A deep, soothing voice directly overhead startled him into a panic. The buzzing in his head grew louder, as it always did whenever the empty spaces in his mind forced him to succumb to blind terror, ringing through his skull and drowning out any flow of rational thought. He had no idea where he was. He couldn't move. He couldn't open his eyes. His lungs were in no shape to compensate for the ever-increasing rapidity of his heartbeat, and the resulting lack of oxygen delivered to his brain threatened to once more take away his consciousness. Please do, he begged it. Just let me go back to sleep.

The voice spoke again. "James, it's all right. Focus on my voice: you need to slow your heart rate. The anesthetics still need some time to wear off. You should start to regain mobility in the next few minutes."

James? Nobody called him James. Nobody had called him James—except for schoolteachers and drill sergeants—ever since his best friend had turned the scathing playground taunt into a term of endearment. He tried to say it out loud, "My name is Bucky," but a couple of feeble yet indignant grunts were all he could manage.

The voice chuckled softly. "Have patience. You'll get your fair share of talking, I assure you."

Resigned to do nothing but wait, his head began to clear. The buzzing subsided, and everything came flooding back to him: the U.N. bombing, Bucharest, Helmut Zemo, Siberia, Tony Stark, Steve… All the reasons he had decided to go back under ice. Automatically he shut off all emotion. None of that mattered any more; it existed only in the past, and therefore was of no consequence. Besides, he had no idea how long he had been frozen. For all he knew, Steve Rogers might be dead by now, and the world an entirely different place from when he had seen it last. That was something to look forward to—a new world meant new problems, and accepting new problems meant letting go of the old ones. It had become almost second nature for him to cut off his feelings in this way. Arnim Zola would have been proud of how well he had learned that skill.

At last the anesthetics relinquished their hold on him. Before opening his eyes, Bucky asked: "How long has it been?"

"You have been asleep for nearly fifteen days."

The buzzing began to return. "Great."

"You sound disappointed."

"No, I—I just…" He didn't know what to say: he was disappointed. "So—Hydra can't control me any more?" If they had woken him up already, at least that must have been accomplished.

A short pause. "You are perfectly safe here."

"You didn't answer the question."

Again, the voice didn't respond right away. Bucky heard it take a cautious breath, and he opened his eyes before it spoke again. Staring at the shiny, metallic ceiling of his Wakandan safe house, he finally received an answer.

"Technically, Hydra's programming is still there."

"Technically? Then why the hell did you wake me up?" Now thoroughly pissed off, he hauled himself up to a sitting position and, spinning around to glare at whomever he had been talking to, found himself face to face with King T'challa. That sparked another nerve. "Change your mind about deciding to help me?"

T'challa didn't even blink, but held his gaze with calm intensity. "To the contrary, I decided to wake you up because it is the only way that anyone can help you. You cannot expect to sleep peacefully in a corner while you wait for other people to solve your problems. Whether we find a way to break Hydra's coding or not, you need to find a way to return to the world. You need to learn how to live your own life again."

For a moment Bucky was lost in T'challa's gaze, which was the definitive opposite of Steve's. Steve's blue eyes, bright and trusting almost to the point of naivety, always seemed to be reaching out or asking for something, while the pair before him now were dark and deep, taking in the world one detail at a time. What with the warm steadiness of those eyes, as well as the hypnotic pulsing of his own blood through his veins, he felt he could have sat there forever. Shut up, he caught himself at last. Stop it. You're being stupid.

A strange sensation in his left arm—the fact that he had a left arm—called him back to his senses and provided an adequate distraction to break his gaze. This new arm was very nearly a work of art: shiny and powerful, it was the product of expert engineering, and felt almost like a natural part of his body. Its response was precise to a micrometer, with flawless mobility at the joints. Even the nerve-endings in his shoulder were connected properly, and that was something Hydra had never been able to figure out.

T'challa grinned. "Do you like it?"

"It's amazing. Is this made out of—"

"Vibranium, yes."

"I don't understand. Why?"

"Vibranium is the strongest metal on Earth, and Wakanda is home to one of its largest deposits. It was obviously the best option."

"No, I mean—why are you—why—all this—?" After so many years without a single decent conversation with anyone, Bucky found it difficult to put the words together. Thankfully, T'challa understood.

"Human decency, no? Why wouldn't I do all this?"

"Well, you did kinda try to kill me about four times."

"I disagree. I tried to kill you three times."

"No, I distinctly remember four different occasions: the rooftop, the underpass, the—"

"The rooftop and the underpass only count as one; they took place in the same city, on the same day and for the same reason."

"Fine. Three times."

An electronic alarm dinged. T'challa glanced at his watch and stood up. "I must go. There is a room made up for you, at the end of that hallway. You also have a kitchen, a gym, doctors on call at any time, a library, computer facilities—everything you might need. I will visit again as soon as I am able." He began making his way toward the door.

"Hey! You never answered my question."

Pausing for just a moment, T'challa turned back to him with a small smile. "What can I say? I missed you."