When waking up, the first thing someone feels is the sudden influx of oxygen in the painfully unused lungs. After that, senses quickly begin to return. Light floods into view in a painful flash and the lingering cold bites at skin. After this, coherent thought usually begins to return. For the Winter Soldier, however, panic always flooded in before thought. In his scattered mind, waking up from the cold meant pain, both for and from him. The more his thought returned, the less sense he could make. He couldn't have dreamed his temporary freedom. After all, you can't dream on ice. Maybe they had taken the memory again. Maybe…

"Buck? Can you hear me?"

He could hear the voice, but it was too bright to see anything but the white light. He struggled for movement for freedom of any kind, but he found that he was restrained. No matter the attempts, his left side was unresponsive and unbalanced. He couldn't move his arm. The light began to give way to dark shapes. In moments, the shapes began to focus down into the shapes of the people standing around. Bucky furiously blinked the light out of his eyes and, as he adjusted, he could more clearly see where he was. It was a medical facility somewhere he didn't know. He was strapped to a slanted table...or something like one.

"Buck?"

The voice returned, snapping his attention to the nearest silhouette. As he looked on, the face finally became clear to him, as well as familiar.

"Steve…?" he choked out, his voice mostly failing him after the long period of stasis.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Wh-where am I?"

"Wakanda," Steve explained, "You remember? We kept you here to look after you while we found a way to...fix whatever HYDRA did."

"I went back under…" Bucky recalled in a haze, "Because it wasn't safe to...to be awake."

"Yeah."

The reply sounded sad, like Steve was upset about the very mention of the reason. Realization began to seep into Bucky's thoughts. He told Steve to put him under until they found a way to fix what HYDRA had done to him. Here Steve was to wake him. Maybe he found a way after all! He met Steve's gaze with a hopeful smile, but Steve didn't seem to return the expression. He was, if anything, just as solemn and confused as before.

"Did…" Bucky dared to ask, "Is there a way to fix me?"

"We're trying, Buck, really," Steve reassured, "T'challa even has a few ideas, but we've never had this kind of problem before."

"Then...why did you bring me back…?"

"I know you made the choice to stay here until we fixed this, but you know I wouldn't be here earlier if it wasn't important. I need your help."

The process after the unfreezing went by fairly quickly. A nurse came to check on Bucky's vitals and basic motor function. He now sat up on one of the examination tables as Steve tried to explain their situation.

"When HYDRA fell a few years ago, SHIELD was too far gone. I thought it was best to take them both down together, to avoid that all happening a second time. There were still pieces of both sides that stayed underground. Captain America led the rest of the Avengers to hunt down what was left of Hydra," Steve spoke, putting an emphasis on his hero title in an attempt to distance himself from the name for now, "But...turns out we didn't get everyone. HYDRA had survivors, like SHIELD did, but not many. Now...one of those survivors is hunting down what's left of SHIELD."

"So," Bucky wondered, "If you got your friends back, why do you need me? Don't you do this for a living now?"

"We tried," he sighed, "But there isn't enough of a trail between the attacks. Whoever this is, they clearly don't wanna be found. But, since they were HYDRA-"

"You think that the Winter Soldier might be able to find them," Bucky huffed, "But I can't help you, Steve."

Bucky looked at his left side, where his cybernetic arm was still gone below the shoulder.

"Even if I wanted to."

"That," T'challa interjected, walking into the room, "Is where I come in. Wakanda has some of the finest mechanics in the world."

"We can't get your arm back," Steve added, "So we got you a new one."

"No," Bucky shook his head, "That's too dangerous. At least this way I can't hurt anyone."

"We all know that isn't entirely true," T'challa argued, "You still fight without it."

Bucky sighed and ran his hand through his hair anxiously.

"I know what I'm asking, Buck," Steve sighed, "It's a lot...but, if we don't stop this, people are gonna die. I can't let that happen. If you can remember anything that will help us, we need you."

"It's just not safe…"

"We can figure it out. You don't even have to go back into the field. That way, no one gets hurt. Just...help us figure out where they are and stop this."

After a moment of silence, Bucky released the breath he had been holding in.

"I'll try."

The two soldiers carried their gear onto the jet, preparing to take off. Steve checked with the pilot, before turning back to see Bucky staring oddly at his new hand.

"Everything alright?"

"It's just...so light," Bucky mused, "It doesn't feel normal."

"It's vibranium," Steve reminded him, "You get used to the weight."

The arm looked like his other one had, but it weighed significantly less. It would take time for Bucky to adjust to how well the limb moved without the original bulk and weight. When he had lost the arm, the red star on his shoulder still remained. Even now, he refused to let them remove it. As terrible as the symbol was, it was necessary to him. The symbol reminded him of all the damage that the Winter Soldier had inflicted, and forgetting that past wasn't a luxury he could afford. He needed to remember to keep from ever causing that pain again. He turned his gaze away from the arm and took his seat on the aircraft. As they took off, he allowed his thoughts to wander for the first time since he had been put under.

How could HYDRA have survived the Project Insight disaster. He knew they were widespread, but whoever escaped should never have been able to escape the Avengers. HYDRA's forces were scattered and their "assets" and experiments were all destroyed, except for one. He was the only one to have escaped Siberia for good. There were no bases left for someone to hide. Who could possibly have evaded the Avengers for this long while going after SHIELD? For that matter, there was no longer a strategy in hunting SHIELD. They were as broken as HYDRA and there was nothing SHIELD had that the world didn't already know about at this point. The only reason that someone would go after them is if they were still...following their last orders. Who else was left from the asset programs? No one. Other than the five soldiers that Zemo had killed, Bucky himself, and...no. No, she was dead.

The trip was far too silent for Steve's liking, but he couldn't find the words to pull his friend out of his struggling thoughts. It wasn't until they landed again that Bucky even spoke.

"Where are we?" Bucky asked, breaking a silence that had spanned hours.

"Safehouse...of sorts," Steve answered, "It's not top of the line, but it's all we have for now."

As they walked outside, Bucky took in his surroundings quickly. They were at an old bunker-like compound in the middle of nowhere. There were no visible signs or landmarks. They were well off the grid.

"This will be a fun talk," Bucky heard his friend sigh sarcastically, as they entered. There were a few people in the bunker, none of whom brought themselves to look at Bucky. It was clearly a small operation.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Frosty," another familiar voice called over to them.

"Sam, is he here?" Steve asked, ignoring the quip about Bucky.

Sam. Bucky remembered him from before. He was one of Steve's friends and that was good enough.

"Waiting in here," Sam gestured, leading them into a meeting room of sorts. Around the table, Bucky recognized the people as Steve's teammates from the fighting about the Sokovia Accords. He also recognized one of them as-

"Fury," Steve nodded.

"You know," Nick began, "Last time I was here, it was because I was recovering from taking two soviet slugs to the chest. You wanna tell me why you brought the shooter back this time around?"

Bucky shifted uneasily, not knowing exactly what the man was likely to do and feeling defenseless.

"He can help, Nick," Steve stated firmly, "We need him."

"If Cap says he's in, he's in," Sam shrugged.

"And he does kinda kick ass," the man who Bucky recognized as the voice behind Ant-man chimed in.

Steve shot Scott a look and the man just shrugged and silently agreed to hold further comments.

"Well...I can't say I like it," Fury accepted, "But it's your op, Cap. Let's find out what we're up against."