last time she saw it. She clasped the meat of both her palms over it, looking in his eye as if to ask for permission. The nod he gave her assured her but she still cringed at the sound of his nose being pushed back into place and she watched his wince of pain. Diana never wanted to be the cause of it again.

After that, it was pretty clear that the bleeding wasn't serious, so she just cleaned up the blood as she had before. After fixing up some of the cuts with a bandaid or two, she finally looked at the space where his arm used to be. There was a strange twinge in her gut and a pull in her heart at the sight of the missing limb. It was odd, why would she react that way to his missing arm? Did she miss it? Is she even allowed to miss it?

She was going to say something about it, her mouth was open and the words were in the back of her throat. Steve walking into the jet and looking over the two of them, assessing them stopped the words from escaping her.

"We're going to Wakanda. T'Challa says he can help you both, Tony can deal with the doctor, or whoever he is," Steve told them, Diana looked over at Bucky who solemnly nodded.

"Why were you fighting Tony?" Diana asked, looking up at Steve, she decided to leave Bucky on the table to follow Steve, if anything Bucky should just continue to lay there and rest up, "and don't tell me you didn't because T'Challa told me you were and the doctor was very eager to brag."

Steve was in the cockpit, preparing the jet to fly, the door finally closed, the temperature inside already beginning its uphill climb. The blond man apprehensively looked over at Bucky and back to her, as if deciding which fate would be worse depending on what he did next.

"Steve, I'm already a war criminal, just tell me," Diana urged, surely it was nothing she couldn't be too upset about.

If words could be literally eaten, Diana would've had to make a fork and a knife out of rocks.

"Tony found out that Bucky killed his parents, they had the super-soldier serum and he intercepted them," Steve admitted, he couldn't meet her eyes, "I had known for a while, and I didn't say anything about it, I didn't know how to tell him."

Words were inconceivable for Diana to form at that moment. She sat down, looking at the floor by her feet, trying to process what he said. She spared a glance at Bucky who had a hard gaze at the ceiling like he was refusing to look at her. She knows that he had no choice, after all, they had to have had some sort of friendship during the war. Diana looked back at Steve who forced his own gaze out of the windshield of the jet, following T'Challa's in front of them.

"While it was wrong of you to withhold that information, there is nothing else you can do but apologize at this point," Diana sighed, following Steve's gaze to T'Challa's jet, "I would start drafting that letter soon, Rogers, and when you write it, could you ask Tony to take care of my car for me? I don't think I'll be able to drive her for a while."

Steve looked like he wanted to laugh, Diana wasn't hurt by the silence. Laughing would be too much at the moment and she could tell that a million things were running through his mind. She could see that he needed a moment to himself so she got up as gracefully as one could with one foot and a crutch, before leaving Steve to his devices, she placed a hand on his shoulder and a soft kiss on his temple, nothing romantic, but a platonic way of showing support.

They were beyond the point of no return, which only meant that the only way out was forward, and it looks like Diana's forward was Africa and its hidden gem inside.

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3k words

omg, guys, you wont believe me when i say that the next update after this is... the epilogue. i started this book in JANUARY????? how are we here right now?? how long will the third take me?? will i write a fourth??? the future is so unknown!!

scary...

anyways, as you can see, Diana is going to Wakanda and clearly staying there for a while, will shuri be able to fix her foot? or will she get a vibranium one?? or?? gasp??? RETIRE??? lol no i'm too attached, but you guys will literally see in probably a couple of days depending on how fast i can write the epilogue.. ( I actually need to focus on the speech i'm supposed to give as maid of honor in less than two days... i haven't wrote a single word of it because i'm quite literally the worst maid of honor out there.)

other than that, i want to thank you all for your continued support of my passion project and i hope you enjoy the ending that comes next!

love you all!
- greta