A/N: I really do try to steer clear of speculative fics, because they always end up being wrong, you know? And I like to keep my stories as canon-compliant as possible. But, this popped into my head and wouldn't go away, and how much of Bucky's recovery are we going to see in Infinity War anyway, right? I figure there's going to be way too much going on, and any de-programming of Bucky will be limited to quick flashbacks and maybe (pretty, pretty please?) an eventual Winter Soldier movie.

So, yeah, at some point this will probably be AU, but for now, here's a little scene from what un-becoming the Winter Soldier might look like.

"This is a bad idea, Steve."

It was the fifteenth time Steve had heard it in the past hour.

"We've gotta try it sometime, Buck," he replied. Fifteenth time for that too.

Bucky had been out of the ice for almost four weeks now. The Wakandan medics had come up with a plan to remove Hydra's programming from his brain and were slowly putting it into place. It had involved various pieces of machinery strapped to Bucky's head, lots of counseling and something that was probably hypnotherapy, but so far, a lot of it centered around a hospital bed and an IV and Bucky drifting in and out of varying degrees of lucidity. Steve didn't like seeing his friend so out of it, and Bucky absolutely hated it—he said it felt too much like he was back in Zola's lab. The medics had been understanding—and the fact that anyone listened to him still surprised Bucky—and they took the time to patiently explain each step and what they hoped it would accomplish.

"The root of the solution," Dr. Ndege had explained. "Was to track Hydra's implementation process and see if it could be replicated in reverse. Of course, several modifications had to be made. We have no desire to inflict the sort of pain on you that they did," she'd hurried to add. "And even if that wasn't our concern, that sort of negative conditioning would be counter-intuitive to the healing process. This process, I'm afraid, will not always be a pleasant one for you, but it should not at any time be a painful one." She'd gone on to describe in detail what everything was supposed to do and how it should help to 'deprogram' him.

Steve had understood very little of it, and he suspected Bucky didn't get much more than he did, but her patience and honesty had done more to reassure him than any of her words would have. All he asked was that they allow him time between medication rounds to clear his head and give him a little while to feel like himself again. They had agreed and he had submitted to the treatments without complaint, though he still didn't like it. And after four weeks, it was time to test it. It was time to say the words.

"What if it doesn't work?" Bucky pressed. "Have you forgotten what happened in Berlin?"

"No, of course not. But, Bucky, listen," Steve replied. "If this is working, we need to know. And if it's not working…we need to know that too."

Bucky looked down at his lap, watching the curl of his metal fingers as he flexed them. Prior to beginning his treatment, they'd fitted him with a new arm, drawn up by T'Challa's tech department and made almost entirely of vibranium. The techs and surgeons had worked together to fine-tune the join between metal and flesh so that it wouldn't hurt as much as the old one did. Steve had noticed him several times testing the arm, twisting and flexing like he was waiting for the pain to appear.

Bucky sighed. "I don't want to hurt anyone," he said softly.

"I know," Steve said. It would have been easy to get irritated with the repeated disapproval of the plan, but Bucky was scared, and Steve knew it. He squeezed Bucky's shoulder. "It'll be okay. The docs know what they're doing. And if it doesn't work, we've got safeguards in place."

Bucky snorted. "Steve, you're gonna lock me in a cell. That's not gonna hold me for very long."

"Yeah, probably not," Steve agreed. "But there's a backup for that. Remember in Berlin, how the Winter Soldier shut down after you got knocked out? They'll be monitoring the room, and if things start looking like they're getting out of hand, they've got an airborne sedative they'll pump into the room to put you out. Then you'll wake up, you'll be you, and we'll try something else."

"I don't know…"

Steve sat down next to his friend and nudged his shoulder. "It's gonna be okay. And I'm gonna be there the whole time to make sure it stays under control."

Bucky's head snapped up. "Like hell, you are," he growled. "I nearly killed you last time."

"In D.C., sure," Steve allowed. "Because I let you. I held my own in Berlin. Look, if things go sideways, the gas takes a little while to kick in and you manage to punch your way out of the room, I'm the only one who can stop you without getting hurt."

"No."

"Bucky, please," Steve begged. "Don't you want to know if this worked? They get this right and your mind could be one hundred percent yours again. You could really be free." Steve blinked at him, not above using what his mom had always called his 'puppy-dog eyes'.

Bucky's glare softened just a little.

"If it helps," Steve added. "We could have Sam and Scott and Wanda and Clint ready outside the cell as more backup."

Bucky sighed and shook his head. "No, I don't want anyone else there." He frowned. "Not gonna talk you out of coming, though, am I?"

"Nope."

"Fine. We'll do this, and you can be there, but, Steve, please, do whatever you have to to keep me from hurting anyone. I don't care what you do to me."

Steve nodded because he knew that was the answer Bucky needed, though if it came to that, he had no intention of hurting Bucky any more than strictly necessary.

"Let's get this over with," Bucky sighed.

He followed Steve down to the cell they had set up for him. Steve had to admit, it looked like it would do the job—the walls were thick, windowless concrete that would take that metal arm a while to punch through, and the door was solid, heavy metal. Bucky looked only marginally reassured by the security of the room.

Dr. Ndege met them at the door. "I know you're uncomfortable with this, Sergeant," she said, reaching up to fasten a cuff to his wrist that would monitor his vital signs.

"I wish you'd call me Bucky," Bucky sighed, holding out his arm for her. He'd told Steve once that it made his skin crawl when the medics called him 'Sergeant Barnes'—Zola had always done that. Such a casual form of address seemed to throw them off balance, though, and they frequently slipped back into formality.

"My apologies, Bucky," she said, barely hitching on his name. "I am glad you've agreed to this. We're confident that the treatment so far should have had some effect, though we won't know how much until we test it. I'm sorry there is not an easier way."

"No, I know. I just…" Bucky shook his head.

"It'll be okay," Steve assured him. Dr. Ndege held up a small sensor chip for Bucky to see, then reached up to attach it to his temple. Steve kept a hand on his shoulder to ground him when he flinched.

"Sorry," Ndege said apologetically. "We need that to monitor your brain's response to the trigger words. It will help us with the next step."

"Which is?" Bucky asked.

"We'll evaluate the data from today's test and make adjustments to the treatment as needed from there. How you respond when we say the words will tell us how well this has been working and what else we need to do."

Everyone—well, everyone except maybe Bucky—seemed optimistic that there was going to be at least some degree of progress. Steve would have been lying if he said there wasn't a tiny part of him that was hoping it would be a complete success.

"Ready?" he asked.

"No. Let's do it," Bucky sighed. He squared his shoulders and walked into the cell. Steve followed, and the metal door slammed into place behind them. "You sure about this, Stevie?"

Steve smiled his most reassuring smile. Bucky only ever called him that when he was worried about him. "End of the line, remember? You're not doing this alone, Buck. We got this." He got a small—very small—but genuine smile in response.

"Serg—Bucky, can you hear me?" Dr. Ndege's voice crackled through a speaker in the ceiling.

"Yeah."

"Good." She didn't seem at all put off by his curtness. "In a moment, I will begin saying the words. When I do, I ask that you not fight against them."

"What?" Bucky looked up at the ceiling, alarmed.

"In order to best monitor the effect of the treatment, it would be helpful if we can track how your brain responds to each word. What we see changes if you're actively fighting them. Once they have all been said, however, please fight any effect they produce as hard as you can."

"I'll try," Bucky said uncertainly. He looked at Steve. "I always fought the words when they said them before," he told him. "Even when I didn't know why."

"Captain Rogers, are you ready?" she asked.

"As I'll ever be." He nodded at Bucky. This was going to be okay.

"Bucky?"

"Do it."

A moment of silence.

"Zhelaniye."

Bucky closed his eyes.

"Rzhavyy."

Bucky flinched, and Steve wondered how good Ndege's Russian accent was.

"Semnadtsat. Rassvet."

Bucky was breathing very slowly and deliberately.

"Pech. Devyat."

He flinched again.

"Dobroserdechnyy. Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu."

Bucky's hands were clenched into fists, the flesh one white at the knuckles. Steve tensed. Almost there.

"Odin. Gruzovoy vagon."

A beat of silence. "Soldat?"

Bucky's eyes snapped open, the steel blue on fire with fury and rage and no trace whatsoever of James Buchanan Barnes. With an inhuman growl, his metal arm shot forward before Steve could react. Pain spiked through his head, and he felt things moving in his nose that shouldn't have before he hit the floor.

Blood gushing from his nose, Steve rolled and sprang to his feet, fists raised, but Bucky was already backing away. His eyes were clear and panicked and Bucky again, free of the Winter Soldier. "I'm sorry!" he cried, holding up his hands. He backed into the wall and sank down into a crouch, pulling his arms up over his face as he clenched his fingers in his hair. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said, curling in on himself smaller than any man his size should have been able to.

Steve quickly held up both of his hands in the direction of the camera, shaking his head and hoping they wouldn't turn on the gas.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Bucky kept whispering.

Steve moved forward carefully. "Bucky, it's okay," he said, crouching in front of his friend. "Bucky?" He reached out a hand.

The instant he touched Bucky's shoulder, the metal arm struck out at Steve's wrist like a coiled snake, grabbing his hand and twisting it away painfully. "Don't touch me!" he growled, face twisting in a snarl. The Winter Soldier wasn't back in his eyes, but he wasn't entirely gone either.

"Okay, I'm sorry," Steve said quickly. If that metal hand tightened just a fraction on his wrist, something was going to snap. He moved to pull away and Bucky let him. Steve raised both hands in a gesture of surrender and scooted back a few steps. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't've done that."

Remorse furrowed its way across his brow, softening the snarl, and Bucky hid his face again, fingers clenching and twisting agonized knots in his hair. A soft, miserable whimper escaped from behind his arms and Steve's heart tightened in his chest.

"You can do this, Buck. You can fight it, I know you can," he said. Bucky's breathing was picking up pace. "It's okay," Steve said gently. "You can do this. You're doing it right now, just keep going. You can fight this, Bucky, come on. I believe in you, man. I—" He stopped. Bucky was breathing like he was sprinting up a mountain. "I'm distracting you, aren't I? Do you need me to stop talking?"

For a moment, the only noise was the sound of Bucky's breathing, long, slow inhales as he tried to rein it back in. Then, a small, soft voice from behind flesh and metal. "No." It was almost a question. But not quite.

Steve smiled. "Okay," he said warmly. "Okay. I'm right here, man. I'm not gonna touch you again unless you say it's okay, but I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you—you're staying right there inside your head where you belong, and no Winter Soldier's kicking you out, you hear me? You got this, Bucky, just keep pushing him out. Keep listening to my voice, okay? Remember where you are. You're not in Siberia. You're not the Winter Soldier. You're James Buchanan Barnes, and it's 2017 and you're in Wakanda, and I'm the stubborn little punk from Brooklyn who was too stupid to back down from a fight."

He might have imagined it under the heavy breathing, but Steve thought he heard a soft, surprised laugh. He smiled. "Remember that time…we couldn't have been more than seven, I think…and I was sick and you came over to catch me up on whatever you'd done in school that day? My mom was worried because I wouldn't eat anything, and you marched into my room with a bowl of soup and threatened to sit on me and make me eat it." He chuckled. "I was so mad at you. But you were so much bigger than me, I was afraid you'd actually do it, so I ate it. You didn't like that I wasn't okay, so you were gonna make sure I got there, whether I wanted to or not."

Bucky was breathing a little easier now, though his face was still hidden. "I told you I'd get you back for that one day," Steve said with a grin. "I don't think sitting on you would help right now, but I'm not leaving until you're okay."

He started another story about their childhood, and when that one was over, he talked about the time Bucky taught Dugan how to dance so he could impress one of the English nurses. Bucky's face was still behind his arms when Steve finished, but his hands had loosened their death-grip on his hair, and his breathing sounded normal again.

"Bucky?" Steve asked tentatively. "You alright?"

Silence for a moment. Bucky pulled his hands down part of the way until his eyes were just visible between his fingers. "I think so," he said at last. He didn't sound sure.

"What else do you need?" Steve asked.

Bucky considered. "No," he answered. "No, I—I think I'm okay."

Steve looked at him for a minute. His eyes were narrowed and a little damp and very, very far away, but they were all Bucky again. "Okay." Steve got to his feet a little awkwardly—one of them had fallen asleep while he'd been crouched down. He held out a hand, leaving first contact up to Bucky.

Bucky stared at his hand for a moment, then took it and let Steve pull him to his feet. Steve pulled him up and clapped him on the shoulder. Bucky's eyes narrowed in dismay when they finally landed on Steve's face. "Ah, hell, Steve, I'm sorry!" He rubbed his metal fist against his leg, wincing at the flecks of dried blood flaking off his fingers. "Is it…?"

Steve grimaced. "Yeah, I think you broke it." He hated admitting it, not wanting Bucky to feel worse.

Bucky grimaced, reached up like he was going to wipe the blood away, then pulled his hand back, shaking his head in disgust. "I knew something like this would happen."

"I heal just as fast as you do, Buck," Steve reminded him. "Gimme a day or two and it'll be fine. It's okay."

"No, it's not. I hurt you. Again."

"Yeah, okay, you did," Steve agreed. "But what happened last time someone said the trigger words?"

Bucky's chagrin turned to annoyance. "I trashed a government building, put about twenty people in the hospital, gave Sam a concussion and tried to kill you with a helicopter," he snapped. "Don't ask stupid questions, Steve. What's your point?"

"What's a broken nose compared to all of that, huh?" Steve asked. Bucky stopped short, obviously not having thought of that. "And you probably wouldn't have even done that if I'd been standing farther away," Steve continued. "You're getting a handle on this thing, man."

Bucky frowned. "I wouldn't exactly call what just happened a handle."

"I would," Steve insisted. "Okay, so, yeah, the Winter Soldier isn't gone yet, but you brought him back under control."

"Steve—"

"No, Bucky, listen," Steve pressed. "This is a big step." Forget big. This was huge. Yeah, Steve had been hoping for better, but at the same time, he was amazed at how well it had worked. After only four weeks, Bucky had been able to knock a hole in ten years' worth of conditioning. "Yeah, it needs some work," Steve admitted. "But that was still amazing. He came out and you stopped him. Completely." Steve smiled. "You turned him off, Buck."

Bucky's frown had turned to one of concentration as Steve spoke. He looked down, biting his lip thoughtfully. "I turned him off," he repeated quietly. He looked back up at Steve, and a tiny smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "I turned him off."

"Yeah." Steve's grin widened. "You did."

"I actually…" He huffed a surprised laugh. "I've never done that before. This is…This is good, right? This thing is actually working?"

Steve's heart broke just a little bit at Bucky's need for confirmation, but he nodded encouragingly. A relieved smile crept across Bucky's face. "I'm getting better."

"Told you it would happen," Steve said. He knew Bucky had never really thought it was going to happen. That hope that was there now was something he hadn't seen on Bucky's face in a long time.

"Yeah, you just know everything, don't you, punk?" Bucky replied. His eyes went back to Steve's nose. "Tell you what, though, we probably should have done all this first before sticking this thing back on," he said, lifting his metal arm.

Steve laughed. "Yeah, we could've thought that part out better." He turned up to the camera and gave a thumbs up.

"Hey, thanks," Bucky said as they waited for the door to open. "I know I haven't exactly been easy to be around lately…"

"Were you ever?" Steve teased.

Bucky cuffed him lightly on the back of the head. "Punk."

"Jerk," Steve responded with a smile.

Bucky smiled back. They had this.