The Price We Pay for Family - 13

 

Cont...

Torres never ever wants to see the raw fear that floods Sam's face as he stands there in the middle of the street. It's not just fear either; it's hopelessness. Then the emotions are gone. 

"Start scanning surrounding areas for matching vehicles." Sam orders and starts walking with purpose back towards the ops center. 

"Already started. They're good, though. There're no cameras in that area." Rhodey says. 

Sam growls under his breath, "I know." 

Torres can barely keep up with Sam as he pushes through the crowd. He's never seen Sam with this single-minded focus, this all-consuming drive. Sam's always the guy with three things going at once and four steps planned out for each thing. Right now, there's none of that preparedness. Just one thing, find his brother. 

"How'd Overwatch go offline? I thought that would take at least three weeks to wear off?" Torres asks, referring to the tracking spray they had on Barnes. It was a government prototype tracking system that harnessed biosignatures and the ever-shifting grid of satellites to track someone within a ten-foot radius. It was state of the art, and somehow it'd been bested. 

"I don't know! The system is still active. Other tagged persons are transmitting but not Barnes." Rhodey said, sounding stressed. 

"Better question," Sam snapped, bursting into the ops center, "How in the world did the Wakandans lose him?"

 "I do not know!" Shuri said, sounding panicked as she moved frantically around in her hologram, "I had him one second and the next, nothing! The only way I could lose him is if they are using a vibranium based scrambler system."

 "And how hard is it to get a hold of that?" Sam asked harshly. 

"The only ones we have are here!" Shuri insisted.

 "Not good enough. How else could you lose him?" Sam demanded. 

"The arm could be destroyed. But I think that's something none of us want to think about." Shuri countered.

 "Any other way?" Torres asked before Sam could take the girl's head off.

 "No- Bast." Shuri's eyes got wide, "It could be deactivated." 

"The trackers?" Rhodey asked. 

"No, the vibranium. I developed a way to deactivate vibranium to make it secure to transport. It won't come up on any scanner because it won't be active vibranium." Shuri explained. 

"And how hard would that be to get a hold of?" Sam asked forcefully. 

"Not very. Because of the risk vibranium poses to the world, we were forced to give the UN ways to counter it. Specifically for aircraft. Anyone who works in aircraft engineering will have access to the specks to make them." Shuri said, distressed.

 "So it could be anyone. So long as they understand engineering." Sam spat, "Unbelievable." 

"Can you turn off the device remotely?" Rhodey asked. 

"Possibly. To create the deactivation panels, you must first have vibranium. It will take time due to the rise of vibranium in the world but yes. I can with time." Shuri nodded. 

"Okay. You get started with that. I'll try and see why the other trackers aren't working." Rhodey directed. 

"The deactivation panels would probably be the cause of that too. They emit an energy field that's so powerful it works on more than vibranium." Shuri admitted. 

"Get those things off," Sam growled. 

Shuri nodded once before her transmission clicked off. 

Sam's hands are shaking as he turns to Rhodey, "What can I do?" 

"Right now? Nothing, go be with your family." Rhodes ordered. 

"Don't you dare bench me because my family' needs me'. They'll be there when I bring him home. It was never supposed to go this far!" Sam snapped back, fear turning to anger. 

Torres reached out and grabbed Sam's shoulder, "Why don't we step outside for a minute to get some air while Rhodey gets a handle on things and finds something for you to do? I'm sure you standing here trying to find something to do isn't helping him manage everything."

 Rhodey sends him a grateful look as Sam gives in and allows himself to be guided outside. The masses of people in bright red are still mulling around the stadium as people begin heading inside the superstructure. All so happy. All so oblivious. 

Sam's staring unseeingly at the crowds, seemingly deaf to the racket. Torres keeps his hand on Sam's shoulder and guides him to a place where they can sit.

"Are you okay?" Torres finally tries to ask. 

"They took him." Sam's voice is in shock, disconnected. 

"I know. But right now, he's not the one I'm worried about." Torres said firmly.

 Sam squeezed his eyes closed and pressed the balls of his hands into them, "What did I do wrong?" Torres was shocked silent. The anguish in Sam's voice scared him. "I thought I had everything under control. I thought he was safe." 

Torres opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He didn't know what to say. There was no way to know that this would happen. No way to prepare for this, to prevent this. Nothing Sam could have done. But he would never believe that. "I-I don't know." Torres finally said, "I don't know what went wrong. But I do know that you did everything you could. Look at me." Sam looked at him, fear and anger flooding his eyes. "We're gonna fix this. Okay? Nothing's gonna happen that we can't fix." 

Sam took a deep, shuddering breath, "Don't make a promise you can't keep." 

Torres hummed, "Maybe I will keep it." 

Sam huffed out a bitter laugh, "Maybe." 

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