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lillywillow · 2 years

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A Cure For The Plague

Summary: The survivors of the zombie apocalypse hear of somewhere that may have found a cure.

Written for: @buckybarnesbingo

Words: 2354

Square Filled: Y3- What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Mad

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Warnings: Horror themes, angst, mentions of character deaths

A/N: Set in the What If… Zombies?! Episode but written slightly differently. Also be prepared for some zombie/ horror related media references.

Ever since the zombie apocalypse began, people frantically searching for a cure. What was left of the Avengers heard about a breakthrough and headed to a facility upstate by the river. Sadly, they lost friends along the way but maybe there was a chance to bring them back if this rumour of a cure was true. The closer they got to their destination, the more it resembled a jungle.

The group of survivors cautiously made their way off the train having to make it into the jungle on foot. Bruce carried Hope as she grew progressively weaker. Okoye’s hands were tight around her spear and Bucky’s finger was on the trigger of his gun ready to shoot at anything that moved, his other hand holding up the shield ready to protect. Peter and Kurt were on edge, flinching at any sound. The air had the stench of decay, stagnant water and something chemical.

“You don’t think there are any giant mutant vampire mosquitos around here that will suck out all our blood, do you?” Peter wondered out loud.

“Not now!” Okoye hissed.

“But…”

“Guys, Hope’s not doing so good. We need to get her inside as soon as possible,” Bruce interrupted.

Before anyone else could speak, a zombie jumped out the water and attacked. Bucky and Okoye were ready to defend but neither got the chance as the zombie was wrapped in vines and dragged to the gaping maw of the biggest Venus fly traps they had ever seen.

“It’s like that thing out of plumber brothers!” Kurt cried.

“What the -”

“Move, Parker!” Bucky ordered.

A hoard of zombies started creeping in. Bucky and Okoye held them off but to their surprise, the vegetation around them started attacking the zombies too, picking them off as fast as they were going down. Someone in a hazmat suit ran out of the building towards the group.

“This way!” she ordered.

They followed the woman to an elevator, all cramming in. The ride down was full of tension.

“Can you help? She’s been infected,” Bruce explained.

“How long ago?” the woman asked.

“About five minutes…”

“Has she died yet?”

“Not yet.”

“There may still be time… We have to hurry.”

Once they had reached the ground floor, she ushered them into the lab.

“Cain! Conners! We got something!”

Two men came running to assist, taking Hope into another room and hooking her up to machines to check her vitals. One of the men tilted her head to the side and filled a syringe with some kind of fluid.

“Let’s try 15ccs…”

The team watched as he injected the fluid into the base of her skull.

“Now all we can do is wait…”

The scientists instructed the team to wait outside as they locked the door and monitored from a distance. Every second that ticked by felt like an eternity. The EKG beeped with every beat of Hope’s heart… until it went into one continuous beep. Bucky placed a comforting hand on Peter’s shoulder as the boy tried not to fall to pieces.

“Give it another minute. If she doesn’t respond, you know what to do,” the woman instructed.

They waited with bated breath when suddenly, the steady beat returned. Hope began to move.

“What… where am I? What happened?” she groggily asked.

The three scientists cheered with the success of their experiment.

“We’ll run observations, you take them to quarantine,” one of the men instructed the woman.

She nodded and headed off.

“Follow me.”

The group followed her to the quarantine station where they were sanitised and had their vitals checked. Once they were given the all clear, they could be reunited with Hope and formally introduced to the people that had saved her life.

“I’m Doctor Y/N L/N, and these are my associates, Doctor Curt Connors and Doctor Dan Cain. We were giving lectures in a nearby university when the virus hit. With my work in botany and plant stem cells, Connors’ work in herpetology and regeneration cells combined with Cain’s work in neurosurgery and neuroscience, we were able to come up with a cure. I also developed the plants out there to protect us…”

The group all introduced themselves to the three doctors who then took them to the rest of the survivors who were mostly students and faculty from the university along with a few others. There Okoye was reunited with King T’Challa and Hope was reunited with Scott, albeit as a disembodied head. The scientists explained their earlier experiments were still in their infancy but they at least had some success.

“I tried to tell them about that movie where the guy brings back the dead but who would believe a talking head? I should get a job in a sideshow,” Scott laughed. “Sorry. I tend to process traumatic events by joking.”

“You know, I could probably regrow that arm of yours,” Connors stated, looking at Bucky’s metal arm.

“I don’t think so,” Bucky replied, tensing up.

“You sure? We’ve made some remarkable progress,” Connors said, wiggling the fingers of his right hand.

“Connors, leave him be. If he’s fine the way he is, then he’s fine. Not everyone needs to have their limbs regrown,” you interjected.

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged, walking off to talk with Peter.

As it turned out, Connors had given a few talks at Peter’s school.

“Thanks for that,” Bucky softly smiled at you.

“You’re welcome. For the record, I think you look great the way you are,” you smiled back.

“Hey, any chance we can look around this place?” Bruce asked, interrupting your moment.

“Sure. Right this way.”

You showed the newcomers around the base which was built to be a bunker during the cold war era but was never used. There were still tunnels running all over the city which was convenient to avoid the zombies up top. You showed them the gardens, both the vegetable and defensive plant ones and explained to them about the complicated Haber-Bosch system that allowed you to grow plants in such a short amount of time. That was one benefit of having a group of mostly academics. The scientific minds of the newcomers understood but Bucky was a little lost. Then you took them to the site of your greatest failure so far. Contained behind glass was a zombie dressed in a red and black suit. When it saw you coming closer, it pressed itself up against the glass and licked it. Bucky turned his nose up in disgust.

“This was Wade Wilson. We thought his regenerative powers could be the key into creating the cure but instead, they somehow mutated and now we’re stuck with a zombie that can’t and won’t die. We can’t even mulch him like the others…”

“Wait a minute, you have been turning people into plant food?! That is so messed up! You don’t just feed people to plants unless maybe they’re wifebeaters!” Kurt shouted.

Bucky watched as you tensed up.

“You are in no position to judge me; to judge us. I watched some of my closest friends die. Dan had to watch his girlfriend be violently attacked. Curt had his arm torn off. We have had to make decisions that nobody should have to make… the tour ends here,” you calmly stated, trying not to let all your rage boil over.

You were shaking and your eyes shone with unshed tears. You turned and walked away before you let them see you become emotional. Bucky took one last look at the zombie licking the glass before following you.

He found you tending to your arsenal of plants. You gently spoke to them as you sprayed them with a fertilizer.

“What a good little triffid you are. Soon you’ll be big enough to go out and protect us from those nasty zombies. Yes you will,” you cooed.

“Hey,” Bucky gently greeted.

“Oh, hello. Come to judge me like your friend?” you bitterly replied.

“I’m not here to judge you and he’s not really my friend… I just came to see if you wanted some company…”

You shrugged and continued tending to the seedlings.

“For what it’s worth, I do know what it’s like to make those tough decisions. I’ve had to take out some of my really good friends. You want to hold back because this thing has the face of someone you once cared about but you also have to remember, this thing isn’t them anymore and it won’t hold back if it gets you first…”

Bucky thought about Steve and Sam. They didn’t deserve to go the way they did and it certainly wasn’t fair that he was the one who had to face them.

You turned to look at him and saw the honesty and anguish on his face. With a kind smile, you gently placed your hand on his arm.

“Do you want to help me tend the garden? I find it can be very cathartic…” you offered.

“I think I’d like that…”

…

For the next few weeks, Bucky helped you to tend the garden finding he had quite a knack for horticulture while also working with the other survivors to help strengthen the base. He also spent as much time as he could with you, learning everything about you. Bucky could really feel himself falling for you.

With a few recon missions, more survivors were found and brought back and with each successful person brought back, you were one step closer to curing this infernal disease.

Then disaster struck.

It was the middle of the night when there was a huge commotion. Bucky woke up, instinctively grabbing his gun and shield as chaos erupted.

“Wilson’s escaped!”

Bucky ran to the containment unit to confront the zombie Deadpool. Unfortunately, he had bitten a few of the survivors which were fast approaching. Okoye and T’Challa stepped in to fight off the incoming wave, holding them off while Bucky went one on one with Deadpool. Wade was just as skilled at fighting as he was when he was alive, making him a difficult opponent. He snapped at Bucky, his jaws biting down on his metal arm.

“Hey, Wade!” you called.

The zombified merc with the mouth stopped to look at you. You were holding up something that was wet and red.

“Come and get the chimichanga!”

Wade stopped, his mouth curling up to something that resembled a smile.

“Ah… Brains…” he gurgled, running after you.

“Did he just…?”

You ran as fast as you could to avoid getting attacked by Wade and once you reached the glass cage, you threw the thing into it with a wet smack. Wade gleefully pounced on it and once he was in, you locked the door behind him.

“Did you really just happen to have a brain on hand to give to him just in case?” Bucky asked, seeing you had the situation under control.

“Of course not… it was a red dyed cauliflower. He can’t even tell the difference,” you panted.

“You can’t keep him in here anymore. It’s too dangerous now,” Bucky stated.

“I know… But what else can we do? He literally can’t die and we can’t let him loose on the rest of the world. We’ve already tried curing him once but the virus mutates and he becomes a zombie again…”

“Have you tried it with just his head? I mean, you’ve come so far in your research, maybe there’s something to it…”

Bucky’s words made you think. Wade did still seem to have some cognitive recognition and there were a few times he responded to the reagent.

“That… might just work…”

You went with Bucky to tell your co-workers the idea.

…

With Bucky’s help, you were able to lure Wade to the lab with a trail of cauliflowers. You strapped him down and used the same process you did to remove Scott’s head and placed it in a jar, carefully adding the reagent to it. Starting with small doses first, you gradually added a little more each time until finally, he was normal again. Well, normal as he could get.

“Hey, you got any brains to eat? I’m starving!” he laughed. “I’m kidding. Sort of. I won’t let it go to my head though!”

“And now there’s two of them,” Bucky grumbled.

“Don’t worry about it,” you smiled, going to tend to your garden again.

Bucky once again followed.

“Y/N, I’ve been meaning to ask you something…”

“Yes?” you hummed, carefully repotting a large sundew.

“What… what is your relationship with those two guys you’ve been working with?”

“My colleagues?”

“Yeah… are you… dating either of them?”

“No. Dan had a girlfriend when this all started happening and is still not over her death and Curt… well, let’s just say he’s not my type…”

“What… what is your type?”

You wiped your hands on your pants legs and walked over to him.

“I like a guy who’s tall… strong… protective… has a gorgeous head of hair…”

“I see…”

“Do you really?” you asked, placing your hands on his chest.

“I… I know this isn’t the most ideal place but… I’d really like to start dating you…”

“I’d like that too, Bucky…”

“Could I… kiss you?” he softly asked.

“Of course…”

As Bucky pressed his lips to yours, you felt the most alive since the apocalypse started.

…

In the days that followed, you and Bucky started dating the best you could given the circumstances. The world was still in a hot mess but as long as you had each other, you felt like you could survive anything. Maybe one day with all the progress you had been making, you could finally be rid of the virus that infected the earth.

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