Chapter 77: CHAPTER 75

[Draul St. Cross POV]

It has been a week since the Sentinel battle and I was still jumpy.

Bucky lost his metal arm so I was working on making him a new one, only that my skills were still lacking in order to create a neural to cybernetic implant that would come with the new arm I wanted to make for him.

I also didn't have sufficient materials to create what I had in mind. While I would call myself a genius just below the likes of Stark, it still wasn't enough to get what I needed done. 

Tony Stark became an icon in both warfare and welfare because of his Iron Man suit. 

But what really made him that iconic, that public figure, was that no one was well versed enough in mechanics to rival him. 

The Hammer guy from the second Iron man movie was proof enough. 

He definitely was smart. No matter how Tony insulted his work or downplayed his intelligence, for his name to be known and also chosen to spearhead the weapons division of the American army, he had to have had, at least, a certain level of competency… but the only problem was that he wasn't Tony Stark. 

When it came to the mechanical and AI branch Tony was at the forefront, ahead of anyone else. 

His suits were a marvel to everyone. 

That was why I took my studying harder. I wanted to at least make something that… I don't know, was better? I wasn't trying to be the best, gods no. 

But I didn't want to make something that would I would have to fix after every usage or oil once a month. And another reason for me doing this was Bucky himself. 

Dude was a depressed bear on his best day. But losing an arm only made it worse. 

He didn't whine about it all day. He did complain though that using only an arm was way harder but I just couldn't bear the sight of a depressed Bucky with only one arm. 

It would take me a long time to be able to create a new arm for Bucky so until then he'll have to made do with the mechanical prosthetic Fury said S.H.I.E.L.D had. 

I wasn't the only one who was affected by the events at lake Alkali. 

Steve, even since Bucky lost his arm, pushed himself into training. The dude was acting like his dog died with the 'never again' expression he had on his face. I was tempted to tell him that I was working on building a new one for his girlfriend but I decided against it seeing how driven he was. Something tells me it wasn't Bucky that had him on the edge, but rather the fight we had. 

The fight got to everybody, mostly the older ones like me, Logan, Hank, Bucky and Steve. 

Reading about it was one thing, but seeing someone hell-bent on killing off an entire race was something else. 

And not to mention the thing about Doom. 

Even till now, anytime I think about it I get skittish. 

Doom wasn't some random villain in the Marvel Comics that was only portrayed in a couple of issues before fading out. He wasn't some pathetic villain that only served to give credit or popularity to the heroes, Doom was a real threat. 

The reason I was on my toes in regards to Doom was that he was an unrelenting bastard which was the reason I wanted to kill him as soon as I saw him. 

If I was to rate the threat Doom possessed, I would rate him no lower than Thanos. 

He was like the mythical legends of the cat having nine lives. Always coming back and getting stronger for it. My saving grace during the fight was that he had not learnt magic because if he had then the fight would've gone differently. 

I was on my toes in regard to learning magic since I didn't know what the Ancient One would have seen in regards to my being here. Because I doubted the other me's in the multiverse were this strong or were even mutant to begin with. 

As far as I was concerned I was a paradox in this universe. 

Or maybe I'm just on the edge since the clearly pseudo-omniscient Master of the Mystic Arts was already aware of my presence and had their magical eyes on me. 

But then again there was nothing I could do if they ever did decide to come for me so there was no need worrying about it. When the idea of fighting against people who dedicated their life to fighting eldritch monstrosities and cosmic demons comes to mind, it bled out any sort of contingency I could form. 

Ignorance is bliss. Innocence is ignorance without power. Unfortunately I am neither. 

Apart from Bucky and Steve, Clint who was the one who took the most damage was recuperating fine. Fury even gave him a month off to make sure he was in top shape which I could guess he was spending with his girlfriend who nobody knows about. So all was good on his end. 

As for me, I was staying cooped up inside my workstation all day. I haven't even had the time to train during the week because I was either in front of the screen or there was a book in front of me. 

While I wasn't trying to gain more power from the Marvel-verse, I was doing all I could to get smarter. Not for any vain glory reason, because let's face it, the moment you leave this blue ball of a planet or reach a certain level of strength, all what you've learnt, mostly science, becomes meaningless. 

I could always get stronger like I've been doing for months and I didn't want to be that guy who went around taking everybody's power and trying everything he could just to be supreme. 

The reason I was spending my day in front of vessels of knowledge was just to see if I could cram all I needed for a neural-cybernetic relay but so far books haven't been helping me. See what I mean? 

How is someone supposed to write a book about how to connect your mind to a piece of machine when they don't even fully understand how the mind works. Sure everyone knows that the brain sends and receive data in the form of electric signals, and sure they have mapped out the brain, but if they really understood how it worked then they would have made something like what I wanted to do years ago. 

I wasn't talking about the steel arm that Bucky had before. The arm that Bucky had was connected to a chip which acted like a receiver that was connected to his brain, which interpreted the signals from his brain in real-time. 

In all honesty, it was a marvelous piece of science and technology but then again, they would be damned if they ever released something like this to the public. 

What I was trying to do wasn't all that revolutionary as it was different. It was the almost the same thing that Tony did by implanting a receiver to the brain, but what I wanted to do was to make it long-distance controllable. 

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It would make attaching and detaching the hand easier and also making him able to control from distance and who knows, maybe I could give it some crazy upgrades later in the future. While I wasn't into tech and all that savviness, it didn't however mean that I don't find them impressive. I do, but not when I'm using it. I couldn't even imagine myself in an Iron man suit of armor. Heck, even Steve's costume gave me the cringe anytime I imagined myself wearing it. It was the reason I always went with a simple outfit anytime I was fighting. That and also the fact that my durability was high and my resistance helped me in shrugging off most damage. 

I stopped the program I was coding and went downstairs to grab a light snack before resuming my work. 

I saw Bucky sitting in front of the TV with a remote on one hand and toast on the other S.H.I.E.L.D issued prosthetic. It was nothing like his broken arm, meaning he couldn't fight with it, only enabling him to do simple things. I had scanned the hell out of that arm when Coulson brought it to remove anything that came from S.H.I.E.L.D or another party. I even went as far as rewriting the motion code for the entire thing. It only took me two days but I was able to not only fix and upgrade its functionality but also work on the prosthetic itself, making it more fluid in its movement rather than the buffering metal hand Fury gave to me. 

"You finally left that room and here I was thinking you'd be halfway dead by now." He said without talking his head away from the screen. 

"I just wanted to grab a light snack before going back, I'm almost at a milestone so it's better I finish up the quota before doing something else." I answered him all the way from the kitchen. "Where's Steve? I can't sense him around the house." I asked Bucky after spreading my senses around the house thinking he would still be training at this time but he was nowhere in the compound. 

"He wanted to clear his head and took a jug into town."

I came out of the kitchen and the image I had of Bucky was that I was turning him into some kind of recluse or shut-in. He almost never leaves the house, with him doing either training or watching TV. Granted there was nothing else to do as Bucky himself was kinda antisocial but anytime I saw him sprawled on the couch the image that came to mind was that of a lazing panda. 

"What?" Bucky asked as he caught me staring. 

"Don't you have anything else to do?" I unintentionally blurted out but thankfully the lazy super soldier took no offense and just shrugged. 

"Like what? I'm a trained killer, it's not as if there is a social club to share such hobbies with everyone."

I walked around and looked at Bucky in the face just to make sure he wasn't depressed. A depressed Bucky was hard to deal with, thankfully I haven't seen what a depressed Steve looked like… hopefully I would never. 

"You could always find a new one you know? Maybe tennis? A lot of people like tennis right?"

"Do I looked like someone who could play tennis?" He raised his prosthetic and waved it around. Although I fine-tuned it, it still didn't have the strength and necessary speed to keep up with such a game. But that would be if he was left-handed, which he wasn't. 

"You could always try a book you know?" I gave a suggestion. 

"Oh look! The quack knows what books are." He said sarcastically which I just ignored. 

"Why don't you just take a walk outside rather than sitting here all day since you can't really train with that busted arm of yours. Wouldn't want to lose those muscles for pounds of flesh." I said and took a bite out of the muffin in my plate. 

Bucky paused for a moment, a very brief one that I would have missed if I wasn't paying attention to him, to look at himself before playing it off and just focused back on the screen. 

"Maybe I'll do that later." Was all he said as I took a seat. 

"Wasn't this supposed to be Steve's movie week?"

"He said he didn't understand the story."

"Isn't that more of a reason why he should've watched it till the end?"

Bucky just huffed. 

"You know that that's Steve's muffins you are eating right?" Bucky said after a while, still not peeling his face from the screen. 

I paused as he said that and just stared at the remaining muffins in the plate which was just one. 

I only looked at the muffin for a second before I took a bite out of it. "Figured you'd do that."

"So how's the program going?"

I had a thinking expression for a whole before I answers truthfully. "Honestly not going well."

"Hmm."

"Is there a reason you are in a hurry?" He asked. 

"I have to be prepared for the next time Doom decides to show himself."

"You really think he'll come back after you tore off his arm?"

Oh he will. That was more than enough reason to make me his life long enemy. 

"He definitely will. He is a very vindictive person."

"Sounds like you know a lot about him."

"Research." Was my smooth reply for that question. 

"Hmmn mhn." Bucky just hummed. I could tell he didn't believe in my research answer but he dropped that topic nevertheless. "If it's any consolation, I don't think he'll be coming back anytime soon. And if what you said about him is true and also given the fact that you beat him and cut off his arm, if he is a little smart then he'll know that he can't attack you anytime soon until he's sure that his strength eclipses yours."

I nodded at that and continued munching on Steve's muffins.

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