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CHAPTER ONE
back in the fray
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DESPITE THE OVERCAST sky, Diana could still feel a coat of sweat over her whole body as she continued to rake out the goat poop in their pen. It was becoming a problem for the goats when they got it stuck in their hooves. It was the quiet muttering rolling down the hill that brought her attention up to the king that approached her with Okoye, the head general of their most elite fight squad and another member of the Wakandan army.

The soldier whose dreads were up in a ponytail carried a case, he approached the wagon that Bucky was slinging hay onto and set the case down, he opened it for the king before he went back to stand at attention. Diana set her rake up against the wooden fence and hopped it. She was curious as to what was happening and she gave Okoye a smile and a wave before looking at T'Challa.

"What's up, guys?" Diana asked, pinching her eyebrows together when she saw Bucky's pained face as he looked at the contents of the case. Diana stepped over, leaning around the tall man's body to see the vibranium arm that awaited to be attached to the man in front of her, "oh."

Something was happening, it was like rocks formed in her gut and gravity was pulling them to the earth as she looked up at T'Challa. He didn't have a pitiful look but that only made Diana feel slightly better.

"Where's the fight?" Bucky asked, he knew all too well what was happening too.

Diana grabbed his forearm and gave a reassuring squeeze before stepping closer to their hosts.

"On its way," T'Challa answered. That only confused Diana more as she looked over to Okoye, she wasn't one for cryptic answers but she stood tall and silent, that worried Diana. Sure the general was a serious woman but she was still kind and funny when she wanted to be.

"Are our friends coming here as well then?" Diana asked, she was now suddenly aware of how her sweat made her clothes stick to her, "I know we're about to get in a fight but can I shower?"

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SHE ONLY HAD a fragment of knowledge of what was to come to Wakanda. Diana wished she knew more but all she had to ride on was that Vision was somehow hurt and anyone that violated the accords was coming to Wakanda with Rhodey. Tony was apparently in space with the Spider-Man guy and a wizard. Diana doesn't know what the hell was going on but if Aliens were truly a factor, she might explode.

Her hair felt lighter on her head now that it was clean. She waited by T'Challa's side as she watched the quinjet land. Her excitement to see her friends left her constantly shifting her stance on her feet as the door fully opened.

The sight of Steve Rogers was a breath of fresh air, beard and all. Diana couldn't help but notice the star ripped off the chest of his uniform. She remembered the pride he had in wearing it, her heart cracked from the effect the accords had on the man. Just from a glance over all her friends, she could see that the past two years weren't easy for them. Guilt settled in her gut as she noticed a fresh cut over Wanda's eyebrow and the gaping hole in Vision's gut. What could rip through him like that?

Diana moved to help him, but the sight behind the android stopped her in her tracks. She watched as Bruce Banner, new hair cut and all bowed before T'Challa. She widened her eyes, glancing up at Rhodey for a split moment as he looked at Bruce incredulously.

"Whoa man, what are you doing?" Rhodey asked. Bruce looked up at the man, he had an expression of betrayal. Diana had the sneaking suspicion that Rhodey was somehow up to this but the look on T'Challa's amused face kept Diana quiet.

"We don't do that here," T'Challa assured Bruce as the smaller man straightened up his posture. One last sharp glare was sent to Rhodey who was barely keeping it in.

Bruce looked up to see Diana and a smile spread across her face as she surged forward and tackled him in a hug. She hadn't seen him since before Sokovia fell out of the sky. Bruce didn't hesitate to return the hug after Diana wrapped him in her embrace.

"I hope your vacation was nice." Diana teased, she could tell by the way he looked that where he ended up wasn't exactly fun, "nice hair cut by the way."

"Did you have bangs?" Bruce asked, making Diana snort. The curtained pieces weren't blending in with her hair just yet, making it a problem for Diana, but it wasn't something she couldn't handle.

Soon, T'Challa was guiding everyone inside to Shuri's lab, Diana had noticed that Wanda and Vision were already on their way up with another guard, probably due to the condition Diana saw Vision in earlier. Rhodey was holding a suit that looked oddly familiar but Diana didn't say anything about it yet, not when the King was about to start talking.

"So how big of an assault should we expect?" T'Challa asked as they made their way inside.

"Uh, sir, sir, I think you should expect quite a big assault," Bruce chimed in, leaning over Steve's shoulder, Diana watched as the man got on his toes to do this and had to hold back the snort that was about to escape her.

"How we looking?" Natasha asked.

"You will have my Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, The Dora Milaje, and-" Diana looked over to see Bucky approaching, his new arm on and the biggest smile she's ever seen on his face.

"A semi-stable hundred-year-old man," Bucky chimed in. Diana nudged Natasha's side as they watched Steve and Bucky reunite.

"Hug me, you hair color thief," Diana whispered to the woman, they barely got the chance to say hi to each other and the Steve and Bucky show was the perfect distraction.

Natasha's hug was tight and desperate and Diana knew that her friends missed her as much as she missed them. Her face pinched together as she squeezed just as tightly. They would have to let go soon but it was like Diana wanted to leave an imprint of herself on her friend to keep with her after they parted. After all, it was Natasha that helped Diana get away in time for T'Challa to cool down.

"How you been, Buck?" Steve asked. Diana pulled away to look at the super-soldier.

Bucky locked eyes with Diana, she watched his grin grow slightly larger, "Not bad for the end of the world."

Diana's heart fluttered and she glanced over at Natasha as they continued their trek to Shuri's lab. The one she's normally in was under reconstruction designs so they're in her childhood lab. The one that oversees the borders outside Wakanda. Natasha had a calculating look on her face as they hung back, there were murmurings from the former avengers in front of them as they conversed with T'Challa and Okoye but Diana wanted to catch up with Nat.

"Did Steve or Sam tell you the story of how you owe me twenty dollars?" Diana smirked, Natasha widened her eyes as she looked to Steve and then back to Diana.

"At what point did this happen?" Natasha asked as she broke into a devilish grin.

"Just before we arrived at the airport, she got us our gear," Diana explained, "how is everyone holding up, how are you holding up?"

"So much has happened, we'd have to talk about it when this is over, and you have to tell me about you and Bucky, don't think I don't see right through you," Natasha nudged Diana's arm as they got to the elevator that the team waited for them on.

"Romanoff, you've been able to read me since the day you met me," Diana snorted.

Natasha couldn't help her chuckle as the elevator doors shut behind them. The team was silent but it was like they knew the conversation the two women had, at least they vaguely knew the topic. It took Diana all of five seconds to realize that Bruce was now holding the familiar-looking suit and Rhodey, Sam, and Bucky were missing from the lift.

Diana tried remembering her surroundings from when she walked in with Natasha and remembered that the three men had stayed back outside, probably to help keep watch. Diana knew Bucky's aversion to labs of all kinds so she didn't blame him, she was shocked that Sam stayed behind with him considering the last interaction between them that she witnessed.

Rhodey was probably getting into the war machine suit and getting it ready. The threat must be huge for the man to ignore the Secretary of State and join the war criminals in a foreign country to fight aliens that may or may not know where they are.

The opening of the elevator doors pulled Diana from her thoughts as she looked up to see Vision on the observation table and Wanda standing a few feet away, nervously biting her nails as she fretted over the android. Diana pinched her eyebrows together in concern. She wondered if it was the Mind Stone that pulled her to Vision's side, she wondered if it was the connection that the Mind Stone forged between her and Wanda that had her pulling her friend's hand from her mouth and squeezing. Wanda pulled Diana into a tight hug.

The hug could've lasted a million years and Diana wouldn't have minded, but she still pulled away to look down at Vision and take his hand in her free one.

"Hey toaster," she teased, trying to keep the mood light, "couldn't shake 'em this time?"

"I'm afraid not Miss Renfrey," Vision nodded to her, acknowledging her.

Diana released Vision's hand and watched as Shuri used her kimoyo beads to scan Vision's body, identifying the tear in it and how every receptor worked its way back to the stone. When she finished her scan, Diana watched intently as the girl flipped her palm up and opened it, a hologram of the Mind Stone hovered above her palm. Shuri's eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly as she analyzed it.

"Whoa," Diana heard Bruce talk, making a small smile work its way up her face, she wondered how he would react to her shattered foot recovery time.

"The structure is polymorphic," Shuri's soft voice focused Diana on the girl. Her braids were pulled back into buns on either side of her head and her lab coat was a bright orange that Diana loved as it reminded her of the sunsets in Wakanda that she couldn't get enough of.

"Right, we had to attach each neuron non sequentially," Bruce explained, his thick-framed glasses made his eyes larger than normal, he almost reminded Diana of a bug.

"Why didn't you just reprogram the synapsis to work collectively?" Shuri asked.

There was a moment of silence and Diana noticed the way Vision tilted his head to look at Bruce, the look on his face said "yeah, why didn't you?" Diana snorted despite the stern glare Wanda sent her way and she didn't miss the amused glance Shuri sent Diana's way.

"Because we didn't think of it," Bruce answered truthfully, if there was one thing about Bruce, he would answer every question he was asked, even if the answer was "I don't know." Diana loved that about him.

"Can you do it?" Wanda asked.

"Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here," Shuri explained, "one misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures-" Shuri directed her attention to T'Challa, "-it will take time, brother."

"How long?" Steve asked, his hands looped through his belt loops and his chin-length hair swept over to the back of his head, it ended in curls at his collar that went halfway up his neck.

"As long as you can give me," Shuri answered. Diana squeezed Wanda's hand, she wanted to pull the woman away from Vision for a moment to reassure her, but she didn't get that chance.

Perimeter alarms went off and Diana walked over to the window, looking out, there was nothing down in the tree line or past it and she looked up, seeing strange cloud formations and a weird light.

"Something's entered the atmosphere," Okoye spoke, and Diana just knew that the kimoyo beads were showing a hologram of the earth. Diana didn't need a hologram to see the spaceship that was hurtling straight for the top of the dome.

She hoped that the forcefield would hold against alien tech and it was like her prayers were answered when she watched it explode on impact with the shield that protects the country.

"God, I love this place," Diana spoke softly, though she knows that the others probably heard her.

It was like God hated her, Diana looked down as more of those ships crashed down just outside of the border, the impact sending a shockwave over the land and tries, Diana could see the wildfires begin to bloom from the jet heat the ships had at their bottoms.

"There is no way that's good for the environment," Diana frowned as she spoke, she was glad her goats were on a pasture on the other end of the shield, a whole country between these aliens and her goats.

"It's too late," Vision spoke up, Diana turned around to see him trying to climb off the table and she stepped away from the window to push him back down, "we need to destroy the stone now."

Diana only shook her head as she manhandled her robotic friend into laying back down.

"Vision, keep your ass on that table," Natasha commanded him, making Diana smirk. No one was sacrificing the android, not today.

Natasha walked off towards somewhere else in the large room, Diana didn't see her due to her focusing on Vision. Being near the Mind Stone again changed something in her like she was reverting to 2015 after the Vision was made. She doesn't know what compelled her to, but she found herself putting her palm over his forehead, smothering the mind stone.

A jolt of energy raced up her arm and she reeled back, furrowing her eyebrows as she looked to the palm of her hand where there was an imprint of the design of the stone on her hand.

"We will hold them off," T'Challa's voice was her beacon back to reality as she looked up at the king.

"Wanda," Steve addressed the woman, "as soon as that's stone's out of his head, you blow it to hell."

Wanda agreed, but Diana was focused on how Bruce stumbled over his own feet to turn around and walk over to her, he was holding out the suit and practically shoved it into her arms.

"Apparently Tony made this when you were gone," Bruce said and turned around and left. Diana looked down, realization washed over her.

It was familiar because it was her design. She had given Tony this design a few weeks before the mission in Lagos but he was busy preparing for MIT. And then everything had gone to hell. The fact that he made her the suit warmed her heart.

"Evacuate the city, engage all defenses," T'Challa began, his soldiers marched away with their orders but he still looked back at Steve and pointed to him.

"And get this man a shield."

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2.6k words

omg I finally did it! i finally wrote chapter one. a few things about phase five: there's no way in hell infinity war is gonna last more than three chapters and that's literally because Bucky came in halfway through the movie and Diana was with him so she literally just jumped into the fight at this point. Still, we have FIVE YEARS of stuff I need to tell you and angst that I can't spoil so know that it won't be an immediate jump from the fight in Wakanda to the events of endgame (i'm not talking about the beginning of endgame when Tony is rescued)

also know that salene is not in this book, I only featured her in the end of never the same to even out the fight on both sides (I would've included salene in this story if I though ahead enough to put Diana in "monster" but I didn't do here we are)

now that's out of the way, i want to thank you guys so much for joining me on this journey, Diana's come a long way from fighting a hot Norse god in New York as you can see. Now she has to fight a purple tampon (WHICH I RECENTLY FOUND OUT WAS AN ETERNAL/ DEVIANT HYBRID??? EW!!!)

i'm shuddering since you guys can't see me, but im also hoping to see y'all at the next update!!

-greta