CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:
WE HAVE TO DESTROY IT

SALEM HELD TIGHTLY ONTO WANDA'S hand as they entered the place that she hadn't been to since everything went down two years ago. Wanda glanced at her girlfriend before bring Salem's hands up to her lips and placing a gentle kiss to her hand in hopes of reassuring her.

     They stopped in the doorway upon seeing Rhodey talking with a hologram version of Secretary Ross. "Mr. Secretary." Steve spoke up first, making Rhodey and Ross turn to look at the group. The hologram narrowed his eyes as he looked at Steve, taking a few steps forwards towards the man.

     "You got some nerve. I'll give you that." Ross told them, his eyes glancing between Natasha and Steve.

     "You could use some of that right now." Natasha simply answered him.

     "The world's on fire. And you think, all is forgiven?" The man seethed. Salem wanted to punch the hologram in the face, but instead she just squeezed Wanda's hand a little tighter to calm herself.

     "I'm not looking for forgiveness. And I'm way past asking for permission. Earth just lost her best defender. So we're here to fight." Steve simply told him. He then took a step towards the man, daring him to do something. "And if you wanna stand in our way. . . we'll fight you, too."

     Ross looked at Steve before glancing over the rest of the fugitives before turning his head towards Rhodey and pointing towards them. "Arrest them."

     "All over it." Rhodey nodded his head before making the hologram disappear. There was a moment of silence before Rhodey turned to face them. "That's a court-martial. It's great to see you, Cap." Steve stepped forward and the two hugged.

     "You too, Rhodey." He pulled away and then Natasha was next to step forward, she and Rhodey sharing a hug with one another as well before she pulled away. Salem offered the man a small smile from her spot to which Rhodey returned.

     "Well. You guys really look like crap. Must've been a rough couple of years." Rhodey told them. Salem scoffed, though a small smile was on her lips.

     "Yeah, well, the hotels weren't exactly five star." Sam told the man, adjusting his hold on Vision.

     "Uh, I think you look great." The voice of Bruce Banner entered the room, making all of them turn their heads towards the man. He stood there unsurely, his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. I'm back."

     "Hi Bruce." Natasha spoke up, her eyebrows furrowed slightly.

     "Nat." Bruce nodded his head. Salem darted her eyes between the two for a moment, cocking her head slightly as she watched the slightly uncomfortable interaction.

     "This is awkward." Sam muttered. They all moved to a different room in the facility, and Salem stood side by side with Wanda, standing behind of the girl as she wrapped her arms around Wanda's waist with her head on Wanda's shoulder as she stared blankly at a spot on the floor.

     "So we gotta assume they're coming back, right?" Rhodey questioned, talking about what had taken place a few days prior in New York and in Scotland.

     "And they can clearly find us." Wanda spoke up, worry clear in her tone. They were after Vision, and she was anxious on what was going to happen and so was Salem, but she seemed to be tuned out from the conversation because she had already seen it happen.

     "We need all hands on deck." Bruce spoke up. "Where's Clint?"

     "After the whole Accords situation, he and Scott took a deal. It was too tough on their families, they're on house arrest." Natasha answered. This of course made Salem frown, she really wished to see the man. And maybe after this whole Thanos thing was over, she would get the chance to do just that.

     "Who's Scott?" Bruce furrowed his eyebrows.

     "Ant-Man." Salem told him, her eyes not moving from the floor. Wanda turned her head slightly to look at Salem with slight worry before turning back to the conversation.

     "There's an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?" Bruce asked in disbelief. "Okay, look, Thanos has the biggest army in the universe. And he is not gonna stop until he. . . he gets. . . Vision's Stone."

     "Well then, we have to protect it." Natasha shrugged as if it were obvious. But Vision shook his head in disagreement.

     "No, we have to destroy it." This immediately snapped Salem back into the conversation, slowly removing her arms from Wanda as she looked at him. "I've been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head, about its nature. But also, its composition. I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source, something, very similar to its own signature, perhaps. . . its molecular integrity could fail." He was standing in front of Wanda now, looking down at her as he spoke those words.

     "And you, with it." Wanda shot back, shaking her head. "We're not having this conversation."

     "Eliminating the stone is the only way to be certain that Thanos can't get it." Vision calmly told the woman.

     "That's too high a price."

     "Only you have the power to pay it." Vision calmly told her. Wanda clenched her jaw before turning away from him and walking away. Salem followed after her, placing a hand on the sides of the woman's face and giving her a kiss on the forehead before Wanda leaned her head against Salem's chest. She didn't want to be the one to have the power, she didn't want to have to kill her best friend, nor Salem's best friend. Vision was important to both of them, and they couldn't stand the thought of losing him. "Thanos threatens half the Universe. One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him."

     "But it should." Steve spoke up. "We don't trade lives, Vision."

     "Captain, 70 years ago, you laid down your life to save how many millions of people. Tell me, why is this any different?" Vision asked.

     "Because you might have a choice." Bruce told the android. This caused the couple to carefully walk back into the room. "Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays. J.A.R.V.I.S., Ultron, Tony, me, the Stone. All of them mixed together. All of them learning from one another."

     "You're saying Vision isn't just the stone?" Salem questioned Bruce, and hope bloomed in her chest, even though she knew she shouldn't have let it.

     "I'm saying that if we take out the stone, there's still a whole lot of Vision left. Perhaps the best parts." Bruce explained.

     Natasha was quick to ask with furrowed her eyebrows, "Can we do that?"

     Bruce shook his head. "Not me. Not here."

     "You better find someone, and somewhere fast. Ross isn't exactly just gonna let you guys have your old rooms back." Rhodey told the group.

     There was a pause before Steve nodded his head and then looked at the rest of the group. "I know somewhere."

▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎▁︎

     "Drop to 2600, heading 0-3-0."

     Sam raised his eyebrows, shaking his head slightly. "I hope you're right about this, Cap. Or we're gonna land a lot faster than you want to." Sam headed straight for the trees, almost closing his eyes when he expected impact, only to go through the border and enter that of Wakanda.

Sam carefully landed the quinjet, opening the hatch that allowed them to walk out. Of course, Steve and Natasha were the ones to walk out last. Salem stayed between Wanda and Vision, her eyes darting around the place and she had to admit that the place was breathtaking.

     "Should we bow?" Bruce mumbled to Rhodey as they made it closer to the king of Wakanda. T'Challa patiently stood there with a small smile on his face.

     "Yeah, he's a king." Rhodey whispered back.

     "Seems like I'm always thanking you for something." Steve told the man, the duo shaking hands with one another. That's when Bruce started bowing, and Salem was able to manage an amused smirk. Rhodey gave the man a weird look trying to hold back a laugh.

     "What are you doing?"

     T'Challa was quick to wave Bruce off. "Uh, we don't do that here." T'Challa turned and started walking and the group was quick to follow after him. "So how big of an assault can we expect?"

     "Uh, sir, I think you can expect quite a big assault." Bruce was quick to stumble out, following close behind the man as he tried to emphasize how big this said attack was truly going to be. But of course, none of them knew how big it was, and the impact that it was going to have on them and the rest of the world. Except for Salem. She knew everything that was about to happen, and she knew that she couldn't stop it, and that was slowly killing her on the inside.

     "You will have my Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and. . ." The king trailed off, and that's when Bucky appeared, with a smile on his face. His hair was longer, and he had a little more facial hair than when Salem had last saw him.

     "A semi-stable, 100-year-old man." Bucky finished. Steve smiled as he quickly exchanged a hug with his best friend.

     "How you been, Buck?" Steve questioned.

     "Uh, not bad, for the end of the world." Bucky shrugged his shoulders. Salem smiled at the exchange between the two before grabbing Wanda's hand and giving it a small squeeze before they all made it inside of the building. They got Vision on a table and Wanda and Salem stayed close to him as the watched Shuri scan him with her bracelet.

     "Whoa." Shuri breathed, her eyes widened slightly. "The structure is polymorphic."

     "Right, we had to attach each neuron non-sequentially." Bruce told the girl, glancing down at the hologram before looking back up at the younger sibling of T'Challa. His eyebrows were furrowed, watching as the woman glanced up at him as if he were dumb.

     "Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?" Shuri questioned the scientist. Her head cocked to the side slightly, and Vision even looked up at the man from the examination table, almost as if he was silently asking him the same question.

     Bruce stuttered over his words, his mouth opening and closing for a moment. "Because, we didn't think of it."

     Shuri gave the man a reassuring smile and nod. "I'm sure you did your best."

     "Can you do it?" Wanda was quick to ask. Salem interlaced their fingers with Wanda, feeling her nerves from her spot beside of the woman.

     "Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures." Shuri nodded her head at Wanda and Salem before glancing towards her brother. "It will take time, brother."

     "How long?" Steve was the one to ask the question, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. Like everyone else, he too was worried. Vision was a part of his team, and he would do everything in his power in order to prevent losing a member of their team.

     Shuri glanced at the Captain before answering, "As long as you can give me."

     That's when the bead on Okoye's bracelet starts to beep. The woman opened the palm of her hand, the bead rolling into it, allowing a hologram of the atmosphere around them to appear. The woman glanced towards T'Challa before noticing the red blinking dot. "Something's entered the atmosphere."

     "Guy's, we've got a situation." Sam's voice came over the coms.

     "God, I love this place." Bucky spoke, looking up and watching as a ship was destroyed as it crashed into the barrier that surrounded Wakanda.

     "Yeah, don't start celebrating yet. We got more incoming outside of the dome." This was Rhodey.

     That's when Vision sat up, immediately grabbing Salem and Wanda's attention along with the others. "It's too late. We need to destroy the stone now." Vision grunted out, pain shooting through his body from the stab wound.

     Natasha snapped her head towards the android, walking over to him. "Vision, get your ass back on the table."

     "We will hold them off." T'Challa assured the android, exchanging a look with Steve who gave the King a nod of the head.

     Steve turned his head to look at Wanda. "Wanda, as soon as the stone's out of his head, you blow it to hell."

     "I will." Wanda nodded. She then met Salem's eyes before saying, "Stay safe."

     Salem smiled. "Always, sweetheart." She gave Wanda a quick kiss before joining Natasha's side.

     "Evacuate the city. Engage all defense procedures." T'Challa was quick to order those standing around him that was part of the Kingsgaurd. He stopped in his tracks, turning towards Steve and then pointing at the man. "And get this man a shield." Steve nodded at the King once more before T'Challa walked out of the room. The war was about to start. The war that none of them were ready for and the war that only Salem knew the outcome of.